Picodrive Problem


christo930

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2004
Messages
1,095
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
I am having problems with sonic 3 (and I think sonic 1 as well if my memory serves me right) locking up randomly in picodrive. I am only running the processor at 166mhz, though I have tried it at multiple speeds uo to 220mhz and the lockups still happen. I haven't noticed the lockups until about the late 2nd or 3rd world. Only the game locks up, the emulator does not and the music keeps playing. I can go into the menu and reset the game and it works fine. The lockups do not occur freuqently, maybe once in 40 minutes or an hour, but once it happens the intervals between lockups get shorter until I exit the application and restart it. I have obviously changed the batteries and happens fully charged and with the low battery light on. Here are my settings

Renderer - I have tried all the renderers and the problem still happens
scalling off
accurate timing off (I'll try to turn this on)
accurate sprites off
show fps on
frameskip on
sound on
sound quality 44khz stereo (have tried multiple settings)
use 940 core for for sound yes
6 button pad off
region auto
sram bram savestates on
confirm savestates writes
saveskit 0
gp2x cpu clock 166 tried multiple settings
ADVANCED OPTIONS
gamma 1
emulate z80 on
ym2612 fm on
sn76496 on
gzip save states on
don't save last used rom off
Craigs ram timing off
sauidge hack on

My machine uses firmware 3
any ideas? I have tried to supply as much information as possible but if I missed anything just ask. In the meanwhile I will enable accurate timing and try to get a new copy of the rom and do a file compare of the two.

Second I wanted to know if it's possible to lock together the sonic and knuckles cartridges and if so, how. Does it require making a new rom or downloading a new rom? How does it change the game? Does it simply allow me to play the game with a different character? What are the advantages of doing this?

Since sonic 1 and 3 are the games I am actively playing right now, I do not know if it happens in other roms. I havn't noticed it in Dragon's lair, but I get frustrated quickly and rarely play for more than 20 minutes at a stretch.
 
christo930 said:
I am having problems with sonic 3 (and I think sonic 1 as well if my memory serves me right) locking up randomly in picodrive. I am only running the processor at 166mhz, though I have tried it at multiple speeds uo to 220mhz and the lockups still happen. I haven't noticed the lockups until about the late 2nd or 3rd world. Only the game locks up, the emulator does not and the music keeps playing. I can go into the menu and reset the game and it works fine. The lockups do not occur freuqently, maybe once in 40 minutes or an hour, but once it happens the intervals between lockups get shorter until I exit the application and restart it. I have obviously changed the batteries and happens fully charged and with the low battery light on. Here are my settings

Renderer - I have tried all the renderers and the problem still happens
scalling off
accurate timing off (I'll try to turn this on)
accurate sprites off
show fps on
frameskip on
sound on
sound quality 44khz stereo (have tried multiple settings)
use 940 core for for sound yes
6 button pad off
region auto
sram bram savestates on
confirm savestates writes
saveskit 0
gp2x cpu clock 166 tried multiple settings
ADVANCED OPTIONS
gamma 1
emulate z80 on
ym2612 fm on
sn76496 on
gzip save states on
don't save last used rom off
Craigs ram timing off
sauidge hack on

My machine uses firmware 3
any ideas? I have tried to supply as much information as possible but if I missed anything just ask. In the meanwhile I will enable accurate timing and try to get a new copy of the rom and do a file compare of the two.

Second I wanted to know if it's possible to lock together the sonic and knuckles cartridges and if so, how. Does it require making a new rom or downloading a new rom? How does it change the game? Does it simply allow me to play the game with a different character? What are the advantages of doing this?

Since sonic 1 and 3 are the games I am actively playing right now, I do not know if it happens in other roms. I havn't noticed it in Dragon's lair, but I get frustrated quickly and rarely play for more than 20 minutes at a stretch.
try to get a new copy, could just be a bad dump, im playing sonic 3 right now on pico with no problems
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is a known problem (a race condition in emulated code) and it's already fixed in wip version (not yet released). Current workaround is to enable "accurate timing" or just use DrMD.
 
For some reason picodrive doesn't run too well for me when clocked above 250 (even though my GP2X can OC to 270). I keep it at around 230 and all of my games play full speed.

Off topic: Snatcher on SegaCD is awsome!
 
geo12 said:
For some reason picodrive doesn't run too well for me when clocked above 250 (even though my GP2X can OC to 270). I keep it at around 230 and all of my games play full speed.

Off topic: Snatcher on SegaCD is awsome!
you know, now that you mention it, Picodrive is the ONLY program I've found that won't let me OC to 266 (which is my max) It'll lockup until I get down to about 250 then it's rock solid. Weird. :rolleyes:

Anyway, it's a very small price to pay for a great genesis/sega cd emulator! :)

:edit: Oh yeah - Snatcher rocks! :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
geo12 said:
For some reason picodrive doesn't run too well for me when clocked above 250 (even though my GP2X can OC to 270). I keep it at around 230 and all of my games play full speed.

Off topic: Snatcher on SegaCD is awsome!
I've heard that the second processor does not overclock as well. I think you will find your normal overclock speed if you disable the second processor support. While I don't play a whole lot of genesis games, I do play some demanding ones and they seem to work fine at 200.

Chris
 
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what he said. the 940 is basically a cheaper version of the 920, they usually don't clock as high. and picodrive is one of the programs that makes use of it. if you turn off that option in the picodrive menu, you probably can clock higher.

also, most genesis games only need one of the two (overclocking or using second core), or neither. the ram timing hack may influence your highest possibly clock speed, but in which direction depends on your ram and how well suited those timings are for it.
 
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