Do I need BIOS files, or not?

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flynn2000
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Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by flynn2000 » Wed Jul 10, 2019 3:07 am

This is for ARpiCADE-3.84.

Month back I was trying to get PC Engine CD games to work with an earlier version of ARpiCADE but had no luck. Then I decided to mount the newest version on a new memory card and give it a go again. With version 3.84 I was happy to see a seperate folder for PC Engine CD games, and to my surprise, after putting CD game on the card I was now able to load up CD Rom games! The problem now is that I can't get any standard PC Engine roms or Mega Drive roms to load. The only other system I have tried to load games from is the SNES and it works fine. The previous version of ARpiCADE that I still have on another memory card can run PC Engine roms, and I even directly transferred Blazing Lazers over to the new card and it still won't work. I get the loading screen but then failure and back to the menu.

I have tried to put BIOS files an a variety of places within ARpiCADE to no effect and I am seeing information online that suggests I don't even need BIOS files for these systems. Do I? And if I do, then where exactly should they go? Do they need to be labeled in a specific way?

If someone here has any advice or if they could direct me to a place with the info I need, it would be appreciated greatly.

dee2eR
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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by dee2eR » Wed Jul 10, 2019 4:55 am

I'm not sure what would be going wrong there, those systems should work. I don't think you need bios files for the mentioned systems (you would for PC Engine CD, but I probably forgot to remove the bios files prior to uploading 3.84).

Are you using the rom folders with the USA naming for the consoles or the ones using the rest of the world naming? (ie. TurboGrafx / PC Engine , Megadrive / Genesis) I'll check it out, but last I checked those systems work for me. It may be worth trying the other named rom folder if you're on one or the other.

Are you using the same roms that were working on the older version of ARpiCADE? If so they really should still work...

EDIT:
just double checked and both systems are working for me. I used the Megadrive and PC Engine folders.

flynn2000
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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by flynn2000 » Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:55 am

I've tried both folders, PC Engine & Turborafx / Mega Drive & Genesis. Is there a particular way these roms should be named, like underscores for spaces and so forth? Later I will try roms from other sources and see if that helps.

dee2eR
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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by dee2eR » Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:30 pm

Unzipped with underscores in place of spaces should work for console stuff. What file extensions do the roms you are using have? It's possible I've missed a file type in the setup of the emulators or something. Not sure why they wouldn't work otherwise, particularly if you copied over known good roms.

flynn2000
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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by flynn2000 » Thu Jul 11, 2019 3:13 am

Getting roms from another source has given me some success.

Working roms for the PC Engine:
Final_Soldier_(J)
Gunhed_Hudson_Gunhed_Taikai_(J)
R-Type_(U)_[h1]
R-Type_II_(J)
Soldier_Blade_(U)
Super_Star_Soldier_(U)

Nonworking:
Blazing_Lazers_(U) this is the english version of Gunhed

Working MegaDrive:
MUSHA_US

Non working MegaDrive:
Eliminate Down (J)
Fire Shark (U) [!]
Fire Shark (U) [h2]
steel empire, the (ue) [b1]
Truxton (JU) [b1]

Looks like I'm having more luck with the PC Engine and just to make sure I also put these roms in the corresponding western version of each system, to no different effect. Except for Fire Shark I didn't try any other versions of the roms, so I will try out other versions and hope for the best.

By the way dee2eR, I just wanted to thank you for spending so much time helping us all to be able to play the games that passed us by when we were young.


PS. The cards I'm making are leaving me with under 3.5 GB of space, and I only noticed that when I tried to put three PC Engine CD games on it. I will have to run GParted again and see if I can expand the space. I think I remember someone asking about this on the KLOV thread, so I may try to hunt this question down there, or mayby I can find it here. If I can't figure it out then I can make a new thread about it.

dee2eR
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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by dee2eR » Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:35 am

Not sure why Blazing Lasers isn't working for you but it looks like the MegaDrive stuff you're struggling with have spaces in the filenames, you may have some luck with them just removing the spaces.

I recommend this guide to resizing ARpiCADE by @FrizzleFried: http://aha-forums.com/wp/2018/02/02/how ... ory-cards/ to get the most out of your SD card.

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Re: Do I need BIOS files, or not?

Post by flynn2000 » Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:59 am

Damn, I forgot about the underscore thing! Yes this fixes the non working roms problem and the the only reason that M.U.S.H.A worked is because it was one word. Thanks for the guide to resizing larger memory cards. I had a guide I was using that was posted to the KLOV group last year, but it was rather simple and had a few inconsistencies, this though looks more fully explanatory.

Thanks again.

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