Arcade Card BIOS

[Zorlac]

I know the core has a toggle for the Arcade Card. I’m just curious if there was an Arcade BIOS and BIOS screen on original hardware?

[gojira54]

No the arcade card displayed the same 3.00 boot screen

[darksakul]

There was never an actual Arcade Bios for the PC Engine / Turbo Grafx 16.
There two versions of the actual Arcade card that came on the market, The Arcade Card Pro and the Arcade Card Duo.

The Arcade card PRO was for older PC E/TG-16 setups like the PC Engine Interface Unit and the orignal TurboGrafx-CD.
It had additional Ram and the Super System 3.0 system card bios. By the way the Interface Unit and original TurboGrafx-CD has no built in CD Bios, and needed a System Card to play any CD games, they came in ver 1.0 , 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0, and the later Arcade Card Pro. The Arcade Card Pro is just an upgraded Super System 3.0 Card.

There the Arcade Card Duo that was intended for the Super CD-ROM² CD add on, The PC E/ Turbo Duo and the PC E Duo R, PC Duo RX.
Since the Super CD-ROM² CD add on and all the versions of the Duo had a built in-board 3.0 CD Bios it only needed the Extra Ram, which was actually smaller than the Arcade Card Pro as the above mentioned consoles had more ram than the Older Interface Unit/TurboGrafx-CD.

Since the MiSTer is already expecting you to select a BIOS file anyways (preferably Japanese v 3.0) the Core's settings just has a toggle to activate the Arcade Card's extra system's ram. For most games that don't need this this does nothing, although if you have issues you can toggle the Arcade Card off and hit reset to see if the game returns to normal functionality.

[Zorlac]

Nice info, thank you!

[Trifle]

For most games that don't need this this does nothing, although if you have issues you can toggle the Arcade Card off and hit reset to see if the game returns to normal functionality.

Interesting. I am seeing issues with Parasol Stars if the Arcade Card is enabled - namely missing or corrupt sprites, typically fruit or point that appear when collecting though it seems to vary. Is there a list of games with known issues with the Arcade Card on original H/W?

[gojira54]

Parasol stars is a hucard game so impossible to run with an arcade card also inserted...

[Trifle]

Thanks - makes sense!

[bootsector]

Maybe the core should disable the arcade card feature when using card based (non-CD) games?

[LeftEmpty]

You should report it on github, as I'm pretty sure the arcade card should disable itself automatically for HuCards to avoid this sort of problems.

[dshadoff]

The Arcade Card is not possible to have connected at the same time as HuCards on real hardware, as they can't both fit in the cartridge port at the same time. I suspect that the issue you see has nothing to do with the Arcade Card (but may still be some other kind of bug); Sorgelig confirmed that Arcade Card activity is dependent on CDROM operation.

Were you playing a different game, then loaded this game from the OSD (F2, select new game) ? If so, can you recreate it ?

If this was an issue which occurred after restarting the core (RESET button on MiSTer, or "Load Core->TGFX-16"), then that would be a core issue, and should be easily reproducible.

Reproducible problems are easier to fix than problems which are not reproducible; also, the more details you can record, the better. If you see an issue only once and you don't know how you got there, and you can't recreate it, it's frankly not worth reporting.

[LeftEmpty]

I just played a quick credit (to my death. in 5 minutes. No comment) but didn't notice any glitch. Did it happen further in the game, Trifle?

[darksakul]

For most games that don't need this this does nothing, although if you have issues you can toggle the Arcade Card off and hit reset to see if the game returns to normal functionality.

Interesting. I am seeing issues with Parasol Stars if the Arcade Card is enabled - namely missing or corrupt sprites, typically fruit or point that appear when collecting though it seems to vary. Is there a list of games with known issues with the Arcade Card on original H/W?

I know the original print run of the PC Engine port of Golden Axe refuse to run on anything but a Systems Card version 1.0.
A Later reprint fixed the issue, abet the actual game disc is rare. But it is a terrible port of Golden Axe, even the Sega Master System has a better port.

https://youtu.be/kCYmk_pC2FE
Only thing the PC Engine Cd version got was a cool opening FMV, its graphics and sound is terrible.

[Sorgelig]

btw, Arcade Card is force disabled for non-CD games. So option is valid only for CD games.

[Sorgelig]

But it is a terrible port of Golden Axe, even the Sega Master System has a better port.

https://youtu.be/kCYmk_pC2FE
Only thing the PC Engine Cd version got was a cool opening FMV, its graphics and sound is terrible.

It seems the one who ported took 320px sprites and used it as-is in 256px mode. Dumb port, agree.

[dshadoff]

I know the original print run of the PC Engine port of Golden Axe refuse to run on anything but a Systems Card version 1.0.
A Later reprint fixed the issue, abet the actual game disc is rare. But it is a terrible port of Golden Axe, even the Sega Master System has a better port.

You have this confused with Altered Beast (Juuoki). Golden Axe doesn't have any version issues.

[LeftEmpty]

It's easy to confuse two terrible Sega System 16 ports :D

[Trifle]

For me it is reproducible from a cold start of the core or from restart. Seen in first level or in attract loop.

My saved config currently has Arcade Card disabled, so these are my repro steps:
Boot tg16 core
Load Parasol Stars .pce (I’m using japan but us has same issue)
Wait for attract gameplay - look for the fruit appearing and green pop-up scores when it’s collected.
Bring up menu, enable arcade card, then choose reset.
Core restarts.
Wait for attract gameplay - I now see no fruit or pop-up scores when they’re collected.
Also seemed to take longer to transition from the world map to the demo gameplay when arcade card was enabled.

Hardware: 128mb memory.
Mister: v200529 OS v200429
Tg16: 200529

[dshadoff]

When you say "choose reset", is this from the OSD menu ?

[LeftEmpty]

I just checked it and it doesn't happen in game for me, but just in attract mode. I get the same weird, lengthy pause too at the transition from the world map in attract mode.
Then it is _super_ glitched. A total mess.

You don't need to reset for the glitch to occur David: booting the game first with Arcade Card enabled as default will trigger it.

[Sorgelig]

it seems CD is enabled if save is available for game.
I will fix it.

[Trifle]

Thanks Sorg - it’s fixed for me in today’s update (20.06.02)

[turboxray]

I know the core has a toggle for the Arcade Card. I’m just curious if there was an Arcade BIOS and BIOS screen on original hardware?

Basically you stopped seeing upgrade BIOS roms because games started include soft-bios upgrades. Later CD games have stuff like built-in LZSS decompressor, faster CD read (faster than the 90k/sec stock BIOS CD read function), etc. These upgrades were small (within 8k).