MSX Core: Cannot get to work. Loads to black screen.

[retrogradeorbit]

Hi there, I'm trying to get the MSX core to work and am having much trouble, no errors, and confusion.

Firstly, reading the github project page here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MSX_MiSTer I read "No requires secondary SD card on I/O board v5.x. Supports both SDSC and SDHC cards.". Later it says "Core no requires a secondary SD card located on I/O Board v5.x. You can use an VHD images on the main SD card." Im confused as to what "No requires" means. Does it mean the core does not require a secondary SD card? Or are these sentences meant to say "Now requires..."? Can someone please clarify. Do I absolutely require a second sdcard?

Onto what I have done...

I have downloaded a FAT16 VHD file meant to work with the Mister MSX core. Mounting this disk image on a loopback device I see these files in it:

Code: Select all

$ ls -alF /vhd_mount/
total 1668
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root  16384 Jan  1  1970  ./
drwxr-xr-x 27 root root   4096 Feb 25 08:19  ../
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root    118 May 16  2020  AUTOEXEC.BAT*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     85 Apr  8  2020  BAS.bas*
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Mar 25  2020  bin/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     17 May 18  2020  BOOT.BAT*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  23935 Jan 16  2020  COMMAND2.COM*
drwxr-xr-x  8 root root  65536 Mar 28  2020  games/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   3187 May 18  2020  MENU.BAS*
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Oct  3  2018  mm/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   2286 Jan 16  2020  MSXDOS2.SYS*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   4467 Jan 16  2020  NEXTOR.SYS*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 524288 May  8  2020  OCM-BIOS.DAT*
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root  65536 May  7  2020  program/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 May 30  2020 '$RECYCLE.BIN'/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Apr  8  2020  SAVES/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Apr  8  2020  SETTINGS/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Mar 25  2020  sr/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 May 30  2020 'System Volume Information'/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  65536 Apr  8  2020  TMP/

I see the OCM-BIOS.DAT file in there, so it looks good to me. I put that VHD image in the /media/fat/games/MSX/ folder like the other cores.

I boot the MSX core. The screen goes black. It stays black. Interestingly the orange mister "Disk" LED stays lit and doesn't go out.

I press F12, I select to load a VHD image, I select my VHD image, I press enter. Nothing happens. Just a black screen.

I press F12 and reset the MSX. A black screen. Nothing happens.

The MSX core I am using is MSX_20210205.rbf

I'm a bit lost because Im unsure of what should happen. Should the core boot to a blue screen with no VHD image? Does it require a fat16 disk image? Does it require it to be on the second sdcard?

any guidance from someone out there successfully starting the MSX core would be much appreciated!

thankyou all for your time and amazing work.

[jca]

Initially the core did not support VHDs and had to use the secondary SD card. Now it supports VHDs and thus the secondary SD card is not required. You just need a good VHD.
Have a look at this video which has links to VHDs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5QCWwE ... e=emb_logo.

[pgimeno]

I wrote a little tutorial on how to create a valid VHD file with Linux: https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/hard ... ent-381164

I think that if the image is called boot.vhd, it will be loaded at startup, just as you load the core.

[retrogradeorbit]

Initially the core did not support VHDs and had to use the secondary SD card. Now it supports VHDs and thus the secondary SD card is not required. You just need a good VHD.
Have a look at this video which has links to VHDs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5QCWwE ... e=emb_logo.

Ok! Those VHDs worked great! And the video was quite funny to boot. Thanks very much for helping to get my MSX core working!

I'll make a github PR to clarify that README with the state of play on the sdcard/VHD situation.

[retrogradeorbit]

I wrote a little tutorial on how to create a valid VHD file with Linux: https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/hard ... ent-381164

I think that if the image is called boot.vhd, it will be loaded at startup, just as you load the core.

Ah this is fantastic . All the docs I had read assumed you were on Windows and had you running .exe's and .bat files. I only use Linux. So this tutorial of yours is perfect. I will go through this!

[metal_slugger]

I wrote a little tutorial on how to create a valid VHD file with Linux: https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/hard ... ent-381164

Are there currently any Windows tools / methods to make the VHD?

I can use the pre-made VHDs linked above but they are missing a game or two I want. I'd like to make a lean collection of a few games but I have no experience with Linux

[metal_slugger]

PS

As is usually the case I worked it out straight after posing the question in the forum - it's is easy to mount a pre-made VHD in Windows (just right-click 'mount') and add / remove games, and that is what I just did. Just added a big pack of enhancement-patched games and they're working great now!

Additionally, I have been experimenting with a newer version of Sofarun than what is included in the above VHDs, and I have found I am getting much better performance (especially in the unzipping and loading time) with the latest version of Sofarun (v8) from here https://www.louthrax.net/mgr/sofarun.html
It was just a case of unzipping version 8 and dropping the files in the correct folder in the VHD, after deleting what was already there (which was v3.2)