PSX Core Stuck at Memory Card Screen

[Meowstodon]

Hey Mister FPGA forum, I got my my first MiSter kit last week so I am quite new, thanks for helping me (a scrub) learn a lot on getting things going. I've got everything running except I seem to be stuck on this PSX core problem.

The Bios loads when I launch the core (The white psx screen) but it goes to the memory card / cd player screen with the main menu and will not budge no matter what game I load. Sometimes it looks like the screen "nudges" when I pick a game and press enter. There is no error code listed (I've made sure its on). It just hands and I can still select the memory card or cd.. just nothing happens at all. and my sdram checks have been good as well as other things that require sdram like GBC have been working fine.

I have tried to solve this on my own without asking you all, here are the steps I have taken based on the problems others have had:

1) Switched my renamed boot.rom bios out for the one included in update_all
2) Made sure the games that are .bin and .cue files are in their own folder, everything with the same name other than the extensions. (Ex: "Bloody Roar II" folder > "Bloody Roar II.bin" and "Bloody Roar II.cue" the only files in that folder)
3) Ran update_all and downloader
4) Swaped out the MiSter file on the root with the newest one (researching psx core problems this seems to have worked for a user that got black screens... Mine does not go black, simply nothing happens)
5) Tried messing with some video settings (like sync and such) in the ini.
6) made sure everything boots past this point and into the game on a pc emulator
7) ran through many different core settings (set to ntsc-u instead of auto, made sure lid was listed as closed, capping speed, hdmi 480 sync, ect.)
8) made sure the Playstation folder was named PSX
9) tried many different PlayStation core versions
10) Tried running the same things on the original preset up 8gb micro sd card that came with the mister kit as well as the fast 1tb micro sd I got in there and reflashed (everything else like snes and such have worked on this card).
11) added an empty.mcd memory card to the psx folder
12) Configured a controller (someone mentioned this has helped, like maybe it wouldn't boot without detecting a controller I don't know)
13) tried on 2 different HDMI cords on 2 different displays (a tv and monitor)

I'm just getting stumped. I wish I at least had an error code to work with, anyone have any ideas on this?

[Lightwave]

2) Made sure the games that are .bin and .cue files are in their own folder, everything with the same name other than the extensions. (Ex: "Bloody Roar II" folder > "Bloody Roar II.bin" and "Bloody Roar II.cue" the only files in that folder)

Since you have no region in your example filename, it looks like you are not using standard Redump releases.

If you are using your own game dumps (or older ones you found), you might want to try with a Redump release to see if bad rips are the issue.
Otherwise, if you have renamed the files, you may need to edit the .cue file with a text editor to change the filename of the .bin that it points to.

[Krathoon]

The core is finicky about game dumps. It favors Redump releases.

Duckstation has no problem with this.

[Meowstodon]

Ahhh this worked Instantly! Thank you so much. I am very surprised that something that runs in an emulator might have issues on the core, I hadn't realized the redump made such a big difference.

Because it's so finicky with the core, does that mean things like translation patches are likely out of the question? Or Do I just need to take the redumps and repatch those? Thanks again for your help so happy to see that psx "you made it" black screen.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Very likely your .cue file just is wrong. Compare it with the redump and you will find the issue.
Many emulators spend a lot of effort to support all kind of weird formats there, we don't.

You might call it finicky, but in the end the core needs just the bare bones: pure data sectors from the tracks, it cannot be more basic.
However, if your dump does some fancy stuff and cannot provide that, we are not prepared.

[jd213]

Came across this thread while trying to figure out why some backups of my own physical copies wouldn't load.

It seems that the PSX core doesn't like multi-track CDs ripped as a single bin + cue (not complaining if this is the case, just making an observation) using imgburn.

Re-ripping the game to multiple bin files + cue using Retroarch (I believe the redump.org method does this as well but I don't have a compatible drive, not sure what other programs are available, couldn't get Retroarch to rip from a mounted image so had to get the games out again) or converting the imgburn images to chd using https://i12bretro.github.io/tutorials/0323.html got the games to load, at least the ones I've tried so far.

[pgimeno]

There are some tools to manipulate BIN+CUE files. There's certainly at least one tool (that I've used) to merge disks with multiple bin files into a single bin file, so it's likely that there's one to go in the opposite direction.

I haven't looked for it, though, because a simpler option is to convert the dumps to CHD with MAME's chdman, with the added benefit of taking less disk space, because CHD is a compressed format. chdman accepts bin+cue without caring about whether they're the merged bin or the separate bin kind.

All you have to do is chdman createcd -i <cuefile> -o <chdfile>

[jd213]

Right, that's what I used from the link above. Still waiting for all of my backups to finish converting, thankfully the .bat file included with the download is automatically converting all of the images in the same folder.

edit: A single .bin + .cue seems to be used by the PSIO and probably has some other uses, so I guess that's why converting to that format is common.

[FPGAzumSpass]

Zakk has worked on the single bin implementation and also added a fix recently.
You can try the newest unstable version:
https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nigh ... ble-builds

Zakk often asked for feedback on it, but doesn't seem to get much, so i cannot say how well it works already, but give it a chance and if it doesn't work, please report back with your cue content so there is a chance it can be improved.

[jd213]

Ah, thank you. I haven't joined the Discord or anything so didn't know about that.

I tried a few single-bin files of multi-track games I dumped myself using ImgBurn, and they all loaded fine in MiSTer_unstable_20230430_223a3b using the latest stable PSX core. Didn't have time to do any in-game testing though, so I'm not sure if the audio tracks are playing correctly.