[HELP] PSX Horror Games Not Loading TRIED EVERYTHING

MikerTone

I've gone to a few forums on different sites seeking help, so far no good. Similar to so many other posts, I've had problems getting some of my PSX games to actually play on my Raspberry Pi 3B. I have tried almost every piece of advice and tutorial and troubleshooting tip, and none of them have worked. Right now, the Spyro game I have on the Pi works fine, but the horror game Kuon won't play. In fact, none of the PSX horror games I've uploaded will work (Kuon and Fatal Frame I, II, and III - and I made sure to get the USA versions). I'll select the game from the menu, the screen fades to black, the gray box pops up saying it's loading, then it fades back to the menu. I've attempted to fix this with various long combinations of methods 3 or 4 times now, and I've started from scratch each attempt. I think I've spent just over a month on trying to get this to work.

By the end of my most recent attempt (today, February 14, 2019) I had tried:

Making sure all the files were in the appropriate folders
Updating RetroPie, Retroarch, Raspbian, lr-pcsx-rearmed
Clean install of the most current versions of Raspbian and RetroPie
Changing the cases for the BIOS files (trying both all upper and all lowercase, for 1001 and 5501)
Making sure the BIOS files were for the same region as the game version downloaded (USA
Using an .ISO file (and changing the cases, both upper and lowercase) - all the horror games started as .ISOs
Using a .BIN/.CUE file made from the .ISO (and changing the cases, both upper and lowercase)
Double-checking the .CUE file to make sure it references the .BIN file's name correctly
Changing file names to take out any 'special characters' (parentheses, apostrophes, etc.)
Changing that one spot in the .CUE file from MODE1/2048 to MODE2/2352
Installing lr-ppsspp and using a .PBP file made from the .ISO file (and changing the cases, both upper and lowercase)
Enabling/disabling SSH
Downloading files from a different source (and repeating many of the steps above)

The only other thing I haven't this time, but have at others, is:

Changing file permissions to 755
Downloading the .BIN/.CUE version instead of the .ISO (I have been unable to find .BIN/.CUE versions for download despite a ton of searching - that's why I 'made my own')

Other games from other systems have also worked fine, it just seems to be my PSX horror games that won't work.

I am completely dumbfounded. I've tried to pull all the information I could find from various corners of the Internet together to figure out what could be going wrong, without any success. Is there another step or method I'm missing? Is this a current problem that doesn't have a solution yet? Or am I just lucky enough to have found 4 games that RetroPie won't play?

I'm also 100% new to pretty much all of this. I've definitely learned a lot over the past month or so, but there's probably a lot of common knowledge about Raspberry Pi / RetroPie that I don't currently have. I've tried to give the most accurate information possible above. I'm hoping someone can help me - all I want is to fight ghosts in Japanese horror games!

herb_fargus

You're spending a lot of time randomly guessing what will fix it. Run it with verbose logging enabled through runcommand and it will tell you what you're doing wrong in the logs.

MikerTone

@herb_fargus Thank you! I just ran the files I have with the verbose logging and went into /dev/shm/runcommand.log to see what it had to say, and I think the results say that all my files are corrupted, which will be really disappointing if that's the case. I'm going to expand on this below but that's my guess from reading the results.

During this process all file extensions were in lowercase, and the BIOS files names and extensions were also all lowercase. I tried both of my .ISO files (the ones I got from two different sources), and both sets of my .BIN/.CUE files. The runcommand.log had this line in all of the logs in common: "unsupported/invalid CD image - Failed to load content."

When I tried the .PBP file, the screen faded to black, then a Retroarch-esque screen popped up with ">No Items" on it. When I went through the log it said this: "[INFO] Unloading game..." after the line "[INFO][MIDI] Loading history file: [/opt/retropie/configs/all/content_image_history.lpl]." The "[INFO] Unloading game..." line appeared in another place in the log as well.

All those results say to me that despite trying two different sources my .ISO files were corrupted and would never have worked anyway (I made the .BIN/.CUE and .PBP files from each .ISO so the corruption probably transferred). At this point I'm doubting there's any point to searching for more .ISO files... The game is on the rarer side and for two different sources to have corrupt files (if that's what this is) then I have a hard time believing I would ever find the uncorrupted files.

[And sorry for being so verbose myself, I like trying to give all the information I can in as much detail as possible the first time around with the goal of avoiding confusion. Which doesn't always work but at least I try, right?]

MikerTone

@herb_fargus I just went and found a third file, another .ISO, and it also did not work. Can 3 files from 3 different sources all be corrupt??

backstander

@MikerTone

Can 3 files from 3 different sources all be corrupt??

It can (I have noticed it more on rare games because there's really only 1 version that everyone hosts) and how to tell is if you check the MD5 hash or CRC hash for each of the files and if they're the same hash, then you are actually just re-downloading the same version. No 2 files can have the same hash unless they are exactly the same file.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-calculate-the-md5sum-or-crc32-of-a-bios-file

Unfortunately I don't see Kuon, Fatal Frame I, II or III on either of the PCSX ReARMed Compatibility Lists :-(

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KDOo9FncjtlMbd24HJmLPEfJBVr0xjkUJYZ_cDTGvaA/edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-n_-Ai56h3PmzxP-77ZK1sdjOLKRe1d4faJHFhIV5QI/edit#gid=0

mitu

I just went and found a third file, another .ISO, and it also did not work. Can 3 files from 3 different sources all be corrupt??

@MikerTone Which game(s) are you trying ? Did you verify them against redump.org data ? I can't find any Fatal Frame games for the Playstation 1 system - so they will not work if you're using the PS2 games discs.

backstander

@MikerTone

Yeah, Wikipedia says that Kuon was only released on the PS2 and the Fatel Frame games came out for the PS2 and Xbox (not the PS1):

I agree with @mitu these games aren't going to work with a PS1 or PSP emulator.

mitu

@backstander For PS1 there is 'Kuon no Kizuna', but it's a JP release only (http://redump.org/disc/5750/).

backstander

@mitu
Okay, @MikerTone should probably try that Japanese version even thought I've had problems running Japanese PS1 games.

I'm not sure but looks like there are PS1, PSP and Dreamcast versions of 'Kuon no Kizuna'. I wonder if there's English translations for any of these and if any of them work on RetroPie.

MikerTone

@backstander I'll try the Japanese versions next and check the MD5/CRC hashes!

@mitu I was definitely using the PS2 versions because I thought they were supposed to run on lr-pcsx-rearmed. That might be very telling of how little I know, I thought lr-pcsx-rearmed was for PS1 and 2 games...which I'm guessing now is not the case. Is there a PS2 emulator for RetroPie??

Because if my issue is that I've been using the wrong emulator I would look really dumb BUT then I could try the files I have again with the right one.

And the horror game Kuon is the one I've been looking for, 'Kuon no Kizuna' is a detective game - when I was first looking around for the horror game, I ran into the detective game a LOT!

mitu

@MikerTone said in [HELP] PSX Horror Games Not Loading TRIED EVERYTHING:

@mitu I was definitely using the PS2 versions because I thought they were supposed to run on lr-pcsx-rearmed. That might be very telling of how little I know, I thought lr-pcsx-rearmed was for PS1 and 2 games...which I'm guessing now is not the case. Is there a PS2 emulator for RetroPie??

lr-pcsx-rearmed is a Ps1 only emulator. For PS2, you'll need something much more powerful then a Raspberry Pi - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-2/.

MikerTone

@mitu Thanks for setting me on the right path! And thanks to @backstander and @herb_fargus for the help, too.

I've been doing the software equivalent of trying to get a VHS player to run a DVD and didn't even know it. Thank you all for being patient and helping me! I'll see if I can't follow the guide mitu posted and set up a PS2 emulator on something more powerful.

Thanks again, guys!

backstander

@MikerTone

I've been doing the software equivalent of trying to get a VHS player to run a DVD

At least you didn't try to play a Betamax tape in an HD-DVD player!
https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/betamaxhd.html

Keep us updated if you get the Japanese PS1 version of 'Kuon no Kizuna' working or not.

mitu

@backstander said in [HELP] PSX Horror Games Not Loading TRIED EVERYTHING:

Keep us updated if you get the Japanese PS1 version of 'Kuon no Kizuna' working or not.

I actually booted up the game, got the to menu, but no matter what I choose (there only 2 entries + a 'Disable Rumble' entry) there's some warning or info message that I can't understand and then it goes back to the main menu. I didn't test with changing the game region from the core options, there might be some DRM/region protection message that I can't understand :).