Fix for PC Engine CD CHD files not working

RVA-818X-LAYstar

There seems to be an error on the DOCS page for PC Engine https://retropie.org.uk/docs/PC-Engine/

I had a long difficult time trying to get my CHD files to work.

First:

I tested that my CHDs files were good on Retroarch on my PC - A-OK - no problems, ran fine.

The problem was that lr-beetle-pce-fast apparently wants a BIOS file inside the directory where the CHD file is.

The DOCS page https://retropie.org.uk/docs/PC-Engine/ says you need to place the BIOS file in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS

However, in my testing I've found this to be incorrect. Whilst it works for .cue .bin files, it won't work for CHD files.

The solution is to place a BIOS file (e.g. syscard3.pce) inside the same directory as your CHD ROM file.

Hope that helps some people.

mitu

@rva-818x-laystar Post a verbose log please - if that's the case, then it may be an upstream bug.

RVA-818X-LAYstar

@mitu

sorry just a quick question, should it be a verbose log before I added the bios to the ROM directory, or after?

mitu

The log should contain the error, so before you added the BIOS to the pcenginecd folder.

RVA-818X-LAYstar

@mitu Here's the pastebin: https://pastebin.com/mcGAEueC

Not sure why but it can't find the BIOS when loading a CHD and this seems to be the critical line from the log:

[WARN] SYSTEM DIR is empty, assume CONTENT DIR /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pcengine/test/Fantastic Night Dreams - Cotton (USA).chd

So I add the BIOS to the directory where the CHD files are.

mitu

@rva-818x-laystar said in Fix for PC Engine CD CHD files not working:

[WARN] SYSTEM DIR is empty, assume CONTENT DIR /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pcengine/test/Fantastic Night Dreams - Cotton (USA).chd

This means you've reset your configuration from RetroPie's default - which sets SYSTEM_DIR to the RetroPie's BIOS folder.

RVA-818X-LAYstar

@mitu

Well, hell. I have no idea how that happened. But you seem to be right.

I checked my /opt/retropie/configs/pcengine/retroarch.cfg

and it has this line:

system_directory = "default"

If this is wrong, how would I fix it?

change it to:

system_directory = "/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS"

?

mitu

@rva-818x-laystar Don't use 'Reset' from RetroArch's menu, since it will disable any configuration done by RetroPie - including the BIOS folder used as 'System Dir'.

Rename the retroarch.cfg file from the pcengine folder or delete it, then re-install the emulator before starting any PCEngine games. Re-installation will re-generate the RetroPie's default configuration for pcengine.