Demons of Asteborg

pjft

@cnoto You probably learned about that from my own replies and investigations in their Discord group. :)

I bought it. lr-picodrive works with it out of the box, I believe, and I submitted a report about SRAM, as I couldn't fix it in the code myself.

I kicked off the SRAM support thread on genesis-plus-gx - the author has been extremely open and receptive here. It's easy to "workaround" it, but a proper fix requires more thought, and they're looking into it as they would like to get it done properly.

If you want to get it working, happy to help. I have a fork on my end, and happy to add the workaround there.

EDIT: it is a nice game - I had played both demos in the past. I have high hopes, just not a lot of time right now, but I intend to :) Let us know how it goes!

cnoto

@pjft I was actually just reading the support thread. I would welcome the work around instructions if its not too much trouble to post. Otherwise, I can certainly continue to play it via pico and just use the hotkey save function.

I got through the first level and am really enjoying it so far. This game is already on my top list of genesis games.

pjft

@cnoto Not too much trouble, really. I believe the latest code is here:

https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX/tree/asteborg

Depending on your comfort with compiling things on your own, you can either do it yourself, or temporarily edit your

/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/libretrocores/lr-genesis-plus-gx.sh

file, changing the sources function to pull this code. Change the line to:

gitPullOrClone "$md_build" https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX.git asteborg

and then in RetroPie-Setup, install from source.

Do revert that line afterwards to the original version, which should be

gitPullOrClone "$md_build" https://github.com/libretro/Genesis-Plus-GX.git

If for some reason the emulator doesn't work, just reinstall from binary and you'll always get back to the official version.

If that's too complex, just let me know and I can try to figure out an alternative.

cnoto

@pjft said in Demons of Asteborg:

https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX.git asteborg

Is this the section you change the code?

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX.git asteborg master"

cnoto

@pjft

I managed to update the emulator using your code, but the game wouldn't launch.

When I updated back to the original source code, it launched (without SRAM functioning), so it seems the first changes were made at the source level.

pjft

@cnoto hm. I'll check the code then. Apologies for the hassle.

No, the changes in the script would be inside the sources function, apologies.

But yes, since I did it on my pi, maybe I missed something when putting it back on GitHub. I'll check and get back to you later today.

The makefile needs to be changed to support the ROM size, that's one of the changes. The other change was related to SRAM support which, to the best of my recollection, was this:

https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/issues/381

I wouldn't expect any other changes, so I need to check.

Confirming: did you back the game's Kickstarter, or did you buy the game afterwards? I had issues with the first ROM they sent, but they sent a fixed one a day later. Still, if I recall correctly, the bad ROM didn't work on picodrive either so you probably have the good one.

Let me know if this helps, I'll check the code later.

Thanks.

pjft

@cnoto Also, the game shouldn't load on the original source code or binary, at least not on a raspberry pi. What system are you on?

cnoto

@pjft I did support the kickstarter and am using the latest rom on RetroPie on a Raspberry pi 3. Weirdly the source code allows me to launch the game. I just updated it an hour ago. Could the original issue around rom size already be fixed due to your work connecting with the author?

Regarding the SRAM change - could you share which file to make the change described in the link in your last reply. Apologies, I am not an actually coder.

And thanks for all the help!

pjft

@cnoto Actually, I messed up - the makefile changes had not in fact been done in the right place.

ah. Actually you're right - libretro approved my changes yesterday, though they aren't great. In my limited understanding of the code, I tried to fix this but it wasn't a great approach. The author suggested a different one so I suppose if you're updating from source, you're getting my fix from yesterday already - though it's not a great one, and should be reverted shortly. My changes will break support for low-memory devices such as the Wii or Gamecube.

If you want to try out my code in my branch now, see if works best. I just tested it out here.

The sources function should read:

function sources_lr-genesis-plus-gx-pjft() {
    gitPullOrClone "$md_build" https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX.git asteborg

Best.

cnoto

Thanks. Ill give it a try. Just so I understand, does this include the SRAM fix? If not, which file do I edit for that change?

Thanks!

pjft

@cnoto It does.

Just update the script and install from source. It should get the correct code from my repository and build it.

At least on my end it just worked on my Pi3.

cnoto

@pjft Just tried updated the script with your code again and no luck. Other games launched fine, but D.O.A. was DOA. I reverted back to the source code to be able run the game on genesis-plus-gx.

barbudreadmon

Latest version of FBNeo should be a solid choice to play this game (with SRAM support).

pjft

@cnoto Well, clearly I'm running out of ideas there, other than some mishap with how it's being included in the script.

These are the literal commands to clone, build and install the emulator, once you ssh into the pi.

git clone https://github.com/pjft/Genesis-Plus-GX.git
cd Genesis-Plus-GX
git checkout asteborg
make -f Makefile.libretro
sudo cp genesis_plus_gx_libretro.so /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-genesis-plus-gx/

You can remove the build folder afterwards, so it doesn't take up space.

cd ..
rm -rf Genesis-Plus-GX

I just tried it on my Pi3 and lacking that, I suppose we'll have to wait until things are sorted out upstream.

As for lr-fbneo, that's great to hear @barbudreadmon . Indeed, if it's an option for you @cnoto , FBNeo is a robust emulator for multiple systems.

@barbudreadmon a question, if I may: I might be misremembering things, but I seem to recall that one year ago or more, when I tried to run some consoles ROMs, it seemed to expect a specific file name? As the ROM that's provided by the developer is purely names "DemonsOfAsteborg.bin", just wanted to check if that's ok for guidance here?

I was trying to infer that from the commit and it seems to have "Demons of Asteborg (2021)(NEOfit Studios)" there, which is probably a typo as the studio's name is, effectively, NEOfid, but also wondering where/how the name is defined as it's different from the ROM name the developer provides.

Thank you, good to see you around! Hope you're doing well :)

barbudreadmon

@pjft said in Demons of Asteborg:

@barbudreadmon a question, if I may: I might be misremembering things, but I seem to recall that one year ago or more, when I tried to run some consoles ROMs, it seemed to expect a specific file name? As the ROM that's provided by the developer is purely names "DemonsOfAsteborg.bin", just wanted to check if that's ok for guidance here?

Yes, it works like arcade, meaning it cares about 2 things :

the name of the zip file containing the game file(s)
the crc(s) of the game file(s)

The release version of "Demons of Asteborg" is expected to be in an archive named asteborg.zip, and for the demo version the archive must be named asteborgd.zip. You could name the file(s) inside the zip file however you want, only the crc matter.

@pjft said in Demons of Asteborg:

wondering where/how the name is defined as it's different from the ROM name the developer provides.

We made an habit of including author+year in the console game filenames.

cnoto

@pjft said in Demons of Asteborg:

sudo cp genesis_plus_gx_libretro.so /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-genesis-plus-gx/

Thanks @pjft. Your instructions worked. The game is now loading with functional SRAM. It seems I may have been having an issue with my router last night that timed out my wifi connection. (Hence the original instructions not working).

Thanks again!!

wmarcio

Off Topic:
Komani code works with this game.
Just enter on the MAIN MENU, with the cursor on the first option.

Konami code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B,A.

I think I was the first to discover this!!!🤐🤐🤐🤐

@pjft Thanks for your help and instructions.