Sharp X68000 Disk Loading Question... Some games don't load with Disk 2 in FDD1

[TPR]

So here's an interesting issue I'm having with some Sharp X68000 mutli-disc games.

I'm finding that some games don't seem to like when the .m3u file auto loads Disk 1 into FDD0 and Disk 2 into FDD1.

For example, this game... here is what my .m3u file looks like:
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 1).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 2).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 3).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 4).dim

When the game loads it automatically inserts the first two discs in drive FDD0 and FDD1. But the emulator doesn't like that. If I remove the disk from FDD1 the game loads just fine:

So here's my question. Is there a way I can still use a .m3u file to load the game, so that I can still use the user-friendly Disk Controls system in RetroArch, but NOT have the .m3u file auto load the first two disks and tell it to leave FDD1 empty?

[TPR]

I should also add that I've tried multiple versions of the rom, both .dim and .hdm file and I get the same results. If I remove the second disk from the drive, the game loads fine.

[TPR]

Crap. Seems to be an open issue from 2017, so I guess I've got my answer...

https://github.com/libretro/px68k-libretro/issues/31

Oh well...

Can anyone think of a clever work around other than having to use the manual disk loading system in the emulator (which is not great, IMO) that still allows me to use the Retroarch disk swap?

Maybe I'll try to load a dummy disk into FDD1 and see if that works...

[TPR]

So I think I might have found a work-around hack that worked with at least the one game.

I took a blank .txt file and renamed it "38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 2).dim"

I then renamed each following discs one number higher, which means the game now has 5 discs instead of 4 in the .m3u:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 1).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 2).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 3).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 4).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/38 Man Kilo No Kokuu (Disk 5).dim

But when I loaded up the game, even though it did put Disk 2 in FDD1, the game now loaded just fine. When this screen came up and told me to set the next disk, I went into Disk Control, ejected Disk 2 in FDD1 and inserted Disk 3 and it worked!

So while this is not totally ideal because the disk numbers will be one out of sync for what the game might ask for, but this is, at least in my opinion, easier to use the Disk Control system than it is to use the emulator disk swap and having to sort through all the RetroPie directories.

And perhaps this obscure Japanese visual novel game might not be on the top of everyone's "MUST PLAY" list, there are plenty of other games that have this issue and this is at least a workable solution!

[retropieuser555]

@TPR I've not tried the sharp X68000 before, guessing it was a home computer based system? You could maybe map the disk swapping to something on your keyboard to save you going in and out of the RetroArch menu? Although tbf with 4-5 discs it'd be kinda cumbersome. But then loading disks onto a spectrum or Amiga was pretty cumbersome back in the day!

[TPR]

@retropieuser555 The going into the RA menu wasn’t the issue though. The issue was on loading the game from a .m3u file several games didn’t load. I wanted to be able to use the RA disk control as it works much better than the emulator version.

[TPR]

So I've found this solution to work a little better.

Here is what my .m3u files now look like for games that have the loading issue:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/J.B Harold Murder Club DX (Disk 1).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/J.B Harold Murder Club DX
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/J.B Harold Murder Club DX (Disk 2).dim
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/x68000/.discs/J.B Harold Murder Club DX (Disk 3).dim

Instead of re-numbering the discs like I mentioned above, I just put in a path for the second line without a disk number of a file extension, so at least when I go to use the Disk Control system, and it asks for "Disk 2" I can on "current disk index" and it will give me the names of all the disks, and the names should be correct for the disk it is looking for, I just ignore the one without a disk number.

That's the best work around I can come up with so far unless someone has any other ideas on how to get these multi-disc games to load that seem to hang in lr-PX68L when it tries to load a disk into FDD0 and FDD1.

[CARRisma]

I've just come across this problem myself, but with a different game: Tree of Arsia / Arsia No Ki. I've used the workaround above, although isn't ideal, it does get it to work.

[CARRisma]

Rather coincidentally, a few minutes after I posted the above, I found a fix!

https://docs.libretro.com/library/px68k/#directories

The above doc says:

If your game suddenly does not boot up, try deleting keropi/sram.dat.
In some cases, you may also need to delete keropi/config.

I deleted just sram.dat and that fixed it. The file is recreated when you restarted the emulator.

These files are within the Sharp X68000 BIOS folder: \root\home\pi\RetroPie\BIOS\keropi

@TPR

[TPR]

@CARRisma Wow! That's an awesome fix! Thank you!