Is it possible to run Super Cassette Vision games?

SuperFromND

I've already attempted to run the system via the lr-mess2016 core (see this thread for more info), as well as attempting to use the "advMAME 3.5" emulator, neither of which worked for me.

I've considered using the lr-mame2016 core as well, however that core takes eons to compile and I just don't have the paitience to wait for 10+ hours to compile it (not to mention last time, it gave me an error saying I ran out of SD card space, which was technically right since I only have an 8-gig card).

Any other possible way to run MESS on a Pi 3 (or ideally the eSCV emulator) to run the Super Cassette Vision?

edmaul69

@supercatfooz advmess, not advmame. It comes with advmame though. To get advmess games working you need to know all of the advmess settings and names/location of bios files, etc.. to create a working emulators.cfg and bios folder for that console. A big pain in the butt.

SuperFromND

I've tried running the game with both advmame and advmess's executables, and regardless of what params I call, it would always report that the game wasn't supported.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz well i added the scv.zip to the roms as it is needed for lr-mess2016 and it doesnt work. if someone understands the runcommand log im posting they might be able to help. ignore the error at the top. it is something i have for the macintosh emu.
pastebin.com link

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Examining the log, yep, seems like a similar error to what I was getting (not finding a "driver" thats named the same as the game, then ending with a segfault)

On the thread linked in my original post, someone mentioned manually installing a semi-recent version of MAME/MESS and using that, which I would've tried if I could figure out how to actually install that.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz already tried 3 versions of advmess. It says scv not supported.

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Yeah, thats what I was getting.
Strangely, it reported the same no matter what ROM i specified, even if it was something trivial like Pac-Man, and it didn't matter if I tried executing with advmess or advmame. That leads me to believe either advmame/advmess doesn't install properly, or some serious configuration is required to get it to work properly.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz i am pretty familiar with advmess and have installed several systems with it. I have found it doesnt support a lot of mess systems.

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Could you perhaps write a tutorial on how to set it up, or link to any guides you feel would be helpful for it?

edmaul69

@supercatfooz when it comes to floppies it is a bit more complex but here is how a standard system sets up first in your systems.cfg you need an entry. this is for scv. please note that the scv system doesnt work and i am just using it as an example:

  <system>
    <name>scv</name> 
    <fullname>Super Cassette Vision</fullname>
    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scv</path>
    <extension>.bin .rom .zip .dsk .do .BIN .ROM .ZIP .DSK .DO</extension>
    <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ scv %ROM%</command>
    <platform>msx</platform>
    <theme>scv</theme>
  </system>

note that i put .bin .rom .zip .dsk .do .BIN .ROM .ZIP .DSK .DO since advmess supports them all unlike lr-mess
now create an scv folder in home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ called scv. now in there you can put your roms zipped or unzipped. advmess doesnt care which way
now you need to know what to know bios files and what to name the bios folder in /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/rom so you need to look here. you see description. that is the system you are looking for. the next line is name. only use the main name for example it list scv_pal as well. never use the alternative names. that is what the folder needs to be named. so now you have a directory like this:

/opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/rom/scv/

now you need to google for what mess bios you need. in this example scv.zip. so now you put the unzipped files from scv.zip in

/opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/rom/scv/

you need to give 0777 permissions to those files. now you need to create a cfg folder and emulators.cfg file. so in /opt/retropie/configs/ you will add a folder called scv. now in there create a file called emulators.cfg. inside that file you would add this:

advmess="/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess scv -cart %ROM%"
default = "advmess"

you can replace -cart with -flop or -flop1. i forget which is correct for a single floppy not multiple floppies. i have to try to remember how to do multiple floppies. in rare occasions you need to replace %ROM% with %BASENAME% (note i have no extension listed), %BASENAME%.zip, %BASENAME%.ZIP(only if .zip file. same goes with others) %BASENAME%.bin, %BASENAME%.BIN, %BASENAME%.rom, %BASENAME%.ROM, %BASENAME%.dsk, %BASENAME%.DSK,%BASENAME%.do %BASENAME%.DO.
then restart emulationstation. now you are good to go. if you have to change the emulators.cfg you dont have to restart emulationstation afterwards.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz hey i cant get on my pi to test as i am reinstalling lr-mess2016 from source, but i found zip files that have more mame like zip names than the ones i had. not sure which ones you have. the (no intro) ones are wrong. look for the mess scv 0.151 roms. also make sure you have the scv.zip bios as well. it goes in the roms folder. they have filenames like this:

astrwrs.zip
astrwrs2.zip
baseball.zip
basic.zip
bdash.zip
comicirc.zip
dball.zip
doraemon.zip
dslayer.zip
elevfght.zip
kungfurd.zip
lupin3.zip
mappy.zip
milkyprn.zip
mine2049.zip
nebula.zip
nebulaa.zip
polepos2.zip
popchips.zip
prowrest.zip
punchboy.zip
rgmahjon.zip
sansupyu.zip
shogi.zip
skykid.zip
soccer.zip
soccera.zip
starspdr.zip
suprgolf.zip
ttball.zip
wheelrcr.zip
y2mnstld.zip

edmaul69

@supercatfooz good news. using lr-mess not lr-mess 2016 with the mess 0.151 romset i mentioned you need it works. i dont think lr-mess2016 works at all

edmaul69

@supercatfooz you need to go into the retroarch gui and go to quick menu, options, alternate render method and set it to enabled. this fixes the video and the tab menu.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz please read my last 3 posts on running on lr-mess. since it doesnt display the names correctly, i edited the scv's gamelist.xml so they display correctly. this is the gamelist.xml. this goes in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/scv/gamelist.xml. you will need to create the folder called "scv" and the "gamelist.xml".

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 alright, wonderful! will give it a shot in a second

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Hrm, it seems to error out instantly, saying I need gcc 5.0 or later to compile. I'm currently updating my underlying OS packages and seeing if that'll help the issue.

edmaul69

@supercatfooz hey re read my post above about the retroarch gui. i said to do stuff in the tab menu before but was wrong. you want to use rgui to fix video and tab menu.

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Oh I read the post, but I actually need to install the emulator first before I do anything with the retroarch config

edmaul69

@supercatfooz i just changed it as you posted. so it is different from what i posted previously. i edited the entire post. but since you havent gotten that far yet not really an issue

SuperFromND

@edmaul69 Nice, but I'm already having problems from just installing the emulator. It says that it needs gcc 5.0, and frankly I have no idea how to install that. According to this thread, this appears to be something that's common with lr-mess.