[Question] Booting FDS Bios in Retroarch

[SuperFromND]

The title says it all: is it possible to boot directly into the Famicom Disk System's BIOS? (the one that asks for a disk while Mario and Luigi goof around with the logo) There's no practical function, but it'd be nice to have.

I've tried booting into it on a Windows build of Retroarch, but the emulator treats it as a disk, tries to load it, then spits out a battery error.

[mitu]

@supercatfooz Wouldn't it be easier to just have a video of the animation and use it either as a screensaver or a splashscreen ?

[SuperFromND]

@mitu That is technically correct, but the problem is that a lot of FDS games (specifically ones like Doki Doki Panic and Metroid) actually use the FDS Bios, so it would show up twice.

[SuperFromND]

Alright, I managed to solve this on my own. Here's what you do:

Get an FDS file that shows the "Now Loading" text when you start it. Games like Zelda 1, Doki Doki Panic, and Super Mario Sweater are great examples. (I used Zelda 1 in this case, renaming it to +Start Famicom Disk System.fds) Throw it into your fds ROM folder, then restart EmulationStation so it gets detected. Boot into the game, then press Start+X to open the RetroArch menu. Go to Quick Menu, then Options. Disable Automatically insert first FDS disk on reset, then select Create game-options file. Doing this will make it so the emulator boots to the FDS's BIOS, but not insert the game's disk. Press Start+X to close the RetroArch menu, then Start+Select to exit out of the game.

Now if you select +Start Famicom Disk System, you will boot into the iconic opening screen! (and as a neat side effect, you'll have a "secret" game on your FDS menu!)

[mitu]

@supercatfooz Nice trick ! The Bios animation is catchy and funny, wouldn't have know about it without this topic.