Emulator advice for Thayer's Quest et al...

RetroLover

Hi everyone,

I’m brand new here and am delighted to find such a comprehensive forum. I spent much of my teens (and more) playing video games, both in the arcades and on the home consoles and PCs. It was only recently that I found I could play the incredible old laserdisc games via emulators. I tried to download and an emulator which would help me relive my youth but, alas, I found it a bit too complicated. In particular, I was hoping to play Thayer’s Quest and its sequel. As I was unable to play the game via emulator, I resorted instead to buying the old 1995 game that had been ported to console – Kingdom: The Far Reaches. It was nice to be able to play it, but to be honest, the graphics on the ported version were a real let-down. It was nothing like the old near-cinema quality I recall being enchanted by in the arcades which is why I’m here now. I’d really love to learn to set-up an emulator and play the old laserdisc games. Could anyone please direct me to the best tutorial that would help me to do so? I’m running a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Gaming with a Core i5 7th Gen. Your help and advice is greatly appreciated.

Riverstorm

You'll probably want to use Daphne.

The first thing you'll need are the Thayer's Quest video/audio files. One way to get them is run Daphne from the official site here. It works on Windows, MAC or Linux. Insert a Thayer's Quest DVD for validation and it will download the decrypted versions of the video/audio files that you'll need to play on RetroPie. This step doesn't need to be run on a Pi to get these files but you'll need to transfer them to the Pi later.

You'll also need the Thayer's Quest ROM boot files from the official Daphne site here.

Daphne for RetroPie isn't installed by default. It's located under the Optional Packages in the RetroPie Setup.

After you get it installed in RetroPie. You'll need the Daphne setup guide here for configuration. This explains the folder layout, where to put files, input configuration, etc.

I think someone might have had some issues with the Controls but you might ask for help here as I haven't played it or use this thread to ask others that might have played it.

RetroLover

@Riverstorm . Hi Riverstorm. Many thanks for your answer. There's a lot of information here which I'll take step-by-step over the weekend. First thing I'll need to do is obtain a Thayer's Quest DVD for validation. In the meantime, I'll start downloading the necessary files and programs for the other steps.

Thank you very much for your help.

Riverstorm

@RetroLover - There is quite a bit of information there and it can get overwhelming the first time through but once you get one Laserdisc game setup any additions like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc. are a breeze.

Here's some additional information I had posted in an old thread. There are many threads with really good information on setting up Daphne so definitely do some searching and reading.

Here's the steps if it might help anyone else.

Download and install Daphne Loader
Start Daphne and click "Start" on your preferred game (downloads games via torrent files)
After it downloads the game it will give you a list of qualifying DVD's to authenticate the game
Insert correct DVD and click "Ok" to authenticate
After it completes click "Ok' to start the game and parse the files
Exit the game and Daphne Loader
Browse to the install folder and look for the subdirectory named "vldp_dl"
Under "vldp_dl" look for the game you just installed (i.e. Dragon's Lair=lair; Space Ace=ace; etc.)

You want to copy all the files except the *.bf, *.md5, *.dat files to your Pi using SCP or another program.

The directory structure is defined in the official Wiki here:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Daphne/

In step 2 it can take a while depending on your internet connection to download the *.bf files. It seems the *.bf files are some type of encrypted file. It's basically all the *.m2v & *.ogg files encrypted.

In step 4 it can take a while also. It uses the DVD to authenticate all the files but I do not think the downloaded version with the Daphne Loader is the same as the DVD used to authenticate the files. This step uses some decryption key to decrypt the *.bf files to usable *.m2v & *.ogg files after it verifies the DVD. You end up using twice the space as once it completes you have two sets of files the downloaded *.bf files and the decrypted usable files.

Which versions can be used to authenticate with Daphne:

It is strongly recommended to use the DVD-Video version on the Dragon's Lair 20th Anniversary Box set (3 DVD set). These versions are sometimes marked as PS2/Xbox compatible. All references to 20th Anniversary Edition in this wiki refer to the DVD-Video version.

Dragon's Lair
Try the 20th anniversary DVD-VIDEO edition, not the PC DVD-ROM.
This single boxset will allow you to play Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp, and Space Ace with Daphne.

WARNING About 20th Anniversary PC DVD-ROM:
Digital Leisure also sells a 3-in-1 20th Anniversary PC DVD-ROM which is not supported by DAPHNE. This has confused several people. DAPHNE only supports the DVD-VIDEO 20th Anniversary edition, which works on a DVD player. The PC DVD-ROM does not work on a DVD player, but instead requires a PC. You can read more in this thread: https://www.daphne-emu.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2525

About Dragon's Lair HD (High Definition):
Digital Leisure also sells a High Definition version of Dragon's Lair called Dragon's Lair HD on PC DVD-Rom. Daphne does not work with this version and we have no plans to make it work at this time.

Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp
Try the 20th anniversary DVD-VIDEO edition, not the PC DVD-ROM.
This single boxset will allow you to play Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp, and Space Ace with Daphne.

Space Ace
Try the 20th anniversary DVD-VIDEO edition, not the PC DVD-ROM.
This single boxset will allow you to play Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp, and Space Ace with Daphne.

Thayer's Quest
Try the DVD Video version.

The other thing is I wasn't sure on was what to add to the dainput.ini file to use the joystick up, down, left and right directionals. I added KEY_UP=h0up, KEY_DOWN=h0down, etc. for the 3rd parameter which is the joystick settings. I don't think it's doing anything but I didn't know what else to put as they are axis values for the D-Pad but it does seems to work fine.

Regardless it does fully work using a joystick for everything from inserting coins, starting, playing and exiting the emulator. Also it looks like the keyboard values are exactly the same as MAME defaults which is really handy for a cabinet build.

It does run very well on the Pi3 without any issues that I could find.

Keylist to configure Daphne dapinput.ini file:

http://www.daphne-emu.com/mediawiki/index.php/KeyList

Use the link above to obtain the values for keyboard input which are the first two columns in the /opt/retropie/configs/daphne/dapinput.ini file.

To get the correct joystick values use jstest /dev/input/js0 from a prompt Alt+F4 from within Emulationstation. Also remember to always add 1 to the button value indicated by jstest. For example if you want to use button 4 for the Action button then add 1 and use value 5.

There are steps to reuse the video/audio files (it saves a lot of disk space) to play alternate ROM's which may change the timings and sequence of the game play screens but you can always check into that later once you're up and running.

RetroLover

@Riverstorm. That's great, thank you again. This should make it much easier to set-up. It looks like I'm going to have a busy weekend! I'll be sure to let you know how I get on.