Easyflash crt files and C64 emulation

mbrett

So, a group of friends have started a weekly game contest . This week's game was World Leaderboard Golf for C64. I found this great Easyflash crt file
which puts all the C64 Leaderboard games & courses together. I had it working, but I couldn't save a game w/snapshot in Vice. So, through these forums I found this YouTube

and I did all the mods from it. I still can't use snapshots to save game.

Then, my wonderful 5yo son hit a button on Xbox One controller, and knocked everything out of whack. I have no idea how.

Uninstalled Vice entirely (settings and package) & crt file. Installed everything back again. I got it working again with A button as fire for C64. Then, I tried to put the settings back as they were in video. Now, everything works, BUT nothing is the fire button. Not on the keyboard. Nowhere.

I am at a loss. I want to play this game using the Easyflash crt, but I also want to save it. I also would love to know a best practices way to set up C64. The guides I can find are piecemeal, and, overall, stilll leaving me with issues.

I'm going to try to uninstall everything again, and reinstall without following those videos direction. If I can just map Fire to A, that's a win for me.

But the lack of save ability, especially when rounds with children take 1+ hour and they have the attention span of fruit flys, is killing me.

Thanks in advance.

stoo

@mbrett The snapshot feature seems to work fine for me in vice-x64 without messing with any settings.

Snapshot > Quicksave snapshot.vsf
Exit the menu
Change state (move in a game or quit the game or whatever you want)
Snapshot > Quickload snapshot.vsf

You should be returned to where you created the save.

As for controls:

Vice menu
Machine settings > Joystick Settings
Make sure either Joystick device 1 or 2 is set to Joystick
Scroll down to Joystick 1 (or 2) mapping
Set your direction and fire button controls

If it helps, here are a couple of config files I use. I've only set up vice to use my Microsoft X-Box 360 pad, so the config below is only suitable for that.

Here's my sdl-vicerc (from /opt/retropie/configs/c64)

[C64]
MenuKey=293
MenuKeyUp=273
MenuKeyDown=274
MenuKeyLeft=276
MenuKeyRight=275
MenuKeyPageUp=280
MenuKeyPageDown=281
MenuKeyHome=278
MenuKeyEnd=279
SDLStatusbar=1
SoundDeviceName="alsa"
SoundBufferSize=100
AspectRatio="1.000000"
SDLCustomWidth=1920
SDLCustomHeight=1080
SDLWindowWidth=384
SDLWindowHeight=272
VICIIVideoCache=0
VICIIFullscreen=1
VICIIPaletteFile="community-colors"
SidEngine=1
SidModel=1
JoyDevice2=4
Mouse=1
Drive8Type=1581
ETHERNETCARTBase=56832
Acia1Base=56832

[C128]
MenuKey=293
MenuKeyUp=273
MenuKeyDown=274
MenuKeyLeft=276
MenuKeyRight=275
MenuKeyPageUp=280
MenuKeyPageDown=281
MenuKeyHome=278
MenuKeyEnd=279
WarpMode=1
SoundDeviceName="alsa"
SoundBufferSize=100
AspectRatio="1.000000"
SDLCustomWidth=1920
SDLCustomHeight=1080
SDLWindowWidth=384
SDLWindowHeight=272
VICIIVideoCache=0
VICIISDLFullscreenMode=1
VICIIPaletteFile="community-colors"
VDCVideoCache=0
SidEngine=1
SidModel=1
JoyDevice2=4
ETHERNETCARTBase=56832
Acia1Base=56832

VICIIDoubleSize=0
VICIIDoubleScan=0

and here's my sdl-joymap-C64.vjm (same location)

# VICE joystick mapping file
#
# A joystick map is read in as patch to the current map.
#
# File format:
# - comment lines start with '#'
# - keyword lines start with '!keyword'
# - normal line has 'joynum inputtype inputindex action'
#
# Keywords and their lines are:
# '!CLEAR'    clear all mappings
#
# inputtype:
# 0      axis
# 1      button
# 2      hat
# 3      ball
#
# Note that each axis has 2 inputindex entries and each hat has 4.
#
# action [action_parameters]:
# 0               none
# 1 port pin      joystick (pin: 1/2/4/8/16/32/64 = u/d/l/r/fire/fire2/fire3)
# 2 row col       keyboard
# 3               map
# 4               UI activate
# 5 path&to&item  UI function
#

!CLEAR

# Microsoft X-Box 360 pad
0 0 0 1 1 8
0 0 1 1 1 4
0 0 2 1 1 2
0 0 3 1 1 1
0 0 4 1 0 8
0 0 5 1 0 4
0 0 6 1 0 2
0 0 7 1 0 1

0 1 0 1 1 16
0 1 1 4
0 1 2 2 7 4
0 1 3 1 0 16
0 1 4 1 1 16
0 1 5 4
0 1 6 3
0 1 7 5 Speed settings&Warp mode
0 1 8 3
0 1 9 4
0 1 10 3
0 1 11 1 0 16
0 1 12 1 1 16

0 2 0 1 1 1
0 2 1 1 1 2
0 2 2 1 1 4
0 2 3 1 1 8

mbrett

@stoo Have you used it with a .crt file as the ROM? I believe this may be the difficulty. But thanks for the settings. I will mod mine to that and see what happens.

stoo

@mbrett Ah, yeah. When I try to create a snapshot from within a cartridge it just bombs out instantly.

From the VICE documentation (https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/vice_9.html):

"Not yet supported are the 80 column video chip, cartridges and RAM expansion unit."

So, it seems you can't snapshot cartridges in VICE, sadly.

stoo

@mbrett You can use lr-vice instead and use RetroArch's built-in Save State function to accomplish the same thing tho.

lr-vice is maybe slower than standalone, I dunno, but on my Pi4 I can't see a performance difference.