[jplaj]

I’m still in the process of testing, but I think the “No BIOS” error message is misleading. Although PSX is set to read .zip files, it may not be able to open them. I unzipped them (most are in .bin format now), and I had to find files that worked because some of them don’t, but I have a pretty reliable rate of working games.

[jplaj]

Are you running GPSP? I had the same problem. Scan toward the end of this thread:

GBA Lagging with Crackling Sound

[jplaj]

In the raspi-config menu, did you select the option to expand the partition to fill the SD card? SNES roms are pretty small. You’ll never come close to filling up the card with them alone. Your card is probably still partitioned to the 2GB image file.

[jplaj]

Which emulators do this? All of them, or just one or two? This is a pretty common problem with the sega emulator, for people who run composite cables instead of HDMI.

If you’re using a composite video out, try disabling Variable HDMI Resolution in the retropie_setup menu.

[jplaj]

What exactly is shutting down: the emulator, emulationstation, or does the entire system turn off?

Retroarch recognizes keyboards different from joypads, and I’m not sure it’ll recognize the term “joystick” at all (but I’ll abdicate that to people more versed in coding than me). The retroarch.cfg file should actually be set to detect a keyboard input as the default, so it shouldn’t need much (if any) setup.

[jplaj]

I’ve found, unfortunately, that even with a proper config file, I have to run retroarch-joyconfig before it’ll respond to my controllers. (Although I may be doing something wrong…I don’t know.)

We may be able to talk you through the button mapping, though. I was confused at first when I saw things like “A (right),” but I figured out that the directions are referring to their standard layout on a SNES or PS controller. The actual directional pad uses axes instead of buttons.

Where are you opening the retroarch.cfg file? I could never edit it on the raspberry pi, but when I plugged the SD card into my laptop I could fiddle with the files using a text editor.

[jplaj]

It’s not easy. It took me a month before I worked out most of the kinks, and I’m still having problems. Frustration is normal; don’t get discouraged. This may take a while.

I’ve never had the ‘Run Entry Level’ error before, though, and I’ve never heard of the suggestion for replacing the runcommand.sh file. However, scanning my card I notice there are two locations for a “runcommand.sh”
~/pi/RetroPie-Setup/supplementary/
~/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/
Are you sure you replaced the correct file?
Have you tried deleting it and putting the old file back?

[jplaj]

Use these commands to get rid of the controller config file:

cd .emulationstation
sudo rm es_input.cfg

In case you can’t see the screen (I’ve had this problem, too), I believe the order of keys it runs through is:

up
down
left
right
select (choosing a rom)
back
menu
page up
page down

I’m not sure how to fix the screen resolution, but here are some things to try to see if they help:
1) Switch between HDMI and RCA outputs
2) enable/disable “Variable HDMI resolution” in the retropie_setup.sh menu.
3) Try it on a different TV/Monitor.

[jplaj]

No good. I’ve been fiddling with it for a while now. I have one image that will run, but all the other still give me the same “No bios found” message. Is there any other reason it might give me this error?

[jplaj]

Where are you working, and what kind of power supply are you using?

The Raspberry Pi is very finicky about voltage, and it’s possible that these problems are all caused by insufficient power. I started working on mine while living in a 100+ year old house with ancient wiring. I had trouble getting it to detect keyboards, mice, controllers, etc, and it even affected installation of the setup script.

First, try replacing the power supply with the one for your cell phone charger (make sure it’s listed as 5v 1a first). The acceptable margin for error in those things is wider than what the Raspberry Pi can handle, so try a few.

Otherwise, try moving your workspace to a place with more consistent electricity.

[jplaj]

I’ve been playing around with it more and I’m still stumped. After trying a few different configurations, I’ve determined that the input_player_btn commands simply aren’t being tied to the hotkey command listed before them.

Is there any way to do this, or do hotkeys only work with specific commands?

[jplaj]

Asking for more inputs than you have buttons is normal. You can disable them later (go to: /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and under “Joypad Buttons,” make sure there’s a # before all the buttons you don’t have, and remove it from all the buttons you need to use.

Are you having any trouble with using the controller while running your emulators?

[jplaj]

Looping back to the menu is the system’s generic way of saying “error.” It could be caused by a number of things. If you want to find out more specifically what the problem is, plug in your keyboard, select the rom, and when it loops back to the menu, hit F4, then tell us what’s written on the screen.

Another thought is that the image you used may be an outdated version. Did you install an image with Retroarch and Emulationstation already installed? When I did that, I had the same issue–90% of my roms looped back to the menu. I might suggest installing the regular raspbian image and running the full setup script. That seemed to solve most of my problems.

[jplaj]

I’m not sure what could be causing that. Are all the file extensions in the same folder, not in any subfolders? Did you notice this problem, by any chance after running ES Scraper? Are some of the file extensions in different cases (e.g. .nes vs .NES)? Did you experience any errors when copying roms into the directory?

If none of these are the case, I suggest starting a new thread to get more targeted help from the forum.

[jplaj]

Thanks. I’ll look for alternate copies of the roms when I get a chance. I don’t suppose there’s any rhyme or reason to predict which images might work, is there?

Do I need any special equipment or software to back up my own games?

[jplaj]

I have the same issue with Mario All Stars. If you have two controllers, just switch over to player 2 (and Luigi should work with the player 1 controller). I don’t know why it does that.

Are you having trouble with all genesis games or do some of them work? When configuring the controller, the retroarch.cfg file works for most systems, but you need to alter the dgen.cfg in the same folder. (/home/pi/RetroPie/configs/all/)

It doesn’t use exactly the same language as the retroarch.cfg, but if you just replace the number listed with the number that corresponds to your controller, it should work. For example, what’s listed in retroarch.cfg as:

input_player1_a_btn = “1”
input_player1_b_btn = “2”

Will be listed in dgen.cfg as:

joy_pad1_b = joystick0-button2
joy_pad1_c = joystick0-button1

(Or whatever buttons you’d like to assign)

As for your other problems, that’s probably an emulator issue. A lot of emulators won’t play games 100% the same as the original system could, and each program has its own quirks. The same rom on one emulator might have crackling sound, but on another emulator the sound might work, but there might be layering problems.

Just try a few different roms for the same game until you find one with as few problems as possible. It may not be perfect, but hopefully you’ll be able to find one that you can enjoy despite the flaws.

[jplaj]

Can you describe what happens when you try to load a rom? Does it freeze, crash back to the ES Menu, or is it something else? It’s possible that it’s a configuration issue and not the roms.

If you hit F4 after trying to load one, tell us what you see on the log screen.

In addition, if you’re trying to run MAME, I’ve found that the other .zip files in the directory affect the one you’re trying to run. If you keep a few different versions of the same game in the MAME rom folder, you’re more likely to find one that works (whereas the same file might not load if it’s the only one there).

[jplaj]

Hi. I’m having the same issue–the screen goes black (with the white dot) when I exit the emulators. Happens more often when I’ve been playing longer, and my .srm files don’t seem to update at all unless I exit the emulator completely back to Emulationstation.

I’m going to try the autosave suggestion as a temporary fix. Sorry I don’t have anything useful to add, but I wanted to get in on the thread for the updates in case anyone can solve this problem.

[jplaj]

That worked great! Thanks.

[jplaj]

Thanks. I’ve found the menu, but I’m still having some issues. There’s a menu option for “Configure gamepad input” and one for “Configure analog input,” but when I select them, they take me to a menu with only one option, “Back.”

Is there a file missing that the menu is trying to read? When browsing through directories manually, I found files marked “input.c” and “input.h” that look like I could potentially edit to change the configuration. Could I do something with this?

Thanks for the assistance.

[jplaj]

Sorry, some of my text was cut out. After “….same directory as the executable” I meant to say:

“Now most the games will load, and don’t run sluggishly. However, a few still crash back to the emulationstation menu. For the most part, though, that problem is solved.”

[jplaj]

Thank you very much for your help!

I’ve been playing around with this for the last few days, and I think I’ve solved the problem for the most part.

I ran the git pull and updated to gpsp, however I still had the same trouble. Each attempt at installing came up with a slightly different error message, and other forums offered bits and pieces of advice. Eventually, I started to suspect the executable file for gpsp was in the wrong place.

In one installation, I found it under:
/home/pi/gpsp
And I copied it to:
/home/pi/RetroPie/emulators/gpsp/raspberrypi

Also, based on advice from another forum, I downloaded a gba_bios.bin file and placed it in the same directory as the executable.

However, I’m not entirely happy with the control scheme. I noticed that the other emulators have options for overriding the universal retroarch.cfg file by altering the .cfg files in their respective folders under /home/pi/RetroPie/configs/

But gpsp doesn’t seem to have a folder. Is there a way I can reconfigure the control scheme?

Also, I’m having newfound problems with MAME, but I’m hoping to tinker with that a bit before opening a new thread.

Thank you again!

[jplaj]

For most emulators, the result is something like this:

/home/pi/RetroPie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh: line 15: /home/pi/RetroPie/emulators/gsps/raspberrypi/gpsp: No such file or directory

For MAME it’s different:
Gauntlt1.6p NOT FOUND
ERROR: required files are missing, the game cannot be run.
RetroArch [WARN] :: [GL]: Stock GLSL shaders will be used.
RetroArch [ERROR] :: Implementation does not support save states. Cannot use rewind.

All roms and MAME files (romset 0.145, but the version doesn’t seem to make much difference)work on other computers. Even when installing an additional .chd file for MAME games, I get the same result.

I ran the setup script from the beginning to see if an updated version would change anything. Now the problem seems to affect only Sega (Megadrive) and Game Boy Advance.

[jplaj]

Have you tried finding different roms of the same game? Most games have multiple different files online, although it may be hard to tell the difference. Sometimes the file will be bad, or just not work well with a particular emulator. Try out a few and see if the sound improves on one of them.

[jplaj]

Thanks for the help.

I’ve been running it through HDMI. I disabled the variable HDMI resolution and tried it again, first using the HDMI cable, then switching to composite. Neither one seemed to work–selecting roms still flashes to black briefly, then takes me back to the menu.

[jplaj]

I’m not entirely sure. How do I check? The SD card I’m using came from an image I downloaded that had already run the retropie setup script. I’m not sure how old it is. Is there a way to update if it is old?

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