Post subject: PlayStation Black Screen
Player (79)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
Hey guys. So I've decided to play a couple of Playstation games on Bizhawk, and whenever I try to play them, the screen just turns black, as if it's about to start up, but nothing shows. I found a Playstation bios on the internet, so I don't THINK that's the problem. It might be the game versions that I'm using, but I doubt that too. It's weird because I've gotten games to work on it before, but since I've gotten a new laptop, I've had to repeat the process, and it's stumping me.
Post subject: And the answer which always shows up to all these "issues".
Spikestuff
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Did you load the cue? -- Make sure you have prereq installed, and the necessary updates to your laptop if it's very new. And then check the three bioses if that is the issue.
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Player (79)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
I have the prereq installed, and my laptop is up-to-date. What do you mean load the cue? How do you do that?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_sheet_(computing) Bizhawk will not load a .bin file for psx.
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Player (79)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
It won't load .bin? Shoot, then I need to find another game file. I'll report back if anything changes. Also, the bios that I found has a different hash than what tasvideos says here: http://tasvideos.org/Bizhawk/Firmwares.html Does that matter?
Spikestuff
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Captain Forehead wrote:
It won't load .bin? Shoot, then I need to find another game file. I'll report back if anything changes.
bin/cue is the combo. Don't delete your bins! Redump has all the cue files (cue's are fine to distribute, since it contains no game data), all you have to do is go to that site, grab the list collection of PS1 games, find the games you want, open the cue files (with a text editor) and match it to your bin.
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Player (79)
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Location: Utah
IT WORKED!!! Thank you!
Joined: 5/12/2009
Posts: 748
Location: Brazil
Hey guys! So, I'm trying to load SOtN and I get the message "You are missing the needed firmware files to load this rom". Thing is I have the SCPH1001.BIN bios inside the firmware folder and it's the same bios I use to open the games in other PSX emulators. Am I missing something? Do I need a different bios?
Spikestuff
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If all you have is SCPH1001 that's the problem. You need all 3 sets for PS1, PAL, NTSC-J and NTSC-U. Also please switch to the recommended bioses that the core suggests.
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I see. Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at that.
Joined: 5/12/2009
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Location: Brazil
Ok, Now I don't have the firmware problem anymore, but have the black screen problem. I have the files as below inside a Castlevania folder: Castlevania - Symphony of the Night (USA).bin Castlevania - Symphony of the Night (USA).cue And inside the .cue file there's the info below. Do I have to change anything from it for the game to work? FILE "Castlevania - Symphony of the Night (USA).bin" BINARY TRACK 01 MODE2/2352 INDEX 01 00:00:00 TRACK 02 AUDIO INDEX 01 50:55:45
Spikestuff
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The issue with your copy of Castlevania is that it's a 2 Track game. Example with another game to show what I mean: You don't have a good/clean dump of the game according to you and you need to find one. In order to verify if your stuff is correct you can check with redump who only provide the cues so you can check if your stuff's in order. (redump is also allowed to be mentioned since they don't provide the actual game)
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Does the name of the folder in which the files are matter? Does it matter if I all discs of the game (Like FFIX) are in the same folder? Does it matter if it's not a bin file, but other formats? The .cue files from Redump will point me if the game is 1 or 2 tracks and I should consider that to know if my dump is good or not? If the name of the .bin file matches the name inside the .cue file but the game doesn't run it will always mean I have a bad dump? Do I have to configure/place any plugins or other files than the bios ones somewhere inside Bizhawk's folders? I just find it strange that of all games that I tried none of them worked. I mean, it seems the game is working because I can hear the sound, but the screen is always black. Btw, I'm using the latest version of Bizhawk and I installed the pre-req before trying to run the games.
Spikestuff
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Reeve wrote:
Does the name of the folder in which the files are matter? Does it matter if I all discs of the game (Like FFIX) are in the same folder?
As long as the bin/cue combo is together on the cue links to the subfolder the bin's in it should be fine (later is what I'm on about for should be).
Reeve wrote:
Does it matter if it's not a bin file, but other formats?
bin/cue is the more recommended combo that will actually work 99% of the time (the 1% of the time is due to emulation errors or other.)
Reeve wrote:
The .cue files from Redump will point me if the game is 1 or 2 tracks and I should consider that to know if my dump is good or not?
Yes. The point of redump is to show multiple dumps by various users who own the game, redump does also show the bad dumps (iirc marked in red). If you don't have what Redump shows, you screwed up.
Reeve wrote:
If the name of the .bin file matches the name inside the .cue file but the game doesn't run it will always mean I have a bad dump?
Somewhat. Again use Redump to verify if your cue is actually decent, use mednafen itself to check as I myself had a case where it didn't run on Hawk but did run on mednafen due to the fact that the bin/cue I got was a cracked one, which was very simple to restore and correct if you know what you're doing.
Reeve wrote:
Do I have to configure/place any plugins or other files than the bios ones somewhere inside Bizhawk's folders?
Considering that Octoshock isn't a plugin emulator. What are you on about? If you're referring to the 4 choices, it's only 4 choices. The emulator uses Soft not the garbage that N64 has at its disposal.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
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Location: Brazil
The problem is solved. I had an older version of Bizhawk (1.x.x) and updated it a couple days ago. When I downloaded the latest version I unziped it inside the older version's folder, so the new files replaced the older ones. It seems something from the older version was causing the black screen. I then just downloaded the latest version again and got rid of the old files. Thanks for the help, guys!