Turbografx CD black screen in Mednafen, no idea how to sort this out.

[pavlovtiger]

I've been stuck on this for a day now and this is my next system to add to Hyperspin. I don't want to faff about with Magic Engine and Daemon Tools, so Mednafen is obviously the best choice, but I'm not sure what's going on. I stuck the PC Engine bios in both Medgui's main directory and the roms folder, -and- the 'firmware- directory in Mednefen's folder, but loading any of the ISOs rewards me with a black screen. No errors, just black screen. The only thing I can think of I haven't addressed is the actual ISOs I have; the cue sheets do not delineate between wav or mp3 in the file list, so I've no idea what they are and apparently Mednafen won't run mp3. If this is the case, though, then I don't know how to extract/change them to wav since WinRAR does nothing with the ISOs, it simply spits an error about 'no archive or damaged.' Do I need specific ISOs? I could use some help, please.

Cheers.

[ejfriis]

Usually if you have a cue/iso you don't need to worry about converting mp3s. Otherwise you would have a cue file and a bunch of mp3s in a folder together.

You say black screen. Are you launching from Hyperspin or Hyperlaunch, or directly from Mednafen (or MedGui, etc.)? Get it working outside of Hyper first.

You can try using Retroarch (directly) to test your cue/iso too, since it uses Mednafen (fast) pce, and it's pretty easy to use. That might help narrow down the problem.

[pavlovtiger]

Oh, right, I'm trying to launch directly in Medgui, I haven't attempted Hyperlaunch or Hyperspin yet. I'm not aware of Retroarch but I'll look it up, cheers for the tip. All four of the ISOs I have are just the ISO and a CUE file each, but I'm confused as to why the cues don't list type of sound file at all, when the example pics I've seen do.

[pavlovtiger]

No luck yet, and I'm not sure what I'm doing with Retroarch; what sort of testing/results am I looking for with the cue/iso files?

[ejfriis]

It sounds like it could potentially be an issue with the game(s). Double check that the first line in your cue files match the iso filenames exactly. This gets people all the time.

Also make sure they are unzipped for now, just to narrow down any issues.

I wouldn't worry too much about the cue files not referencing specific files, they really only need to point to the iso, and not mp3 or wav files. I think this happens when people convert the mp3 back to wav for emulator compatibility, but if you just have cue/iso (direct rip) you should be fine. The cue file should still have track time information though.

Try to get your hands on some different cd images from another source if it's still not working, and failing that I would start asking on the mednafen forums, or try another emulator.

I only suggested retroarch to see if you could load the games. Whether it is a configuration issue or something wrong with the cue/iso files.

Good luck!

[pavlovtiger]

Ugh. It absolutely refuses to work no matter what I think to try. Got a new copy of Golden Axe CD, this one actually has wav files, Mednafen still thumbs its nose at it. Black screen, nothing more. I am not sure if it's the syscard.pce I have (I quite literally have probably fifteen different versions of the bios both in medgui's directory -and- Turbografx CD Roms folders) or where it's placed or what, but I do not understand what could be keeping this from running. Mednafen itself shouldn't give a toss what the file names are, so I doubt it's that. I haven't tried in Hyperlaunch since I can't even get it working on the emulator itself yet. Does Magic Engine or Ootake work in Hyperspin for Turbo-CD -without- me having to constantly mount and unmount ISOs in Daemon Tools? Is there some kind of auto-mounting script that does this for me for either of those emulators?

Edit, Just Slightly Later And As If For No Other Reason Than To Insult Me Edition: Magic Engine runs these CD CUE files _perfectly_ and _instantly._ I have to mount them in Daemon, but even doing -that- causes Mednafen to shrug and vomit up a black screen. Every single one of my ISOs that Mednafen balks at, Magic Engine plays flawlessly. So it's not the games, or Mednafen requires some annoyingly specific setup.

[ejfriis]

The filename of the iso very much matters to mednafen, it must match what is specified in the cue file exactly. Also, I use syscard3.pce for what it's worth.

Is mednafen at least generating a stdout.txt file (or other log) when you try to run?

[pavlovtiger]

It's not generating anything, no errors to log, no nothing. I do have syscard3.pce, one in medgui's directory and one in medgui/firmware -and- in Roms just in case. I know syscard3 is good as Magic Engine uses it just fine. What does Mednafen want as far as file names go? For example, my ISO for Beyond Shadowgate is titled as per the Hyperspin database entry, 'Beyond Shadowgate (USA).iso' (without the ' 'obviously.)

[ejfriis]

Eh, I can't tell if we are on the same page or not. Open up the cue file in notepad for beyond shadowgate. The very top line should point to an iso file. That iso file has to exist with that filename. If they match, you are good from that standpoint. It's not that mednafen needs a certain naming convention, it just loads the iso based on the file name from the first line in the cue file.

It's probably something else if it isn't even generating a stdout.txt...

[pavlovtiger]

Yes, all my cue files have headers which point to the .bin files of the same name, I did double check all of them. Mednafen -has- generated a text file on occasion, but it doesn't anymore for some reason. Maybe a setting got changed.

[pavlovtiger]

About to give up on it and try Magic Engine, but that gives me Daemon mounting errors. Switch-Syntax or some such, both on mounting and unmounting when attempting in Hyperlaunch or Hyperspin, but that's probably for another topic.

[Trnzaddict]

Bump, I'm also getting a black screen when trying mednafen for TGCD. Works fine with every other system.

EDIT:MY bios syscard3.pce was evidently no good, I got a new copy from Gametronik and it's working now.

[mesk]

OP,here is what you need to do.First name the bios SYSCARD3.pce and create a subfolder in your mednafen directory called firmware and put SYSCARD3.pce in there.Are you trying to launch through HS or are you using a mednafen specific FE?

[pavlovtiger]

I'm resurrecting/bumping this because a bit earlier, in my fuming, stomach-aching anger and frustration over Magic Engine not working for Turbo-CD either, I went back to Mednafen and clicked options until my fingers hurt. Apparently I needed to manually tell it where to find the System Card 3.pce, but now Mednafen loads Turbografx-CD via ISO or CUE or BIN and runs them fine. What I'm trying to do now...is get it to function properly, which I can't seem to do because, just like for a solid week now, every time I fix one thing another error comes up. Now Mednafen doesn't like the virtual CD drive. "Error opening file "E:": Permission denied Error opening CD." Permission denied. On my own computer. This is just as insulting as a parent telling you you can't eat a cookie in your own house. Mednafen runs TCD games perfectly now, and now I get this. Anyone have any idea what to do? I'm sitting here watching Hyperlaunch successfully auto-mount my chosen cue file for games, only to have Mednafen give -another- error, this time it's some sort of '-stretch argument.' So I'm still swimming in errors, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to be able to run Turbo CD through Hyperspin.

[Polemicist]

And now you know why I am leaving CD based sets for last.

[pavlovtiger]

If anyone is still interested, I got Turbo CD to finally load through Magic Engine without all the errors. The last big thread about this I read on another site, several people reported they had just gone to Mednafen, and ideally I'd still like to be -able- to make Mednafen work with these so I could have the knowledge. I can load TCD/PCECD isos manually in Mednafen all night, but I cannot do it through Hyper.

[Awakened]

I can load TCD/PCECD isos manually in Mednafen all night, but I cannot do it through Hyper.

Did you try disabling Daemon Tools in hyperlaunch or disabling hyperlaunch for that system? If you have proper bin/cue or iso/cue rips that work by dragging and dropping the cue file onto mednafen.exe, they should launch without the need of Daemon. Somewhere on Mednafen's site I believe it mentions that CD drive loading isn't very well implemented, which is probably why you have issues using a virtual drive as a middle man.

[pavlovtiger]

This is interesting and I never knew at all, I figured Turbo CD absolutely has to be virtual-mounted. I switched off Daemon for TCD to test, but my Medgui always seems to want to pop up with the last CD image I loaded through it, so instead of loading the game straight out of Hyperlaunch I just get the GUI asking me to load something. Not sure if I missed a key option or five someplace, I tried with and without 'load CD' checked, not sure what else to try with it.

[Awakened]

Are you pointing Hyperhq and HyperLaunch to Medgui or to Mednafen? If you select mednafen.exe as your emulator executable instead of medgui it should launch directly into the game instead of bringing up Medgui. All your settings from Medgui will still apply also since it modifies Mednafen's settings file.

[pavlovtiger]

You were right about my having mistakently directed Hyperlaunch (in either Global or TCD tabs, possibly both) to medgui rather than mednafen, but correcting the issue brings me back to the launch-to-black-screen issue from the beginning. I also still get ahk_sd_class errors, but I have no idea what that error means and I get it sporadically when things go wrong. Hm, apart from the HyperlaunchHQ settings (emulator pointed to mednafen.exe, Daemon Tools set to false in TCD, medgui pointed to the syscard3.pce) what are your personal settings which you know to work? It's more of a curiosity than a need for me at this point, but like I said...I'd rather know than not know.

[Awakened]

In mednafen-09x.cfg I have:

;Path to the CD BIOS
pce.cdbios syscard3.pce

Which points it to the syscard3 ROM in Mednafen's firmware folder. It sounds like you have that set up right via Medgui, but it might be worth looking in the cfg file itself to make sure.

For HyperHQ (this is directly from the ini file HyperHQ modifies in Settings for that system) I have:

[exe info]
path=..\Emulators\Mednafen\
rompath=..\..\Isos\NEC PC Engine CD\
userompath=true
exe=mednafen.exe
romextension=cue
parameters=
searchsubfolders=true
pcgame=false
winstate=NORMAL
hyperlaunch=false

I've never tried using HyperLaunch with Mednafen, but I can't imagine the script not supporting direct iso loading if you turn off Daemon Tools in HyperLaunchHQ. Still, I'd try similar settings to those with HyperLaunch disabled to see if you can get Mednafen to launch directly from HyperSpin.

[FuriousPig]

Just for the record I was having similar problems launching TurboGrafx CD through Hyperlaunch until I read (here) to turn off Daemon Tools.

Now it all works perfectly.

Thanks!

[boot_sequence]

it works!

using mednafen, using HyperLaunch, using cue, daemon tools no longer set in the HS AHK for this emu (listed under TurboGrafx CD),

the thing that made it launch for me was ticking the box "use full path to ROMS" WHAM!

now to set full screen :-)

thank you all

[pressed]

This might be an old thread, but I also was able to make this work.  I think my problem was the cue sheet was looking for the wrong bin file name, once I corrected that, it worked fine with RetroArch 1.3.4 with the mednafen fast pce CD core.  I also have "use full path to Roms" checked off, just in case.  Thanks to all of you who posted here, eventually I got it!