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#51

Support / Re: Just got a Retrode; few qu...

Last post by skaman - 22/Feb/2020 08:00:47 PM

Adding a full length SNES connector gains you nothing as the extra pins are not connected to the Retrode's processor.

You can use Star Fox and other SuperFX carts with the Retrode.  The SuperFX carts don't need the extra pins.

SA-1 carts (Super Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, Kirby Dream Land 3, etc.) need the extra pins along with some additional hardware.  I made a SNES Enhanced adapter for the SA-1 carts that connects the extra pins as needed on the cart side (no modification on the Retrode side).

There are some unofficial add-ons that were made in small batches - SNES Enhanced (SA-1 read support), PCE/TG16, Neo Geo Pocket, Atari 2600, and Virtual Boy.

I made a few of the unofficial add-ons but I'm no longer actively producing them for sale.  There may be others that have different ones for sale.

#52

Support / Just got a Retrode; few questi...

Last post by Cupcake - 22/Feb/2020 06:18:34 AM

So, after wanting one for about a decade, I finally saw a Retrode 2 for sale on Stone Age Gamer and jumped on it (no add ons; I figure I can get those on fleabay).  I haven't even touched the controller ports yet and already I'm in love with the thing; but I have a few questions.

First off, is there any sort of centralized community other than here?  I mean this in the best way possible, but forums are kind of antiquated, and aren't the best solution for things like tracking firmware releases.  Perhaps a Discord or something could benefit the Retrode a lot.

Also, the documentation I could find on the Retrode.cfg file seems to be pretty outdated; any chance there's something more updated that details all the options for all the various systems?

On a related note; the Retrode I received does not have the expansion pins on the SNES/SFC slot, I anticipated this, and understand that as everything stands I will not be able to dump/use my copy of Star Fox.  However, I've seen that the firmware DOES in fact support these chips if you have a way to connect them.  This leads me to ask what my options are?  I have a dead SNES here, if I were to desolder that cartridge port, and solder it onto my Retrode in place of it's truncated SNES slot; would it function?  Would I be able to purchase the slot I need from somewhere?  Does it come in the form factor of another add on for this thing?  I genuinely just couldn't find anything beyond vague answers on here.

This also leads me to one final question; add ons?  What's available besides the 3 official ones?  I've seen a few people make some like the VirtualBoy add on; but I can't seem to find much on what's out there, and if anybody is still selling/has ever sold any of these add ons.  What's available for sale now in this the year 2020?

Thanks for your time.

#53

Support / Re: Bug report: Game Boy timin...

Last post by TheDrifter363 - 18/Feb/2020 09:16:03 AM

Just wanted to report that I am receiving this same bug. I modified Pokemon Silver, a MBC3 game, and cannot write save data back to the game. Since the FRAM chip does not support holding the CE enable pin low while reading or writing, I pull the CE enable pin high when the clock goes high. It's an OR gate with the CLK and RAMCS coming off of the MBC3 chip. This goes to the CE pin on the FRAM, which is lifted from the PCB. It works great on the GBA SP and the Super Gameboy for the SNES, but not with the Retrode. I'm thinking it might be a timing issue, but I haven't had the opportunity to probe the Retrode with my logic analyzer while a read or write is going on. I don't know if this issue will ever be fixed, but I thought I'd report it anyway.

#54

Support / Re: Mega Drive Dump Failed - B...

Last post by ssokolow - 20/Jan/2020 01:55:13 AM

I cleaned again but the result is the same

The forcesystem and forcesize configuration is ok, i increase the size and the rom change from 2mb to 4mb or 6mb (depending on how much i put it)

Other ideas to test?

What version of the firmware are you running? There has been some development which touched the Genesis/MD stuff and I can't remember if/when it's been released beyond betas. (I have almost no Genesis carts, so I was only concerned with beta-testing the SNES enhanced dumping adapter and the N64 save-dumping support.)

#55

Support / Re: Mega Drive Dump Failed - B...

Last post by ssokolow - 20/Jan/2020 01:51:26 AM

I've had enough early dumps which at first appeared fine and after some play discovered they were not - that now I pull the board out of each cartridge, fully clean with 99% alchol, polish with a white high poly eraser, dry, reassemble and only then dump.  No more issues with dumps that have corruption. .

I check all my dumps against DAT-o-MATIC, so I've never had that problem. The high poly eraser only comes out if the initial alcohol swabbing wasn't enough to get a hash-verifiable dump.

(Specifically, ucon64 -rdat ROMNAME after loading the relevant datfiles into ucon64. I can't remember whether I needed DatUtil to get them into the right format or not.)

#56

Support / Re: Mega Drive Dump Failed - B...

Last post by Destrax - 13/Jan/2020 02:12:31 PM

I cleaned again but the result is the same

The forcesystem and forcesize configuration is ok, i increase the size and the rom change from 2mb to 4mb or 6mb (depending on how much i put it)

Other ideas to test?

#57

Support / Re: Mega Drive Dump Failed - B...

Last post by Land95 - 13/Jan/2020 04:42:33 AM

I've had enough early dumps which at first appeared fine and after some play discovered they were not - that now I pull the board out of each cartridge, fully clean with 99% alchol, polish with a white high poly eraser, dry, reassemble and only then dump.  No more issues with dumps that have corruption. .

#58

Support / Re: Mega Drive Dump Failed - B...

Last post by ssokolow - 13/Jan/2020 12:39:42 AM

Did you clean the cartridge's contacts? The Retrode is more susceptible to signal noise from dirty contacts.

(In one particularly stubborn case, I had to scrub a Genesis cartridge's contacts with cotton swabs dipped in 99% Isopropyl Alcohol and with one of those white vinyl erasers before it would read cleanly.)

Also, can you confirm that you set forceSystem correctly when you set forceSize? The latter is ignored if the former is left on auto.

#59

Support / Mega Drive Dump Failed - Bad R...

Last post by Destrax - 10/Jan/2020 10:35:06 PM

Hi everyone!

I have a problem, I tried to Dump my game "Futbol Argentino 96" but the Rom seems incomplete.
This game is a hack from J-league Pro Striker 2. The game see like this: https://youtu.be/8ElykXlpuyI and it should see like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZmCDfhRlZA.
In my Genesis, the cartridge works Perfect. Any Ideas to resolve this problem?.

More data:
- I Tested the Rom with diferents Emulators, but it doesn't work fine.
- Also tried to Force Size to 3, 4 and 6 MB, but the result is the same.
- I dumped another games and the roms work perfect
- This game never was dumped, only the original.

#60

Support / Re: Using the Retrode2 with a ...

Last post by Knight of Time - 26/Dec/2019 02:58:50 AM

Hope there's nothing wrong with bumping my own topic here.

Anyway, I got a nice chunk of Christmas money today, and I am planning to use some of it to buy a 32X and at least one game (I'm gonna definitely buy Knuckles Chaotix, and I might buy Virtua Racing Deluxe too).  I'm most likely going to go with Wannado's suggestion of connecting a 32X and game to the Retrode2 before connecting the whole thing to a computer (thanks for that suggestion Wannado; if I do that, I'll be sure to disconnect the Retrode2 from my computer before I disconnect a 32X from it), though there is something I wish to ask, does anyone have at least one picture of a Retrode2 with a 32X in the Sega Genesis slot?  It would be nice to see what the whole setup looks like before I get a 32X.

Thanks again.

Edit: No need for any pictures of the Retrode2/32X setup now, as I noticed it was surprisingly easy to connect my new 32X to my Retrode2.  I might as well close my topic then (been ages since I did this, lol).