Homebrew [Release] PicoDrive for 3DS

[JJnarto6x]

Not really, unfortunately. No Backup RAM cart support. You could use savestates, but that is a huge pain in the butt with Shining Force CD. Also, would like to see cso support.

I've actually been running it with almost no issues. Near the end of book 1 now.

 

[bubble2k16]

I've been playing a few minutes of Snatcher and I just got to the Factory in Bios ver 2.21. It freezes, but will investigate with a lower revision bios.

Edit: Just investigated it on 1.10 as well. There are points where the emulator is struggling to load parts of the game, including the introduction at the factory and with investigating Little John. It does not do this on KEGA.

Using a n3ds w latest stable Luma.

Hmm.... not sure why that's happening. Anyone tried Snatcher with RetroArch's PicoDrive core before?

 

[SG6000]

Hmm.... not sure why that's happening. Anyone tried Snatcher with RetroArch's PicoDrive core before?

This issue affected my playthrough of Snatcher using Retroarch's Picodrive to the point that I stopped playing. I got the impression at the time that it was a known issue.

 

[zhuwz]

Ok gosh. That makes sense. Thanks for the input.

Will be doing a release in a few minutes from now.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

v0.94 Released:

• Added support to save battery-backed RAM for CD games
• Fixed problems with games that show parts of the previous screens at the left/right edges
• Added support for cheats.
• Added configuration for region selection between (Default, US, Europe, Japan)

Thanks for all the feedback.

Download:
https://github.com/bubble2k16/picodrive_3ds/releases/download/v0.94/picodrive_3ds-v0.94.zip

The emulator can save region selection for each rom. But when loading a new rom without exiting the emulator, it will continue to use the current region setting, instead of loading the saved region setting for the new rom.

 

[wicksand420]

I've been playing a few minutes of Snatcher and I just got to the Factory in Bios ver 2.21. It freezes, but will investigate with a lower revision bios.

Edit: Just investigated it on 1.10 as well. There are points where the emulator is struggling to load parts of the game, including the introduction at the factory and with investigating Little John. It does not do this on KEGA.

Using a n3ds w latest stable Luma.

It doesn't actually freeze, wait for a minute or two, I'm not sure what causes this, but i assure you it will work, I beat snatcher on my 3ds

 

[sj33]

How does the 32X emulation speed on a New 3DS compare with the Retorarch build? As a rule, with Retroarch the 2D games run full speed (including Doom) but 3D games tend to run at half speed. The Vita version is barely any better.

 

[chrisw80]

I've actually been running it with almost no issues. Near the end of book 1 now.

Gotta read the thread as a whole. Initially it didn't have backup Ramcart support. It has since been added.

 

[FoureyeSamurai]

Ok, so I know this is a stupid question but for some reason, I'm struggling with the answer. I understand that the format should be:
bios_CD_U.bin for files that are bin+cue. For the life of me, I am unable to get this working. I know it's a naming convention that I'm struggling with so could someone dumb it all the way down for me and give me an example of formatting say "Nighttrap_CD_U.bin" into the correct syntax. Thanks in advance and thanks for making this and continuing to update such a great app.

 

[wicksand420]

Ok, so I know this is a stupid question but for some reason, I'm struggling with the answer. I understand that the format should be:
bios_CD_U.bin for files that are bin+cue. For the life of me, I am unable to get this working. I know it's a naming convention that I'm struggling with so could someone dumb it all the way down for me and give me an example of formatting say "Nighttrap_CD_U.bin" into the correct syntax. Thanks in advance and thanks for making this and continuing to update such a great app.

All you have to do is make sure you have the sega cd bios files in SD:/3ds/picodrive_3ds/bios

then you should be able to play just about and sega cd game

 

[Transdude1996]

Ok, so I know this is a stupid question but for some reason, I'm struggling with the answer. I understand that the format should be:
bios_CD_U.bin for files that are bin+cue. For the life of me, I am unable to get this working. I know it's a naming convention that I'm struggling with so could someone dumb it all the way down for me and give me an example of formatting say "Nighttrap_CD_U.bin" into the correct syntax. Thanks in advance and thanks for making this and continuing to update such a great app.

How new are you that you're mixing up the system BIOS with game ISOs?

 

[FoureyeSamurai]

How new are you that you're mixing up the system BIOS with game ISOs?

Apparently, more new than I thought I was.

 

[Parallax2814]

All you have to do is make sure you have the sega cd bios files in SD:/3ds/picodrive_3ds/bios

then you should be able to play just about and sega cd game

For some reason I just can't get this to work. I've got the bios files in SD:/3ds/picodrive_3ds/bios and and named correctly from the first post. But the emulator keeps saying "Hmmm. Unable to load rom".

Could it be the game I'm trying to play? It's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Sega CD version). Its a .bin (& .cue) file and its 450MB.

EDIT: Nevermind. I got it to work. Renaming the bios files as in the first post doesnt work. Just putting it as "us_scd1_9210.bin" makes it work perfectly.

 

[MKKhanzo]

Guys, has anybody tried doing forwarders to temperpce, picodrive, virtuanes, etc?

 

[Parallax2814]

In regards to bubble2k’s Picodrive and the Retroarch Libretro PicoDrive;

For anyone who has tried both versions, what are your experiences with each? Does anyone prefer one over the other? Any performance differences worth mentioning?

 

[FateForWindows]

In regards to bubble2k’s Picodrive and the Retroarch Libretro PicoDrive;

For anyone who has tried both versions, what are your experiences with each? Does anyone prefer one over the other? Any performance differences worth mentioning?

While the N3DS is identical to the Libretro version in terms of performance, the O3DS doesn't experience the lag that the Libretro Picodrive port sometimes does.

 

[Rahkeesh]

Both versions are fullspeed for genesis games on N3ds, however I found bubble's to be much faster for scaling/3D effects in sega CD and 32X.

 

[terry9876]

I'm putting up v0.94b for testing for anyone who would like the latest.

Fixes include:
- Added support to save battery-backed RAM for CD games
- Fixed problems with games that show parts of the previous screens at the left/right edges
- Added support for cheats.

No emulation-related fixes, so in terms of compatibility, it should remain the same as v0.93.


Some explanation on the cheat format:

The .CHX is a cheat file format that you can create with any text editor. Each line in the file corresponds to one cheat, and is of the following format:

[Y/N],[CheatCode],[Name]

1. [Y/N] represents whether the cheat is enabled. Whenever you enable/disable it in the emulator, the .CHX cheat file will be modified to save your changes.
2. [CheatCode] must be an Genesis / Mega Drive Game Genie or Pro Action Replay cheat code. The cheat code looks like one of the following:
- **RHVA-A6WR** (Game Genie)
- **FFFE0D:0099** (Pro Action Replay)
- **FFB933:00** (Pro Action Replay)
- **FFB9 3300** (Pro Action Replay)
3. [Name] is a short name that represents this cheat. Since this will appear in the emulator, keep it short (< 30 characters).

The .CHX must have the same name as your ROM. This is an example of a .CHX file:

Filename: **Contra - Hard Corps (USA).chx**
```
N,RHVA-A6WR,Invincible
N,NNCT-AAH4,Start with 99 lives
N,H9GA-AAE6,Start with all weapons
N,AM4A-AA8C,You don't lose a weapon when you die
```

NOTE: Some games may not boot when cheat codes are enabled at the start. Disable the cheat codes when booting the games, and enable them only after the game has started.

I'm putting up v0.94b for testing for anyone who would like the latest.

Fixes include:
- Added support to save battery-backed RAM for CD games
- Fixed problems with games that show parts of the previous screens at the left/right edges
- Added support for cheats.

No emulation-related fixes, so in terms of compatibility, it should remain the same as v0.93.


Some explanation on the cheat format:

The .CHX is a cheat file format that you can create with any text editor. Each line in the file corresponds to one cheat, and is of the following format:

[Y/N],[CheatCode],[Name]

1. [Y/N] represents whether the cheat is enabled. Whenever you enable/disable it in the emulator, the .CHX cheat file will be modified to save your changes.
2. [CheatCode] must be an Genesis / Mega Drive Game Genie or Pro Action Replay cheat code. The cheat code looks like one of the following:
- **RHVA-A6WR** (Game Genie)
- **FFFE0D:0099** (Pro Action Replay)
- **FFB933:00** (Pro Action Replay)
- **FFB9 3300** (Pro Action Replay)
3. [Name] is a short name that represents this cheat. Since this will appear in the emulator, keep it short (< 30 characters).

The .CHX must have the same name as your ROM. This is an example of a .CHX file:

Filename: **Contra - Hard Corps (USA).chx**
```
N,RHVA-A6WR,Invincible
N,NNCT-AAH4,Start with 99 lives
N,H9GA-AAE6,Start with all weapons
N,AM4A-AA8C,You don't lose a weapon when you die
```

NOTE: Some games may not boot when cheat codes are enabled at the start. Disable the cheat codes when booting the games, and enable them only after the game has started.

PAR codes that begin with "FF" will NOT work on the emulators. If I save a .chx which contain " PAR codes that begin with FF ", the picodrive crashed.

 

[pedro702]

How does the 32X emulation speed on a New 3DS compare with the Retorarch build? As a rule, with Retroarch the 2D games run full speed (including Doom) but 3D games tend to run at half speed. The Vita version is barely any better.

it runs much better on n3ds too

star wars arcade ntsc u on N3ds is always abode 52 fps on space missions and on death star mission it runs at like 45 fps so if you use the pal version it will always run full speed almost its much better than regular retroarch that runs space missions at 30 fps at best.

there is additional glitch tough that in cock pit mode the radar has a black bar on the middle so you cant see the radar sadly this error is not presented on normal retroarch port, still very very playable.

 

[Marttheking]

First I want to say thanks to the creator of PicoDrive !!! HOWEVER I have a very dumb question to ask ... I have a R4 SDHC RTS LITE , most of my emulators are .NDS file extensions, this new Picodrive has a .3ds file extention, SO my question is where the hell do I copy and paste the file (.3ds) and how do I run it after ??!! THANKS 1000x in advance,

 

[Shadow#1]

First I want to say thanks to the creator of PicoDrive !!! HOWEVER I have a very dumb question to ask ... I have a R4 SDHC RTS LITE , most of my emulators are .NDS file extensions, this new Picodrive has a .3ds file extention, SO my question is where the hell do I copy and paste the file (.3ds) and how do I run it after ??!! THANKS 1000x in advance,

Get the .cia of picodrive and install with fbi