PS2 SNESticle LBA Fixed

[Boon Tobias]

Hi, I was doing some experiments and noticed that SNESticle doesn't reset the IOP on startup, so if drivers are loaded before startup, they will remain active.
When testing with USB controllers and hex-editing the SNESticle binary, it is possible to load games from USB drives... and if you use the BDM Assault drivers, it is possible to do so from exFAT drives; loading and running games is perfectly viable.

This method has some limitations, such as incompatibility between some SNESticle-specific drivers and those loaded before startup. A clear example is that when I use older USB controllers, saving SRAM works perfectly, but when I use BDM Assault and load MCSAVE.IRX (responsible for SRAM), it crashes when scanning the USB drive, and something similar happens when loading CDVD.IRX.

The ideal solution would be to edit the SNESticle source code, but it's not very viable due to known limitations (you practically have to rebuild a large part of the emulator from scratch). However, you can experiment with the drivers to get different results, such as loading from the hard drive or perhaps editing MCSAVE.IRX to allow saving games to a USB drive... although that's beyond my knowledge.
You could also embed everything in an executable to make it more efficient... but at least it's proof that the emulator is compatible and works from USB.

I'll leave the files for those interested to test. There are two versions: one that saves games to SRAM (saves them to the MC) and only supports FAT32 storage, and another that doesn't save SRAM but supports both FAT32 and exFAT thanks to the use of BDM Assault.
I've also included a list of the games I tested (just by running them).
To reset IOP and load drivers, used RadShell and the accompanying drivers (some are old), and to get it working on exFAT, use the BDM Assault drivers.
Be careful because the emulator has a file manager that can copy and paste, as well as delete... and it works well...
Don't forget to comment if it worked for you if you try it.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OCfIeexEkz0TarsK_KCZ0mLLMgf4DYCO

 

[Hugostoso]

Megaman X isn't the only game that glitches out from the pause menu. Megaman 7 and Rockman & Forte have that issue as well. R&F is particularly bad, as pausing the game just once will permanently F%$# up all background tiles, including menus, until you reset the game.
As for Megaman X2 and X3, they give an ingame error because of chip incompatibilities that turns every character sprite invisible so it's pretty much unplayable.
So it's got a thing against Megaman lol. It's sad... cause otherwise, the games that work do so beautifully, and the sound emulation is WAY better than SNES Station.

That is because Megaman X series uses additional chips on the snes DSP for enhanced graphics like 3D wireframes, transparency, and smooth animations.

 

[tktagmedia]

Hey everyone! Is anyone in a position to build/test this Mode7 patch fix for SNESticlePS2? (attached to this post)

I'm not in a position currently to do so with the SDK! From what I understand, this should fix the initialization issues with Mario Kart and other Mode7 titles that either display incorrectly or have sluggish performance!

Source is here: https://github.com/iaddis/SNESticle

 

[jolek]

I'm not in a position currently to do so with the SDK! From what I understand, this should fix the initialization issues with Mario Kart and other Mode7 titles that either display incorrectly or have sluggish performance!

Mode-7 is implemented but not 100% finished. Don't expect full compatibility.

This can be very helpful.