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[Iriez]

Since there seems to be a million kazillion threads, im going to do this in effort to clean up this forum. If you have a issue with surreal64 loading or playing games read here first, and try any suggestions in relation to your problem. If it is not fixed after trying, then reply with your specific problem.

Firstly, are you having problems loading the emulator? Does it freeze on loading/black screen? Check these things..

Are you running a 4977 bios? (One thats been patched for lba48) Or 4978? Both are known to cause issues -
Reflash with a evox bios, or 4976.06 or 4979.06/67 +

Do you have all the correct files and folders on your xbox? (most specifically the media directory, default.xbe and surreal.ini)

Are you using a old modchip such as xecuter 1, or enigmah/xtender? - Try patching first (all your xbe files)with dexbe to retail, and if that doesnt work your going to need to use Phoenix Bios Loader (PBL) to boot another bios into memory before launching. This will not go into support for using PBL. Please use at your own descretion.

People who cannot get it to load by patching with dexbe should also try xbe patcher

Are you having a problem with your Roms not showing up?

First and formost, have you edited the Surreal.ini *before* you run it to point to your roms?

You need to change it to be Rom Path=F:\Path\to\your\roms . If you are putting the roms in the 'roms' folder inside your surreal64 install dir, then make the Rom Path=D:\Roms

If you have already ran Surreal64, then your ini was saved to the TDATA folder, and you have to edit it there.

/E/TDATA/a64fea57/Surreal.ini  <-- That is the path to it. Simply edit that file right there to reflect the directory of your roms, and then launch the emu and hit the 'refresh' button in the lower right hand corner.

Are you trying to run Roms off the dvd and cannot get it to work?

First, you must create a xiso of your roms. Create a New folder...name it whatever you please. Go into it, and make a directory called "Roms". Put all of your N64 Roms in there. Use Simple Xiso and select that 'new directory' that you created for creating a xiso. The point is to create a xiso with a roms folder on there, and NOT your roms on the root directory of the disk. If you put them directly on the disk it will not work. Create the xiso, and burn using record now max or nero or whatever your favorite burning software is. Make sure you are using media your xbox can read, i.e. if you have a samsung you can use cd-r, if not you can only use cd-rw/dvd-r/dvd+r. If you have not launched surreal64 on your xbox, then you can edit your ini right there to say A\:Roms or if you have already launched it you must edit /E/TDATA/a64fea57/Surreal.ini  to reflect A:\Roms . Relaunch Surreal64 with your disk in the tray and hit the refresh button.

Are certian Roms not showing up?

Check your roms!

GOODN64

Download Goodn64, bin.zip, and good windows. Extract them all to a directory of your choice. In goodwindows select 'Good tool' as your mode, and then select Nintendo 64 as your system. The rom directory is in the lower left corner, simply choose the directory of your roms, then hit the big button on the lower right (Should say Goodn64.exe rename). It will put all of your roms renamed properly in a N64Ren folder, and any bad/unknown in another.

If a specific rom is not showing up, and you have renamed it, check and make sure the surreal.ini has a entry for it. Example...

You have Banjo-Kazooie (E) [!].zip and for some reason its not showing up. Open surreal.ini with a text editor (most of you will use notepad, but use ultraedit if you have it).

Do a search for Banjo until you find the entry for that rom. In this case..it would be

[733FCCB1-444892F9-C:50]
Game Name=Banjo-Kazooie
Alternate Title=Banjo-Kazooie (E) [!]
Comments=Playable
Preferred Emulator=0

If your rom has been renamed by goodn64, and does not show up, you should not be able to find it in the surreal.ini. This is merely a confirmation of what exactly is happening. If this is the case, obtain the correct version of the rom. All (U) and (E) [!] roms are supported (to show on the romlist). Also, if your zip file is compressed a certian way (dont ask me which way) surreal may not be able to extract the rom from the zip to verify the crc. If this is not the case, and your rom IS renamed, AND you have found the entry for it in the ini (and you are sure it is the correct rom), you've tried unzipping, and it is still not showing up, then i have no clue = ) I would advise you contain another version supported by the surreal.ini

If you have a rom that you have verified to be a good dump, and transfered it to your xbox, and refreshed your romlist, and it is *still* not showing up, then unzip the rom and transfer it, instead of the zip archive. The reason this might happen is because its using a non standard compression, and surreal 64 wouldnt be able to unzip it to see which rom it is.

Also, in regards to romplaying/stability/capability i have noticed that evox takes more memory somehow if launched from it (the dashboard, not the bios). I would imagine the reason is because evox patches the kernel, and also uses debug TSR tools. Try to not launch surreal64 from evox to minimalize any problems.

---ROM CONFIGURATION SECTION---

Most of the games should run fine with the default settings.

For audio you only have two choices, Azimer, which is the audio source from apollo used with jttl's SDL sound output, or PJ RSP, which is the basic audio plugin with LLE.

If a game is not playing (as in loads and freezes, or runs slow) you may be able to tweak the preformance by adjusting the memory settings.

The best way to go about this is to load the game, and turn on the debug display by right clicking on the analog stick and selecting it.

This will display how much memory is free. Start playing your game and keep in mind how much is free.

A example would be...super smash brothers. Ingame while your playing you have say.. 7.5MB free on average.

Quit the game and go back to the romlist and go into the settings.

The default setting should be 4MB video.

For 1964 dyna should be 8mb, and paging 4mb.
For PJ64 dyna should be 16mb, and paging 4mb

Now you will want to adjust your settings dependant upon which emulator you used.

Keep in mind that in order for the menu ingame to display correctly, you need atleast 4mb free. With 7.5 mb free on our example, that would give you 3.5 mb to play with, if you want the menu to show. If you dont give a damn about the menu, then i would suggest only going as low as 2mb free, which would give you 5.5Mb to play with.

The most noticable impact you will see is by increasing the dyna. Only in very few games (like super smash brothers and banjo tooie that comes to mind) need alot of video memory for textures. You'll notice some backgrounds missing in SSB if your video setting is too low.

So, by default, say in 1964 you have 8mb dyna. You have anywhere from 3.5-5.5 MB to play with. My suggestion would be to trial and error and see what does best for you. Try increasing the dyna by 4mb first, and see if that improves your preformance. If that doesnt work, increase it by 2, and increase the paging by 2. If that doesnt improve, drop the paging to 2mb and increase the dyna by 6mb.

Some games, like perfect dark, simply need more memory than a 64mb xbox can provide with the current core. It needs about 16mb dyna and 16mb paging in order to run smooth.

In some cases you can drop the paging to 1mb without a noticable difference. This may increase stuttering, or draw the FPS to nothing when trying to load a level/scene/texture that requires large memory.
----------------

Are you getting a BLACK SCREEN after loading a rom? Make 100% sure you are using Surreal v1.0 and NOT the gueux.net version. That version is for softmod exploits on newer xbox kernels.

Yes, .ZIP files are supported, aswell as all the known extentions for n64 rom's such as .usa and .v64

A specific rom not showing up on the list?

Please keep in mind this is not a bug or compatibility list. This is merely a help thread getting surreal *Started*. Please post to the appropriate thread if you wish to submit a bug within the emulator.

I will update this post with helpful information as i recieve it.

[Iriez]

Let me repeat this one more time since some people apparently do not understand.

This thread is not about compatibility issues or bugs. This is a thread about getting surreal64 to launch.

Do not post bugs about games not working.

[Shordy]

you talk about a prog called good windows...where can i find that?

[Iriez]

Did you try hovering your mouse over the GOODN64 text? Its bold and underlined for a reason, it links *directly* to the site that has it.

This post has been edited by Iriez: Jan 7 2004, 06:51 PM

[gafasiynot]

hey,


          so if i have a folder called "roms" on my E: i would just set the rom path to E:roms? and would i change the media path to "/E:/Emus/Surreal64/Media/" where i uploaded the program?

[Iriez]

Rom Path=E:\Roms
Media Path=D:\Media

You dont need to change the media path.

[gafasiynot]

hey,

     thank you very much Iriez, i finally got it to work after hours of wasting time.  thanks for the help!  

[soundforce]

the first time i load surreal the comments and the * above the emulator that works best are intact but after i load a rom, then exit the comments and * are gone. I have to go to the ms dash and delete the surreal save and reboot surreal in order for them to come back. am i doing something wrong or are other people having this problem too?

[Iriez]

That problem does not happen to me. It sounds like you are editing the surreal.ini in the installation directory. You need to edit the surreal.ini in the TDATA folder as described in my first post.

[VeggetoX]

Ok here is my problem all my rom names look really messed up (somtimes it is the game named backwards) when i load the list and then wheren i try to load the game it says it's loading 0% then quits.

[ninja friend]

What, basically, do the various memory types do? I figure from your post that "Max Video Memory" relates to texture issues... What about dynarec and paging? What are their functions?
Which memory type (if any) relates most to the speed at which a game is running. When I run Mario Kart 64, for instance, it's almost perfect. No noticeable texture problems, no sound issues, normal framerate... but it's simply not as fast as it should be. Not quite. A second (as displayed on my lap time) is longer than a second- if that makes sense. Framerate is fine, it's just the speed that's screwy. Is there a setting that relates to that?

[Joshua Wood]

ninja_friend, read Lantus' post here:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?act...T&f=17&t=151724

might help answer a few questions you have.

Iriez, I've verified my super mario 64 using goodrom, and it appears in the surreal.ini, but still doesn't show...I might see about finding a different dump, but it should show right?

Does the .zip and the rom filename need to be something specific? I've tried renaming them to the goodrom name, no luck still, after rom refresh. My others show, and they're not all exact name matches to anything in particular.....

[ninja friend]

Thanks Joshua, that did clear it up a bit. Im still unsure of how to balance the two memory types out, although it appears that dyna mem should be added over paging mem. Paging mem just seems, I think, to be an indication of how often the rom needs to be retrieved from memory? Does that sound accurate? Whereas dyna mem is how quickly information is processed from the rom? Maybe?
I'll fool  around with it, I guess. But this sheds some light.

*goes back to toying with a slow as hell Beetle Adventure Racing*

[Eventide]

QUOTE

Originally posted by lantus dyna mem is for the 'Dynamic Recompiler' : the process of generating native n64 code from x86 instructions and executing it. Its much faster than normal interpreted code (emulation of each CPU instruction, registers, I/O etc). the dynarec is an important part of the emulator, and the more memory allocated the better because more code would be generated and executed on a smaller dynarec buffer, whereas in a larger one they are already available in memory to be executed. paging mem: because its impossible to fit an entire ROM into the Xbox memory space "paging mem" determines how much of the rom will be in memory at any time. i.e if we have 4 megs of paging mem and we load conkers (64mb). 4 meg of Conkers will be in Xbox memory , and the remaining 60 Mb will require to be loaded from disk. The disk portion is the "pagefile". The pagefile , however is the entire contents of the rom. So its 64mb and not 60mb. Why? because we dont know what portion of the rom will require to be loaded in next. hope this helps

The above quote by lantus in the thread linked by Joshua Wood leaves me with one question:

Would keeping larger roms unzipped, like Conkers, for example make the game run better?  Or is the pagefile a seperate file temporarily created when the game loads?

[CGMneon]

Thanks for the great post, Iriez.  Your first entry filled in all the gaps for me.

Just wanted to say that not all patcher programs work the same way; the dexbe patched perfectly when the other programs didn't.  (Oh, sure, those programs would say they worked, but they didn't.)

Everything is going great for me now.