VBA-M Forums - Bugs and Support

VBA-M Keeps crashing when loading Oracle of Ages save

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 02:25:33 +0000

Hello, when I hit Ctrl L to load my The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages save state, VBA-M crashes when trying to load my VBA-M save state

Any ideas why VBA-M keeps crashing when laoding a The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages save game

Anyways, I am going to report this as a bug, since it keeps reoccurring

Some minor Super Game Boy emulation issues

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:40:08 +0000

So, I got a used Super Game Boy a couple of days ago, and noticed some things that should deserve mention. Most of these things are minor, but I'm a nitpicky person, so I'm going to mention them all anyway.

The most noticeable thing when I played my Super Game Boy is that the sound is noticeably sharper (higher-pitched) than any other Game Boy, and seems to run slightly faster too. This might be because any Game Boy model other than SGB seems to run slightly slower than standard NTSC speed (see here). Thing is, this isn't reflected in any version of VBA. VBA-M seems to run at GB speed, even if it's in SGB mode. In any other version of VBA, like 1.7.2, the pitch (and maybe the speed itself, even though it's hard to tell) seems to be halfway between GB and SGB, regardless of which mode is selected. So, so far, no version of VBA seems to emulate this right.

This also has a side effect too: Some games, like Mole Mania, adjust the sound pitch when played on an SGB. Therefore, Mole Mania sounds the exact same regardless of whether it is played on a GB or SGB. On any version of VBA, however, the sound is flat when run in SGB mode.

There was a second thing that I noticed when playing Donkey Kong Land on SGB. When it loads anything at all (e.g. when going from one part of a level to another), the screen doesn't turn blank, but rather, it "freezes" for a second or two. This is properly reflected in VBA 1.7.2 and 1.8.0 (although, for some reason, it wouldn't show up in an AVI video), but not in VBA-M, where it just has a blank screen.

To see what I mean, see this video, where I used 1.8.0 to play it and CamStudio to record the video. See how the screen freezes for a second?

Lastly, supposedly the SGB has upgraded sound (directly from the SNES, I believe) in a few games like Donkey Kong 94 or Kirby's Dream Land 2 (although I don't own any such games, so I wouldn't completely know for myself). However, no version of VBA seems to have this extra sound; instead, when a SGB-exclusive sound effect is supposed to be played, instead there is no sound at all.

So, yeah, that's all I have to say...

I can't get it to work

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:14:15 +0000

So yes,

I am a comple and utter computer noob and don't know anything about computers at all.

BUt the idea of playing gameboy games on my laptop seemed mega cool! So i downloaded your visual gameboy and i downloaded the required directX thing. Then i got the new pokemon games hearty gold and somthing silver too and i was like: lol this is gonna be crazy like banana's .

But ofc it didn't work.. Now i must say im not quite sure how to open the files. but when i open the VGBA first and then try to open a GBA / GBC / GB thing it can't find the games (they are NDS files) and then if i try to open the files WITH GBA it gives these errors:
No image found on ZIP file [location]
unsupported file type

So are NDS types just types of files the VGBA can't process, can i like change them into types it CAN read, or do i just need to find another place where i can download them in the correct file types (and if yes, where / what are the correct file types).

I tried the search option but couldn't find a thread related... Sorry if this is a repost, but plz help!

Pokemon (red/blue): Do they work?

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:22:14 +0000

I have SVN version 946.
Attempting to run either pokemon red or blue results in a yellow screen.
The title bar percentage number does change, so it's not locking up.
But nothing is being displayed.

I have a PPC mac.

Do either of these work for anyone else?
(I'd love to hear from a PPC linux user, as that would eliminate any byte swap concerns).

Automatic Saving

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:39:46 +0000

Hello there, I was wondering if there was any way to get VBA-M to auto-save on the battery itself (I think that's what I want...) What I mean, in case I used the wrong terminology, is that I want VBA-M to periodically save the game's saves, IE: When I hit save and quit on Link's Awakening DX, to have VBA save that fact and allow me to resume the game as if I were actually playing it on a GBC and just loaded up my save file, anyone out there who can help?

Segmentation fault on Ubuntu 10.04

Mon, 10 May 2010 16:01:43 +0000

I am using VBA-M rev 945, which I have compiled by myself. The very same revision worked fine on Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit but on 10.04 gvbam will segfault shortly after starting gameplay. gdb prints the following backtrace:

Code:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.

Code:

#0  0x00007fffe718eb20 in ?? ()

No symbol table info available.

#1  0x00007fffecef2c22 in snd_pcm_recover () from /usr/lib/libasound.so.2

No symbol table info available.

#2  0x00007ffff30b4858 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0

No symbol table info available.

#3  0x00007ffff308736f in ?? () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0

No symbol table info available.

#4  0x00007ffff308f265 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0

No symbol table info available.

#5  0x00007ffff30d8c19 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0

No symbol table info available.

#6  0x00007ffff2e669ca in start_thread () from /lib/libpthread.so.0

No symbol table info available.

#7  0x00007fffefe7469d in clone () from /lib/libc.so.6

No symbol table info available.

#8  0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()

No symbol table info available.

That looks like a problem with audio, doesn't it? For reference, I am not using PulseAudio which comes by default with Ubuntu. My sound card is a SB Live! 24-Bit.

vbam svn945 compiling problems and solutions.

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:58:29 +0000

Hello there, first of all, thanks a lot for this great vba emulator.

Ok, now to the point ;P

I tried to compile vbam svn 945, but I got an error:

Code:

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:57 (MESSAGE):

  Could NOT find SFML (missing: SFML_LIBRARY SFML_INCLUDE_DIR)

Call Stack (most recent call first):

  CMakeScripts/FindSFML.cmake:78 (FIND_PACKAGE_HANDLE_STANDARD_ARGS)

  CMakeLists.txt:44 (FIND_PACKAGE)

After following install instructions from SFML site and repeating compile process it advances until this point when linking gvbam and vbam executables:

Code:

/usr/bin/ld: warning: libopenal.so.1, needed by /usr/lib/gcc/i586-redhat-linux/4.4.1/../../../libsfml-audio.so, not found (try using -rpath or -rpath-link)

So I installed openal-soft library (not needed on svn 928) which was the last one I compiled. And everything went ok, compiled without any problems, just the "usual" deprecated and unused messages.

There's a typo I've found on vbam.desktop file, on the comment section:

Code:

Comment=Nindendo GameBoy Advance Emulator

Which I modified to:

Code:

Comment=Nintendo GameBoy Advance Emulator

So then at the end I've got a Fedora 11 vbam-1.8.0_svn945 RPM and SRPM. Which I can share if anyone's interested.

Thanks again for this great emu, I'm looking forward for VBAM-2 ;D

Oh! BTW, ZIP file support is fixed now, thanks! Can 7Zip file support be implemented, file size is smaller in 7Z, thanks in advance.

VBA-M and Win7 problems

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:50:06 +0000

Hi

I've yet switch to a new PC with Windows7 from my old XP

In the previous system I used using VisualBoy Advance 1.72 from this site and all was OK

However with Win7 the old emulator doesn't work too well because I can't save or load old saves. So I lokked for a new version and I found (if I'm right) that he old VBA is now discontinued and VBA-M is its successor

If this is right can you tell me what is the correct site to use? I found this projec in Google Code and Souceforge ... why don't you make a bit more clear site?

However I downloaded the emulator but the problem is that I can't even start it because of this error:

I tanslate the text:

Code:

It's not possible starting the program becouse d3dx9_42.dll is not present in this computer

But In my system directX is correctly installed (Win7 has it by default) and however I've no any problem with all others emulators and games

Can you help me?

Thanks in advance

RE: Linking(Netplay) Status?

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:05:16 +0000

I've tried this emulator years ago, and I was impressed with the improvements. Not so long ago, I was going to Netplay with someone else and I found out Link is disabled in all version because it's bugged, laggy and whatnot.

Today, I tried to Netplay again with the latest version, and it's still disabled ever since last time I read you guys. Seriously, what's the Linking's status? When can we expect proper Netplay?

it work now

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:12:15 +0000

at before haven't lacks requires files it just don't run.
vba-m-not-work
ever since detected OS infected a lot of virus and spy spam dll then i setup XP again,it work now.seems OS was damaged by virus dll.(i few to use anti-virus wares)

except no requires d3dxx.dll files what's the SVN884 difference as SVN926?

VGA-M Runs Too Fast

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:29:34 +0000

I just downloaded the latest VBA-M and tried loading up my Pokemon Crystal ROM. It gave a couple errors that I don't recall but then preceded to load the game. The problem is the game runs at hyperspeed. Way too fast to be playable. Is there a way to slow down the emulator?

[Ubuntu] Can't read zip files?

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:11:45 +0000

Hi everyone. I searched up and down for an answer to this before I gave up and decided to post. I run the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 9.10. I pulled down the latest deb, SVN 877 if I'm not mistaken. Obviously, there is only a 32-bit version available (it would be REALLY nice if someone could provide a 64 bit version, Core 2 Duos are really mainstream now a days), so I used dpkg with the --force-architecture flag to get it to install on my system. I have two problems, both of which I can get around, but one is much more annoying than the other. The smaller problem is that I can't use gvbam because I don't know which lib to symbolically link so that gvbam can find the 32 bit version of the glademm libs. But I use the Gelide front-end so that's really a small problem.

The REAL problem that I'm having is that vbam does not seem to have any idea how to read zip files. It can read unzipped files (raw ROMs) just fine, and the 64-bit version of vanilla VBA can read zip files without a problem. I'm taking a poor uneducated guess, but I'm guessing that once again, this is a 32/64 bit difference, and because I installed using --force-architecture, vbam doesn't know where to find the libs that would extract zip files. Even as I type that, it doesn't sound right, but every time I try to run with a zip file, I get :

Code:

No image found in file Tetris.zip

Unknown file type Tetris.zip

Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks very much.

[NB_Failure to read Readme]d3dx9_42 not found

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:04:24 +0000

I had been running 904 with no problems. After updating to 913, however, I get this message when starting M:

---------------------------
VisualBoyAdvance-M.exe - Unable To Locate Component
---------------------------
This application has failed to start because d3dx9_42.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

The same problem occurs with 907. Again, I can still run 904 without error.

I'm running WinXP SP-3 32-bit with the latest DirectX 9 installed.

Compiling on Mac OS X

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:53:36 +0000

Hey, I figured I would post a quick tutorial on how to compile the HEAD of VBA-M on Mac OS X (I am running Snow Leopard, but it should work for most other systems).

Open Terminal and CD to a directory where you would like the files stored - cd ~/Desktop
Download the most recent copy of the code (may be buggy) - svn co https://vbam.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vbam vbam
Download and install MacPorts (Follow their instructions for the package installer)
Change back to terminal and install cmake - sudo port install cmake
Change back to terminal and install libpng - sudo port install libpng
Download the runtime library of SDL and copy the SDL.Framework folder in the DMG to /library/Frameworks
Download the sourcecode of SDL, untar it, and cd to the directory in terminal
Once in the SDL directory, run ./configure, make, sudo make install
CD to the trunk directory of the SVN copy of VBA-M (in my case ~/Desktop/vbam/trunk)
Run the following in terminal - cmake .
Run the following in terminal - make
If you run into any issues with png.h not being found, search your computer for png.h and pngconf.h (most likely in /opt/local/include/libpng12/) and copy both files to /usr/local/include
Run the following in terminal - sudo make install
Run the following in terminal - vbam PATH_TO_ROM
Have fun

~~This will not have VBA-M working out of the box however, as save files (among other things) will fail, but it will get ROMs running at least~~ My bad, turns out Pokemon Fire-Red has issues saving due to the protection issues or whatever. Saving works fine in most games

Spenser

OS X support?

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:29:07 +0000

I'm running an old 0.1 alpha version of VBA-M on my mac. If you go to the about section in the program, it actually says Version: Forgotten. I got this copy a while ago, but I haven't seen anything newer for the mac platform since. Is there any chance of of a mac update?
[Edit by:Zach Thibeau - moved to bugs and support forum, please do not use release information for support.]

Minimum requirements

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:01:13 +0000

Hi,

The system requirements mentioned in the "ReadMe" file are the absolute minimum or can they be lowered even more? (E.g. with multi-core)

Also, does the emulator uses any kind of techniques to improve speed? (E.g. threaded code)

Thanks,

VMV recording desync

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:36:50 +0000

It seems that on some games, recording a VMV file can desync -- the button presses, that is. For some reason, whether a movie desyncs or not depends on the game (from what I've seen, anyway). I've only really tested out builds 878, 896, and 904 here, and each seem to be identical with regards to this bug.

First, I tried to record a boss fight in Kirby's Dream Land 2, and every time I attempt to record, the button presses get out of sync when I play it back. They start out fine, but it doesn't take long (usually less than a minute) for it to screw up. I have a file attached to demonstrate how it's messed up. You'll know when it desyncs when you see Kirby repeatedly and mindlessly running into King Dedede <_< Unfortunately, I don't have an AVI file to compare it to, because, well, I obviously can't make an AVI file if the VMV file doesn't work right.

Another issue with VMV is that it's not friendly with the real time clock. Neither the VM0 nor VMV file will store the time when you recorded the video, so any game that relies on a real time clock (such as Pokémon and Telefang) will have videos desynced because the time is incorrect. I have attached a VMV/VM0 file for Keitai Denjuu Telefang - Speed Version (it won't work on Telefang Power Version, but if anybody wants to, I can make a separate movie for that, not that there's much of a point because it would be the same thing anyway). This short movie demonstrates what can happen when you try to play a movie back in a time-dependent game. Try playing the movie dozens of times, and you'll see that it's different each time you play it. The items that will appear when running in the grass (coins, hearts, diamonds) will be random every time. Also, the monster (more specifically, Denjuu) that appears about 10 seconds into the movie will be different as well (and the level is sometimes different too).

So, either VMV/VM0 should be modified to include the time, or VisualBoyAdvance should use the VBM format that the TAS versions use, which DOES keep track of the time. It would be a lot more convenient if it was. Oh, and whatever is preventing KDL2 from being synced should be fixed too.

And I'm pretty sure the problem is the game. After all, I have recorded videos on VBA-M of every single Donkey Kong Land game, and I have not run into desyncing issues there. They all play back perfectly!

EDIT: Also tested build 904 as well.

Throttling does not work anymore

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:10:07 +0000

I guess there were some changes, because throttling does not work for me anymore with the current SVN build. The audio gets set up correctly for a slower samling rate, but the game still runs at 60fps, not matter what throttling value I select.

New linker error

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:34:07 +0000

Whenever I compile the latest VBA-M, I get the following linker error:

Code:

1>Linking...

1>LINK : fatal error LNK1000: Internal error during IncrBuildImage

1>  Version 9.00.21022.08

1>  ExceptionCode            = C0000005

1>  ExceptionFlags           = 00000000

1>  ExceptionAddress         = 0029FCF7 (00220000) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\link.exe"

1>  NumberParameters         = 00000002

1>  ExceptionInformation[ 0] = 00000000

1>  ExceptionInformation[ 1] = 0137D670

1>CONTEXT:

1>  Eax    = 409029D0  Esp    = 0051EE4C

1>  Ebx    = 40008280  Ebp    = 0051EE74

1>  Ecx    = 0137D670  Esi    = 40902834

1>  Edx    = 0051EE64  Edi    = 0022D6C0

1>  Eip    = 0029FCF7  EFlags = 00010246

1>  SegCs  = 00000023  SegDs  = 0000002B

1>  SegSs  = 0000002B  SegEs  = 0000002B

1>  SegFs  = 00000053  SegGs  = 0000002B

1>  Dr0    = 00000000  Dr3    = 00000000

1>  Dr1    = 00000000  Dr6    = 00000000

1>  Dr2    = 00000000  Dr7    = 00000000

1>Build log was saved at "file://d:\Dev\Code\vbam\trunk\project\vc2008_mfc\Win32\Debug_temp\VisualBoyAdvance_BuildLog.htm"

1>VisualBoyAdvance - 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)

========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 1 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

I'm using VC2008 without Service Pack.

When I press compile/link after that, everything is fine.
Could that be related to the new SVN version string?

Using vba-over.ini in linux

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:39:25 +0000

I'm having problems getting vba-m to detect vba-over.ini. I'm using VBA-M 1.8.0-SVN, downloaded from the .deb on the sourceforge page. The .ini file was downloaded from http://www.no-intro.org/gbadat/tools/vba...051224.zip The distro I'm using is ubuntu 8.10. The config file for gvbam is located in ~/.config/gvbam. This is where I put vba-over.ini, but it doesn't seem to detect the file. I tested it using a clean Pokemon Fire Red (U) rom, but I still get the 1-m circuit board not installed problem. The config file for vbam is in ~/.vba and /etc. I put vba-over.ini there too, but I still get the same problem. I've made sure that the real time clock is enabled in the config files. Save type is set to automatic. I'm having no problems in windows.