Lynx Multi cart ROM Problems

[GadgetUK]

That's the ROM! The public release is buggy and I think incomplete. The 'sold' by Telegames version is more complete and stable.

[Krip316]

That's the ROM! The public release is buggy and I think incomplete. The 'sold' by Telegames version is more complete and stable.

I knew it was the rom. So is the Telegames version available?

[GadgetUK]

You can still buy the cart from Telegames I think!

[Krip316]

You can still buy the cart from Telegames I think!

Nope, just gives a description. No luck on Google or eBay. Just want the rom for this cart.

[Level42]

http://www.telegames.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=324_63_64&product_id=5313

[Krip316]

http://www.telegames.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=324_63_64&product_id=5313

Interesting, never saw that. It sent me here: http://www.telegames.com/raiden.htm I'm in the US. It's not that important to me to get all the way across the pond.

[Level42]

It's also very expensive.....

 

Some other weird titles got my interest though...also very expensive.....

[GadgetUK]

It's on pre-order on the Telegames website.

[Krip316]

It's on pre-order on the Telegames website.

I noticed. And I noticed it's the UK site. A game that is over $50 in another country, is not worth my time. Thanks for the help though guys. Edited August 30, 2016 by Krip316

[GadgetUK]

Yes, it is a bit pricey, especially with overseas shipping etc.

[ianoid]

I couldn't find a useful manual or FAQ for operating the Lynx SD, but I did get most of the information combing through threads here.

As I received it with my LynxSD, the microSD worked, but the included memory card wouldn't accept more than half of my Lynx ROMS- it thought itself full. Lynx SD did work, but I wanted all of my ROMS on the card.

So I decided to reformat the drive in FAT-32 with Mac Disk Utility. Now the Lynx SD doesn't recognize the card, or make it past the "Insert Game" screen.

So I reformated it in regular FAT and it still doesn't work. The card seems ok from the perspective of my Mac, although I didn't verify the entire memory card.

I am using the Menu version 1.9 .bin file.

Any suggestions? I don't have other MicroSD cards lying around to try with it. I can get one, but using this one would be preferable.

[Guitari]

You need to go back to the original formatting and set up alphabetic folders. there is a limit to what the root folder or any one folder will hold. You will also find this a better way to navigate your roms. I also have a subfolder named homebrew, itself having an alphabetic sub folder structure since there are so many brews for lynx.

[GadgetUK]

You need to go back to the original formatting and set up alphabetic folders. there is a limit to what the root folder or any one folder will hold. You will also find this a better way to navigate your roms. I also have a subfolder named homebrew, itself having an alphabetic sub folder structure since there are so many brews for lynx.

Yes, that folder limit sounds like the problem there.

[ianoid]

Yes, that folder limit sounds like the problem there.

 

Thanks for the response.

 

I don't have the homebrews. If you can point me to a complete ROM set, I'll download that, but my set is just the original released stuff and some betas. Since I have them all in my collection, it's my proud legal ROM set.

 

Anyway, I tried two folders with only 40 items in each and no dice. What format should the disk be in? I am using FAT but I could change it to FAT 32 if you think that will help. And any specific directory structure? I have the "_preview" folder with screens I got from someone here's preview image set and I renamed all the ROM images to match those... The menu file comes with a "menu" folder with 3 items in it. and then I have A-L and M-Z folders.

 

Thanks again,

 

ian

 

ian

[ianoid]

You need to go back to the original formatting and set up alphabetic folders. there is a limit to what the root folder or any one folder will hold. You will also find this a better way to navigate your roms. I also have a subfolder named homebrew, itself having an alphabetic sub folder structure since there are so many brews for lynx.

 

 

What is the file limit for the SD card per directory? What is the best format for the cart? FAT or FAT32?

[SainT]

Its more about what the card prefers than the Lynx cart itself. It's happy using either FAT or FAT32, but cluster size etc... is more dependent on the memory card. I've always formatted the small cards as FAT, I found some of them were VERY VERY slow when formatted to FAT32.

 

You should just be able to extract the menu to the root of the memory card which includes "menu.bin" and the menu folder containing "homebrew" and "lastrom". Whatever else is on the card is up to you in terms of ROMS etc and how its laid out.

 

I do have a limit in the menu itself of 256 items per folder, which was just an arbitrary memory limit. I think FAT itself limits the root dir to 128 entries but other folders 512 (which then is 256 because of the menu limitations).

 

So in general the limit for displayable items is, 126 entries in root (assuming the 1 menu file and 1 folder) and 256 elsewhere.

 

I will get around to writing a user guide soon, it's long overdue.

Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT

[ianoid]

Alright, I tried another mini SD card, other than the one that you included and it worked ok. It looks like the included 1gb card made the LynxSD unhappy so it ignored it. I found a 4gb card that worked fine.

 

ian

[rmzalbar]

I know this is an old thread, but I have a relevant question. I was timing the "Programming.." process of various .lnx files, and I was noticing that it seems to go about like this:

 

16k - 7 seconds

128k - 35 seconds

256k - 45 seconds

512k - 13 seconds (!)

 

I was wondering what contributes to the programming time, and if there's an optimal format I should convert the dump files to for fastest loading?

 

Thank you,

Edited July 28, 2017 by rmzalbar

[rmzalbar]

I know this is an old thread, but I have a relevant question. I was timing the "Programming.." process of various .lnx files, and I was noticing that it seems to go about like this:

 

16k - 7 seconds

128k - 35 seconds

256k - 45 seconds

512k - 13 seconds (!)

 

I was wondering what contributes to the programming time, and if there's an optimal format I should convert the dump files to for fastest loading?

 

Thank you,

 

Never mind - I discovered there was problem with the SD card itself. Apparently, the 128MB Sandisk cards are much slower than anything 512MB and larger. It's strange that the 128k and 256k sizes take much longer to program than the 512k size, so must use a different load sequence that happens to mesh with the SD card transfer modes. I can actually put my ear to the speaker and listen to the load sequence in the noise, and the 128MB card loads smaller roms in slow chunks, but 512KB rom in one continuous burst.

 

With to 512MB Sandisk card, all loads 128KB - 512KB are ~13 seconds. I also partitioned a 32GB class four to 500MB and format it FAT16, and it also gave me ~13 seconds speeds.

[SainT]

Thanks for the update on that, I was thinking about it, and the only thing that differs with 512K and <512K images is that the smaller images are read in multiple times for each sector to fill up the whole sector with data incase the game should read from an effectively invalid address, which with partial addressing would just mirror. So I guess those 128MB memory cards are not very good at random access.

Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT

[rmzalbar]

Interesting. That suggests that there might be an optimal format for the roms, if they could be converted to a 512KB mirrored format and if Lynx SD will handle it as such. Would it?

 

The cheapest micro sdcards that most people will have easy access to are already getting too big to format FAT16, but keep in mind that these can easily be partitioned to a smaller size in windows using the PART command as described here. 2GB or less is best because it will format FAT16 by default.

 

https://superuser.com/questions/202160/how-do-i-format-my-8-gb-usb-drive-to-fat-fat16-in-windows-7

[SainT]

You can use FAT16 or FAT32 for the LynxSD. Any newer microSD wont have the issue you describe by the sound of it -- those 128mb cards must be ancient...

[rmzalbar]

Oh, you can use FAT32? That simplifies things. I wonder where I got the opposite idea?

 

EDIT: A few posts up. You just said some tiny cards were slow, was all. My brain needs to go sit in the corner.

Edited August 1, 2017 by rmzalbar

[haightc]

I think that comes from the retrorgb romset being in 8.3 file format suggesting fat16 only.