New User - Finalgrom99 Games slow lagging - Help

[MasterT]

Brand new TI99 user here! So I got a black and silver unit off ebay recently, got the finalgrom99 and am using a transcend 2GB SD card...I noticed on many games that there is a severe lag or even lockup at times. I have a Qbert cartridge and this seems to work flawlessly. I tried to reformat the card to FAT 32 and it still persists. Especially, as an example, on the 2nd level of Donkey Kong. It starts off fine, but as more of the fire sprites are added, mario slows WAAAY down...oddly, the enemy sprites do NOT slow down at all! Crossfire is so bad it's unplayable...Can hardly move. 

 

I have done my best to exhaust the research here on these forums, youtube and the internet at large but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. I should note too, I am using the Dual Atari Joystick adapter with a retrobit 6 button sega genesis controller. I got a 3 button orignal sega genesis controller today but that doesn't seem to work at all...Used from gameXchange.

 

Really loving the system and all the peripherals...I've got the 32k expansion memory on the way.

 

Thanks for the help all!

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Not too sure about this. I haven't had a real TI, setup for a few years now. Though my first thought was the Joystick/keyboard as well. Have you tried fiddling with the alpha-lock switch.

 

Sorry if I'm not much help.

[MasterT]

I should add that many games on the SD play perfectly fine. Alpiner, Ambulance, centipede all run great! Do I need the extra 32k ram for some games even though they run? I am perplexed and any insight at all is appreciated!

[MasterT]

1 hour ago, HOME AUTOMATION said:

Not too sure about this. I haven't had a real TI, setup for a few years now. Though my first thought was the Joystick/keyboard as well. Have you tried fiddling with the alpha-lock switch.

 

Sorry if I'm not much help.

I have checked the alpha lock key thanks…its very strange indeed. 

[HOME AUTOMATION]

So, I noticed that most of the games that you say play well, don't use the FIRE buttons.

 

Centipede, Donkey Kong do. But perhaps using a different type of scanning.

 

Have you tried using the FIRE KEYS, Q(usually player one),Y(Usually player 2), without the Joystick adapter attached?

 

Have you tried a 2 players, on Donkey Kong? Player 2 uses the Y, key to fire.

 

Centipede, Donkey Kong, don't allow keyboard direction control(S,D,E,X).

 

...Maybe there's some connection.

 

I doubt that the 32K, is an issue. 

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, MasterT said:

Do I need the extra 32k ram for some games even though they run?

Most games which need 32k simply will not run without it.

[sometimes99er]

6 hours ago, MasterT said:

I noticed on many games that there is a severe lag or even lockup at times. Especially, as an example, on the 2nd level of Donkey Kong. It starts off fine, but as more of the fire sprites are added, mario slows WAAAY down...oddly, the enemy sprites do NOT slow down at all!

I seem to remember, that some cartridge games slowed down when more action on the screen. I tried Donkey Kong, but there's no noticable slowdown. 😐

[Retrospect]

I wrote a game , Lunar Mission (the first one) .. and it ran fine for me,  in disk image format.  I tried playing it a while ago I think it was on a G format for finalgrom and it was very sluggish,  I thought it was a bad image or something?  I can't find that image again now but i did notice it's lack of execution speed at the time.  

 

[MasterT]

All good insight here. I will try without the joystick and see if it clears up. 
 

Will report back soon. 

[MasterT]

Donkey kong, crossfire, and dig dug (another with issues) don’t appear to have keyboard support. Joystick only it seems. 

[MasterT]

Perhaps it’s a problem with the TI99 itself? Quite a head scratcher…

[MasterT]

So i tan a memory test and got a failure. Could this be my issue? And how to remedy regardless?

[MasterT]

The guy that sold me the Finalgrom99 card is going to give me a replacement. Thank you all for jumping in to try to help so quickly. I assume this is the issue but when I get the new card, I will post back my results to close the loop on this.

 

Cheers!