Some games like Super Hydlide, and Might & Magic III don't allow me to start because they want to create a new saved game file and are unable to (MM3 says: "Could not initialize Battery RAM").
Also, another thing I noticed (totally unrelated) is in Legend of Galahad, everything works okay up to the point where you jump into the portal at the end of the 1st level, and then generator crashes (segfault) and dumps core. I tried to use gdb but the binary was stripped, so it only showed a bunch of addresses in the backtrace. Should I compile a new version, or is this a known problem?
I got the latest version (generator-0.35-cbiere-r3.tar.bz2) compiled and an unstripped binary, which also dumps core. I was hoping to get some insight as to why it's crashing, but now I'm more confused than before. The backtrace isn't giving much useful information, but it looks like the audio coprocessor code (Z80 chip) is blowing up.
BTW, the game actually crashes right after the 1st stage is complete. It gets to the intermissions screen where it starts totalling up your points for the stuff you collected, and the sound starts playing (ka-ching! ka-ching!, etc.) and then it dies...
If it matters, I just used the same config stuff as the OpenBSD port, just with a newer version of the source:
$ ./configure --with-sdl --with-sdl-audio --without-gcc --with-raze --prefix=/usr/local --sysconf
dir=/etc --mandir=/usr/local/man --infodir=/usr/local/info
$ gdb ./src/main/generator-sdl generator-sdl.core
GNU gdb 6.3
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GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
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This GDB was configured as "i386-unknown-openbsd4.3"...(no debugging symbols found)
Core was generated by `generator-sdl'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libpthread.so.9.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libpthread.so.9.0
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libz.so.4.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libz.so.4.1
Reading symbols from /usr/local/lib/libbz2.so.10.4...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/local/lib/libbz2.so.10.4
Reading symbols from /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.so.62.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.so.62.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.8.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.8.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.8.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.8.1
Reading symbols from /usr/local/lib/libSDL.so.8.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/local/lib/libSDL.so.8.0
Symbols already loaded for /usr/lib/libpthread.so.9.0
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libc.so.43.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libc.so.43.0
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libm.so.2.3...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libm.so.2.3
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libusbhid.so.3.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libusbhid.so.3.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXau.so.9.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXau.so.9.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXdmcp.so.9.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXdmcp.so.9.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.11.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.11.1
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXrender.so.5.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXrender.so.5.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.10.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.10.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXrandr.so.6.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXrandr.so.6.0
Reading symbols from /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.4.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.4.0
Reading symbols from /usr/libexec/ld.so...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/libexec/ld.so
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXcursor.so.4.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXcursor.so.4.0
Reading symbols from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXfixes.so.5.0...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/X11R6/lib/libXfixes.so.5.0
#0 0x1c088af4 in op_7e ()
(gdb) bt
#0 0x1c088af4 in op_7e ()
#1 0xcfbcc1c8 in ?? ()
#2 0x00000001 in ?? ()
#3 0x00000001 in ?? ()
#4 0x000000dc in ?? ()
#5 0x1c007b2b in cpuz80_sync ()
Previous frame inner to this frame (corrupt stack?)
Yep, I compiled a generator-sdl--cmz80 binary that runs Galahad fine (just slower).
What about the battery ram thing? I found it strange that some games have that problem, whereas others that presumably use the battery ram (frex, Shining in the Darkness) start up okay. Then again, when I save the game (using the actual game's save mechanism) it doesn't appear to do anything. No files are created in the current directory when I launch with "-w ." arguments. I also tried using snapshots but pressing F2 when the game is running doesn't appear to do anything.
Some games use out-of-spec hacks. Other emulators might enable workarounds for specific games. A few game cartridges have additional chips onboard which cannot (at least are not) be emulated by generator. I'm afraid the bare SDL user-interface does not map any key to the snapshot function. You can use the gtk+ user-interface or patch it.