GDEMU Settings that helped with Atomiswave ports

[fofofo]

Was just getting a ton of lock ups all around (mostly in Metal Slug and Dolphin Blue and Faster than speed), with a Genuine GDEMU.

I updated to latest firmware for it, and still was having problems.

Tried different SD Cards and switch from different adapters to full sized SD Cards.

I also noticed the madsheep 1.10 was inputting its own settings into the gdemu.ini

So i editted the GDEMU.ini file on the root of one of my SD Cards (Sandisk Extreme 128GB)

These settings helped me to be able to beat Metal Slug 6. Would always lock up in level 1, or 2.

Maybe it will help other people experiencing the same issue or maybe its a coincidence, but i haven't had any issues since.

open_time = 500
detect_time = 250
reset_goto = 1
image_tests = 0
read_limit = 0

These settings still lock up for me on my Micro SD -> SD Adapter per the instructions for this game, but the full size SD card does work correctly now.

[trekts]

I managed to finish Metal Slug 6 with these settings, however, I tested KOF XI afterwards and it locked up before loading the Aqueduct stage.

[fofofo]

Interesting, I wonder if it's something with the read limit setting or something else. I haven't played that KOF yet.

[ateam]

I'm curious if your SD card is dedicated to Atomiswave games, or if you're using these settings on a card with other retail games.

The "read_limit" parameter by default is set to "automatic", so I'm curious if setting it to "0" will cause any issues in other games due to improper timings. From the GDEMU website...

read_limit = N
Where N is natural number in range 600 to 1250 (in KiB/s), or 0 to disable and -1 for automatic limit. If enabled (N <> 0), GDEMU limits media read speed to better match actual GD-ROM drive. The automatic setting will only affect games that need it. Default is auto.

This seems to imply that some games do in fact need the "auto" setting. My assumption (which may be wrong) is that the "read_limit" setting is always "0" unless a game is known to have issues with that and is thus hardcoded to use timings that more closely resemble an actual GD-ROM drive.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I have reached out to Deunan himself to ask about my assumption and will post back on this thread when I get a response. I also wanted to note that the "read_limit" parameter wasn't added as a GDEMU.INI option until firmware 5.20.0 (https://gdemu.wordpress.com/firmware/updating-gdemu/), therefore any clones on a lower firmware version won't actually respond to this setting.

[ateam]

Okay, so I received a response from Deunan (the creator of the GDEMU). My assumption was correct. Changing the "read_limit" setting to "0" has zero affect on any games that aren't hard-coded on the list of games that fail without specific read speeds.

To see his response yourself, check here:

https://gdemu.wordpress.com/2020/11/19/project-time-3/#comment-14734