Hello,
You're right, my bad, I had the Sega CD bios in mind, my bad.
As promised, I ran some tests.
I installed version 4.1 unstable on a fresh new MicroSD card.
To be more precise : version 4.1.0-master-rpi3-2017-03-05-09-29-03-116003320
I tested 3 different roms (European, Japanese and US versions), on both GenesisplusGX and Picodrive emulators.
For each test, I ran the first level from beginning to end (up to the boss explosion).
The results for the US and Japanese versions are identical.
On Picodrive, the game behaviour is the same as on the 4.0.2 version :
- US/J : Thunder Force IV (U).bin + Thunderforce IV (J) [P1] [!] : Works fine, no freeze, although a framerate drop is noticeable when numerous sprites are on the screen (which happens quite often because it's a shmup after all, beams and lasers also count as sprites)
- E : Thunderforce IV (E) (C) [!] : Game freezes on the mentioned identified moments
On GenesispluGX :
- US/J : Thunder Force IV (U).bin + Thunderforce IV (J) [P1] [!] : Works fine, no freeze, although a framerate drop is noticeable when numerous sprites are on the screen
- E : Thunderforce IV (E) (C) [!] : No freeze, works fine, although the screen resolution is forced to full screen (I guess that can be configured somewhere, although I didn't look for it).
To make it short :
Things seems to improve on the European version on the forthcoming version of Recalbox.
Now the game can be played on GenesisplusGX (which is impossible on version 4.0.2 : way to slow and the sound is distorded), although the screen resolution needs to be reset.
No improvement noticed on the Picodrive emulator, the game freezes on the same conditions as on the 4.0.2.
As for my issue on 4.0.2, I'll switch to the US version of the game (Thunder Force IV (U).bin, that's the version that proposes infinite lives at start up ).
Even if it has a framerate drop from time to time, at least I can play !
I wanted to be more accurate by giving the actual framerate while playing but even though the option was enabled, the information disappears while playing.
Instead the screen displays a line of squares at the bottom (like missing font caracters).
The glimpse of the 4.1 version of Recalbox I saw seems very promising, the list of improvements at the first start is very impressive.
The new Retroarch version (very XMB-like) is a really good idea.
Although I noticed some weird changes on the menus (like the "update game list" option that's not under the Games menu anymore), I guess the developers have their reasons on these changes.
Anyway, it's no big deal, we'll get used to it.
Again, the work done by all of you guys is very impressive.
I have a quick question, is it possible for someone to give feedbacks on this unstable version ?
Do you accept people to be like "beta-testers" ? I would gladly test some features if you need extra hands.
Have a good day.