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#1 2022-10-05 00:50:36

AfroRyan
Member
Registered: 2022-10-05
Posts: 4

Metroid Prime Pinball issue

I apologize ahead of time if this has been discussed before, but a quick forum search and google came back with very very little for what I'm having issues with. The issue may or may not be related to WiFi, and for that I also apologize. Let me explain:
Metroid Prime Pinball has an exclusive stage that was designed for local wi-fi play, under "Wireless Mission." The thing is; it CAN be played by yourself, and that's what I'm interested in doing.

In the current version of DeSmuME, the Wireless Mission menu will load. It will then prompt for the user to "Press Start to Practice." This allows the user to play the exclusive table Magmoor Caverns, which is essentially a time-attack mode where the goal is to get 100,000 points as fast as you can. However, after you press start, the game will soft-lock, where the menu music will continue to play but no inputs are recognized. Strictly speaking, I'm not sure if this is truly a WiFi issue, since I assume there shouldn't actually be any call-outs for the single player practice mode to launch. One of DeSmuME's rivals/peers/whatever you'd like to say, MelonDS, doesn't have this issue, and allows this level to load in practice mode without issue. Now, on the surface that may seem logical; it's an emulator that supports WiFi. However, it also has no documentation mentioning anything about this mode in Metroid Prime Pinball (in fact, the game is only mentioned a couple times on their forum, period [kind of like here]).

So basically all I'd like to ask is: is this issue ACTUALLY related to WiFi, or is it a genuine compatibility issue? A kind dev is working on a set of achievements for the game over at retroachievements.org, and MelonDS is not fully supported there, and therefore this table will be ignored for the time being. But I figured on the off chance this may be an extremely simple thing to fix that doesn't actually involve functioning WiFi (again, it's just a single player practice mode of the WiFi stage), then I'd point it out and cross my fingers that it could be fixed before this set is finished so that this mini-table could be integrated into the set. Thanks for reading, and I hope it wasn't a total waste of your time!

Last edited by AfroRyan (2022-10-05 00:56:04)

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#2 2022-10-05 19:13:44

zeromus
Radical Ninja
Registered: 2009-01-05
Posts: 6,169

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

Works fine for me. I don't think you're using the current version of desmume. Or perhaps youre using a dirty firmware file.

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#3 2022-10-06 04:28:29

AfroRyan
Member
Registered: 2022-10-05
Posts: 4

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

That's very strange. I was using the latest stable build (the win64 version of 0.9.13) with the issue described, and when I realized there was a nightly I thought "oh, I bet that was the problem." Unfortunately, I just grabbed it, version 0.9.14gi#739f316 x64-JLT SSE2. I tried running the table without BIOS, I ran into the same issue; the game just doesn't do anything when you press start after already being in the Wireless Mission screen, aside from play music. It will make a sound effect for trying to back out of it, but then it doesn't actually do that either, so a reset is required. I tried it with many different BIOS files, including my own dumps, but the exact same problem. I tried it with different regions of the game, thinking maybe it only affected the US version and maybe the PAL or JAP regions would be okay, but unfortunately I ran into the exact same issue. This is on the standalone emulator, but I'd ultimately want it to work on the RetroArch core where I'm also having the same issue. I know the RetroAchievements dev is also experiencing this issue, but couldn't give you specific details on his version (but as a dev I imagine he'd be using the latest stuff). I haven't changed any other emulation settings outside of toggling external bios and external firmware in various combinations to see if I can achieve different results.

I really do appreciate the suggestions though, and I hope it may just be some obvious oversight on my part. I don't want to submit a bug report if this is just user error, but the handful of users I've seen talking about the table described the same issue (I found those comments on a YouTube video, though admittedly it was quite old).

EDIT: for good measure I just checked my MD5 checksum against https://docs.libretro.com/library/desmume/#bios and I had some that matched, used those, and still had the same issue. I'll try some different firmwares and do some further testing though.

Last edited by AfroRyan (2022-10-06 05:19:58)

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#4 2022-10-06 20:10:23

zeromus
Radical Ninja
Registered: 2009-01-05
Posts: 6,169

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

use 0.9.13 final release. Delete your ini file. Don't change any settings. Use metroid prime pinball USA version with MD5 a773db21d5641f810f076b366485c496. Change config > wifi settings and check "enable wifi emulation". Let the game reset. The mode you want will now work. Note that in my case, bridge network adapter is "Error: Could not load winpcap". If yours is binding to winpcap successfully then youll be testing something different from me. Since WIFI IS NOT SUPPORTED, I dont have winpcap installed, since it wouldn't work anyway.

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#5 2022-10-06 21:24:03

AfroRyan
Member
Registered: 2022-10-05
Posts: 4

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

That did the trick! I guess it is making some sort of weird call-out to WiFi despite being the single player practice mode...I'm just happy it works smile Thanks!
Sorry to keep pestering, but concerning the RetroArch core, I can't seem to find this setting under the various core options. Is it hidden somewhere deep, or is that option not supported on there? Maybe there's a workaround with manually editing the .opt file? Again, thanks for all the help and information; I'll be sure to share it with the RetroAchievements community!

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#6 2022-10-06 21:31:43

zeromus
Radical Ninja
Registered: 2009-01-05
Posts: 6,169

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

We don't support the retroarch core. We don't know anything about it. It's probably outdated.

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#7 2022-10-06 22:12:29

AfroRyan
Member
Registered: 2022-10-05
Posts: 4

Re: Metroid Prime Pinball issue

Aw, okay. Thanks for the help, regardless! There's still people out there that will be happy to know it works with some minimal menu toggling.

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