Bucky O'Hare Black Screen Freeze on Stage 4

[Awakened0]

Tested bucky on the latest nightly libretro core from the libretro buildbot (96ae794).

On Stage 4 (Asteroid Belt) the UI disappears. After you beat the boss, when it tries to load the next level, it freezes on a black screen with no sound. But I can still bring up RetroArch's GUI, so it doesn't fully crash.

Here is a state at the end of Stage 3. You can load that to see how the next level loads without the UI showing, then finish the level to encounter the freeze:

bucky.zip

[dinkc64]

FWIW: I just made it to stage 5 in fbneo standalone version w/o a problem

[Awakened0]

Oh, interesting. Hopefully it'll be easier rather than harder to fix if it's libretro only.

I do use some modified game settings, but I wouldn't think they would affect this. I turned on free play and increased the life per credit to 5.

[barbudreadmon]

Are you increasing cpu clock or something ? Many users think it's harmless while it absolutely isn't.
Any other sensible setting enabled ? Like runahead ?

[Awakened0]

All my core options are defaults for bucky (CPU at 100%). Runahead's off too.

[barbudreadmon]

Rewind wasn't used in that game session either ? Do you know if it can be reproduced consistently ?

[Awakened0]

Never turned on rewind. I first found the issue with a build of the FBNeo core from about two months ago. Then I updated it yesterday to test the same way, starting the game from the beginning (no states loaded). And the UI disappeared on Stage 4 and it froze on the black screen the same as on the older build.

[barbudreadmon]

Ok, good thing it can be reproduced consistently.

@dinkc64 This might be some kind of oob issue, the libretro port was always more sensitive to those. I'm packed for the next few days but i'll try to do a full run of this game with asan sometime soon.

[dinkc64]

Awakened0, when you say UI, are you referring to the game's HUD (the top part with the little picture of the character/score/lifes)?

[dinkc64]

barbudreadmon, thanks, that'll be helpful. I went through the source for bucky quite a bit and nothing stands out so far

[Awakened0]

Awakened0, when you say UI, are you referring to the game's HUD (the top part with the little picture of the character/score/lifes)?

Yep. All of that is gone at the start of stage 4. The first time it happened, when I lost all my lives and continued, the HUD appeared. But the HUD was frozen, and the Game Over text was stuck on the screen too.

[dinkc64]

Thanks for clarifying!

Is there any chance you could grab the latest Windows version of FB Neo & play a game of Bucky while recording the inputs?

quick how-to:
grab the windows 32bit or 64bit zip here
https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/tag/latest
recommended: https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/download/latest/Windows.x64.zip
toss bucky.zip into the roms subdirectory that it creates after you launch fbneo.exe

After booting the game & configuring your controls, do:
"Game -> Replay.. -> Record Input..", when the dialog comes up, check "Record from Power-on"
Then when you get to the part that glitches, "Game -> Replay -> Stop Replay/Record",and the file will be in
the recordings folder, something like bucky.fr - upload that here :)

best regards,

• dink

[Awakened0]

Ok, did the recording with standalone FBNeo. The same two problems happened (no HUD on stage 4, then frozen on black screen before it loads the next stage) as in the libretro core.

buckyrecord.zip

[Awakened0]

So, one more idea I had to try was deleting my nvram file for the game and seeing if the issues popped up without modifying game or coin settings.

This time stage 4 showed the HUD fine and I was able to continue to stage 5!

Before I was enabling both free play and 5 lives per credit. My guess is the free play setting is the one causing the issues, but I don't feel like another play through with only the 5 lives setting enabled right now.

I wonder if free play and/or increased lives is bugged on the actual PCB or if it's the emulation.

[dinkc64]

Thanks so much for doing the recording!
That's a good question, I'm going to try to hack an eeprom into your recording with just the 5 lives and see if it makes a difference.

[dinkc64]

Hi Awakened0,
I came up with a fix for the issue. It changes the dma timing slightly, so previously recorded recordings won't sync up.
I played a couple games w/cheats to get there though, with different settings and things seem OK. Though, it'll need further testing because I basically just plowed through the game with fast forward & invincibility & autofire, and that's not really a good test.

best regards,

• dink

[Awakened0]

Quite an annoying bug to test since you have to play through half the game to get to it.

Thanks for the fix! Hopefully it holds up in more normal tests.

[Awakened0]

Today I did a full free play, 5 lives per credit playthrough with no cheats or anything. Didn't run into any issues using the latest FBNeo libretro nightly core.

Thanks again!

[dinkc64]

That's great news! Thanks for your help :)

best regards,

• dink