Warzard / Red Earth not booting past region select

[elite789]

Hi,
I've recently acquired my very first CPS3 which happens to be Darksoft-ready.

I can flash third strike (version A) just fine and the game boots and works perfectly, but with somehow a caveat : If I hold the 1P start button and boot the game through the darksoft menu, and only in this very case, it displays the very first Third strike screen showing the version, then I get a black screen.

Otherwise, on boot, if I don't go into darksoft menu and just wait for the region select, it works perfectly and I have not encountered any other issue with this CPS3 which is in a pretty immaculate state.

Today I tried to flash Warzard, and I basically encounter the same issue as this user reported : zero issues while flashing the SIMMs, but upon selecting the region, I just get a black screen. Just like that user, if instead I boot the game through the darksoft menu, it works perfectly fine (and it boots with JAPAN region seemingly).

I would have assumed that third strike working would have implied all my SIMMs are OK.

For what it's worth, I have the securty cassette utility menu V3.00 / Rewrite game menu version 1.0, and I seemingly have a custom SH2. Here is a picture of the cart :

I'm using the UniCD-CPS3_for_custom_SH2_V6_Unmodified_MakotoFix.iso release on my BlueSCSI SD card.

Some help would be appreciated. Could these issues be related to the wrong BIOS being flashed (I got it as-is) in respect to the custom SH2 ?

I would have no issue reflashing the bios (just need the programmer), or I could probably just buy a repro from Darksoft as I always planned to get a spare one anyway (if I'm not mistaken, repros are standard SH2s ?).

 

[Darksoft]

Make sure that you are actually using the ISO for the CUSTOM BIOS. If that is the case, then maybe one of your SIMMS is bad, or the simm socket. I'm inclined towards simm 1 or 2 as these hold the program code and it's not normal that a game boots and hangs after a while. Either it boots or it doesnt. Maybe your BIOS is uber old.

If you had the wrong BIOS ( the one for standard SH2 in your case, then it wouldnt even boot IIRC).

 

[elite789]

Make sure that you are actually using the ISO for the CUSTOM BIOS. If that is the case, then maybe one of your SIMMS is bad, or the simm socket. I'm inclined towards simm 1 or 2 as these hold the program code and it's not normal that a game boots and hangs after a while. Either it boots or it doesnt. Maybe your BIOS is uber old.

If you had the wrong BIOS ( the one for standard SH2 in your case, then it wouldnt even boot IIRC).

Well given I used UniCD-CPS3_for_custom_SH2_V6_Unmodified_MakotoFix.iso , I guess I'm using the right ISO.
If it were the SIMMs, I would have expected third strike to not work (if at all) perfectly with this board as it does ? To my knowledge Third strike uses all the SIMMs, and Warzard only uses a subset of them. Given the weird quirk with Third Strike when manually booting the game through the Darksoft menu (but not Warzard...), and zero issues when booting straight into the game without going through the Darksoft menu (again, Warzard doesn't boot in this case), it looks more of a super old BIOS issue than anything to me.

I'll send you a PM about repro carts as I was planning on getting one anyway if that's ok for you.

Also, this user stated in another thread that his issue was fixed by reflashing the (a newer / older ?) bios.

EDIT : also flashed 2nd impact, and it works totally fine also but has the same quirk as third strike (only when booting via Darksoft menu, first screen with game title and version shows, then black screen). Again, Warzard is the opposite : works perfectly only through the Darksoft menu, doesn't boot at all when booting "normally". Again I might be wrong but it looks like more of a bios code issue than any SIMMs related issue, but I'm no expert.

 

[elite789]

Ok, I believe to have definitive proof that it's either a BIOS issue, or a ISO issue.

I went back and got rid of the UniCD-CPS3_for_custom_SH2_V6_Unmodified_MakotoFix.iso (looks to have been released/made around 2021) and instead used UniCD-CPS3_for_custom_SH2_V5.iso (released around 2015), and I'm happy to report everything works perfectly now with Warzard, either by booting normally or through the Darksoft menu.

I hope this will help anyone facing this issue in the future if they have a (seemingly, as don't know which version I have though) older BIOS. Symptoms should still help.

I'll reflash third strike with this UniCD-CPS3_for_custom_SH2_V5.iso also and make sure the game works and that the little quirks are also fixed.

Unfortunately this probably means no Makoto fix with this BIOS (and maybe it's also related to the custom SH2), but I don't really care. Or one could simply just make another ISO with the makoto fix and the initial Warzard released in the first ISO.

I'll edit this post once I've verified there are no more issues.

UPDATE : All games seem to work perfectly now. Third strike still won't boot from the darksoft menu : in this very case it boots and I see the game title along with its version, followed by DARKSOFT, but then the "JAPAN" region text that should follow is being overriden by "DARKSOFT" (so there is "DARKSOFT" twice) which probably shouldn't be there and smells bios code issue once again. Then black screen.

But as it is, I can finally play all games without any issues.

 

[Darksoft]

Great news! Enjoy!