Visuals not working properly in SSF

[T-Dot1992]

Hi,

I have been using SSF for some time now. However, recently the emulator has not been working correctly. Every time I load it up, all I get is the audio of the game booting up, and the screen remains blank.I can hear the game sound in the background but get no picture. When switching from windowed to fullscreen I can see the game a split second before it goes black again. It clearly runs the game just the screen won't show the game.

I have tried numerous things, I have redownloaded SSF numerous times, be it the latest version or an older one, and still I get this problem. I have DirectX 11 installed, and still it isn't working. Please somebody help, I really love the Saturn and would hate to no longer be able to play its wonderful game library on my computer.

My specifications:

Graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon 5650

Processor is Intel(R) Core i5 CPU M430 @ 2.27GHz (4 CPUS),

I am using Windows 7 64bit version

[Ziggy]

I never really used SSF, so I won't have anything but really broad suggestions.

Did you notice the problem after installing any updates? Especially something like a graphics card update?

[Exhuminator]

Did you update your graphics video card driver before this error occurred?

If you have Windows 7 on auto update, it may have downloaded and installed a new driver for your GPU that is incompatible with SSF without you knowing. It's been a while since I've used SSF, I don't remember if it offers the ability to render the game through software instead of hardware. If it offers that function, give it a shot and see if the game renders. If it does, then it's likely a GPU incompatibility after all. If so, try rolling your GPU driver back manually to an older version.

Also, some Saturn games are not compatible with SSF and will only show a black screen when emulation is attempted.

Other sources for ideas:

http://www.fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/emuhelp_ssf.htm

http://ssftribute.emuunlim.org/faq.php#what%20is%20SSF

[T-Dot1992]

I upgraded from Directx9.0 to Directx11, could that be part of the problem?

[Exhuminator]

If SSF utilizes DLL files from DirectX 9 that aren't present, or have been heavily modified in DirectX 11, then that issue could be a problem. Especially if the problem manifested itself immediately after you changed from 9 to 11. If that's the case rollback your DirectX from 11 back to 9 and see what happens.

[T-Dot1992]

So, I uninstalled DirectX11 and installed DirectX9.0c. But now, as I boot up a game, I get an error that says "Drive_Status_Play()Error. Fatal error">

[Exhuminator]

So, I uninstalled DirectX11 and installed DirectX9.0c. But now, as I boot up a game, I get an error that says "Drive_Status_Play()Error. Fatal error">

That error usually indicates SSF has a problem with the game image you're trying to use. Are you using a CUE/MP3 set? That won't fly. Are you mounting an ISO through Daemon Tools? That won't fly either. SSF wants CUE/BIN, natively. There are a few sites out there that offer that format for download, but I obviously can't link to them here. You can also try burning your image to a disc and loading it within SSF and see how that goes.

[GSZX1337]

You can also try burning your image to a disc and loading it within SSF and see how that goes.

I've done this before and it worked well. Another thing to try (which I haven't... yet) is to mount your current image and create an image based off that mounting image with Alcohol 120% which supports bin/cue creation.

[T-Dot1992]

So, I uninstalled DirectX11 and installed DirectX9.0c. But now, as I boot up a game, I get an error that says "Drive_Status_Play()Error. Fatal error">

That error usually indicates SSF has a problem with the game image you're trying to use. Are you using a CUE/MP3 set? That won't fly. Are you mounting an ISO through Daemon Tools? That won't fly either. SSF wants CUE/BIN, natively. There are a few sites out there that offer that format for download, but I obviously can't link to them here. You can also try burning your image to a disc and loading it within SSF and see how that goes.

That's odd, I've been mounting ISO's through Daemon tools all this time, and it worked fine up until I started having problems with the emulator. So, I tried loading my disc of fighters mega mix, with all the options suited for the region of the disk, and the emulator acts as though the disk drive is open and doesn't even boot up.

[T-Dot1992]

So I downloaded a different version of SSF (SSF 11 alpha R5), booted up my copy of fighters megamix, and got this