SofaROM and the CLPC-MSX16MBRAM-BK

Master (245)

21-12-2022, 11:11

I received a 16MB SDRAM CLPC-MSX16MBRAM-BK cartridge from classicpc.org yesterday. When I boot my MSX (a Sony HB-F1XV with 512KB internal RAM) with the cartridge in slot 2 the boot screen shows 16384KB RAM and using Tiny Slot Checker (https://www.tiny-yarou.com/slotchecker.html) I and can see that all pages in slot 2 are RAM.

There are dip switches on the back, but the documentation leaflet is in Japanese so I can't read that, but there is a picture showing all switches off and just nr 1 on.

https://ibb.co/jybbKsN

It seems that it only provides the full 16MB when all are in the on position. When only nr. 1 is on and the rest is off, like in the picture, the boot screen shows 4608KB RAM, but Tiny Slot Checker shows the only RAM in slot 2 is in 2-0 page 1 and 2. The rest of slot 2 is empty. When I put the cartridge in a slot expander, the boot screen shows just 512KB RAM and Tiny Slot Checker shows RAM in slot 2 is in 2-0 page 1 and 2 only, see picture below.

https://ibb.co/0r9T692

I bought this device because wanted to play Lily's Saga from my GR8NET. It has 1024KB RAM, which is too little. But I haven't found out how to use SofaROM to load a large ROM into the 16MB RAM and run it. SofaROM has a /K switch but I can't find a way to just say use the RAM in these slots. Is there a way to do that? Or is there another tool to do this?

EDIT: It seems the picture tags on this forum are not working for me.

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Par geijoenr

Champion (364)

21-12-2022, 11:27

I have that cartridge as well.

It looks to me it works as an slot expander, so you effectively have 4 x 4MB. Not sure how DOS2 handles that?
I was assuming you need some custom software to make use of all the mappers at once.

Par Pencioner

Scribe (1564)

21-12-2022, 11:35

I believe you got confused by that GR8NET has RAM and this device has RAM though in case of GR8NET it switches RAM to be a ROM with a mapper at FPGA side for playing a game, while your new device has a pure RAM mapper and no game mapper (Konami/ASCII/...) support so there are no possibility to use it this way. At least as far as i understand what's this 16Mb RAM device is (i think it doesn't support MegaRAM emulation, then it is useless to play game ROMs)

Par The Apeman

Master (245)

21-12-2022, 11:40

Pencioner wrote:

i think it doesn't support MegaRAM emulation, then it is useless to play game ROMs

What would it need to support MegaRAM emulation?

Par The Apeman

Master (245)

21-12-2022, 11:42

geijoenr wrote:

I have that cartridge as well.

It looks to me it works as an slot expander, so you effectively have 4 x 4MB. Not sure how DOS2 handles that?
I was assuming you need some custom software to make use of all the mappers at once.

Does such software exist? If so, where?

Par Pencioner

Scribe (1564)

21-12-2022, 11:58

The Apeman wrote:

Pencioner wrote:

i think it doesn't support MegaRAM emulation, then it is useless to play game ROMs

What would it need to support MegaRAM emulation?

Firmware/hardware changes. Nothing that SofaRun could do about it

Par The Apeman

Master (245)

21-12-2022, 14:05

I learned something today. Thanks.

Par sdsnatcher73

Prophet (3954)

21-12-2022, 14:44

SofaROM can support Memory Mapper for ROM games but it is buggy and slow (not necessarily the fault of SofaROM, loading game I not RAM requires specific attention and is best achieved on a per ROM basis rather than a generic one).

Par Manuel

Ascended (19467)

21-12-2022, 15:21

Unless the author or someone else adjusts the game to run from memory mapper, it cannot really be played on a real MSX with common hardware. But I heard there are plans for a physical release, so that would be a solution.

Par ducasp

Paladin (680)

21-12-2022, 15:28

Hey, adapting from ASCII 16 to mapper should be a chinch and there is a chance Sofarun might be able to patch it correctly and not cause huge slow dows, did you make sure you've forced the type in sofarun to ASCII 16? Sofarun will detect Lilly's Saga as ASCII 8 by default and game won't work even if everything else is fine unless you force it to ASCII 16 instead of auto detection.

Par The Apeman

Master (245)

21-12-2022, 16:08

Yes, I chose Memory Mapper and selected ASCII16, but the result was that SofaRUN told me it found 4096MB in slot 1-1, while the RAM cartridge was in slot 2. Running it made the MSX hang.