Update support for Gearcoleco and Gearsystem (Colecovision / SG-1000)

[drhelius]

I'm the author for both Gearcoleco and Gearsystem emulators.

Just saw that they are listed here as not supported for Colecovision and SG-1000 respectively.

I'm not sure why. I developed both of them with RetroAchievements support in mind. I just checked again and I was able to trigger achievements for both platforms using RetroArch.

If I'm wrong just let me know what is needed in the emulator side, but the games I checked seem to work fine.

[wescopeland]

cc @Jamiras @televandalist I don't know anything about these emulators/cores beyond one of the corresponding labels saying there's significant unexposed memory.

[drhelius]

Yes I saw the comment about the unexposed memory but I'm not sure why, as the memory is exposed :)

If there is anything missing just let me know so I can fix it.

[Jamiras]

This is what I found: RetroAchievements/RAIntegration#1104 (comment)

This is what we expect: https://github.com/RetroAchievements/rcheevos/blob/a2f31ea06df21c13b9585a5a2c77b5ba92f1ff97/src/rcheevos/consoleinfo.c#L373-L381

So it seems like the SGM memory is what's not exposed. I looked at five random games with sets and none of them were using the SGM memory, so it's most likely just because there's so much more of it than the base RAM that someone said there's "significant unexposed memory".

[Jamiras]

Looking through Discord history, I'm seeing things like:

In reference to https://retroachievements.org/game/25263:

Are you using Gearcoleco as your core? That caused me some issues because it is apparently not a fully supported :RA: core (achievements work, but memory is funky and may not work properly).

In reference to https://retroachievements.org/game/22414:

is there a better core than gearcoleco? the game I am playing has a weird issue where even though I have cleared the board, it hasn't done the "you won" screen or given the cheevo

In reference to https://retroachievements.org/game/14071 (see also official forum topic)

Controls were fine in BlueMSX where it was devved, but in the Gearcoleco core buttons seemed to get stuck. Like I couldn't hit the same button twice in a row, but had to press a different button between them.

And some other comments that I couldn't figure out which games they're referencing:

and in testing it on gearcoleco, it was making the game harder because the jumps emulate like shit on it. seems like that's not supposed to happen lol

I've personally run into games using that core where I couldn't get cheevos at all

I was playing games using Gearcoleco and had no issues with achievements, until one day I ran into issues

[Jamiras]

It would be nice to get the SGM memory exposed, but I don't think that should be a blocker for marking the core as supported.

I'm more concerned about the memory being "funky" and achievements just not working at all. Unfortunately, I don't have any concrete examples.

[drhelius]

Thanks a lot for the info.

As you have stated in a provided link, SGM memory overlaps main memory and that's why it wasn't exposed before.

Please refer to the linked commit for SGM exposition. If I understand it correctly based in your reference now it should be fully exposed with expected addresses. Anyway, I didn't see any SGM games in here: https://retroachievements.org/games?filter%5Bsystem%5D=44&page%5Bsize%5D=100

Regarding the memory being "funky" I don't have a clue as it is just a fixed array. Regarding the input problems it could be a bug I solved a year ago, but it would be helpful to know the actual games failing.

[drhelius]

I think that Gearcoleco can be marked as compatible now. I'm in the RetroAchievements.org and libretro servers on Discord, feel free to tag me if there is any problem or complain but I think Gearcoleco will be fine.

Regarding SG-1000 in Gearsystem, it has support for cheevos for most games and I can see what is missing for others. I will work on it and let you know when it is finished.