RTC issues with Pokémon games

[SteveAdams86]

When using retroarch on low power emulator devices like TrimUi brick and Miyoo Flip when I start a game a message appears about the internal battery has run dry and time based events won't work (needed for certain evolutions and berrys). I have tried to make certain my clock is set to the correct time. Where applicable in operating systems set the correct time using built in RTC applications

[davidgfnet]

Does this happen when using the latest Retroarch and gpsp versions on PC?
Cause in some cases the developers of said consoles might be shipping older versions or even patched versions. I added a fix a few months ago (b0d5d27) for some Pokemon games (it was a legitimate bug that had not been caught for many years).

Make sure you are using a gpsp version that has that fix, otherwise I can't help you :)

[gli81]

Hi David, thank you for all the work you’ve done on this project. I’m experiencing the same issue with the RTC in Pokemon Emerald (language modified into my native language). In my case, the message doesn’t appear at game start, but the in-game clock is frozen. I’ve tried multiple recent releases from this repo, and the last one where RTC worked correctly was commit f0bacff (the one before RTC rework).

However, I really like the multiplayer functionality you added in later versions. Would it be possible to fix the RTC issue in the newer builds, or perhaps backport the multiplayer features to the older (working) commit?

[davidgfnet]

So this is happening with a ROM hack then? Do you experience the same on a regular "official" ROM?
Thanks

[gli81]

So this is happening with a ROM hack then? Do you experience the same on a regular "official" ROM? Thanks

Thanks for getting back to me. I just tested with the English original ROM and the clock worked.

The ROM I normally play with only changes the language with a different character set, and no gameplay or logic changes were made. Could it be that the combination of the new RTC code and the different character set caused the issue, as the "hacked" ROM worked fine with the previous gpSP version (commit f0bacff). Is it expected that RTC might not work properly with such lightly modified ROMs? If not, do you have any suggestions on where I could look in the code or the hacked ROM to investigate or adapt it for compatibility?

Thanks again for all the work you’ve put into this project. The multiplayer feature is really great and help me get what I couldn't as a kid.

[davidgfnet]

Mind sharing the ROM (just the hash and some info on how to find/google it)? I can test it.

[gli81]

Mind sharing the ROM (just the hash and some info on how to find/google it)? I can test it.

Hi David, that’s very kind of you. thank you!

I’ve attached two ROMs here (and I have to change their extensions to .txt as .gba cannot be uploaded, kindly revert them back to .gba should make them work):

• The first one is the language-modified version (the one that causes the RTC not to move when used with newer gpSP cores).

• The second one is the same ROM but patched with a simulated clock as a workaround. However, I believe this patch introduces an issue where the ROM sets the start date to 65535 days plus some hours, which makes the simulated clock advance only during the first 24 hours of gameplay. 😔

I’ve also reached out to the author of the language-modified version, and they told me they are not very familiar with RetroArch, and are looking into it.

Thank you again for helping out!

[davidgfnet]

Thanks, will look into it.
Please do not upload copyrighted material, we could get in trouble :)
You can always email stuff to me, though
Keep you posted

[jamescastells]

Hi. I'm reporting that I have this issue on Android, using the last version of gpsp (v1.1.0-6250979) and Retroarch 1.22.2. I get the "The internal battery has run dry" message, but I'm getting it on vanilla Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald.

[RdrSeraphim]

Dittoing that this still occurs on the Miyoo Mini Plus, same versions as jamescastells with Pokemon Emerald.

[FayeReagan]

Latest nightly breaks RTC again on Nintendo 3DS
On RetroArch Stable 1.22.2 the RTC works on Pokemon Emerald

[xikteny]

Can report that this issue is happening to an Emerald romhack called Emerald Seaglass with 1.22.2 - gpSP (v1.1.0-d6decfa), on Windows. I am using version 3.0 of this hack.

Starting a new game, setting the time, saving, exiting, and then reloading results in a "The internal battery has run dry..." message. Forcing Core Options ➤ RTC support: ON seems to have no effect. Actually, I think this does work.

This same hack does not exhibit this issue, when using 1.22.2 - mGBA (0.11-dev 6dce57e), on Windows.