Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I also wuv MAME ^-^!

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Flandry, MAME will never lack for fans!!! It's an all-time classic, the granddaddy of emu's. The kiddies will always chase after fashion. We're here for the long haul for you, man.

I just want to confirm, accelymote needs to be started prior to opening MAME to enable accelerometer control-ability, yes?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

If you have updated to the latest version, yes, due to a change in accelemymote. With the next release of MAME it will go back to its automatic startup with the same mechanism to shut it down (turn phone upside-down soon after starting).

Good to know people are still enjoying MAME. :)

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I do not think it is a bandwidth issue, since some very complex and graphic busy shooters play very well, while simple games like Galaga 88 play very slow. My 900 is clocked at 800mhz.

Does the new MAME version work fine with 1.1? I never upgraded to 1.2, since I only use my 900 for media and MAME. I do not want to go through the hastle of updating, since the OC kernel I use is one of the earlier ones and probably not update friendly. I do not want to risk hosing the device, since works fine for what I use it for.


"Beer", it's what's for dinner.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

We're talking about a specific ROM though, not a general constraint. If you increase processor speed by 33% and get a ~2% increase in speed, what do you conclude? Well, that it's not CPU bound.

It turns out that memory bandwidth is one of the biggest limitations to graphical game performance on N900 because there's no dedicated VRAM. The actual limitation here could of course be something else entirely.

It's the performance of emulating processors that are running code in ROM that is the limiting factor, not the performance of running the game code itself. Some really simple games may use really complex processors or weird techniques that worked great on original hardware. :)

The kernel power kernel is compatible with PR1.2, and seems to be working well for many. If you really don't want to update then i guess you'll have to test it--I have no way of doing so. There's no Qt in it so i'd expect it to work okay, but i don't know if any of the other libraries linked to were changed in the update.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Hi, i Started this, http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...874#post765874

unaware that mame was on the 900 already!

Just wondering what the current state of it is, Ultimately I was looking to play Super Street Fighter II turbo, Is this a realistic prospect, or simply out of the phones capabilities?


Regarding arcade sticks connecting via usb, is that feasible out completely outlandish?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Sorry not tried these, not a big fan of the street fighter series, i will have a look for you though.

Does it have to be sf 2 turbo or any of the series?

Are you asking specifically to use an arcade stick or any controller?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

There are some bluetooth controllers that should work fine but until USB host mode is released you won't be able to connect a USB controller.

I have some SF2 ROM and it isn't full speed but "works" with the default frameskip, however using the N900 keyboard for SF2 is hopeless and it also seems to lock up the phone UI after some time. I haven't diagnosed the cause yet.

Give it a go with the ROM in question and let me know how it works. ;)

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

any games you generally recommend to play, that play well on the actual WIP ?

Tried my favorite "Tumble Pop", not a good result :(

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Have you tried using a PS3 six axis controller?

They work a treat and wireless which is much better ;)

EDIT

Just tried street fighter 2 turbo (you will need street fighter 2 championship edition (world) as a parent rom aswell) and they both run at 72-85% on auto frame skip with a little drop in % when the screen gets busy or other words when i'm getting my butt kicked. :rolleyes:

And again works well with six axis controller.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Did you have any trouble with lockups?

Ghosts and Goblins works great and is a fun classic. Time Pilot, Rampage, Gauntlet are all playable. Mr. Do...

Never heard of Tumble Pop. Too slow?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

ah, im new to the emulation topic on n900,
so, after upgrading to power kernel, "Tumble Pop" runs great with 900MHz on this Version.

Some Animations are missing, have this something to do with some sort of frameskip, or isnt there any fs on mame emulation?

Nothing special on Tumble Pop, have some childhood memories related to it :D

But it was published by Data East, and its just a fine arcade game :D

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Played a whole fight which was a three rounder (got beat as usual) and it didn't lock up.

How long into the rom running are you experiencing this lockup up?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Frameskip is set to automatic, so it's possible what you are noticing is missing frames. If you run it from the command line (/opt/mame/mame.sh tumblepo (or whatever the mame name for tumblepop is)), you will see afterwards what the actual speed was. There's also a way to access that information from the menu (one of the volume buttons will open menu).

In SF2 i usually get it during the first fight but not always. I've been getting it in other games too but not as predictably (in GnG it hasn't ever happened). I'm still not sure that it's not a peculiarity with the setup on my N900 because i haven't had complaints, so that's why i ask.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I haven't had such problems with mame in general, apart from the odd bad rom.

The games i play mostly are dragon busters,hyper sports and commando etc for long periods with six axis and TV out and i have no issues with mame locking up. So it could be your phone setup.

Are you waiting for the next version of mame to be released before you release your latest build?

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I'm very glad to hear that. I may make a few necessary tweaks and promote it to testing then.

There was some major reorganization in 138u1(?) and it seemed best to wait to bump the version until a few releases have gone by to allow for things to settle down. I did spend a lot of time profiling a couple weeks ago, compiling with some different compiler switches, and trying to figure out how best to optimize without specific hacks. (Also inquired about the slowdown in rtype--i think it's just part of the ROM and maybe was that way in the actual arcade. Have you tried it e.g. on a PC?) blah blah long story short all the things i tried were detrimental to performance. Actually, the main SDL developer for MAME suggested that MAME4all would probably be a better option for this hardware. :p lol

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Yeah it would be better to wait unitil you can release a version which has some significant improvements and in the meantime you can concentrate on other projects.;)

R-type works fine on pc mame 0138 and also works fine on mame4all 2.5 on the gp2x wiz (although this version is based on mame 0.37b5).

How big a job would it be for you to port a command line mame4all from the WIZ or pandora versions so i/we can compare performance against the current N900 version, mainly on the sluggish roms which should run ok?

link to souce code for WIZ version hope this helps

http://www.talfi.net/gp32_franxis/

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

tried The Cliffhanger - Edward Randy some Minutes ago, runs absolutely playable! Nice to play such a game on my smartphone haha

thank you Flandry for all your efforts!

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Does anyone know how can i view list of roms that i have in orders instead (random select)....I read the config file but seem couldnt find any specific regard about that.. Please help, I would appreciate. Thanks

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

The only way - i think - is by searching your roms through the GUI with the alphabet

For example:-

pressing A will bring up most of your roms beginning with A and you can do the same with other letters of the alphabet.

OR

you can spell out the rom name and it will show up in the list:-

typing dragon

will bring up

dragon busters
dragon ninja
dragon spirit.......... etc etc

Hope this helps

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

yes , i noticed that but i always press backspace to remove alphabet and close out so quickly...

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

This is not Flandry's doing but the way mame has evolved. i do like the mame32 GUI and the way it displays roms though.

Attachment 12853

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I updated to 1.2 finally and the new Flandry the Great, update of MAME 138.1. Observations from a mega MAMEr:

1. This is the best portable version for any device- no contest
2. Not sure if it is due to 1.2, the new update to 138.1, or a combination of both, but games play smoother. Example is the game, In the Hunt. It now plays smooth with just some frame tweaks and OC to 800mhz. Used to play slow, regardless of tweaks.
3. Some games still lock the device up and require holding the power button to shut down and restart, but I take the good with the bad. In this case, the good is 99% over the bad :) Seems some larger roms are the main culprit (KOF 2001 is example- it loads, but locks up when picking fighters). Still, a lot less seem to lock up than used to :)

Flandry, if you ever figure a way to get around the video ram issue, that would fix some game speed issues, but regardless of that, GREAT job!

Funny how the complex Cave shooters play smooth, but older games like Galaga and Galaga 90 play slow- this ties into Flandry's point about some arcade board hardware being an issue to emulate. ALL portable versions of MAME play those games slow for every device I have used, which is a lot.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Keep in mind that some very old games use analog devices to play sound and they are extremely CPU intensive to simulate.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Flandry, let me report that I got a Game Gripper and MAME operares wonderfully with it - MAME just got better, with a better controller. I know this isn't a MAME issue ^_^ but I just wanted to say that MAME is even more playable without needing to think twice about button issues!

But I do have one request - is there ANYTHING that can be done about the "game selection list"? The current setup is just far too limiting - not being able to see comprehensive lists of my games makes it really difficult to choose a game, let alone remember what games I have available.

At least a "favorites" folder would be helpful. But really, the ability to scroll down a list of alphebetized games is sorely missing. I'm surprised that the GUI can't show a scrollable list - it's just those few games that can fit in the window, and that's it?

And also, the disparity between "rom names" and "game names" makes it confusing. It would be better if the lists were sorted by their game name, rather than the rom name, since sometimes the rom doesn't begin with the same letter that the actual game title does.

A system that I thought worked really well was for the MAME for the GP2X system. You could sort your entire list of roms by alphabet, a letter at a time; i.e., there was a dropdown menu that you picked a letter from, and then the games would show i the GUI.

Anyway, this is just my two cents, please know that your version of MAME is still being played and enjoyed by the N900 community!

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Flandry, another, seperate question.

Would it be possible to use the method outlined here
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=492880&postcount=3
to open MAME roms from the file browser?

It would certainly simplify things a bit, even for the short term.

I tried it, but when I finally got to the bottom, I realized it was for GBA and SNES roms only! So I improvised and tried to point it to MAME, but when I click on a MAME rom, that comic reader tries to take over and open the file, apparently because it is a zip file.

Is there any way around this? Any advice on the matter? Thanks so much.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Hi Flandry,

I've been trying to compile MAME on Scratchbox and I've found that I couldn't install the binary packages on Fremantle X86:

So I have tried to install it on Fremantle ARMEL:
Then:

So I haven't been able to install it in Scratchbox. Then I tried to download sources and try to compile it by myself:

Which gave me no errors, but when I tried to compile sources I wasn't unable to build because my missing dependency libraries such as libsdl1.2-dev.

Now I can't install any development packages due to broken package kernel-module-joydev:
I have also tried with apt-get -f install with no success.

Any clue? Thanks.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Well, after a few minutes of apt-hell I've uninstalled the offending kernel-module-joydev package which tried to install over an unexisting kernel 2.6.32.

Now I've installed the dependency packages for MAME as listed on debian/control:

But MAME still won't compile:

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Hi Flandry, big thank you for your amazing work on it. Are you planning release new upstream version? THX for reply.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Hi MAME fans

Thanks for your comments and feedback. To address some questions:

ROM selection currently uses the default (inbuilt) menu. Because this is built (AFAICT) to work like a ROM, the code is fairly opaque to me and when i've tried to make some changes have broken it. Most MAME derivatives ship with a 3rd party frontend. I've looked at a few and it would probably be easy to port one, but most are designed with a large display in mind and show far too much information.

I'll look around again and see if i can find a lightweight one that would be appropriate, but it will probably be a separate installation as i like having MAME a simple, single package.

The problem with associating file types and starting MAME by clicking ROMs is that you'll most likely be using zipped archives and associating the zip type with MAME wouldn't make a lot of sense. You could still probably register MAME as the handler for zip and have it work though, at least in principle.

Compiling MAME requires you to specify NOASM as a parameter so that it uses the miniwork functions instead of the expected ASM helper functions. That's the cause of the errors you see there. The easiest way to build it would be to grab the source package and then copy the debian directory into the new source code from upstream -- and to use dpk-buildpackage so that you are using the configuration defined in the debian packaging.

New upstream version can certainly be released at some point. I haven't started up scratchbox for more than a month so i'll take a look soon.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Thank you, will try and report.

Regarding MAME frontends they usally are very CPU intensive as they usually try to maintain a large amount of data in memory while searching for roms.

I would suggest you not to try porting any existing MAME frontend but just write a very simple GUI to launch any rom file with MAME, and after that, maybe, other features could be added.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

i am getting error
the selected game is missing one or more required rom or chd images
plz help
i have placed neogeo file too...

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

- Which rom are you trying to use?

- Where have you placed the neogeo file?

Help us out to help you out...:D

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

dino and metal slug all parts
neogeo file in roms folder

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

hi all, i am new with the n900 and mame, I have the same problem as my friend above, I got the rom of ghost and goblins and the neogeo roms folder but it says the same thing as above.
Also I have another problem, the Double Dragon's going very slow and the sound cut off, is this normal? or is only a problem of mine?.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Is it possible to disable the auto-save-on-exit feature?

I ask because on certain difficult games (KARNOV!!!) I'd like to use the old "save and quit before boss" method. But MAME keeps overwriting my save when I exit, regardless! I'd jut like it to keep the manual save. I realize the auto-save on exit feature is nice and is handy sometimes, but for certain manual uses of saving, it just makes a problem.

Might there be a config file that can be edited, or something like that? Thanks so much, Flandry.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

You have to

- unpack the rom into a folder
- unpack the neogeo bios file into the unpacked rom folder
- pack or zip all the unpacked files into a new zip file and make sure you name it the same as the original rom.

this should work.

@sub7

For ghosts n goblins search for this rom.

gng - rom size 155kb

double dragon plays about 50% speed with stuttering sound

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

@Flandry

Read that the new versions of mame 0.138,0.139 for example are having problems with under-powered pc's and are showing slow downs and sound stuttering and people are advised to return to older versions to experience smoother gamplay on both graphics and sound syncing on older roms space harrier, r-type,nemesis(gradius) etc. i haven't read any of your posts recently so i don't know how busy you are. Is there a chance you could possibly look into doing a quick port of MAME build 0.37b5 from the wiz or pandora versions just to see if they can maybe run some of the trickier roms better?

Ran my GP2X WIZ at 533mhz on mame4all 2.5 (build 0.37b5) tweaked a few settings and got outrun running at 76% speed at 18fps on frameskip 7, very playable. so surely the N900 can run this emulator at similar if not better performances

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

Haven't forgotten MAME, but have been waiting for the next version update. Got my SDK set up again the other day but have not pushed a new version from upstream because it sounds like they are still experiencing a lot of regressions from the transition to C++. Your comment confirms that, but as i mentioned early on, this is the port of MAME. Old branch MAME projects (of which one or more are known to work fine on N900) could be ported but would be completely different packages, which is reasonable as they wouldn't be compatible with the same ROMs.

You can always install an older version of MAME--0.137, for example.

Would you just keep two separate ROM collections?

I'll consider this if the next version of MAME doesn't improve things, but no promises as that's basically a new port to maintain.

Re: [Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME)
 

I do not seem to have the problems mentioned with a full set of MAME 1.39.3 and I also use it on my dual core SU7300 M11X "netbook". I use both the 32 and 64 bit versions if MAME.

I will test again. Shame about the lack of Vram on the N900, since game platforms like Neo Geo are a lot slower than they should be. Especially since a lot of more complex Cave shooters play so smooth on the N900 with this great app.