[Maemo 5] MAME [WIP] (Formerly SDLMAME) - Page 15 - maemo.org

ryanl33x1511 | # 141 | 2010-08-10, 23:36 | Report

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

Bazza | # 142 | 2010-08-10, 23:54 | Report

Originally Posted by ryanl33x1511 View Post

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

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.

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Name: mame32.jpg
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Size: 12.2 KB

Rushmore | # 143 | 2010-08-11, 13:35 | Report

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.

Last edited by Rushmore; 2010-08-11 at 13:38.

ivgalvez | # 144 | 2010-08-12, 17:35 | Report

Originally Posted by Rushmore View Post

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.

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

oldpmaguy | # 145 | 2010-08-17, 14:46 | Report

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!

The Following User Says Thank You to oldpmaguy For This Useful Post:
Flandry

oldpmaguy | # 146 | 2010-08-17, 18:40 | Report

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.

ivgalvez | # 147 | 2010-08-23, 12:51 | Report

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:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_X86: ~] > fakeroot apt-get install mame
...
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  mame: Depends: accelemymote (>= 0.0.7) but it is not going to be installed
...
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  accelemymote: Depends: joydev but it is not installable
....
Package joydev is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source

E: Broken packages

So I have tried to install it on Fremantle ARMEL:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~] > fakeroot apt-get install mame accelemymote joydev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package joydev is a virtual package provided by:
  kernel-module-joydev 0.1-maemo2
You should explicitly select one to install.
E: Package joydev has no installation candidate

Then:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~] > fakeroot apt-get install mame accelemymote kernel-module-joydev
...
Setting up kernel-module-joydev (0.1-maemo2) ...
WARNING: Couldn't open directory /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic: No such file or directory
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic/modules.dep.temp for writing: No such file or directory
modprobe: Can't open dependencies file /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic/modules.dep (No such file or directory)
dpkg: error processing kernel-module-joydev (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 255
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of accelemymote:
 accelemymote depends on joydev; however:
  Package joydev is not installed.
  Package kernel-module-joydev which provides joydev is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing accelemymote (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mame:
 mame depends on accelemymote (>= 0.0.7); however:
  Package accelemymote is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mame (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 kernel-module-joydev
 accelemymote
 mame
E: Sub-process /scratchbox/devkits/debian-etch/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

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

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~/mame-0.138u1] > fakeroot apt-get source mame

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:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~/mame-0.138u1/debian] > fakeroot apt-get remove  kernel-module-joydev     
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  kernel-module-joydev
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 61.4kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 27676 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing kernel-module-joydev ...
qemu: Unsupported syscall: 129
ERROR: Removing 'joydev': Function not implemented
WARNING: Couldn't open directory /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic: No such file or directory
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic/modules.dep.temp for writing: No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing kernel-module-joydev (--remove):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
WARNING: Couldn't open directory /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic: No such file or directory
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic/modules.dep.temp for writing: No such file or directory
modprobe: Can't open dependencies file /lib/modules/2.6.32-24-generic/modules.dep (No such file or directory)
dpkg: error while cleaning up:
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 255
Errors were encountered while processing:
 kernel-module-joydev
E: Sub-process /scratchbox/devkits/debian-etch/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I have also tried with apt-get -f install with no success.

Any clue? Thanks.

ivgalvez | # 148 | 2010-08-23, 13:21 | Report

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:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~/mame-0.138u1/mame-0.138u1] > fakeroot apt-get -f install debhelper libsdl1.2-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxinerama-dev  libgconf2-dev sharutils

But MAME still won't compile:

Code:

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~/mame-0.138u1/mame-0.138u1] > make
Compiling src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c...
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c: In function 'int osd_work_queue_wait(osd_work_queue*, osd_ticks_t)':
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c:281: error: 'osd_yield_processor' was not declared in this scope
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c: In function 'int osd_work_item_wait(osd_work_item*, osd_ticks_t)':
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c:516: error: 'osd_yield_processor' was not declared in this scope
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c: In function 'void* worker_thread_entry(void*)':
src/osd/sdl/sdlwork.c:666: error: 'osd_yield_processor' was not declared in this scope
make: *** [obj/sdl/mame/osd/sdl/sdlwork.o] Error 1

Figa | # 149 | 2010-08-23, 13:24 | Report

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

Flandry | # 150 | 2010-09-08, 14:27 | Report

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.

The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Flandry For This Useful Post:
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