the state of mame

[Rick]

Good god, Jeffo. I just spit my drink all over my damn BB.
LOL.

[Gray_Area]

Good god, Jeffo. I just spit my drink all over my damn BB.
LOL.

I hold my nose when I puke, so it's only half as good....I mean, bad.

What is wrong with 720 again?  I personally do not play it, as I thought it was crap when it was out in the arcades...

Blasphemer!

[BobA]

I would like to thank all MAME devs and those who have contributed to the project and those who will contribute to the project in the future.  I would have a really boring arcade machine without it.   

Just my personal opinion 

[RandyT]

I would like to thank all MAME devs and those who have contributed to the project and those who will contribute to the project in the future.  I would have a really boring arcade machine without it.   

Ditto.  I haven't been happy with every change made in MAME, but since I am not the one slaving over the code, it really doesn't matter.  Folks may not always like the direction it's traveling in, but IMHO, there's never a legitimate reason to be unappreciative for having been allowed along for the ride.

RandyT

[Dexter]

I would like to thank all MAME devs and those who have contributed to the project and those who will contribute to the project in the future.  I would have a really boring arcade machine without it.   

 

Hear hear. My first step towards building and restoring cabs was with running MAME 030 on my pentium II PC so I could play an arcade perfect copy of Nemesis/Gradius. Its no exaggeration to say that without the work of Nicola and the other MAME devs I would have never owned or worked on an arcade machine.

[Malenko]

Mame is about Preserving games. They word it as preserving mere circuit boards. But thats a crock, and everyone knows it.  To PROPERLY preserve a game, means that game has to be experienced the same way it was DESIGNED TO BE EXPERIENCED!!!  This SHOULD include every aspect, from gameplay, PROPER control methods, controller Documentation/Specs, cabinet art, cabinet dimensions, internal artwork, history development notes/stories, and much much more.  If these things are NOT being Documented... then you are NOT PRESERVING A GAME.

So mame says they are preserving the circuit boards. You dont think that preserving the circuit boards is enough. You want MAME to do more. MAME doesnt want/have/need to do more. You dont like that. You should start a new project, call XouchePreservation or something, where you could preserve every aspect,  from gameplay, PROPER control methods, controller Documentation/Specs, cabinet art, cabinet dimensions, internal artwork, history development notes/stories, and much much more.

[spoot]

To be honest I think threads like this help push away contributors be it code, scans, bug reports, etc as after coming home from work does one want to deal with even more back and forth bickering when now they aren't getting paid for it? 

I used to code assembler on mainframes and can appreciate how much work and reverse engineering that must occur on some of these boards. Staring at hex code all day can make one go bonkers. For that I thank the current and past developers for what they have accomplished so far and continue to do. Are some of them d-bags...most likely...just like many of the end-users are d-bags. Human nature baby.   

After Haze's initial webpost I downloaded the source and took a look around to see if it's something I wanted to play around with when not working on my other coding projects. Some of it looked pretty straight forward and some looked to require alot of digging into the code and mechanics to be able to contribute. I wondered if this is sumthing I wish to spend my free time on. Then I read threads like this and go "smurf it....I'm gunna go play xbox". I wonder if there are others that feel the same?   

[TechDante]

I would like to thank all MAME devs and those who have contributed to the project and those who will contribute to the project in the future.  I would have a really boring arcade machine without it.   

summs up my feeling exactly. without the hard work of all the developers the thousands of games (good and bad) would have been lost forever to become a distant memory only seen in films and museums.

[ark_ader]

.

[Xiaou2]

Never once did I ever say I didnt appreciate the efforts put into mame.

 However, that still does not mean I cant be dissatisfied with the bad attitudes and lackings in preservation.

 It would be just the same if my Discs of Tron scan was made at 30 dpi, stitched crooked, 8 bit color, specs of Dust/Imperfections, light leakage ..etc.  Just cause I did it for Free, does not make it good or right... and people can and would have complained...  And rightly so.  It was a crappy Preservation effort.  Just because they dont have the skills, time, money, scanner, and artwork... does not mean they cant be upset.  As if they Did, more than likely they would have redone it themselves.  Though, its pretty much stupid to Waste efforts on re-doing things... when you COULD do things right in the first place.   A lot of devs it seems dont seem to get this concept.. which is one reason why they constantly are re-doing all of their code. (which doesnt help attract new Devs with limited time, who dont want to have to re-learn & re-code  everything every 2 months)
 ( Basically, my point there would be to spend a few days Planning for the future before diving right into coding something in a "Limited" fashion that will surely become obsolete... and or does not take into consideration the entire Scope thats needed for full potentials)

 Going back to the Classic Car example.... everyone can appreciate that many of these cars are Drivable.  Most dont seem to care that there is no "body", or internals..so long as it drives.

 Other cars simply cant be driven properly, because instead of slapping on a steering wheel & pedals... the supercar has an xbox controller, which would be futile and fatal, to even attempt to drive it... let alone race it at high speeds.  Is that car Preserved?  The engine runs... but its pretty much worthless, because it simply Cant be driven over 20mph safely.

 The people who DO try to fool around with the car like that... wont drive fast, and dont care that car is capable of so much more.  And so why even bother catering to them grannies?  The main target should be the ppl who actually CARE about the Car, and want to Drive it as was intended.  Anyone else should have to "Hack" a cheat in there to hotwire some hackjob up.

 (A better example might be a person changing a Classic Manual 5 speed car to an Automatic.  Tragic Butchery)

"just like many of the end-users are d-bags"

 Funny, cause Ive met more Punk Elitist Programmers/Techies with Poor attitudes, Anger/Temper Issues, Arrogant, Self Absorbed, etc.. than the typical EndUser/Collector/Gameplayer.   Ahh, but generalizations are great arnt they?

 Generally speaking, Programmers/Techs have poor social skills. (which is why they enjoy talking to a computer for Hours instead of real people) They dont get along too well with others, and many times have no patience for people they feel are beneath them. (people who cant do what they do - but "SHOULD" be able to  /sarcasm    . . . )

 But ehh, I dont like to Generalize.  I prefer to judge people as Individuals... as everyone Is different, and its simply not fair to place judgments on an entire group of souls... just because of the actions of Some.

 Finally,

 If YOU designed a game, spent weeks made a special controller for it... and spent several months balancing the entire gameplay off of it...  Then some PUNK KID comes along and Butchers it to bits, hacking the incorrect controller on it.. with No option for the real deal, taking away the surround sound, and the force feedback   ...How exactly would YOU Feel ?!  Whos the D-Bag in this scenario?

 That was Your Baby. Not theirs.  And they shouldnt have the right to make a poor impression of YOUR game, because they lack they make the poor decision to use the incorrect controller.
 

 Its very easy to see things from Your Personal perspective...  But that does not mean you are in the right.

[Hoopz]

Its very easy to see things from Your Personal perspective...  But that does not mean you are in the right.

Kettle, meet Pot. 

The big difference between you and most of the rest of us is that while we may not always agree with the direction/results, we don't complain, belittle, demean, or insult those working on the product.  We simply acknowledge that it's their time and talent and that they may do with it as they please.  We say thanks for what you have done.  You act like a child who can't get his/her way.

And your "Punk Kid" comment shows your maturity level and lack of understanding more than anything else.

[Hoopz]

If YOU designed a game, spent weeks made a special controller for it... and spent several months balancing the entire gameplay off of it...  Then some PUNK KID comes along and Butchers it to bits, hacking the incorrect controller on it.. with No option for the real deal, taking away the surround sound, and the force feedback   ...How exactly would YOU Feel ?!  Whos the D-Bag in this scenario?

Let's examine this further.... What if someone designed some classic controllers, put a lot of money, time and effort into making them just perfect to be put on their cabinets where they fit perfectly, and overall made a classic setup only to find a horrendous website where some

PUNK KID

built some bastardized, gaudy, f'tard of a contraption that allowed for all of these specialty controllers to be built into wood, that supposedly spun around so the end use (the same punk kid, of course) could try and play these games?  How exactly would you feel?  Who's the dumbass now?

It's ALL perspective now, isn't it?

On the positive side, if it's as easy to code in your switch to make it work, find out the code from when it did work, code the switch in so it works now too, recompile and make it happen, cap'n!  If it is really as easy as coding the switch, then do it.  It ain't like your launching rockets or anything.  It's not finding the cosign of Pluto or whatever.  It's just a switch like you said.

[Haze]

It would be just the same if my Discs of Tron scan was made at 30 dpi, stitched crooked, 8 bit color, specs of Dust/Imperfections, light leakage ..etc.  Just cause I did it for Free, does not make it good or right... and people can and would have complained...  And rightly so.  It was a crappy Preservation effort.  Just because they dont have the skills, time, money, scanner, and artwork... does not mean they cant be upset.  As if they Did, more than likely they would have redone it themselves.  Though, its pretty much stupid to Waste efforts on re-doing things... when you COULD do things right in the first place.   A lot of devs it seems dont seem to get this concept.. which is one reason why they constantly are re-doing all of their code. (which doesnt help attract new Devs with limited time, who dont want to have to re-learn & re-code  everything every 2 months)
 ( Basically, my point there would be to spend a few days Planning for the future before diving right into coding something in a "Limited" fashion that will surely become obsolete... and or does not take into consideration the entire Scope thats needed for full potentials)

More BS.

Most things get rewritten because the development of MAME is a LEARNING process, you understand things, you write code based on that understanding, new things come along that changes that understanding and you find that rewriting the code based on that new understanding is cleaner than trying to bash the original implementation into doing what it needs to do.  Most of it _can't_ be preplanned because we work with unknowns.  It's nothing to do with wasting effort, poor planning of whatever else you like to claim, and it's a part of nearly EVERY single software project in existence.  

Writing something from day 1 with a bunch of redundant features you can't test, and can't develop properly makes no sense and usually results in NOTHING at all getting done, because you're too busy trying to solve problems which don't even exist yet rather than actually doing something.  Are you saying that when Nicola wrote his Pacman emulator he should have made sure it supported lightguns, analog wheels, 720 controllers and whatnot from day one even if those things were entirely unneeded at that point?  Things evolve, code gets rewritten as a result once it reaches a point where that is deemed necessary.

Again you're showing a complete ignorance for how things actually work just so that you can bend them into some argument you're trying to make which is complete and utter nonsense anyway.

MAME is still around, and IS still being developed albeit in a lesser capacity than before, yet practically every other arcade emulator has come and gone in a fraction of that time, bogged down in trying to please every single end user rather than actually catering for the developers and emulating stuff.  The fact that MAME has survived and prospered where others emulators and derivative builds have failed and become unmaintainable is evidence enough that your argument is nonsense.

If the builds that offered all the things you wanted were so damn fantastic, then why have things like AdvanceMAME completely died (aside some guy badly backporting drivers then refusing to release source)  If they were so much better then everybody would have switched over to developing for those instead and abandoned the main project.  They didn't.  The official version of MAME currently offers a good balance, and MOST people recognize that.

Its very easy to see things from Your Personal perspective...  But that does not mean you are in the right.

Indeed, glad you've finally realised how wrong you are.

As for classic cars, whatever, I've said before, the people doing official ports of these things are happy enough to use console controls, and to be quite honest, it makes sense.  All you're demanding of MAME is that it does something we've never stated it will do and continue to try to push YOUR idea of preservation on people rather than respecting the choices made by the team.

You will be quite happy to know that all the pinball games supported in MAME will just be interface board emulations, and most definitely require the original controllers tho!

[TechDante]

 If YOU designed a game, spent weeks made a special controller for it... and spent several months balancing the entire gameplay off of it...  Then some PUNK KID comes along and Butchers it to bits, hacking the incorrect controller on it.. with No option for the real deal, taking away the surround sound, and the force feedback.
 

with all the different types of games with their own controller setup/special controller it would be simply impossible to try and incorporate them all into a controll pannel. it would end up dominating any cab that tried it was connected to. when people build their cabnets they have to balance between authnticity and useabilit, depending on what type of games they want to play.

[abaraba]

"MAME is strictly a non-profit project. Its main purpose is to be a reference to the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines." (from about MAME on mamedev.org)
The controls are on the outside, how we handle them isn't defined by this project statement.

Objection is actually exactly about how MAME fails to properly reference those 'inner workings', by omitting to provide support for authentic controls, which does very much need to be emulated from "inside". -- It does not matter who will fix it, do you agree it eventually needs to be fixed or not?

On the contrary, if MAME was more about playing the games, why would we go the extra mile to emulate properly emulate speech chips, with a huge performance hit, when the Samples were more than good enough to just play the games?

Being able to play the games IS still a side-effect of it, because the primary goal is to figure things out and document them...

If MAME is not about playing the games, why is there so many options to process and display frames on PC monitors, why stretching, blurring and filtering, why trying to imitate arcade CRTs, why false game speeds and re-sampling hacks, but still no option to output authentic resolutions at original frame-rates at all?

[RandyT]

If it wasn't for Mame and the huge following (including this site), would your business be profitable or in existence?  The same goes to Ultimarc, and the many cabinet makers out there.  I wonder how much the vendors actually contributed financially to the Mame Project during all these years? Makes you think.

If you are inferring some sort of monetary link between vendors and the MAME project, then you would be joining the ranks of X with the conspiracy theories.  I can't speak for others, but as GGG is concerned, it's just not there.  Most of what I try to do is somewhat comparable in hardware to what the MAME devs do in software.  You can have the coolest arcade-style game ever made on your PC, but without the ability to use real arcade controls, it's not going to deliver a comparable experience to the one you may have had in the gameroom.

Would my business (or this site) be profitable, or in existence without MAME?  Certainly.  GGG's customer list includes many significant non-gaming related businesses and organizations.  To boot, I have been using real arcade controls to play my own games since the Atari 2600 was on store shelves, and have done it for just about every one of my game systems and computers for the last 30+ years.  I played Donkey Kong (ColecoVision), Pac-Man and Galaxian (Atari Computers) on a real WICO arcade joystick and leaf buttons long before there was even hardware capable of emulating other hardware to any usable degree.  There have always been arcade-style and classic games for consoles and PCs, and without MAME, there would be more of these released than there are now.  You would also find more very arcade faithful "re-interpretations" of the classics being made than there are now (and there are A LOT, even with the existence of MAME.)  Neither this site (if you read what Saint has publicly stated on the matter), nor my own business, revolves specifically around the existence or use of MAME, rather offering the ability to average folks to be able to play arcade-style games (wherever they come from) on their very own arcade cabinet or control panel.  Every arcade control related business saw a huge jump in sales with the release of Street Fighter 4, which has nothing to do with MAME in the slightest.  This is proof that a popular mainstream offering like that one dwarfs any market created by this much smaller group of very dedicated enthusiasts.

But the fact remains that MAME does exist and of course we acknowledge that.  Being quietly grateful that it does, along with all of the other great options out there for arcade gaming with real controls, should be a "no-brainer" for anyone not prepared to, nor capable of contributing to them.

GGG's contributions exist primarily in the form of the work we do to bring back a nearly lost gaming experience, and make it usable on your PC with any type of game, or application, one wishes to apply that experience to.  We also contribute indirectly to this site through a sizable amount of monthly advertising dollars, which pay for the ads you might see once in a while.  But for the MAME project proper, direct support from vendors would run counter to the organic and "not for profit" nature of the project, and GGG respectfully abstains from offering it.  Likewise, we have never been approached by any member of the MAME team offering any kind of support for our products in return for monetary, or any other type of considerations.....ever.

RandyT

[CheffoJeffo]

If YOU designed a game, spent weeks made a special controller for it... and spent several months balancing the entire gameplay off of it...  Then some PUNK KID comes along and Butchers it to bits, hacking the incorrect controller on it.. with No option for the real deal, taking away the surround sound, and the force feedback   ...How exactly would YOU Feel ?!  Whos the D-Bag in this scenario?

Let's examine this further.... What if someone designed some classic controllers, put a lot of money, time and effort into making them just perfect to be put on their cabinets where they fit perfectly, and overall made a classic setup only to find a horrendous website where some

PUNK KID

built some bastardized, gaudy, f'tard of a contraption that allowed for all of these specialty controllers to be built into wood, that supposedly spun around so the end use (the same punk kid, of course) could try and play these games?  How exactly would you feel?  Who's the dumbass now?

[Haze]

"MAME is strictly a non-profit project. Its main purpose is to be a reference to the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines." (from about MAME on mamedev.org)
The controls are on the outside, how we handle them isn't defined by this project statement.

Objection is actually exactly about how MAME fails to properly reference those 'inner workings', by omitting to provide support for authentic controls, which does very much need to be emulated from "inside". -- It does not matter who will fix it, do you agree it eventually needs to be fixed or not?

I don't consider it broken, I don't consider it to need fixing.

On the contrary, if MAME was more about playing the games, why would we go the extra mile to emulate properly emulate speech chips, with a huge performance hit, when the Samples were more than good enough to just play the games?

Being able to play the games IS still a side-effect of it, because the primary goal is to figure things out and document them...

If MAME is not about playing the games, why is there so many options to process and display frames on PC monitors, why stretching, blurring and filtering, why trying to imitate arcade CRTs, why false game speeds and re-sampling hacks, but still no option to output authentic resolutions at original frame-rates at all?

It's designed to be developer friendly, for developers to use, and easy testing on a standard PC so that we get good bug reports, for things we do consider bugs and want to fix.  We've covered this already.

The failure of projects like AdvanceMAME simply show that trying to cater for a tiny (in comparison) bunch of users, by writing code which is untestable and unmaintainable by the majority DOES NOT WORK.

Most PC hardware wouldn't even cope with authentic resolutions, mid-screen resolution changes and such.  Half the reason AdvanceMAME went into a state of disrepair is because they had no way of properly integrating new features needed once MAME started actually emulating framerate and resolution changes at run-time, even on Windows you need to manually scale lines to work with mid-screen res changes, because modern hardware simply doesn't do it.  It's hopeless, it's a lost cause, and it's not worth investing effort into.  Come the day all external devices require secure connections and signed drivers, including controllers, all your user built controls will end up the same way.  (and yes, some of the big players in the industry are pushing for this, Microsoft don't really like knock-off Chinese 360 pads on the PC while the XBOX is already locked down, and Sony already locked out a bunch of 3rd party controllers on the PS3 for similar reasons)

By catering for the majority MAME gets the biggest potential pool of both developers, and users to test the code.  By catering for the minority you get an unmaintainable mess which is prone to break with hardware updates, OS updates and the like.

If you want a team which cares more about the minority users you're going to have to find one.  MAMEdev provide the base project, one that works with the most common PC hardware.  If people want to build on that, add their own functions, make it work with real controls, make it work with real monitors then they can.  The fact that the only person maintaining advanceMAME in ANY form whatsoever right now can't even be gracious enough to share his source code with you so that you can also contribute tells me a lot.

MAME is trying to emulate things of the past on a modern platform, not drag parts of them along with it.

[Firebat138]

Being new and old to mame... In and out for years...  The one thinig I would like to know, especially since I am building cabs for a couple of people right now, is that what does it take to get a NEW game into Mame...  For instance Golden Tee and etc...  Like we have GT2K2 I think...  Does a license have to expire and then the mamedevs can legally get new games to work on?  I only ask cause the client I am building this for is a huge bowling/golf fan.  and after bringing his new pc over to  his house and showing where to get mame, roms, Hyperspin, etc....He, being a NOVICE at best at computers...He seemed very confused to say the least....  :-)

I know that the Dreamcast Namoi thing has come a long way and it is either NEW to ME, or NEW to everyone, but I just got it....  So cool...

Anyways...I for one being almost 40 and my kids growing up and loving the arcade cab  is a great feeling.  Nothing better than sitting back and playing a little shuffle board with the kids...  So keep it up...

 

[Haze]

Being new and old to mame... In and out for years...  The one thinig I would like to know, especially since I am building cabs for a couple of people right now, is that what does it take to get a NEW game into Mame...  For instance Golden Tee and etc...  Like we have GT2K2 I think...  Does a license have to expire and then the mamedevs can legally get new games to work on?  I only ask cause the client I am building this for is a huge bowling/golf fan.  and after bringing his new pc over to  his house and showing where to get mame, roms, Hyperspin, etc....He, being a NOVICE at best at computers...He seemed very confused to say the least....  :-)

What gets worked on is generally dictated by what is available to work on.  What progress gets made on generally depends on who is working on it, and how complex it is.

Developers tend to avoid working on 'active' platforms because it doesn't really make any sense to.

I don't think anybody is working on the newer GT games, they run on significantly more complex hardware, and if I had to guess I imagine you'd get around half the performance of NFL Blitz.

[ErikRuud]

 But ehh, I dont like to Generalize. 

Then why did you?

[Malenko]

I just dont get how the software guys are responsible for the interface hardware. 

Also, most "specialty controls" were gimmicks, like the bike handles for paper boy. Was the game neater with them? Hells yeah. Is it needed to play the game? not really.

[abaraba]

I don't consider it broken, I don't consider it to need fixing.

Let's call it "incomplete" then. Do you agree emulation is *incomplete* without support for authentic controls, and so that it eventually needs to be properly documented/emulated too?

It's designed to be developer friendly, for developers to use, and easy testing on a standard PC so that we get good bug reports, for things we do consider bugs and want to fix.  We've covered this already.

No. Stretching, blurring and filtering, or anyhow changing animation frames is not only unrelated to documenting "inner workings", but is also of no help or relevance to developers, what so ever. Unless, their goal is to satisfy "nostalgia feel" when playing games on their PC, which directly contradicts the statement how "playing the games is only a side-effect".


What do you propose scan-lines, stretching, blurring and filtering have to do with testing?

The failure of projects like AdvanceMAME simply show that trying to cater for a tiny (in comparison) bunch of users, by writing code which is untestable and unmaintainable by the majority DOES NOT WORK.

What do you think AdvanceMAME fails in, what feature/functionality do you think is missing, or not done properly? AdvanceMAME did not fail, it got COMPLETED. As far as I know all the bootleg multi-game boards use AdvanceMAME, which ultimately confirms it is actually the best multiple arcade emulator out there.


MAME is not able to accurately document/preserve games, i.e. 'reference inner workings', because it is not able to actually emulate and output authentic resolution and refresh rates. Attacking AdvanceMAME can not change that, it only makes me laugh as a poor attempt to change the subject.

Half the reason AdvanceMAME went into a state of disrepair is because they had no way of properly integrating new features needed once MAME started actually emulating framerate and resolution changes at run-time, even on Windows you need to manually scale lines to work with mid-screen res changes, because modern hardware simply doesn't do it.

Again, what feature do you imagine is missing or not properly done in AdvanceMEME? Why would anyone integrate any more new games that can't run on any hardware anyway, or add any more mainstream MAME nonsense, why keep fixing what's not broken?

MAME is trying to emulate things of the past on a modern platform, not drag parts of them along with it.

Or, you could say: - by attracting to many wanna be programmers and letting them freely fiddle with MAME you now have bloated MAME that can not run properly without "modern platform".

[RayB]

I just dont get how the software guys are responsible for the interface hardware. 

Also, most "specialty controls" were gimmicks, like the bike handles for paper boy. Was the game neater with them? Hells yeah. Is it needed to play the game? not really.

Uh, yes actually. That was a rather foolish thing to say. 

[Haze]

I don't consider it broken, I don't consider it to need fixing.

Let's call it "incomplete" then. Do you agree emulation is *incomplete* without support for authentic controls, and so that it eventually needs to be properly documented/emulated too?

No, I consider it complete as far as the goals of the project are concerned.  If somebody wants to extend those goals further with their own project they're welcome to.

It's designed to be developer friendly, for developers to use, and easy testing on a standard PC so that we get good bug reports, for things we do consider bugs and want to fix.  We've covered this already.

No. Stretching, blurring and filtering, or anyhow changing animation frames is not only unrelated to documenting "inner workings", but is also of no help or relevance to developers, what so ever. Unless, their goal is to satisfy "nostalgia feel" when playing games on their PC, which directly contradicts the statement how "playing the games is only a side-effect".


What do you propose scan-lines, stretching, blurring and filtering have to do with testing?

If you deliver a product which is basically absolutely horrible to use then nobody will use it, it won't get properly tested, it won't get properly adopted, and it will die.

The features you mention are features all designed to keep it user friendly, so that people do actually make use of it, so that it does actually get tested, so bugs do actually get found and so that it can continue to be further developed.  If nobody used MAME it would be YEARS behind where it is now simply due to lack of feedback.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, that's why hardly any testing gets done of the Naomi driver because with current PC speeds it isn't practical.  Once PCs catch up I'd expect development on that to accelerate because people will be testing it and reporting issues.

The limits of what MameDev consider to be acceptable have been drawn.  That's why you see basic filters, but not ones which actually malform the graphics in an attempt to 'enhance' them like the HQ4x stuff, we leave that to other ports.  It's also why you won't see us running PSX games with the 3d rendered at 1900x1200 or whatever else.

One of the main problems with MESS (historically) is that despite being based on MAME it's been presented in a much less user-friendly way.  This meant nobody ended up using it and most drivers were left in a state miles behind the equivalent standalone emulators, which only served to act as a feedback loop, meaning even less people used it.
  

The failure of projects like AdvanceMAME simply show that trying to cater for a tiny (in comparison) bunch of users, by writing code which is untestable and unmaintainable by the majority DOES NOT WORK.

What do you think AdvanceMAME fails in, what feature/functionality do you think is missing, or not done properly? AdvanceMAME did not fail, it got COMPLETED. As far as I know all the bootleg multi-game boards use AdvanceMAME, which ultimately confirms it is actually the best multiple arcade emulator out there.


MAME is not able to accurately document/preserve games, i.e. 'reference inner workings', because it is not able to actually emulate and output authentic resolution and refresh rates. Attacking AdvanceMAME can not change that, it only makes me laugh as a poor attempt to change the subject.

Half the reason AdvanceMAME went into a state of disrepair is because they had no way of properly integrating new features needed once MAME started actually emulating framerate and resolution changes at run-time, even on Windows you need to manually scale lines to work with mid-screen res changes, because modern hardware simply doesn't do it.

Again, what feature do you imagine is missing or not properly done in AdvanceMEME? Why would anyone integrate any more new games that can't run on any hardware anyway, or add any more mainstream MAME nonsense, why keep fixing what's not broken?

Your ignorance continues to astound me, there have been light-years worth of improvements to the emulation of even the classic systems since then, bugs fixed in both gameplay, visuals, audio output.  AdvanceMAME continues to be used on cabinets because it's the cheapest lowest cost solution with the lowest spec requirement for dirt-cheap chinese bootleggers.   Same reason it's always the 0.3x versions of MAME which get ported to handhelds, even if the emulation on them is atrocious compared to modern versions.  AdvanceMAME has failed, because it is dead, it can't take advantage of any of these REAL improvements, it probably couldn't even be made to.

You could write a novel on the number of things improved in MAME since 0.106 or whenever AdvanceMAME bit the dust.  The use of AdvanceMAME and MAME4All is why most of these chinese bootlegs are really crappy, with awful audio, and game-breaking glitches.

I'm not changing the subject, I'm using it as an example of why supporting MAME running on CURRENT platforms with CURRENT hardware is more important than trying to hack in support for legacy garbage.  Unless you have a team of people dedicated to doing *just that* your project will die, as AdvanceMAME did.  MameDev develop MAME in their own time because they enjoy doing it, I don't want to have to run a 20 year old OS just to develop it and test it.  You're lucky it still baseline even runs on Windows 9x at all, if it still does! (I don't know if anybody even tested it recently, I know MameUI doesn't tho)

MAME is trying to emulate things of the past on a modern platform, not drag parts of them along with it.

Or, you could say: - by attracting to many wanna be programmers and letting them freely fiddle with MAME you now have bloated MAME that can not run properly without "modern platform".

No, we have the product we want and set out to create, an emulator for old systems that works on a modern platform and therefore can easily be developed, maintained and updated without the risk of the very emulator ending up being just as much of a relic as the hardware it's trying to emulate due the absurd requirements of having an outdated platform.  Bloated would be adding a billion options to support legacy garbage we can't test.  MAME is streamlined to run on modern hardware.  You seem to have your terms reversed.

[Vigo]

MAME is trying to emulate things of the past on a modern platform, not drag parts of them along with it.

Or, you could say: - by attracting to many wanna be programmers and letting them freely fiddle with MAME you now have bloated MAME that can not run properly without "modern platform".

No, we have the product we want and set out to create, an emulator for old systems that works on a modern platform and therefore can easily be developed, maintained and updated without the risk of the very emulator ending up being just as much of a relic as the hardware it's trying to emulate due the absurd requirements of having an outdated platform.  Bloated would be adding a billion options to support legacy garbage we can't test.  MAME is streamlined to run on modern hardware.  You seem to have your terms reversed.

I never considered MAME bloatware in any sense of the word. What is it, a 12 MB download? Starts up instantly on windows xp, a 10 year old operating system, while using a 10 year old computer. 

[TheShanMan]

I'll just say as a software engineer, what Haze is saying about mamedev's approach is 100% right and I applaud them for approaching this project in a way that has kept mame relevant all these years. That is no small achievement.

The things that various groups of users want that are outside of the goals of the project can be solved either by someone starting a derivative project or by providing diff's that people can use to compile their own mame to work the way they want. It may be inconvenient and people may wish that mamedev would just incorporate that work to make it easier for themselves, but that doesn't mean it's mamedev's responsibility and it certainly doesn't give users the right to be childish by demanding and criticizing.

[Paul Olson]

I talked to Aaron about adding support for controls at CAX last year, and he basically said the same thing that Haze is saying; it is not one of the goals of the project and won't be added. that said, he is not opposed at all to a derivative that adds the functionality. It is just beyond the scope of what MameDev wants to do. It is a bummer for those of us who do use the authentic controls, but it makes sense from their perspective - keep focussed on the task at hand. I wish that this was a priority for the team, but I can accept that it is not. I have a lot of respect for everyone who has worked on MAME, and they are certainly entitled to use their time as they see fit.

If we could get a team together to work on a derivative, that would be great. I have talked to a few people, and while we are all interested, we can't really commit to it right now. If we ever get it started, we would have to find some way to keep it updated. If we got it finished, who knows, maybe it could end up in the core someday, but I think there is zero chance of us having support for it unless we do it. I am still an entry level programmer, but I would like to help on the project. I just know that I don't have the time to try to get it started and maintain it.

I think the target market for what we want is mostly on this forum, and I also think it is a very small percentage of us who actually need it. If there are enough of us to make it happen, great, but MAMEdev is not going to do it. If we get a serious effort going, some of them may be willing to help us along, but it will be up to us to do it. Is anyone interested?

[yotsuya]

I like TheShanMan's comment about providing diffs rather than attacking the development team. MKChamp's diffs have been valuable, and have actually taught me how to compile so I could incorporate a functionality that I wanted (but wasn't necessarily part of the program). It's been fun. In fact, I downloaded the source to DICE, changed it and recompiled it so now I can play Pong on my cabinet using my button assignments (as the defaults aren't MAME friendly). It was a great learning experience .

[ark_ader]

.

[CheffoJeffo]

Everybody knows that I am not a MAMEGuy(tm) and that Haze doesn't agree with some of the stuff that I do, but this thread is getting ridiculous.

If you want something so badly that you are willing to alienate the people who do the work, then write the ---smurfing--- code yourself.

Otherwise, you are just catching your dick in your zipper whilst you whip it out to show how cool you are in the scene.

[ark_ader]

.

[spoot]

Otherwise, you are just catching your dick in your zipper whilst you whip it out to show how cool you are in the scene.

That could have some advantages of them being unable to reproduce.   

[RandyT]

Exactly. Your products are Mame orientated. You have contributed nothing to the Project which has fed your site with orders for your innovated products like Turbo Twist and the Key Wiz.  I'm one of those happy customers.  I think they are great, but I also donate to the Mame cause whenever I can.  I believe you can have your cake and pay for it in advance, as it will get tastier over time.  Maybe it is time to dig deep and offer some cash towards the next auction eh Randy?  Could be the perfect marketing ploy for 2011.  

I'd like to, but unfortunately, this is one of those lines it does no-one (meaning the MAME Devs, nor GGG) any good to cross.  I support this site (in more ways than one) which helps to expose more people to the cause, which in turn helps the MAME team get what they want and/or need.  There are plenty of other folks in this community who can say the same thing.  You don't necessarily have to give cash to buy PCB's to be helpful (although I understand why it is preferred.)  I have my own high R&D costs to worry about getting back from a small market such as this one, and I don't get donations to offset them.  But if anyone would like to ....

RandyT

[ark_ader]

.

[Haze]

That is total pants. 

Cube Quest was very complex, but it got done.  Philip Bennett and Joe Magiera did an exceptional job. 

There are plenty of inactive platforms like in .84 that could see some accuracy, than to go romping off and add all those crap Mahjong {sp} games you guys just love to bloat Mame with. 

Yeah, there are complex platforms emulated, plenty of them, but the devs are more interested in the older ones.  Cube Quest is utterly unique, and something interesting to work on.

Golden Tee 2k2 is complex, but far less interesting from a hardware perspective; much like the games that run on x86 architecture and haven't seen much attention (Hydro Thunder and the like)  It's going to take a dev with genuine interest in those platforms to figure them out.  I think Hydro Thunder was probably one of the best arcade games released, because it offered pure *fun* and decent value for money (unlike many which came after it) BUT, the hardware, it scares me, it's not something I can personally deal with.  The x86 platform is quite honestly an abomination and utmost respect has to go to the DosBox guys and others for producing anything event remotely playable.

The hardware used is complex, but, at the same time boring.  It's not fun to work on, it's like grinding.

[Haze]

Exactly. Your products are Mame orientated. You have contributed nothing to the Project which has fed your site with orders for your innovated products like Turbo Twist and the Key Wiz.  I'm one of those happy customers.  I think they are great, but I also donate to the Mame cause whenever I can.  I believe you can have your cake and pay for it in advance, as it will get tastier over time.  Maybe it is time to dig deep and offer some cash towards the next auction eh Randy?  Could be the perfect marketing ploy for 2011.  

I'd like to, but unfortunately, this is one of those lines it does no-one (meaning the MAME Devs, nor GGG) any good to cross.  I support this site (in more ways than one) which helps to expose more people to the cause, which in turn helps the MAME team get what they want and/or need.  There are plenty of other folks in this community who can say the same thing.  You don't necessarily have to give cash to buy PCB's to be helpful (although I understand why it is preferred.)  I have my own high R&D costs to worry about getting back from a small market such as this one, and I don't get donations to offset them.  But if anyone would like to ....

RandyT

Well if it means anything I'm happier to see adverts for your site, where you've put genuine work into the products you create than random people offering lousy ROM DVDs for 5000% markup.

While the team obviously can't go out of their way to support anything special it's clear your business is a genuine one, and not one that *relies* on MAME.

I'm unlikely to buy your products, because I'm a developer, and whatever people might say here I am genuinely satisfied with using a generic pad for that.  I'm not even AGAINST people creating specialist builds for custom controllers, it's just not a primary goal of the project to support them.  At the same time of course, I'm not expecting you to provide all the active developers with your controls, at cost to you, just to support this.

The HotRod (or was it x-arcade) guys tried this years ago, as did the TopGun guys, by sending sample products to developers and expecting them to support it.  In the end the other developers (and newer developers) just got fed up with this because there was a bunch of unmaintainable code they could no longer debug or support because they didn't have the hardware to do so, and requiring specialist hardware as an entry requirement for developing the software is ridiculous.

[nick3092]

with all the different types of games with their own controller setup/special controller it would be simply impossible to try and incorporate them all into a controll panel. it would end up dominating any cab that tried it was connected to. when people build their cabnets they have to balance between authenticity and usability, depending on what type of games they want to play.

Not impossible. Ever consider a modular CP? That's what I built. I want as many realistic controls as possible. I even went as far as buying a yoke from Dave to accomplish my goal. For me, the nostalgia is in the controls as much as it is in the game.

Does that mean I'm going to bash the devs for not supporting all original controllers? No. I would love to see it, but I'm not going to going to argue and make demands of the devs. I appreciate everything the devs have done.

Now, I have zero programming background. So I don't know how or if it's feasible at all. But could there be a generic interface or API to allow people to easily write an interface without having to modify the core code in MAME? It may be unmaintainable. Or it may be just as much work as patching the code. I don't know. Just throwing it out there.

Eitherway, I would like to thank Haze and all the other devs (past, present, and future) for all they have done to preserve these games.

[abaraba]

No, I consider it complete as far as the goals of the project are concerned.  

What the ...?

- Goal of the project is to document/emulate 'inner workings', YES?

- Ability to read authentic controls is part of the 'inner workings', NO?

The features you mention are features all designed to keep it user friendly, so that people do actually make use of it, so that it does actually get tested, so bugs do actually get found and so that it can continue to be further developed.  

Making it 'user friendly' at expense of 'accuracy' is not only contrary to MAME goals, but is also promoting piracy. Those are not user interface features, they have nothing to do with being 'user friendly'. Those features only serve one single purpose, which is to play & ENJOY the games, as opposed to play & TEST. -- The goal of MAME is to make games look more attractive for average PC user, or to document inner workings of those PCBs, make up your mind.

If nobody used MAME it would be YEARS behind where it is now simply due to lack of feedback.

You got your "feedback" - authentic controls should be supported/emulated as important part of inner workings of authentic hardware, just like authentic resolutions and frame-rates.

I'm not changing the subject, I'm using it as an example of why supporting MAME running on CURRENT platforms with CURRENT hardware is more important than trying to hack in support for legacy garbage.

Authentic controls, resolutions and frame rates are "legacy garbage" for you? Funny to hear that since MAME is still embarrassingly struggling with visual artifacts such as 'scroll tearing'.

[Haze]

No, I consider it complete as far as the goals of the project are concerned.  

What the ...?

- Goal of the project is to document/emulate 'inner workings', YES?

- Ability to read authentic controls is part of the 'inner workings', NO?

correct

The features you mention are features all designed to keep it user friendly, so that people do actually make use of it, so that it does actually get tested, so bugs do actually get found and so that it can continue to be further developed.  

Making it 'user friendly' at expense of 'accuracy' is not only contrary to MAME goals, but is also promoting piracy. Those are not user interface features, they have nothing to do with being 'user friendly'. Those features only serve one single purpose, which is to play & ENJOY the games, as opposed to play & TEST. -- The goal of MAME is to make games look more attractive for average PC user, or to document inner workings of those PCBs, make up your mind.

The primary goal is to accurately document and emulate the components a PCB to a degree which would be indistinguishable from the original hardware by ANY piece of software running on that board.  'Creating an accurate emulation of the PCB'

To create an accurate emulator requires users to be running it and using it on a daily basis in order to generate bug reports etc.  To have users requires it to be user friendly and enjoyable to use.  For this reason features which make it user friendly and enjoyable exist.  There is no excuse to develop software which is NOT user friendly on purpose.

How do you know if your emulation is flawed, or if a driver has regressed if nobody is using your emulator because you went out of your way to make it non-user friendly?

Ergo to achieve the primary goal of the project it must also be user friendly.

Again, is this simple concept so hard to understand?

You are attempting to redefine 'accuracy' to be something that the development team DO NOT believe it to be.  This is not your project, you do not decide this type of things.  Others might argue that it can't be accurate unless everything is emulated at gate level, again, if you approached the team with that argument you would be told the same thing.

If nobody used MAME it would be YEARS behind where it is now simply due to lack of feedback.

You got your "feedback" - authentic controls should be supported/emulated as important part of inner workings of authentic hardware, just like authentic resolutions and frame-rates.

This is a minority viewpoint, and is not considered important.  Does this need repeating again?  This specific feedback has been acknowledged.  Your reply is 'we don't care, it's not in the project goals, nor does it help attain them'

I'm not changing the subject, I'm using it as an example of why supporting MAME running on CURRENT platforms with CURRENT hardware is more important than trying to hack in support for legacy garbage.

Authentic controls, resolutions and frame rates are "legacy garbage" for you? Funny to hear that since MAME is still embarrassingly struggling with visual artifacts such as 'scroll tearing'.

MAME has to work with what modern hardware is available.  Scroll tearing doesn't bother me, most modern software has it.  Current hardware can only support limited refresh rates.  It's just something you have to accept.  I don't see it as an issue.  Again if somebody wants to make a build which works with older hardware they're welcome to..  but simply getting a CRT monitor is becoming harder and harder and having a version of MAME which is better suited to them isn't going to reverse that trend.  Even the main manufacturers of these things, who serve a bigger community than you could ever hope to be have pulled out because producing them is no longer economical.