the state of mame

[Mikezilla]

This whole thread seems ridiculous to me. Boderline retarded. Whats the point of emulating these games if nobody wants to play them the way they were MEANT to be played. Of course they were enjoyable, thats why someone wanted to preserve them due to advancing technology.

Quote from: Haze
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'

That whole "minority viewpoint" seems completely skewed especially in these forums. I dont know. It just seems with todays technology, whats the point of perseving something if youre not going to use/play it with the controls it was designed to use. You know why people preserve food? Cause they plan on eating it.

[saint]

Pardon any typos or oddities, I'm typing this post-suergery on Percoset and I'm pretty loopy but hey, nothing else I can do right now so Internets it is!

MAME is what it is. Agree or disagree with Haze's perspective, it doesn't matter. People who are coding for the project by and large all seem to share the stated goals as Haze has laid them out.  Arguing about those goals as to whether they're good or bad, true or blowing smoke, is a bit silly. The end results of the coding that we can all see seems to bear up what Haze says. They haven't implemented support for arcade controls, the GUI is lacking (these aren't complaints, but observations), and a host of other things. If game play vs. game documentation was the real goal, these items would have have been addressed years ago. The fact that they haven't in the core build tells me that Haze's perspective is the actual intended direction MAME-Dev is heading and always has been.

I personally have web mirrors of a ton of stuff from the net, most (but not all) related to this hobby in some fashion. For instance, when Geocities went offline I pulled down as much of the sites hosted there as I could. I don't actually do anything with the majority of these mirrors, I just have them because I think they should be preserved... just in case somewhere down the line someone needs to refer to them.  I didn't preserve them because I wanted to use them - I preserved them because I thought they should be preserved. My med-addled brain finds this a parallel to MAME as a documentation project.

My favorite emulator back in the day was Retrosomething.... can't recall at the moment. Maybe Retroblast. Neil was the coder. It had a great front end GUI that I really liked. A lot of the emulation code was shared between it and MAME and I don't know who was the source and who the beneficiary, but I thought that was a good example. MAME the code/documentation repository, Retroblast the unaffiliated emu designed for fun game play vs. preservation.

Wonder if this post will be as insightful to me post-drugs?

[RayB]

Honestly, I think Saint will nix that last post.

Back to my topic, three reasons developers should not read their own forums:

" 'Forums contain a cacophony of people telling you to do diametrically opposite things, very loudly, often for bad reasons. There will be plenty of good ideas, but picking them out from the bad ones is unreliable and a lot of work. If you try to make too many people happy at once, you will drive yourself mad. You have to be very, very careful who you let into your head.' "

Full article: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/01/three-reasons-creators-should-never.html

[Mikezilla]

Damn. Percoset is a helluva drug. 

[Hoopz]

Damn. Percoset is a helluva drug. 

True.  I think Saint may be the first person to draw a comparison between Geocities and Mame.   

[Haze]

That whole "minority viewpoint" seems completely skewed especially in these forums. I dont know. It just seems with todays technology, whats the point of perseving something if youre not going to use/play it with the controls it was designed to use. You know why people preserve food? Cause they plan on eating it.

I think the current offered input systems are perfectly adequate to play the game for 99% of people who are going to be using MAME for that purpose.

The people doing the OFFICIAL ports of the games have come to the very same conclusions.

Bloating MAME with additional options to support different controls is not in the best interests of the baseline version.  Again, if somebody wants to assemble a team to create a version for this purpose then nobody is stopping them, but it's clear that the existing team does not care about this and would rather just emulate things than fiddle with wacky controllers.

Nicola, Myself and Aaron have over the years assembled the existing MameDev team, and done the work we wanted to see done.  The guys doing MAMEui which offers a GUI, and MamePlus, which offers additional filters etc. have also assembled teams to make the changes they want, and get the work they wanted to see done when their features were deemed to be outside the scope of the project.  The people who did AgeMAME did the same, and eventually we saw their work (the gambling systems) and decided that it WAS worth integrating it into the mainline, and that it was covered by the scope of the project.  For a while the AdvanceMAME guys did the same, but we saw their work, and while it was deemed useful to people wanting to run with original hardware it was deemed too high maintenance and impossible to support moving forward with marginal benefits to the actual development of MAME to actually integrate it.

If there are so many people who want to see what you're asking for here (as was the case with the other examples) it shouldn't be hard for you to form a team to get that done.  If you care so much about these things it becomes YOUR responsibility to keep that going while MAME continues to provide the core emulation library.  Derivative works have been created before, there really isn't much excuse.

[Mikezilla]

That whole "minority viewpoint" seems completely skewed especially in these forums. I dont know. It just seems with todays technology, whats the point of perseving something if youre not going to use/play it with the controls it was designed to use. You know why people preserve food? Cause they plan on eating it.

I think the current offered input systems are perfectly adequate to play the game for 99% of people who are going to be using MAME for that purpose.

The people doing the OFFICIAL ports of the games have come to the very same conclusions.

Bloating MAME with additional options to support different controls is not in the best interests of the baseline version.  Again, if somebody wants to assemble a team to create a version for this purpose then nobody is stopping them, but it's clear that the existing team does not care about this and would rather just emulate things than fiddle with wacky controllers.

Nicola, Myself and Aaron have over the years assembled the existing MameDev team, and done the work we wanted to see done.  The guys doing MAMEui which offers a GUI, and MamePlus, which offers additional filters etc. have also assembled teams to make the changes they want, and get the work they wanted to see done when their features were deemed to be outside the scope of the project.  The people who did AgeMAME did the same, and eventually we saw their work (the gambling systems) and decided that it WAS worth integrating it into the mainline, and that it was covered by the scope of the project.  For a while the AdvanceMAME guys did the same, but we saw their work, and while it was deemed useful to people wanting to run with original hardware it was deemed too high maintenance and impossible to support moving forward with marginal benefits to the actual development of MAME to actually integrate it.

If there are so many people who want to see what you're asking for here (as was the case with the other examples) it shouldn't be hard for you to form a team to get that done.  If you care so much about these things it becomes YOUR responsibility to keep that going while MAME continues to provide the core emulation library.  Derivative works have been created before, there really isn't much excuse.

Dont get me wrong here, I think its AMAZING what you and the team have accomplished so far, hell, I just stumbled onto MAME last june. Prior to that, I was looking at spending 1200 bucks on a  Marvel vs Capcom cab just because if I could only have one arcade in my house it would be that one. Now, thanks to guys like you, and the people at Ultimarc and GGG etc, I get to play all of my favorites. Also get to show my kids one day how enjoyable older, "obsolete" things are. I dont know jack about programming, so I cant contribute that way, the only way I can, and know how to do, is with money.

[RandyT]

My favorite emulator back in the day was Retrocade. Neil was the coder. It had a great front end GUI that I really liked. A lot of the emulation code was shared between it and MAME and I don't know who was the source and who the beneficiary, but I thought that was a good example. MAME the code/documentation repository, Retrocade the unaffiliated emu designed for fun game play vs. preservation.

I fixed that for you, and I absolutely agree.  

Something else I think folks need to keep in mind is that simply for documentation purposes, it is not necessary for the MAME devs to have made any kind of controller mapping provisions.  So long as the code is documented to the point where that physical controller attaches to the PCB, their job according to their stated goals is done.  So as Haze has stated, anything they chose to implement in order to test for functionality is just that.  They could easily strip out all of the control mapping to external devices, while maintaining full documentation (and even operation) of the PCB functionality.  There would just be no way for anyone to get to it without maintaining a separate project to map PC peripherals or original controls though custom interfaces, etc., to the external control stub code.  And really, there is nothing preventing anyone from doing this right now, if they so desire.

So in short, folks, be happy that they provided, and most importantly continue to maintain, one of the most flexible control mapping options of virtually any gaming application out there, without anyone else having to lift a finger.  And if that's not sufficient for your needs, start a companion project with it's own team of developers to do for the original controls what the MAME Team is doing for the PCB's.  If you can't find anyone who wants to be part of that team, then you'll probably realize why it isn't something the MAME Team wants to try to manage.

[ErikRuud]

My favorite emulator back in the day was Retrosomething.... can't recall at the moment. Maybe Retroblast. Neil was the coder. It had a great front end GUI that I really liked. A lot of the emulation code was shared between it and MAME and I don't know who was the source and who the beneficiary, but I thought that was a good example. MAME the code/documentation repository, Retroblast the unaffiliated emu designed for fun game play vs. preservation.

I agree with you Saint.

BTW, it was Retrocade.  The GUI was awesome.

Retrocade was actually the first emulator I found, and for a while I didn't even bother with MAME, because Retrocade had the earlier Cinematronic vector games that I loved and MAME didn't.  Even when I finally tried MAME, it was only for a few additional games that Retrocade didn't support.  I didn't stop using Retrocade for a long time.  I still don't run a current version of MAME.  I run an older version that's not even an official build because it does what I want and there has been very little in the newer versions to make me want to upgrade.

[Vigo]

I run an older version that's not even an official build because it does what I want and there has been very little in the newer versions to make me want to upgrade.

Give that man a cigar.

But your obscure Mahjong game collection will never be complete! 

[ErikRuud]

I run an older version that's not even an official build because it does what I want and there has been very little in the newer versions to make me want to upgrade.

Give that man a cigar.

But your obscure Mahjong game collection will never be complete! 

I think I can live with that. 

I am a more worried about getting a compliment from PBJ!     

[ErikRuud]

This preview of Retrocade is actually kind of amusing to read in light of this thread.

Retrocade - Welcome to the next level

I may have to fire up Retrocade again just to look at the GUI in action.  Maybe I can make a Retrocade FE skin.  The dot matrix screen at the bottom was great.

[ark_ader]

.

[shateredsoul]

this has become very confusing to follow.. there's many conversations going on in here now. The point of the post was to help get the word out about the need of new blood for mame.

lol

anyways, when in rome do like the romans do

Randy, I agree with most of your argument about your business still being profitible regardless of mame, but you wouldn't have made certain products (keywiz and ipacs i.e.).  Unless.. people want to play grand theft auto, and call of duty on joysticks on their pc.  So it would be hit somewhat... maybe those products aren't a major part but oh well.

Haze, has anyone shown interest? I think holding classes would be neat, even if it were teaching people what you did to learn (play w/ the code). You probably could use some online tools to hold the classes with realtime markups and audio or whatever. 

[TheShanMan]

Ark, I'm 40, I experienced the games first hand as a kid, and I have almost 30 original dedicated games in my game room now (and counting). So I know how the games are supposed to be played, and it is important to me. And yet I see this issue like Haze does. It's what mamedev has to do for the ongoing survival of the project. How many times does this have to be said - anyone can start producing a derivative project which has better support for original controls! It sounds to me that Haze would be happy to see such a project be successful. I'd like to see it be successful too. But from a software engineering standpoint I can totally see what Haze is saying.

It seems to me that everyone who is arguing with Haze is essentially saying "I don't want to try to organize a derivative project. It's much easier to just yell at Haze/mamedev!" Well, you can say that all you want, but how's that working out for you?

[Vigo]

If there are so many people who want to see what you're asking for here (as was the case with the other examples) it shouldn't be hard for you to form a team to get that done.  If you care so much about these things it becomes YOUR responsibility to keep that going while MAME continues to provide the core emulation library.  Derivative works have been created before, there really isn't much excuse.

When I say this, it is with the utmost appreciation for the work that you are doing. But with all due respect, why are you saying this?!?! I thought you wanted the hard working people to help with MAME? I'm sorry, but you started this as a plea to get fresh blood in on MAME. Now you are telling people who have different ideas to go do it themselves??

Let me pull a few quotes from your original WiP statement:

So what’s the point of all this? Well, you can consider it the first part in a call for fresh blood

The real problem for the most part however is that the team needs fresh, new, capable developers

People continue to make demands of the project, from the outside, insisting that great portions of the project, and entire sub-systems are rewritten, and that improvements are made to their favourite drivers, and new systems and games are added, but from where I’m sitting, unless something significant changes, and new developers arrive, I can’t see most of those things happening.

I love MAME, and I think it has done so much good! But I am a bit irked at the political talk I'm hearing. You asked for people. You asked for new ideas. You said that people are making requests that can only be met if you get new people with new ideas. Yet you tell anyone who has a different view to go do it themselves? Sorry dude, but that is no way to get people in on MAME. You want people? Welcome their views, ideas and ambitions. Let them work on control support or whatever goal they have that is not your desire. It may not be part of the goal, but it does not contradict the goal. Its a good gateway to get people in on the project.

My 2 cents? There needs to be new blood in the upper tiers of MameDev as well. The project seems to be lacking vision, and is caught up in the day in day out work. Is that work important? Yes. Is it gonna help the project live on, be better, accomplish more as a whole? No.

[abaraba]

- Goal of the project is to document/emulate 'inner workings', YES?
- Ability to read authentic controls is part of the 'inner workings', NO?

correct

Did you just say ability to read authentic controls is NOT part of the "inner workings"?!

Not so long ago everyone agreed how third button on Yie Ar Kung-Fu ought to be addressed in MAME, even if it was not documented in manual nor accessible via authentic control panel. The conclusion was if that functionality is part of the actual game PCB, then it needs to be emulated/supported in order to be preserved/documented. -- By omitting *any* authentic functionality you are failing preservation/documentation purpose.

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.

Haze_A: Playing the games is side-effect
Haze_B: Making games look attractive and play well on common PC is necessary to attract people and get feedback

How about you stop asserting your personal hallucinations represent viewpoints of MAME team?

You are attempting to redefine 'accuracy' to be something that the development team DO NOT believe it to be.

Look at the dictionary, it is you who hopes to re-define "accuracy". You are not representing development team, that is only your personal opinion, and it's disturbing you managed to convince many you're some kind of "voice of MAME".

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'

Speak for yourself, you are not representing MAME team, or have you somehow convinced yourself that you do?

Scroll tearing doesn't bother me, most modern software has it.

Hahahaa, what?! Can you name one?

The first part is amusing, the second part is false.

Current hardware can only support limited refresh rates.

Hahahaa, what?! Who told you that?

What about AdvanceMAME, Powerstrip, Soft-15kHz, and Linux?

[Haze]

- Goal of the project is to document/emulate 'inner workings', YES?
- Ability to read authentic controls is part of the 'inner workings', NO?

correct

Did you just say ability to read authentic controls is NOT part of the "inner workings"?!

correct, controls are external.  The way external things interact with the PCB emulation is not part of the project goal.  Whatever we feel fits best will be used.  The emulation code can support whatever you happen to have, BUT you may need to modify the source if you have a use case which isn't the standard PC hardware one.  The input structures in MAME are clear to work with.

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.

Haze_A: Playing the games is side-effect
Haze_B: Making games look attractive and play well on common PC is necessary to attract people and get feedback

How about you stop asserting your personal hallucinations represent viewpoints of MAME team?

There is nothing conflicting about these statements.  Playing the games is a side-effect of correct emulation.  To obtain correct emulation it is necessary to have people using MAME.  It's a CYCLE.  Come on, as I said, this isn't rocket science, you're looking rather stupid now.

You are attempting to redefine 'accuracy' to be something that the development team DO NOT believe it to be.

Look at the dictionary, it is you who hopes to re-define "accuracy". You are not representing development team, that is only your personal opinion, and it's disturbing you managed to convince many you're some kind of "voice of MAME".

I was in charge of the project for a good few years, I know how these decisions are made, if I'm the only one with these viewpoints why is the code, which I have never even worked on, designed to exactly the spec I'm telling you, with the methodology I'm explaining to meet the goals I've explained to you.  You don't seem to be getting it.

MAME accurately emulates the PCBs the games ran on to a degree of accuracy deemed appropriate by the developers of the project.  NOT by you.  Next are you're going to tell us we should emulate all the atoms, just to make sure?

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'

Speak for yourself, you are not representing MAME team, or have you somehow convinced yourself that you do?

Who is disagreeing with me?  As I said, I was involved with the team for long enough to tell you that this is why things are as they are.  Trying to discredit me makes no sense.  I've worked on enough drivers to tell you the expectations involved.  You've got other people in this thread explaining to you that Aaron said the same to them at trade shows.  

Scroll tearing doesn't bother me, most modern software has it.

Hahahaa, what?! Can you name one?

The first part is amusing, the second part is false.

You've clearly not played many games, pretty much every PS3 game, and an awful lot of 360 games have severe tearing.  You might not like it, but it's a fact.
GT5 for example has it almost all the time.
http://uk.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/granturismo52/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-57294186&pid=941103

Current hardware can only support limited refresh rates.

Hahahaa, what?! Who told you that?

What about AdvanceMAME, Powerstrip, Soft-15kHz, and Linux?

It's common knowledge.  A TFT monitor offers nowhere near the range of refresh rates or resolutions as a traditional CRT.  CRTs are dead.  Modern graphic card drivers also offer less options.  The flexibility offered in the past isn't coming back.  AdvanceMAME won't even run on a modern OS which means you're even crippled to using a single core even where MAME can take advantage of more.  You're also crippled by only being able to have 32-bit builds, FAT32 formatted drives, low RAM limits..  I doubt it will be long before you can't even buy hardware that it works with.  Linux, I do wonder when it will die, they still fail on even the most basic of user friendliness tests.

What are you trying to achieve here, why are you trying to FORCE the development team to do what you want, instead of starting your own project to do what you want based on the already generous offering you're being given?  MameDev have done 99% of the work for you by actually emulating the things.

There has been talk in the past of changing MAME to be nothing BUT an emulation engine, where MAME doesn't have ANY concept of inputs other than a bunch of bits at an address, and outputs other than a framebuffer plus some bits to represent outputs.  In that case without an external program it wouldn't be possible to *USE* MAME at all, but it would still be emulating the PCB, just as is does now.  The fact that we provide a usable PC interface at all should be considered a bonus, but it's done for a reason as previously outlined.  In the end the idea was shot down, because having to rely on 3rd party software would just get in the way of development completely, and the devs would end up getting bug reports due to bugs in 3rd party interface software which they were completely unable to fix because it wasn't their code.

[Gray_Area]

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 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?  

What is there to 'deal' with? No one makes you read the threads. No one makes the devs read the threads. Sounds like a lot of people are feeling like little girls in these cases. Maybe they're feeling like that way at work, too...

[saint]

'How about you stop asserting your personal hallucinations represent viewpoints of MAME team?

Rules please - you can disagree without being rude.

[danny_galaga]

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

Well, we can all agree on that (",)

And I'm thankful that pretty much any version of mame is available. I'm a .78 man myself 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

'How about you stop asserting your personal hallucinations represent viewpoints of MAME team?

Rules please - you can disagree without being rude.

He couldn't do it when his username was DriverMan, so he probably can't do it now.

[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 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?  

What is there to 'deal' with? No one makes you read the threads. No one makes the devs read the threads. Sounds like a lot of people are feeling like little girls in these cases. Maybe they're feeling like that way at work, too...

Yes no one is forcing me to read the forums.  However, emulation interests me and I enjoy the "side-effect" of playing some of the games so I read these forums.  

While I don't feel like work is making me a little girl.....I do think several people are trying to make me their ---smurfette---.  

[Hoopz]

'How about you stop asserting your personal hallucinations represent viewpoints of MAME team?

Rules please - you can disagree without being rude.

He couldn't do it when his username was DriverMan, so he probably can't do it now.

Thanks.  I missed picking up on that but it makes sense. 

[Mikezilla]

MAME accurately emulates the PCBs the games ran on to a degree of accuracy deemed appropriate by the developers of the project.  NOT by you.  Next are you're going to tell us we should emulate all the atoms, just to make sure?

So, what if the developers are feeling lazy? Doesnt that contradict what the project is supposed to do? What if I want to become a developer, and just slack off?  I think Im done with this thread. All I got out of it was Haze contradicting himself,whining a little bit, and porobably wanting some credit for being a developer and a bunch of programming mumbo jumbo that I dont know anything about.

[CheffoJeffo]

What I got out of it is that a bunch of people who use MAME far more than I do (come to think of it, I don't currently have a MAME cab other than my 48-in-1 and 60-in-1) are far less appreciative of what they have been given than I am.

Contrary to the sense of entitlement that users seem to feel, the project is properly guided by the developers.

I note that, when the opportunity arose to build a database of technical details on specialty controllers (in order to preserve the knowledge and make it easier for folks to build reproductions), none of the people who talk about how important those controllers are (myself included) signed up. The initiative died and the right to ---smurfette--- at others died with it.

 

[RandyT]

Randy, I agree with most of your argument about your business still being profitible regardless of mame, but you wouldn't have made certain products (keywiz and ipacs i.e.).  Unless.. people want to play grand theft auto, and call of duty on joysticks on their pc.  So it would be hit somewhat... maybe those products aren't a major part but oh well.

Those products, I am quite sure, still would have been made.  Have you seen these?

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary
Taito Legends
Taito Legends 2
Arcade's Greatest Hits the Midway Collection 1
Arcade's Greatest Hits the Midway Collection 2
ATARI ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Atari Arcade Hits #1

Those are just the mainstream commercial offerings that are out there with MAME in existence.  It wouldn't be a stretch to think that without MAME, there would be even more of these (if the manufacturers still managed to actually do it without MAME's help.)  By time one were to add on all of the arcade-style games available from console emulators and native coded PC-games (no, not GTA and COD...there are other games out there ), there would still be way more than enough to justify the building of one's own arcade machine and / or panel.  Therefore, products which currently exist for doing so would still be immensely useful, and therefore marketable, even without the existence MAME.  This community would be a little different, with more emphasis on re-creation of classics, and helping others to find cabinet friendly games, but it would still be thriving.

[bitbytebit]

IMHO there is one huge issue with Mame which should be high on the "TODO" list.

Its currently not possible to exactly emulate a game in native resolution unless DirectDraw is used. Direct3D does not work when this is attempted. This is a big drawback because DirectDraw is going out of support and is very buggy under Windows 7.

Its a major part of the principles behind Mame that the games should be emulated as exactly as possible and using a native resolution (or a close fit with equalized borders) is a major part of this.

When using Direct3D there is no option to turn off stretching, which distorts the image and loses the advantage of native resolution, ie 1:1 pixel mapping. Rather than adding small equal borders to fill out to the nearest available resolution available on the hardware, the picture is always stretched to fit the screen.

I think one of those problems is that as well as DirectDraw going modern OS's are doing what they can to get rid of the concept of 'resolution' (or at least the ability to change it to something non-standard) completely.

You've only got to look at current technology which due to it's nature is 'locked' to a single resolution (the native display res) and frequency.  If you want things bigger / smaller these days it's done by scaling the graphics, not changing the resolution.

Supporting such things is fighting against the tide, and you might quickly find Linux to be a better option if you want more control over them (although I don't know, it might already be worse there, I can't say I've paid much attention)

Does SDLMame do a better job on Windows?

Yes currently Linux is going the opposite direction with respect to Windows in opening up the ability to control the video hardware directly in the kernel layer.  There are employees of the major video card companies (ATI has one hired just for that purpose) actually writing the code to interact with the video cards, so we are now able to get SDLMame to do a near perfect job at resolution display and refresh rate compared to Windows.    It's very new and within the last month really ready for the ATI cards, in the stable kernel probably in March this year for page flip vblank timestamp support there.

I see the concept of resolution being being somewhat left behind even in the Linux developments but am myself able to support kernel patches to open it up fuller than it's been in Linux or Windows in the past (there's a few little issues they put in there to work around with 15khz console display and group of 'default' resolutions to step around).   I've talked with the ATI developer and he's open to listen but still admits they are as everyone else focused on high end displays and HDTV's, but there is still the ability to program modelines without restriction in the Linux DRM layer and ATI drivers (and others either mostly done or in the works).

[Vigo]

What I got out of it is that a bunch of people who use MAME far more than I do (come to think of it, I don't currently have a MAME cab other than my 48-in-1 and 60-in-1) are far less appreciative of what they have been given than I am.

Contrary to the sense of entitlement that users seem to feel, the project is properly guided by the developers.

I really don't see a lack of appreciation from anyone except a couple people here. Most of us just want to see MAME do better...and not die. Sorry for putting out ideas and opinions on a forum* without being part of the Mame "secret circle" 

...and you can say the project is properly guided, but how hard is it to guide nobody? To quote Haze:

in reality progress is a trickle, and it’s a trickle because there is no real MAME development team left.

*forum
1. A public meeting place for open discussion.
2. A medium for open discussion or voicing of ideas, such as a newspaper, a radio or television program, or a website.

[Paul Olson]

MAME accurately emulates the PCBs the games ran on to a degree of accuracy deemed appropriate by the developers of the project.  NOT by you.  Next are you're going to tell us we should emulate all the atoms, just to make sure?

So, what if the developers are feeling lazy? Doesnt that contradict what the project is supposed to do? What if I want to become a developer, and just slack off?  I think Im done with this thread. All I got out of it was Haze contradicting himself,whining a little bit, and porobably wanting some credit for being a developer and a bunch of programming mumbo jumbo that I dont know anything about.

I think a lot of developers slack off at different times. That is part of a hobby endeavor. It is not a job, so they contribute when they want to. A few of them contribute regularly for extended periods of time. Whether you agree with Haze or not, his dedication to the project for, I don't know - the last decade or so, has been pretty amazing. One thing I have never heard from him is contradiction. He still describes the project just as he did when he was the maintainer. He deserves as much developer credit as anyone who has worked on the project. To the MAME team, it is a programming project to document arcade pcbs. Any discussion with any of the devs will include a lot of programming talk, because that is how MAME is described. The documentation is in the source code, which is a bit amazing in itself. the main difference between Haze and the rest of the developers is that he is willing to entertain these discussions.

[CheffoJeffo]

I really don't see a lack of appreciation from anyone except a couple people here. Most of us just want to see MAME do better...and not die. Sorry for putting out ideas and opinions on a forum* without being part of the Mame "secret circle" 

...and you can say the project is properly guided, but how hard is it to guide nobody? To quote Haze:

No need for you to apologize -- you have expressed your appreciation (as opposed to a number of others in this thread) and just have a differing viewpoint. Ain't nothing wrong with that.  

I am as far away from any "MAME secret circle" as you can be in this hobby, so I'm rather baffled by your statement. As I said, I don't have a MAME box running and the stuff I do have running MAME are boards that the MAMEDevs hate with a passion. I've also objected to some of the stuff that has been included in MAME.

I will say that the project is properly guided by developers -- that is, explicitly, that it is proper that the developers are the ones who should guide it, as opposed to catering to the mob (or those in the mob who yell loudest). I think that is somewhat different than the sentiment that you seem to be assigning to me.

Thanks for the tips as to what a forum is ... I must have missed that along the way.  

[ark_ader]

.

[Haze]

IMHO there is one huge issue with Mame which should be high on the "TODO" list.

Its currently not possible to exactly emulate a game in native resolution unless DirectDraw is used. Direct3D does not work when this is attempted. This is a big drawback because DirectDraw is going out of support and is very buggy under Windows 7.

Its a major part of the principles behind Mame that the games should be emulated as exactly as possible and using a native resolution (or a close fit with equalized borders) is a major part of this.

When using Direct3D there is no option to turn off stretching, which distorts the image and loses the advantage of native resolution, ie 1:1 pixel mapping. Rather than adding small equal borders to fill out to the nearest available resolution available on the hardware, the picture is always stretched to fit the screen.

I think one of those problems is that as well as DirectDraw going modern OS's are doing what they can to get rid of the concept of 'resolution' (or at least the ability to change it to something non-standard) completely.

You've only got to look at current technology which due to it's nature is 'locked' to a single resolution (the native display res) and frequency.  If you want things bigger / smaller these days it's done by scaling the graphics, not changing the resolution.

Supporting such things is fighting against the tide, and you might quickly find Linux to be a better option if you want more control over them (although I don't know, it might already be worse there, I can't say I've paid much attention)

Does SDLMame do a better job on Windows?

Yes currently Linux is going the opposite direction with respect to Windows in opening up the ability to control the video hardware directly in the kernel layer.  There are employees of the major video card companies (ATI has one hired just for that purpose) actually writing the code to interact with the video cards, so we are now able to get SDLMame to do a near perfect job at resolution display and refresh rate compared to Windows.    It's very new and within the last month really ready for the ATI cards, in the stable kernel probably in March this year for page flip vblank timestamp support there.

I see the concept of resolution being being somewhat left behind even in the Linux developments but am myself able to support kernel patches to open it up fuller than it's been in Linux or Windows in the past (there's a few little issues they put in there to work around with 15khz console display and group of 'default' resolutions to step around).   I've talked with the ATI developer and he's open to listen but still admits they are as everyone else focused on high end displays and HDTV's, but there is still the ability to program modelines without restriction in the Linux DRM layer and ATI drivers (and others either mostly done or in the works).

Well for that argument, there you go then.  You can't expect all the developers to switch over from Windows, but by virtue of keeping the SDL version in the main branch (for cross-platform reasons) Linux is likely to prove to be a good platform if you're interested in that type of things.  Windows is becoming less and less of one.  (Windows 7 even has nearly unavoidable, undetectable frameskip in everything, even if you're syncing each frame!)

What people seem to be complaining about are mainly the layer(s) between the emulation (which we strive to make as accurate as possible) and the user.

The emulation layer emulates the PCB,
The input layer maps inputs in a way deemed suitable by the developers to the emulation layer (the emulation can cope with anything really)
The OSD layer managers user interaction (display of the output, and actual reading of the input)  This is the platform specific layer which talks to devices on your PC

The emulation layer is designed to be as accurate as possible
The input layer is designed to provide a suitable mapping for the common input devices likely to be supplied by the OSD layer
The OSD layer is designed to work with the most common platform used for development (in this case, whatever the latest version of Windows is)

You can't expect the core development team to maintain multiple versions of each layer.  Two OSD targets (win32 / SDL) are enough, and that's only possible because there ARE developers dedicated to maintaining the SDL part.  If those developers were to drop out of the project (R.Belmont etc.) then chances are the SDL part would be dropped too, because Aaron etc. has no real interest in maintaining it himself.

That's why it makes sense for an offshoot project to handle what people want here, they're not going to have to fiddle with the actual emulation layer at all, it's been done for them, and it sounds like from what's just been said that Linux/SDL takes care of the other 'exact output' concerns people expressed, which again, is already done for them.

It seems people here are too hung-up on making changes expressively against the wishes of MameDev, then bragging to the world about it (removing the Nag screens etc.)  yet when MameDev actually suggest they do something more 'useful' you suddenly have no developers at all, and expect MameDev to just do all the work instead.  I'm afraid that makes some parts (not all!) of the community here come across as parasitic.  

THAT, if anything isn't going to make people want to develop for the project, seeing the way people just abuse it and the developers if they don't get exactly their own way.

I wouldn't say developers were slacking off, they just have clearly defined priorities, and work on what they feel is important to the project, and within the bounds of the project.  I do the emulation code, the emulation layer.  The foundation of everything else.  If we hadn't emulated the hardware/games in the first place this topic of conversation wouldn't exist at all and you'd be having to find a way to hook up a 720 controller to Tony Hawks instead or a commercial re-release/emulation/port where you wouldn't even have the source to modify if you needed to.

[Mikezilla]

I do the emulation code, the emulation layer.  The foundation of everything else.  If we hadn't emulated the hardware/games in the first place this topic of conversation wouldn't exist at all and you'd be having to find a way to hook up a 720 controller to Tony Hawks instead or a commercial re-release/emulation/port where you wouldn't even have the source to modify if you needed to.

I have already said thank you, and that I appreciate all your hard work, and that if it wasnt for people LIKE YOU there wouldnt be any project at all. I have said it, Im grateful. Now, to me, it just seems like you want an extra pat on the back, I dont know, maybe Im outta line. Im over it now. 

[ark_ader]

.

[bitbytebit]

IMHO there is one huge issue with Mame which should be high on the "TODO" list.

Its currently not possible to exactly emulate a game in native resolution unless DirectDraw is used. Direct3D does not work when this is attempted. This is a big drawback because DirectDraw is going out of support and is very buggy under Windows 7.

Its a major part of the principles behind Mame that the games should be emulated as exactly as possible and using a native resolution (or a close fit with equalized borders) is a major part of this.

When using Direct3D there is no option to turn off stretching, which distorts the image and loses the advantage of native resolution, ie 1:1 pixel mapping. Rather than adding small equal borders to fill out to the nearest available resolution available on the hardware, the picture is always stretched to fit the screen.

I think one of those problems is that as well as DirectDraw going modern OS's are doing what they can to get rid of the concept of 'resolution' (or at least the ability to change it to something non-standard) completely.

You've only got to look at current technology which due to it's nature is 'locked' to a single resolution (the native display res) and frequency.  If you want things bigger / smaller these days it's done by scaling the graphics, not changing the resolution.

Supporting such things is fighting against the tide, and you might quickly find Linux to be a better option if you want more control over them (although I don't know, it might already be worse there, I can't say I've paid much attention)

Does SDLMame do a better job on Windows?

Yes currently Linux is going the opposite direction with respect to Windows in opening up the ability to control the video hardware directly in the kernel layer.  There are employees of the major video card companies (ATI has one hired just for that purpose) actually writing the code to interact with the video cards, so we are now able to get SDLMame to do a near perfect job at resolution display and refresh rate compared to Windows.    It's very new and within the last month really ready for the ATI cards, in the stable kernel probably in March this year for page flip vblank timestamp support there.

I see the concept of resolution being being somewhat left behind even in the Linux developments but am myself able to support kernel patches to open it up fuller than it's been in Linux or Windows in the past (there's a few little issues they put in there to work around with 15khz console display and group of 'default' resolutions to step around).   I've talked with the ATI developer and he's open to listen but still admits they are as everyone else focused on high end displays and HDTV's, but there is still the ability to program modelines without restriction in the Linux DRM layer and ATI drivers (and others either mostly done or in the works).

Well for that argument, there you go then.  You can't expect all the developers to switch over from Windows, but by virtue of keeping the SDL version in the main branch (for cross-platform reasons) Linux is likely to prove to be a good platform if you're interested in that type of things.  Windows is becoming less and less of one.  (Windows 7 even has nearly unavoidable, undetectable frameskip in everything, even if you're syncing each frame!)

What people seem to be complaining about are mainly the layer(s) between the emulation (which we strive to make as accurate as possible) and the user.

The emulation layer emulates the PCB,
The input layer maps inputs in a way deemed suitable by the developers to the emulation layer (the emulation can cope with anything really)
The OSD layer managers user interaction (display of the output, and actual reading of the input)  This is the platform specific layer which talks to devices on your PC

The emulation layer is designed to be as accurate as possible
The input layer is designed to provide a suitable mapping for the common input devices likely to be supplied by the OSD layer
The OSD layer is designed to work with the most common platform used for development (in this case, whatever the latest version of Windows is)

You can't expect the core development team to maintain multiple versions of each layer.  Two OSD targets (win32 / SDL) are enough, and that's only possible because there ARE developers dedicated to maintaining the SDL part.  If those developers were to drop out of the project (R.Belmont etc.) then chances are the SDL part would be dropped too, because Aaron etc. has no real interest in maintaining it himself.

That's why it makes sense for an offshoot project to handle what people want here, they're not going to have to fiddle with the actual emulation layer at all, it's been done for them, and it sounds like from what's just been said that Linux/SDL takes care of the other 'exact output' concerns people expressed, which again, is already done for them.

I really like the way that it's setup in layers like that, have been digging into mame lately and have discovered exactly what you're saying.  It's pretty easy and simple to create a separate OSD, if you want to maintain it yourself of course, or to change/patch things in the OSD without touching the emu layer at all.  Thanks for giving some detail on the structure, good to know for the most part I'm understanding the basic structure and design ideas behind it.

I definitely wouldn't want to have developers change what they use and seems like they do a great job at supporting all platforms as it is.  It's great that mame works well for all systems and the sdl osd part and windows part both are actually quite amazing seeing how that all works on both systems like it does.  I think a direct effect of the goal of mame, not wanting to get into just making it work and focusing on the PCB emu area and being fully correct there, allows it to work out of box with Linux because there's a separation of the part that interfaces SDL and the actual emulation layer.  Otherwise it'd definitely get messy having anything more inside the core which would have to become OS specific.

I have been curious about the way that the OSD.update() basically seems to be the sole driver of the osd layer itself, or input/audio/video into the UI.  Looks like it works, and the thread model for multithreading works with that as it is currently pretty good.  Have wondered about if that whole interface could be made into more of an API type interface between the OSD and mame core for audio/input/video or maybe I'm just not seeing the reasons why that would not be too helpful.  I'm guessing there might be some issues with driving things in more than a single function call to the OSD.update() and called with the core mame video.frame_update() on the vblank callbacks.  It's something that seems interesting though, how the OSD and mame emu part communicate, the entire API between the two, since to me the most interesting part is plugging in the OSD to the mame emu PCB board and being able to pull out the functionality into the OSD.  At least interesting to study the code and hopefully I'll get some ideas eventually on ways to help improve that area of mame, although definitely not something that involves the real meat of mame with the emulation and game drivers (which I like the reverse engineering stuff, and have done that with real hardware chips and firmware in Linux drivers before, but also know others are probably better at that side of it than I am).  

[Vigo]

I really don't see a lack of appreciation from anyone except a couple people here. Most of us just want to see MAME do better...and not die. Sorry for putting out ideas and opinions on a forum* without being part of the Mame "secret circle" 

...and you can say the project is properly guided, but how hard is it to guide nobody? To quote Haze:

No need for you to apologize -- you have expressed your appreciation (as opposed to a number of others in this thread) and just have a differing viewpoint. Ain't nothing wrong with that.  

I am as far away from any "MAME secret circle" as you can be in this hobby, so I'm rather baffled by your statement. As I said, I don't have a MAME box running and the stuff I do have running MAME are boards that the MAMEDevs hate with a passion. I've also objected to some of the stuff that has been included in MAME.

I will say that the project is properly guided by developers -- that is, explicitly, that it is proper that the developers are the ones who should guide it, as opposed to catering to the mob (or those in the mob who yell loudest). I think that is somewhat different than the sentiment that you seem to be assigning to me.

Thanks for the tips as to what a forum is ... I must have missed that along the way.  

Sorry Jeff, that "secret circle" stuff wasn't a jab at you. I just read one too many times the argument about needing to be a developer to have the right to complain. You're fine by my book. 

I know there is an "angry mob" who only wants to complain, but I think there is also untapped passion that is being squelched by the very reason that pretty much every suggestion people have made on this thread so far has been shut down. If MAME is truly in Peril, then we need fresh sets of eyes looking at the project and trying to make these "silly" ideas to work. There is nothing to lose by trying. If the newer versions of MAME suck big time because of it, people will just stick with the old versions or a better devient version will come out. It's better than having no new versions of MAME at all.

[Mikezilla]

And Saint locks the thread............now!

I love how you do that right after MY post. 

[CheffoJeffo]

If the newer versions of MAME suck big time because of it, people will just stick with the old versions or a better devient version will come out. It's better than having no new versions of MAME at all.

Can't argue with that ... I'm at .90 myself.

 

[Hoopz]

.94 which includes Golden Tee (which started in .92).