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Author Topic: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake  (Read 150318 times)

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xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #160 on: February 22, 2015, 06:32:37 pm »
Here is a quick look at it assembled.  Lots of work to do yet.  :-)


RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #161 on: February 22, 2015, 06:48:33 pm »
Here is a quick look at it assembled.  Lots of work to do yet.  :-)

Absolutely awesome xfassa! This is the sort of thing I want to with my cab. Didnt think you could get an LED screen behind the marquee. Those AOC screens? What's the model number? Are they expensive? Is it 16/10 ratio? I thought the marquee/score display was too short in height to fit a screen in there.

Sorry for all the questions but it seems you've come up with a solution I can use. Do you think I could get a screen behind the marquee while keeping the original CRT in place?

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #162 on: February 22, 2015, 07:00:54 pm »
Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.5) is ready and it can be downloaded here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8b5sog8ld5b8hry/mgpr_v1_4_5.zip

I've just caught up with the thread and I'm really impressed with what you've done with the second display. Seems xfassa has run with it and managed to squeeze in a second display in the marquee.

Looks like this is the way to go! Once again, great job on the improvements you've made.

xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #163 on: February 22, 2015, 11:31:40 pm »
RetroNutz - I will try and take some more pictures this week.  As for the monitor, its an  AOC 16" - E1649FWU.  Once you remove the bezel/housing, it fits nicely into the marquee opening.  However, the marquee holder brackets need to be adjusted to accommodate the marquee and the added thickness of the monitor.

Sp3c7r3

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #164 on: February 23, 2015, 02:14:42 pm »
Here is a quick look at it assembled.  Lots of work to do yet.  :-)

That looks fantastic. Great job!

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #165 on: February 23, 2015, 02:43:48 pm »
Here is a quick look at it assembled.  Lots of work to do yet.  :-)

It really looks excellent xfassa! Just a thought, you could create a really simple bitmap that has bright yellow bars across it, that you could load with the editor and have it as your bezel, so it would kind of back light 'Monaco GP' and 'Sega' writing?

Oh and just another thought, not sure if you already know this, but you've got a choice of LED fonts to choose from, you can iterate through them by changing the ARTWORK led_filename setting. Nothing wrong with the one you have chosen (Its the best one to be honest), but just in case you ever fancy a change!

 :)

xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #166 on: February 23, 2015, 02:55:49 pm »
Geecab - great idea on the back lighting.  Unfortunately, the display does not span the entire width of the marquee.  :-(

Wow, i didn't know i could change the LED font.  I kind of like the default.  Although, my wife asked if it could be changed to a brighter red.  :-)

Honestly, i am just thrilled how good it all looks.  I would really like to do a video of the entire project.  Work really gets in the way of all my hobbies.  Of course, work pays for all my hobbies too!

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #167 on: February 23, 2015, 03:14:53 pm »
Very good Geecab,

No more glitches, methinks. Glad to have accepted some of my
observations. Pursuit is harder, but I ended again... sorry. :)

Apropo Raspberry Pi and machines that can not run MGPR, several times
I put the flash in 2-3 15.6" Win7 laptops and it was all ok, just like
on desktop. But one day I tried Acer Aspire One AOD257, 10.1” WSVGA
(1024x600) netbook Win7-32, 2GB RAM and 320 GB HDD... It was so slow,
like slow motion movie, that I could not reach to the second tunnel -
without crash - time expired. Everything is slow: moving, car,
opponents, track, except sound and time. This laptop runs just fine MS
Office, internet and some games, but MGPR (640x480) very slow,
although it has 2 cores/4 threads 1.66 GHz speed. I think because
integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 and low dedicated
memory. Which API-tools you use for video rendering?

Good stuff tomtom! I rely on your observations / bug finding etc.., you've helped identify some stuff that really did need fixing and the game is much better for it!

>>> Pursuit is harder, but I ended again... sorry. :)
NOOO!! 21 seconds left & 3 lives remaining - That is such a walk in park!! ;)  I can complete pursuit but only once in, say, every 15 goes! I only ever have about 1 second left, and hardly any lives left??

Its got to be down to the following:-
1. I'm rubbish at my own game (I hope its not that!)
2. It must be how we've set up our controls. I use a 360 wheel that I connect up to a hacked mouse. I've have set steering_sensitivity 50, and steering_weight 68, because for me that gives me the feeling from what I remember of the arcade. Everything else I left at the default values. What control settings are you using?

>>Which API-tools you use for video rendering?
Cheers for those processor/PC stats. I use a graphics and sound library called Allegro 5 to make (render) the game. So basically, its all down to what ever Allegro 5 runs ok on. If Allegro 5 runs ok on it, so will Monaco GP Remake.

:)

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #168 on: February 23, 2015, 04:07:08 pm »
Geecab - great idea on the back lighting.  Unfortunately, the display does not span the entire width of the marquee.  :-(

oh yes, I see what you mean. You could just light up the Sega for now I suppose. Lets think about this another time as there is probably a solution to this... You could get yourself a custom marquee made up with a slightly narrower Monaco GP lettering ;)

>>Wow, i didn't know i could change the LED font.  I kind of like the default.  Although, my wife asked if it could be changed to a brighter red.  :-)
Cool! Yep, I like the default one also, but yes I do kind of know where your wife is coming from, probably needs to be a little more red (or maybe you have color/gamma settings for your second monitor you can try changing)? BTW, just so you know you can make your own led graphics yourself, or edit one that already exists quite easily. They are all in the 'led' directory. Any bitmaps you save in the 'led' directory the editor will assume its a new led font and you'll be able to see it when iterating through the list of filenames. Have a look at 7segment_scanned.bmp with any paint package and you'll see how they are made up (As long as the bitmap can be divided equally width ways by 11 (to accommodate all the digit combinations), and you save it as a .bmp file, then it should look & work OK.

>>Honestly, i am just thrilled how good it all looks.  I would really like to do a video of the entire project.  Work really gets in the way of all my hobbies.  Of course, work pays for all my hobbies too!
Great stuff, I'm really happy seeing it all coming together too, it does look like the real deal now and really pleased the second monitor you found does the job nicely! :)

tomtom

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #169 on: February 24, 2015, 04:25:43 pm »
> NOOO!! 21 seconds left & 3 lives remaining - That is such a walk in
> park!! ;)  I can complete pursuit but only once in, say, every 15
> goes! I only ever have about 1 second left, and hardly any lives left??

Not always so ideal. Before that I had failed 15-20 runs. The first
time I had finished, it was similar to you. Cab playing is
difficult; one hand should drive, another gearchange and foot
accelerate; more synchronization.

There's a guy on YT, who likes to breaking records in the old
arcades. I'm sure he would have done better if hi knew for MGPR
remake. /rdrunner0077/
PS: It is a coincidence, I'm not that Tom. :)

> It must be how we've set up our controls. I use a 360 wheel that
> I connect up to a hacked mouse. I've have set steering_sensitivity
> 50, and steering_weight 68, because for me that gives me the feeling
> from what I remember of the arcade. Everything else I left at the
> default values. What control settings are you using?

I said earlier, only mouse and steering_sensitivity 100 or more.
Because of high sensitivity, the hand must be calm and stable.
Many times crash happens, when a little more drag the mouse.

> So basically, its all down to what ever Allegro 5 runs ok on. If
> Allegro 5 runs ok on it, so will Monaco GP Remake.

I do not know if there is some tests or system requirements for
Allegro 5. Obviously, the best test is your program.


geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #170 on: February 26, 2015, 06:47:54 pm »
Not always so ideal. Before that I had failed 15-20 runs. The first
time I had finished, it was similar to you. Cab playing is
difficult; one hand should drive, another gearchange and foot
accelerate; more synchronization.

Ok, cool, the difficulty may be 'about right' then :) I was thinking, it might be a good idea to have a simple/quick way of changing the difficulty each time the game is loaded (and this difficulty would be remembered for the next time you load the game). Say, when the Disclaimer screen appears, you would see a 5 second timer count down, and a flashing message would indicate "stop on gas and spin wheel to set difficulty" sort of thing, you'd be able to choose easy, medium, hard and impossible?

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #171 on: February 26, 2015, 07:08:31 pm »
I've made a start putting some videos together of the latest version running .  I've decided to make 4 different videos, one for each of the game modes; Classic, Pro, Pursuit and Stunt. This is the first, showing the Classic game mode running on my cabinet. The quality isn't the best (Rubbish camera!), but hopefully it gives decent enough impression of the game :)

Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.5) "Classic" game mode:
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 10:26:31 am by geecab »

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #172 on: February 28, 2015, 10:15:41 am »
Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.5) "Stunt Park" game mode:
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 10:26:45 am by geecab »

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #173 on: March 01, 2015, 04:36:51 pm »
RetroNutz & xfassa - I've decided to get an arduino board starter kit. I got interested in them whilst browsing for a hardware scoreboard display solution for RetroNuts, and these arduino boards just look like they'd be cool to mess about with and maybe I'll learn a few things along the way. I'm not sure how far I'll get and it will probably take me ages to get something going (and I'll probably blow something up in the process (I've made backups of my Monaco GP source, don't worry :P))  but just wanted to say don't ebay away your arcade display circuit board quite yet because who knows someday there might have a way of getting them going again (though you'll probably have a tricky soldering / wiring job on your hands ;)).

Got some BCD to 7 segment decoders and some shift registers on order so no turning back now!! Also, thinking I could use my display to show highscores of other mame games ((http://highscore.mameworld.info) buts that's a little too far down the line to think about right now, just want to get a few LEDs illuminated first!

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #174 on: March 01, 2015, 04:42:30 pm »
Nice one. Keep us posted. I'd have a go myself but the last time I programmed it was at school. COBOL and Pascal if I remember! I'm showing my age now. Really wish I'd stuck at it. I'm actually quite jealous you've made the Monaco GP remake. You've certainly got some skills!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #175 on: March 01, 2015, 05:59:46 pm »
Geecab -  Good luck with the starter kit!  It is always good to keep challenging yourself.  ;-)

Now that everything is setup, I dedicated some time to play the game.  Unfortunately, I ran into a few issues.

Setup:
Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 (2.66Ghz)
8GB ram (WinXP only recognizes 4GB)
Nvidia GTS450 (1GB) Video Card

Issue #1:  When opening the three sessions (game, left side score, right side score), the game runs noticeably slower.  It's playable but definitely slower.  It even sounds different.  My guess is the three sessions really eat up a lot of resources.  My plan is to upgrade to Windows 7 (although Linux would be ideal).  Anyway, I will give it a go.

Issue #2:  I would like to use my Ultimarc APAC to control the foot pedal, shifter, and coin up button.  However, the coin up menu setting will only let me select keyboard keys.  There is no APAC options for selecting button 1.  The shifter menu setting allows the APAC to be used.  Any ideas?

Thanks for any/all help!

Xiaou2

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #176 on: March 01, 2015, 06:03:28 pm »
Nice.

 You may want to add sprite scaling if you are doing jumps.  As thing rise up, they should scale larger... then scale back down as they fall. I didnt realize the car was jumping, until I saw the shadow shift.  An animation of the cars tilt would also help.

 Jumping is highly unrealistic in such a car due partially to the shocks.. and partially the landing angles.  Which would make for some interesting gameplay.. however, might be too difficult.   The height and distance would equate to your speed... and possibly different ramp heights / angles  (use diff colors on ramp types .. if using multiples).   In order to successfully land a ramp flight... one would need to hit the landing ramp (at the beginning or middle section).   

 To make this realistic, one shouldnt be able to steer, nor effect the screens scrolling (throttle),  when you are airborne. Speed will drop a little naturally, as you have no ground to maintain it.

  An easy mode, could allow steering and or speed changes... but I think the realist mode would be more rewarding. Higher risk to try a jump... and greater points awarded for landing one given.  A greater adrenaline rush, and greater feeling when one lands a jump successfully.

  Another option, would be to change.the car type... to a dirt-bike sytle buggy or an actual dirkbike period.   That might need different steering (leaning animations) , and possible Arial tilting control. Again, use of scaling would help convey the jump.  That and or scaling the background instead.(with some camera focus applied for extra pop... and or a combination of car  scaling+bg scaling)

As for the use of an lcd on a real cabinet. .. it maks me cringe.  =(
Maybe some filters and simulated crt curve would help some... but even then, the refresh is probably too slow.

Looking at the.vid, it.appeared that ice barely effected the steering speed.and traction.   Theres no way one could drive like that on real ice.   Same effect fix.also need be applied to other racers.

  Environmental effects like rain, snow, and high winds would be cool..   as well as a sunset and night mode.
A section like Turbo's lit up city scape would be cool.

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #177 on: March 01, 2015, 06:22:40 pm »

Looking at the.vid, it.appeared that ice barely effected the steering speed.and traction.   Theres no way one could drive like that on real ice.   Same effect fix.also need be applied to other racers.

You have to remember the driving "physics" in this game are based on the original 1979 game. I like the fact Geecab has made his own tracks with new obstacles, but for me at least, you can't change how the car handles as this detracts from why I liked the original in the first place.

It's only my personal opinion of course, but I love this emulation as it replicates the original so well. If it didn't handle the way it did I probably wouldn't play it so much.

Xiaou2

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #178 on: March 02, 2015, 05:51:12 am »
From looking at the vid.. it didnt look like what I remembered.  Maybe im mixing it up with Turbo.  Ill check it out later to see.

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #179 on: March 02, 2015, 03:19:58 pm »
Geecab -  Good luck with the starter kit!  It is always good to keep challenging yourself.  ;-)

Now that everything is setup, I dedicated some time to play the game.  Unfortunately, I ran into a few issues.

Setup:
Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 (2.66Ghz)
8GB ram (WinXP only recognizes 4GB)
Nvidia GTS450 (1GB) Video Card

Issue #1:  When opening the three sessions (game, left side score, right side score), the game runs noticeably slower.  It's playable but definitely slower.  It even sounds different.  My guess is the three sessions really eat up a lot of resources.  My plan is to upgrade to Windows 7 (although Linux would be ideal).  Anyway, I will give it a go.

Issue #2:  I would like to use my Ultimarc APAC to control the foot pedal, shifter, and coin up button.  However, the coin up menu setting will only let me select keyboard keys.  There is no APAC options for selecting button 1.  The shifter menu setting allows the APAC to be used.  Any ideas?

Thanks for any/all help!

Oh no it was all going so well ;)

Regarding Issue 1 - The scoreboard instances will require about the same processing power as the game instance itself. There are probably a few things I can do to make the scoreboard instances less processor hungry, but before we go down that route, I'm wondering if its the large resolutions that you are running the instances at that is causing resources to max out.
- Can you let me know what resolution you are running the game instance at?
- Can you try running the game and scoreboard instances at say 640x480 (or whatever the lowest resolution you can choose is). It won't look correct I know, but its a good test to see whether its my programming eating up the processor, or the resolution of the instances. Might be an idea to open the Windows Task Manager and let me know the Performance of your processors as you start each instance up?
- I really wouldn't upgrade to windows 7 just yet. I'm my experience, upgrading to a newer windows OS will only make things run slower. Linux is a no go at the moment I'm afraid.

Regarding Issue 2 - Whoops, yes the coin button thing is definitely a bug, should be easy enough to fix :)

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #180 on: March 02, 2015, 03:42:46 pm »

Looking at the.vid, it.appeared that ice barely effected the steering speed.and traction.   Theres no way one could drive like that on real ice.   Same effect fix.also need be applied to other racers.

You have to remember the driving "physics" in this game are based on the original 1979 game. I like the fact Geecab has made his own tracks with new obstacles, but for me at least, you can't change how the car handles as this detracts from why I liked the original in the first place.

It's only my personal opinion of course, but I love this emulation as it replicates the original so well. If it didn't handle the way it did I probably wouldn't play it so much.

Cheers RetroNuts, glad you are liking the new obstacles! I wasn't sure that everyone would like my new additions to begin with, which is why I provided distinct game modes. Classic & Pro is there for the purists, and the other games are there if you fancy a new/different challenge. I quite enjoy all the modes to be honest. I hopefully haven't gone over the top with new stuff, I've tried to be loyal to the original and my new sprites are drawn in the pixel resolution and palette as all the other sprites. I tried to imagine that if Sega had kept going another few years with there 2D Monaco GP TTL hardware, what we might have seen in the arcades :)

xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #181 on: March 02, 2015, 09:47:38 pm »

Oh no it was all going so well ;)

Regarding Issue 1 - The scoreboard instances will require about the same processing power as the game instance itself. There are probably a few things I can do to make the scoreboard instances less processor hungry, but before we go down that route, I'm wondering if its the large resolutions that you are running the instances at that is causing resources to max out.
- Can you let me know what resolution you are running the game instance at?
- Can you try running the game and scoreboard instances at say 640x480 (or whatever the lowest resolution you can choose is). It won't look correct I know, but its a good test to see whether its my programming eating up the processor, or the resolution of the instances. Might be an idea to open the Windows Task Manager and let me know the Performance of your processors as you start each instance up?
- I really wouldn't upgrade to windows 7 just yet. I'm my experience, upgrading to a newer windows OS will only make things run slower. Linux is a no go at the moment I'm afraid.

Regarding Issue 2 - Whoops, yes the coin button thing is definitely a bug, should be easy enough to fix :)

Here are my resolutions/CPU usages.

LCD Display Settings in Windows XP
Primary Display:  1024x768
Secondary Display:  1366x768

Display Settings in Monaco GP
Primary Game Session: 1024x768
Secondary Game Session (Left Side of Scoreboard): 1024x768
Tertiary Game Session (Right Side of Scoreboard): 1024x768

All sessions set to 1024x768
CPU Usage (%), Page File Usage (MB)
Baseline:  1%, 257MB
Primary Session:  9%, 314MB
Secondary Session: 40%, 368MB
Tertiary Session: 56%, 421MB

All sessions set to 640x480
CPU Usage (%), Page File Usage (MB)
Baseline:  1%, 257MB
Primary Session:  6%, 306MB
Secondary Session: 19%, 353MB
Tertiary Session: 25%, 400MB

Unrelated.  My "Gear_Method" is set to Lo when Held.  Unfortunately, the game always starts in High gear forcing me to shift into High and the back into Low to get it to change into Low gear.  Once that is done at the start of the game, the shifting works perfectly.  Any ideas?

Thanks again for all your help!

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #182 on: March 03, 2015, 03:40:09 am »
Seems like the change in resolution is having quite an effect...

Sorry, just want to confirm something (I'm easily confused :P). Take the case when you've got all resolutions set to 1024x768, are you giving me the individual CPU usage per instance, or the total CPU usage as you run the instances?

So basically do you mean this:
Primary Session:  9%, 314MB   - (Implies this instance takes 9% CPU)
Secondary Session: 40%, 368MB (Implies this instance takes 40% CPU. Total CPU is thus usage is 9% + 40% = 49%)
Tertiary Session: 56%, 421MB (Implies this instance takes 56% CPU. Total CPU is thus usage is 9% + 40% + 56% = 100% (can't be anymore))

Or do you mean this:
Primary Session:  9%, 314MB   - (Implies total CPU usage with 1 instance running is 9%. 91% of CPU must therefore be idle)
Secondary Session: 40%, 368MB (Implies total CPU usage with 2 instances running is 40%.  60% of CPU must therefore be idle)
Tertiary Session: 56%, 421MB (Implies total CPU usage with 3 instances running 56%. 44% of CPU must therefore be idle)


Does the game run at the correct speed with all windows at 640x480 ? If so, you might as well stick with that resolution. The only real benefit of running your game instance at 1024x768 would be if you were going to display hi-res artwork, which you are not.

I've just done a crude calculation (pic attached), I think you'd still be able to display all the LED information you want with two 640x480 scoreboard windows? You could also set the wallpaper of the 1366x768 screen to something that could light up the big Monaco GP title??


>>My "Gear_Method" is set to Lo when Held.

Whoops! Sounds like I'm not initializing this properly. Hopefully won't be too tricky to fix :)


xfassa

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #183 on: March 03, 2015, 07:02:19 am »
Sorry for the confusion.  This is what i meant.

Or do you mean this:
Primary Session:  9%, 314MB   - (Implies total CPU usage with 1 instance running is 9%. 91% of CPU must therefore be idle)
Secondary Session: 40%, 368MB (Implies total CPU usage with 2 instances running is 40%.  60% of CPU must therefore be idle)
Tertiary Session: 56%, 421MB (Implies total CPU usage with 3 instances running 56%. 44% of CPU must therefore be idle)

I will try changing the resolutions to 640x480 and adjust them to fit the screen properly.  I will report back later tonight. Thanks!

kcidkcus

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #184 on: March 03, 2015, 10:34:34 pm »
Thank you so very very much for this very awesome remake of this very awesome game!  Your remake runs perfectly using Wine(https://www.winehq.org) on my iMac.  I was just wondering something.  Does your remake have a pause button?  If so, what is it?

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #185 on: March 04, 2015, 03:28:50 am »
Thank you so very very much for this very awesome remake of this very awesome game!  Your remake runs perfectly using Wine(https://www.winehq.org) on my iMac.  I was just wondering something.  Does your remake have a pause button?  If so, what is it?

Wow! Just clicked on your Wine link and reading about it. I've never heard of Wine before but it sounds excellent, a few people have asked for a Linux port of my remake in the past so this could be the answer! I'm interested to know, what OS are you running and what processor does your iMac have?

It doesn't have a pause button at the moment, but it shouldn't be too difficult to implement one for the next release.

Thanks for posting :)


kcidkcus

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #186 on: March 04, 2015, 04:34:43 am »
Quote
I'm interested to know, what OS are you running and what processor does your iMac have?
I have an iMac running Mac OSX with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.
Quote
It doesn't have a pause button at the moment, but it shouldn't be too difficult to implement one for the next release.
Well, I'll definitely be on the lookout for any future releases of your game.  Thanks again.

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #187 on: March 04, 2015, 04:26:58 pm »
I have an iMac running Mac OSX with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.
Well, I'll definitely be on the lookout for any future releases of your game.  Thanks again.

Cheers for this kcidkcus, that's a nice high end machine you have!

I've been reading quite a bit about Wine today, not sure how its gone under my radar! I will have to give it a try sometime soon, quite interested to see how it performs when using a less powerful processor :)

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #188 on: March 04, 2015, 04:32:25 pm »

I have an iMac running Mac OSX with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor.
Well, I'll definitely be on the lookout for any future releases of your game.  Thanks again.

Cheers for this kcidkcus, that's a nice high end machine you have!

I've been reading quite a bit about Wine today, not sure how its gone under my radar! I will have to give it a try sometime soon, quite interested to see how it performs when using a less powerful processor :)

I have the same speed mac and after reading the above post, before trying WINE, I ran monaco GP in an instance of Win XP in VirtualBox at the highest game resolution, and there was some significant slow down. It ran fine at 640x480. I've yet to try it in wine...

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #189 on: March 08, 2015, 11:35:20 am »
I've been getting on really well with my Arduino board! If you ever fancied getting a basic understand of electronics I really must encourage you to try one of these out for yourself! :)

After looking closely at the arcade machine's schematics (I think I understand how the scoreboard multiplexing works now), I decided to buy a few components that were similar/identical to the ones on the arcade machine's scoreboard circuit board (Shift registers, BCD to 7-Seg decoders and 7-Seg displays).

Only 2 displays working at the moment (I've run out of breadboard for anymore), but I'm kind of feel that it wouldn't be too tricky to add the rest if I wanted to. I'm kind of thinking I'd like now to scratch build a Monaco GP upright and use the Arduino circuit for the scoreboard :P

I'll go into more detail about how I got things to work when I have a bit more time. For now, here's some pics and video of things working...

« Last Edit: March 08, 2015, 11:40:14 am by geecab »

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #190 on: March 08, 2015, 02:09:19 pm »

I've been getting on really well with my Arduino board!
I'll go into more detail about how I got things to work when I have a bit more time. For now, here's some pics and video of things working...


Frickin awesome! Nuff said!


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Neo-Rio

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #191 on: March 13, 2015, 09:15:48 pm »
This simulator is really awesome. I loved this game as a kid, and am ecstatic that I can play it again.

Just a question: Is there a way to play with a mouse? I went through the config files and found CONTROL references to "keys"
What are the valid inputs here?

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #192 on: March 14, 2015, 05:57:07 am »
This simulator is really awesome. I loved this game as a kid, and am ecstatic that I can play it again.

Just a question: Is there a way to play with a mouse? I went through the config files and found CONTROL references to "keys"
What are the valid inputs here?

Hi Neo-Rio! Thanks for posting! Hopefully you are running the latest version (v1.4.5)? If so then its best not to edit the config file by hand, but instead use the in-game configuration editor to do it for you. Pressing the 'Tab' key during the attract mode (When 'Deposit Coin' is flashing) will invoke the configuration editor. Pressing 'Tab' again will return you back to the game. Exiting the game (pressing 'ESC') will save any changes you made using the configuration editor, into the configuration file that you loaded. When you've invoked the configuration editor, lots of options should appear on the screen which you can navigate around using the arrow keys. Highlight 'CONTROL OPTIONS' and press the right arrow key to expand them. To use mouse to steer, highlight the  'STEERING_DEVICE' option and press the left or right arrow keys to iterate though all the possible steering devices available in your system (mouse axis x, mouse axis y, keys, joystick etc..). Hopefully you get the idea :)

Neo-Rio

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #193 on: March 15, 2015, 01:55:12 am »
Yep, that works! Freakin' awesome! You're a genius.

I also love how you've modded the original out with a whole pile of new features, and have things like two-lane highways and including some jumping sections - which reminds me of the SEGA mark III version which was somewhat original in that regard.
Just curious: Is it possible to add twisty sections of road into the game, or can't the code be pushed that far? I recall playing "Lemans" on my Commodore 64 (a blatant clone of Pro Monaco GP), and it had a section (amongst the ice and tunnel sections), called the "esses". The track would start snaking left and right for a while and was pretty darn hard.

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #194 on: March 16, 2015, 01:47:43 pm »
Great stuff Neo-Rio! Glad you are liking the new features/additions! Just been looking at Lemans for the c64 on youtube, nice! I see what you mean about the twisty sections of road, I like the effect too. I'll see what I can do :)

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #195 on: March 20, 2015, 06:25:43 am »
Finally got around to finishing the last couple of game mode videos ("Pro" and "Pursuit"). Once again, the quality it a bit rubbish but hopefully its gets the idea across. I've modified my very first few posts on page 1 of this thread, to include all the videos I've been making :)

Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.5) "Pro" game mode:



Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.5) "Pursuit" game mode:


geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #196 on: March 20, 2015, 08:28:00 am »
RetroNuts & xfassa - I think I've finally come to the end of my "messing around with the Arduino" stage. Its been an enjoyable (though a bit of a nerdy) experience, and my final thoughts are that if you wanted to pursue a hardware solution to light up your scoreboard, you most definitely could (though it would take a bit of time to sort out, I think you could even make use of your existing hardware (Depending on how much you mind making "modifications" to it!)).

So for completeness, lets say sometime in the future you fancy trying to get your old display hardware working again. Then my advise would be to get a basic Arduino starter kit and some 74HC595 shift registers, and trying this tutorial out:-
http://arduino.cc/en/tutorial/ShiftOut

Once you've got 2 shift registers illuminating any sequence of 16 different LEDs, you'll start to discover that it wouldn't too much effort to add a couple more shift registers to illuminate any sequence of 32 LEDs.

Now, I reckon by using 5 shift registers you could illuminate the actual arcade display as seen in the diagram attached (I've combined the original arcade circuit diagram, with some of the symbols from the Arduino ShiftOut tutorial to help me describe). The Arduino runs very fast and can perform the shift register tasks very quickly. So looking at the diagram, the shift register at the top cycles around giving power to 1 row of digits at a time, whilst the 4 shift registers at the right illuminate the necessary segments that form the digits along that row. Hope this makes some sense!

The scoreboard_reader source code example I added in the last release could then be modified to send the scoreboard information off the Arduino device. I'd be happy to write the scoreboard_reader to Arduino interface code to suit whatever hardware design you come up with.

OK, that's everything! I'm putting my Arduino aside now, time to start working on v1.4.6 :)

« Last Edit: March 20, 2015, 08:29:43 am by geecab »

RetroNutz

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #197 on: March 20, 2015, 08:44:53 am »
I can only thank you for the amazing effort you've put into this. Not only for the emulator in the first place but also in working out how to output to an external score board.

It's certainly information I can return to after I've finished my current project (which seems never ending!). Life in general has a habit of getting in the way! In the mean time I'm certainly having fun playing your emulator.

Keep up the good work Geecab. I look forward to seeing your future posts and updates.



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geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #198 on: March 20, 2015, 09:34:08 am »
No worries at all RetroNutz, thanks for all the kind words! Like I said I've really enjoyed getting into the electronic side of things, something I've always wanted to get a better understanding of, I've learned loads in the process, and now we have a rough plan action for yourself or anyone else who feels like giving some real hardware a go in future :)

geecab

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Re: Sega Monaco GP 1979/1980 - My Remake
« Reply #199 on: March 22, 2015, 05:43:47 am »
Monaco GP Remake (v1.4.6) is ready and it can be downloaded here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/9sdj2nfee7bwuus/mgpr_v1_4_6.zip

Main purpose of this release was to fix the game controller button gear shift bug, and add controller button support for Coin input (xfassa).
(kcidkcus - Apologies, I did make a start on adding a pause control but its more tricky than I had first anticipated. I will get this working eventually, but unfortunately its not in this release)

Please be a little prepared as you visit the mediafire site, you might get adverts for other software appear, trying to fool you to download something else. Just make sure you only click on the big green 'Download' button near to top right of the page, and the file that you download to your computer is called "mgpr_v1_4_6.zip" (Its about 16MB in size).

Once its downloaded, unzip it, then double click on 'mgpr_launcher.exe', choose a configuration and off you go!

Note that you can also run a specific configuration from command line (like in previous versions), running mpgr.exe using the -cfg switch. For example, if you wanted to run the pro_arcade_1360x768.cfg configuration from command line, you would specify
 mgpr -cfg pro_arcade_1360x768.cfg
 
All the default configurations are set up for fullscreen and keyboard control (keys are Z=left, X=right, N=Accelerate, M=Gear, 5 or 6 = Coin, 1=Switch between HiScores and AttractMode).
Press the TAB key during any game's attract mode (When "Deposit coin" is flashing at you) to edit the configuration (Change Controls to Mouse, joystick, choose different artwork etc..). Some options (such as display filter, fullscreen and various audio samples and volumes) will require you to restart the game before your new settings will take effect.

Fixed in v1.4.6:
 - Gear Shift HI-When-Held/LO-When-Held variables now correctly initialized when device is set to a game controller button (Mouse button, Joystick button etc..).
 - "Coin A", "Coin B" and "Start" can now be configured to use game controller buttons (Previously, it was only possible to use keys).
 - Pursuit track difficultly tweaked yet again.
 - ROM check removed (Graphics are embedded into game executable).