HUGE MAME news

[bulbousbeard]

Couriersud has been aligning the different video APIs that MAME uses as part of a larger effort to eventually GPU accelerate 3D games in MAME crossplatform. Previously, in Windows MAME, you could only use Direct3D and HLSL for shaders. Now, you can use OpenGL and GLSL in Windows MAME.

What this means is that you can now run the Timothy Lottes Shader in Windows MAME and still get the low latency Raw Input API and low audio latency of Windows MAME while getting the superior CRT shader. It really is the best of both worlds.

This is going to be the new de facto setup for high quality MAME builds using LCDs.

WOW Couriersud is awesome.

http://mame.dorando.at/svn/?rev=36143

[lamprey]

Does this just mean MAME will support D3D and OpenGL in one build now instead of separate builds? I've been using GLSL in Windows for a while now, but if it's combined into one build that'd be cool too.

[bulbousbeard]

Does this just mean MAME will support D3D and OpenGL in one build now instead of separate builds? I've been using GLSL in Windows for a while now, but if it's combined into one build that'd be cool too.

Yes. Long term, MAME should also be able to use GPUs to emulate 3D platforms (this is over a year off, though).

[haynor666]

This was implemented for shaders etc. It won't help speed up 3D games because emulation is still done all in software.

[bulbousbeard]

This was implemented for shaders etc. It won't help speed up 3D games because emulation is still done all in software.

Re-read my post. This was done as part of a larger project to eventually GPU accelerate 3D games in MAME.

MAME just recently started incorporating BGFX to do this. The real reason that MAME hasn't had GPU acceleration is because there wasn't a good cross platform way of doing it.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0NTQ

"BGFX is a cross-platform rendering library that makes it easy targeting multiple versions of OpenGL and Direct3D on platforms ranging from Apple iOS to Windows to Google Native Client.

The latest open-source project worthy of its own shout-out on Phoronix is BGFX, which via its library allows seamless targeting the Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11 APIs on Windows platforms. For all platforms, targeting BGFX means OpenGL 2.1, OpenGL 3.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, and OpenGL ES 3.0 rendering support."

From the MAME .159 whatsnew:

- MAME
  . 3rdparty
    . Added BGFX latest code to 3rdparty. Added building of BGFX library. Added BGFX as video output. For now rendering info shown only (windows\drawbgfx.c). Added BGFX skeleton to SDL build as well (sdl\drawbgfx.c). Merged in BGFX changes and adapted BGFX draw to inherit from osd_renderer. Made BGFX optional for SLD builds. You have to specify USE_BGFX=1 to enable BGFX. This is a temporary measure until dynamic linking is resolved. BGFX library is set in windows.mak and sdl.mak now. This ensures the library is only build when needed. This is necessary to be able to build MAME on systems without OpenGL support. Support was added for an optional BIN location for executables. The default is still the root folder. Setting BIN=bin e.g. will put executables in bin.

Can you at least do some basic reading/research on something before spouting off and confusing an already confused group of users?

[pbj]

And here I thought they finally emulated Golden Tee.

 

[Malenko]

And here I thought they finally emulated Golden Tee.

 

FS: Golden Tee98 and Golden Tee2K boards....

[twistedsymphony]

This is great news... there are a lot of 3D games that are unplayable in MAME because of the lack of support for 3D acceleration.

Any idea which games will be taking advantage of this first or will it just start working across the board once they activate the new engine?

[nitrogen_widget]

I'm still not seeing where it says mame will eventually use hardware acceleration for 3D games.
All I see is there will be a common hardware accelerated shader back-end that will work on all platforms.

also openGL is and has been cross platform for a good long while so they could of used 3d acceleration a while ago & not left anyone out if they wanted to.

[bulbousbeard]

I'm still not seeing where it says mame will eventually use hardware acceleration for 3D games.
All I see is there will be a common hardware accelerated shader back-end that will work on all platforms.

also openGL is and has been cross platform for a good long while so they could of used 3d acceleration a while ago & not left anyone out if they wanted to.

OpenGL hasn't been supported in win32 MAME until now.

That is what's going on here. Like I said for the 40th time, this is part of a larger project to eventually accelerate 3D in MAME.

[nitrogen_widget]

I'm still not seeing where it says mame will eventually use hardware acceleration for 3D games.
All I see is there will be a common hardware accelerated shader back-end that will work on all platforms.

also openGL is and has been cross platform for a good long while so they could of used 3d acceleration a while ago & not left anyone out if they wanted to.

OpenGL hasn't been supported in win32 MAME until now.

That is what's going on here. Like I said for the 40th time, this is part of a larger project to eventually accelerate 3D in MAME.

Yeah.
We allready knew windows build didn't support openGL while linux & mac did.

Hey, I just want to see some documentation from the mame team stating that this is indeed the direction they are actually going because it is contrary to what they have said in the past concerning 3d acceleration.

[lamprey]

OpenGL hasn't been supported in win32 MAME until now.

Yeah.
We allready knew windows build didn't support openGL while linux & mac did.

Hu?

I've been running GLSL (OpenGL) shaders for quite a while (over six months, a year? I forget..) on windows builds of mame. And I'm pretty sure it's been available for several years; Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean?

[nitrogen_widget]

OpenGL hasn't been supported in win32 MAME until now.

Yeah.
We allready knew windows build didn't support openGL while linux & mac did.

Hu?

I've been running GLSL (OpenGL) shaders for quite a while (over six months, a year? I forget..) on windows builds of mame. And I'm pretty sure it's been available for several years; Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean?

Mainstream mame didn't support GLSL shaders.
SDLmame does regardless of OS.

If i'm wrong on that please correct me.

[bulbousbeard]

I compiled the latest MAME source, included the Lottes shader, and configured the ume.ini for you. All you have to do is change the ROM path and you're done, basically.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g75np6v6ad9s5jy/mamesvn.zip

[stripe4]

I also fail to see how support for OpenGL on win32 and BGFX will pave way for 3D acceleration in games done by GPU. Two points:

• Such approach is HLE (and not accurate enough by MAME/MESS team standards/philosophy)
• MAME/MESS emulates a huge amount of diferent systems, and each one works uniquely - it will take a colossal amount of work to pull this off

The only way I see a modern GPU can be of any help for MAME is offloading some processing from CPU. And shaders.

Haze, where art thou?

[haynor666]

That's right. I didn't found any single word from devs about hardware accelaration in games. Basically putting this will break rule already mentioned - it will be not accurate hardware/graphics presentation which is/was always at first place.

[bulbousbeard]

Just because you haven't heard it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Geezus.

Here you go, because apparently you won't believe it unless I beat you over the head with it:

http://mamedev.emulab.it.proxo.club/haze/2015/01/28/ume-mame-mess-0-158/

BGFX gives us the capability to have DX11-level control over the rendering in a portable manner, so it’s an important step towards that future. But it’s only a step. I wouldn’t necessarily expect any accelerated rendering this year even.

Oh, what's that? Exactly what I said? Yeah. Yeah!

[cack01]

Applying this news to 3D acceleration is a bit of a leap...... however, I have previously read the quote that this could open doors so I recognize it could be a possibility.  The problem with 3D acceleration has never been that mamedevs are against it, the issue has always been consitancy. Every graphics card displays works differently and then you have to mix in different drivers as well.  I do not see 3D acceleration being implemented or being given any serious backing until mamedev is given assurance that a 3D accelerated game displays the same output (pixel for pixel , sprite for sprite) on any combination of hardware and OS.  Maybe this BGFX is the answer, but in my opinion it has a very high hurdle to clear.

[Haze]

I'm not sure if the BGFX stuff is going to be directly related to the 3D acceleration of drivers.

It's been said that if/when use of the video card is implemented we will be treating the cards like additional CPUs to offload tasks too, essentially doing software rendering on the GPUs instead of the main CPU, they're designed for such complex mathematical tasks afterall.

As already noted, if you simply use the graphics cards as graphic cards (translating game calls into D3D / OGL calls), you end up with inconsistent results between platforms / driver revisions / cards, much like people are finding trying to run the hacked up Taito games with the wrong cards; it doesn't matter if you pass the right commands as the results will always be different and that's no good for us.  Very recent cards, and DX11 level tech give us the power and ability to do what we need to do, but we still need the code.  Obviously this method is significantly slower, but should still be faster than rendering using the main CPU alone on a good card.

A more logical short term goal /conclusion is that we might be able to do a better internal interface, and have better layout files (for things like the Fruit Machines) with hardware accelerated rendering of those things, not so exciting to hear mind you.

[stripe4]

Thanks for the clarification, Haze!

[bulbousbeard]

The guy actually doing the work is doing it with the goal of eventually accelerating games, which is why I used the word "eventually." It wouldn't even be worth the effort of what's being done if the goals were only to improve the interface and artwork system. 

In fact, couriersud even mentioned the possibility of using GPUs for net list if the performance tradeoffs ended up being worth it.

It's coming.™

[haynor666]

So it's not hardware acceleration butonly for external work like artworks, effects and additionally for software rendering forced on GPUs. At least for now.

[Yenome]

I Tried the mame that was linked too and i liked the shadder on my LCD. Gonna play with it some more. only tried UMK3 and KI as they are the two main ones i play.

[Haze]

And here I thought they finally emulated Golden Tee.

 

well we did recently get an external submission from somebody who has looked at it..

http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/