Is robotron in mame ,harder than the original?

[abispac]

So im planing to build a dedicated robotron bartop with a 13 inch crt, using groovymame and emudrivers. I even followed a facebook group that is a robotron fan group. Long story short, people there like the jrok hardware that has robotron in it, and i arguee, that, since jrok is not the original hardware, is pretty much the same to use a computer with mame , but they say jrok is like an original but newer hardware. Now this is how i see it: Mame got the software part (roms) by dumping the original roms, and emulating the hardware, jrok runs the roms, probably taken from mame or maybe they dumped theyr own roms and basicaly, both are runing the same program or software wich is  robotron. Now they say, Mame version is way harder than the original or the jrok version, wich to me would be God send as i almost never pass the 11 wave.
Now i would like to read some opinions from the experts or jrok owners here, what do you think? can mame be more hard to play than the original hardware? If so, why? If not , why?

Thanks for reading.

[meyer980]

As far as difficulty is concerned, I don't see how or why the MAME running Robotron would be harder than fpga boards running Robotron (except the obvious stuff, like adjusting the difficulty settings for the game).

There are different Robotron board/romsets so for comparisons sake you'd want to make sure you're running the set sets.

Something that *might* make the MAME version feel more difficult is your MAME setup. For example, are you playing on a laggy LCD screen? How responsive are your controls? Those things tend not to be a factor in an original cabinet but could be on a recreation.

To the heart of your dilemma though - if you'll ONLY be playing Robotron, then a dedicated JROK board is the way to go. Less headaches to deal with, quick boot time, it's largely plug n play! If you'll EVER want to play other games on this cab, then the answer is easy. Build a decent MAME PC and never look back.

[PL1]

can mame be more hard to play than the original hardware? If so, why? If not , why?

One thing that has made MAME more difficult is the speed of blitter emulation.
- When there are lots of things happening on screen the original hardware would get bogged down more than MAME did.

Before v0.99, blitter was running way too fast in MAME.  Related thread here.

But even with the improvements in v0.99, it was still harder than real hardware.

I've got a multiwilliams cabs running advmame .99 and a real robotron.

Both are setup the exact same settings.

High score on the mame, 146000.

High score on the real deal  253000.

The speed difference really gets to you around the first tank wave.
On the real machine I can get by it on one life, on the mame machine, its HARD!!!!

Info.dat shows that there have been other improvements since then.
- See the "$info=robotron" entry for Robotron-specific info

- 0.145u2: Williams blits with bit 2 set take approximately 2x as long because they are bus-shared with RAM. Should impact some timing behaviors such as later levels in Robotron, where approximately 10% of the blits are done with bit 2 set. Further refinements may be necessary but this addresses the most significant issue [Sean Riddle, Aaron Giles].

- Robotron uses the Williams driver.  See the "$info=williams" entry for that info.

- 0.149u1: Improved Williams blitter logic and timing to match tests run on real hardware [Sean Riddle].
. . .
- 0.145u2: Williams blits with bit 2 set take approximately 2x as long because they are bus-shared with RAM. Should impact some timing behaviors such as later levels in Robotron, where approximately 10% of the blits are done with bit 2 set. Further refinements may be necessary but this addresses the most significant issue [Sean Riddle, Aaron Giles].

It's taken years to finally get 99.99% perfect emulation of the blitter speeds on Robotron (only happened in the last 2-3 years)

Scott

[Haze]

right, run a MAME version from 2015+ and it should be indistinguishable

emulating the proper timing is more demanding, so will struggle on machines that were considered poor in 2015, but that was 6 years ago and shouldn't be an issue at this point.

[Gilrock]

If you want it to be dedicated to Robotron I'd get the JROK.  I have a JROK in a dedicated scratch cab and have never run it on my Mame cab since.  But my Mame cab has ServoStik's which suck for Robotron.  I have original Wico's on my Robotron scratch build and having good joysticks is critical for that game.  I also have trouble looking at the LCD on my Mame cab after seeing Robotron on the CRT.  With a PC you gotta worry about fans and hard drives but with a JROK it will boot up to the game in a couple seconds and has no moving parts to worry about.

[thomashenry]

Can you run Robotron on MAME with a single frame buffer, and the same input latency as on real hardware (which includes JROK)?

[abispac]

To the heart of your dilemma though - if you'll ONLY be playing Robotron, then a dedicated JROK board is the way to go. Less headaches to deal with, quick boot time, it's largely plug n play! If you'll EVER want to play other games on this cab, then the answer is easy. Build a decent MAME PC and never look back.

Im debating into building a dedicated or a multigame, i allready have the 13 inch monitor i  always wanted, so im still have to think about that, jrock is out of the way i guess, 229dlls seems to much for me, computers and decent old video cards are way cheaper here.

[abispac]

right, run a MAME version from 2015+ and it should be indistinguishable

emulating the proper timing is more demanding, so will struggle on machines that were considered poor in 2015, but that was 6 years ago and shouldn't be an issue at this point.

Thats what i though

[abispac]

If you want it to be dedicated to Robotron I'd get the JROK.  I have a JROK in a dedicated scratch cab and have never run it on my Mame cab since.  But my Mame cab has ServoStik's which suck for Robotron.  I have original Wico's on my Robotron scratch build and having good joysticks is critical for that game.  I also have trouble looking at the LCD on my Mame cab after seeing Robotron on the CRT.  With a PC you gotta worry about fans and hard drives but with a JROK it will boot up to the game in a couple seconds and has no moving parts to worry about.

No lcd for me, groovymame with crt emudrivers on a real crt monitor, wg k7000 13 inch. The only thing i dont like about jroks is the price.

[thomashenry]

Everyone has different budget constraints. But if you are going to the trouble/expense of making a Robotron cab, the JROK is a no-brainer IMO.

On top of it being 100% accurate, don't underestimate the value in having the game up and ready to play literally 2 seconds after turning the power on. Plus, it's nice to to able to set up 4 different profiles for it, so you can have a regular settings, marathon version, a TGTS version, a level 10 marathon version, etc, each with their own high scores.

[Gilrock]

$229 seems cheap to me.  I've bought things like that just to sit on the shelf in case I want it later.
Maybe ask mom for an allowance.

[abispac]

$229 seems cheap to me.  I've bought things like that just to sit on the shelf in case I want it later.
Maybe ask mom for an allowance.

dads dead,moms pooro and also im like 50som

[yotsuya]

$229 seems cheap to me.  I've bought things like that just to sit on the shelf in case I want it later.
Maybe ask mom for an allowance.

:laugh2:dads dead,moms pooro and also im like 50som

Better crank out more mota bro!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bobbyb13]

When you consider the brilliance and time spent on being able to engineer the thing to begin with, then consider that it plays that many games faithfully, and on top of those things it is all on a very robust jamma pcb...?!

Jrok boards are underpriced really.

I got a second one just to build a Sinistar cabinet.

Find a way to save up the money and then hope one becomes available.

Because you can't always just go buy one.

[abispac]

When you consider the brilliance and time spent on being able to engineer the thing to begin with, then consider that it plays that many games faithfully, and on top of those things it is all on a very robust jamma pcb...?!

Jrok boards are underpriced really.

I got a second one just to build a Sinistar cabinet.

Find a way to save up the money and then hope one becomes available.

Because you can't always just go buy one.

ill try,thanks

[thomashenry]

They really are a steal, especially given the demand for them. When a new batch becomes available they sell out in a day. They could charge a lot more for it than they are.

[Haze]

at the end of the day they're still relatively modern bootleg boards however, which in itself caps the price / value.

(and I suspect the likes of the Mister will do a better job if they're not already)

[abispac]

at the end of the day they're still relatively modern bootleg boards however, which in itself caps the price / value.

(and I suspect the likes of the Mister will do a better job if they're not already)

if is not the original,it will always be a bootleg

[thomashenry]

at the end of the day they're still relatively modern bootleg boards however, which in itself caps the price / value.

(and I suspect the likes of the Mister will do a better job if they're not already)

What could Mister do better?

[Haze]

at the end of the day they're still relatively modern bootleg boards however, which in itself caps the price / value.

(and I suspect the likes of the Mister will do a better job if they're not already)

What could Mister do better?

I've read in many places that they're not 100% accurate, and were done by studying the behaviour of the boards, and are implemented on an older FPGA which had limits itself restricting how things could be implemented.

We're dealing with newer techniques and newer tech these days - looking at chips in far more detail than was even possible a few years ago.

[abispac]

Been looking at that MisTers stuff, dang its way to expensive to, and for now, i does not have a huge arcade core support. I bet overtime it will get better. But got me wondering, since mame allready has most retro games, drivers figured out, aint that make it easyer for fpga devs to port games to fpga hardware?

[Gilrock]

I don't think the JROK guy was digging into Mame source code to create his boards....lol.

You can look at his early prototypes here where he explains how he was attempting to create Williams reproduction hardware.  In fact the JROK uses the original 6809 CPU it is not emulating it inside the FPGA.  The FPGA is used to model the TTL logic from the boards.
https://www.jrok.com/hardware/wms/

[thomashenry]

at the end of the day they're still relatively modern bootleg boards however, which in itself caps the price / value.

(and I suspect the likes of the Mister will do a better job if they're not already)

What could Mister do better?

I've read in many places that they're not 100% accurate, and were done by studying the behaviour of the boards, and are implemented on an older FPGA which had limits itself restricting how things could be implemented.

We're dealing with newer techniques and newer tech these days - looking at chips in far more detail than was even possible a few years ago.

hmmm, first time I've heard that. As stated above, the JROK uses a real 6809, and the FPGA is only used to replicate the logic of the custom TTL chips.

[abispac]

Now looking at the Mister fpga board, looks like i dont really need alot of money to start my buket list building im trying to do, they got most games i want to build and im sure more are gonna be added over time. Good thing is, looks like ive onle need the developing board and some hdmi to vga converter to conect it to my crt monitor. So im gonna give it a try.
They even got robotron figured out, so if you can get robotron running on mister for less than 100 dlls, why would you spend 300 or more on a jrock?

[bobbyb13]

A Jrok Multi-Williams is $230 (like I said, when you can find one.)

The MiSTer you are talking about building is now over $350 once you have all the parts you really need.

Even just the DE10 nano board alone is now over $130 itself so if you know where to get parts to put a complete MiSTer together for under $100 please share details.

A MiSTercade board could be cool, but at $185 it doesn't include the DE10 board or any SDram either.

And that will blow up a consumer TV chassis I believe.

A good MAME PC box may still be the best combo of cost and fidelity you can put together if you can get some good curb find/ free craigslist parts.

But a Jrok board truly is plug and play in an existing jamma cab, and it plays well with no setup drama.

[abispac]

A Jrok Multi-Williams is $230 (like I said, when you can find one.)

The MiSTer you are talking about building is now over $350 once you have all the parts you really need.

Even just the DE10 nano board alone is now over $130 itself so if you know where to get parts to put a complete MiSTer together for under $100 please share details.

A MiSTercade board could be cool, but at $185 it doesn't include the DE10 board or any SDram either.

And that will blow up a consumer TV chassis I believe.

A good MAME PC box may still be the best combo of cost and fidelity you can put together if you can get some good curb find/ free craigslist parts.

But a Jrok board truly is plug and play in an existing jamma cab, and it plays well with no setup drama.

Well for single game setups you can just use the nano board with a hdmi to vga converter, nano boards on ebay are about 70 bucks used, so is a huge diference, everyone talks about jrocks being 230 when available, but truth is they arent available, and if they come, they gonna be gone fast, so in reality, jrokcs are 400 or more, ridicoulous price, ill rather find a real robotron board for tha money. And yes, mame cabs are always a good cheaper alternative.

[Zebidee]

A Jrok Multi-Williams is $230 (like I said, when you can find one.)

The MiSTer you are talking about building is now over $350 once you have all the parts you really need.

Even just the DE10 nano board alone is now over $130 itself so if you know where to get parts to put a complete MiSTer together for under $100 please share details.

A MiSTercade board could be cool, but at $185 it doesn't include the DE10 board or any SDram either.

And that will blow up a consumer TV chassis I believe.

A good MAME PC box may still be the best combo of cost and fidelity you can put together if you can get some good curb find/ free craigslist parts.

But a Jrok board truly is plug and play in an existing jamma cab, and it plays well with no setup drama.

Last time I looked the DE10 Nano was going for about $180 - they increased the price earlier this year (just after I ordered 2!). Unless they have come down again since?

MisterCade won't blow up a standard TV chassis. But the brightness will be way up. You probably want to put some resistors or 500R pots on the R-G-B signals and a 500-1000R resistor on the sync input, because the signal level standards are higher for arcade monitors. This isn't unusual, I'd do the same for any original arcade PCB run out to a standard TV.

[bobbyb13]

A Jrok Multi-Williams is $230 (like I said, when you can find one.)

The MiSTer you are talking about building is now over $350 once you have all the parts you really need.

Even just the DE10 nano board alone is now over $130 itself so if you know where to get parts to put a complete MiSTer together for under $100 please share details.

A MiSTercade board could be cool, but at $185 it doesn't include the DE10 board or any SDram either.

And that will blow up a consumer TV chassis I believe.

A good MAME PC box may still be the best combo of cost and fidelity you can put together if you can get some good curb find/ free craigslist parts.

But a Jrok board truly is plug and play in an existing jamma cab, and it plays well with no setup drama.

Well for single game setups you can just use the nano board with a hdmi to vga converter, nano boards on ebay are about 70 bucks used, so is a huge diference, everyone talks about jrocks being 230 when available, but truth is they arent available, and if they come, they gonna be gone fast, so in reality, jrokcs are 400 or more, ridicoulous price, ill rather find a real robotron board for tha money. And yes, mame cabs are always a good cheaper alternative.

I'm surprised by how your replies often defy reality, but good luck to you.

Not that it is strange that you talk about not having enough $ to build ONE machine with proper parts but then discuss making what amounts to a decent size arcade's worth of machines.

[thomashenry]

A Jrok Multi-Williams is $230 (like I said, when you can find one.)

The MiSTer you are talking about building is now over $350 once you have all the parts you really need.

Even just the DE10 nano board alone is now over $130 itself so if you know where to get parts to put a complete MiSTer together for under $100 please share details.

A MiSTercade board could be cool, but at $185 it doesn't include the DE10 board or any SDram either.

And that will blow up a consumer TV chassis I believe.

A good MAME PC box may still be the best combo of cost and fidelity you can put together if you can get some good curb find/ free craigslist parts.

But a Jrok board truly is plug and play in an existing jamma cab, and it plays well with no setup drama.

Well for single game setups you can just use the nano board with a hdmi to vga converter, nano boards on ebay are about 70 bucks used, so is a huge diference, everyone talks about jrocks being 230 when available, but truth is they arent available, and if they come, they gonna be gone fast, so in reality, jrokcs are 400 or more, ridicoulous price, ill rather find a real robotron board for tha money. And yes, mame cabs are always a good cheaper alternative.

Where can you get a DE10 nano for $70?

[Zebidee]

Where can you get a DE10 nano for $70?

In The Land of the Last Lost Dreamers. Even a 2nd hand DE10 would be worth around $100+, especially in these "chip shortage" days.

[thomashenry]

Where can you get a DE10 nano for $70?

In The Land of the Last Lost Dreamers. Even a 2nd hand DE10 would be worth around $100+, especially in these "chip shortage" days.

I'd have thought it would be well over $100, given that new ones are generally not available right now.

[thomashenry]

Well for single game setups you can just use the nano board with a hdmi to vga converter, nano boards on ebay are about 70 bucks used, so is a huge diference, everyone talks about jrocks being 230 when available, but truth is they arent available, and if they come, they gonna be gone fast, so in reality, jrokcs are 400 or more, ridicoulous price, ill rather find a real robotron board for tha money. And yes, mame cabs are always a good cheaper alternative.

DE10s don't seem to be very available either. I just checked on ebay us, and there is literally 1 for sale right now, for $375 with the I/O board. I don't know where the $70 figure is coming from.

If you decide to go down the route of original hardware for Robotron, you are entering a whole different world. 

[Zebidee]

Where can you get a DE10 nano for $70?

In The Land of the Last Lost Dreamers. Even a 2nd hand DE10 would be worth around $100+, especially in these "chip shortage" days.

I'd have thought it would be well over $100, given that new ones are generally not available right now.

I just checked Digikey - currently out of stock, lead time 8 weeks, price.... US$170

https://www.digikey.co.th/en/products/detail/terasic-inc/P0496/6817231

[Mike A]

I can tell everyone where this thread is headed if you are interested.

[Gilrock]

I can tell everyone where this thread is headed if you are interested.

Interested 

[abispac]

my bad everyone, stupid me was looking at de0-nanos, my mistake,sorry about that.

[thomashenry]

my bad everyone, stupid me was looking at de0-nanos, my mistake,sorry about that.

D'oh! Easily done.

[bobbyb13]

my bad everyone, stupid me was looking at de0-nanos, my mistake,sorry about that.

Any way you could work on an avatar that wasn't so...
nauseating?

I'm not really prone to motion sickness myself, but dear god-

It's hard to try to scroll down far enough to get that annoying scroll of a gif off the screen and still render advice to be ignored anyway.

A friend was asking.

[abispac]

my bad everyone, stupid me was looking at de0-nanos, my mistake,sorry about that.

Any way you could work on an avatar that wasn't so...
nauseating?

I'm not really prone to motion sickness myself, but dear god-

It's hard to try to scroll down far enough to get that annoying scroll of a gif off the screen and still render advice to be ignored anyway.

A friend was asking.

[thomashenry]

What you decide to do in the end mate?