PowerMAME - New Derivative Build

[Tiger-Heli]

Something I'd also like to see get looked at is adding the "save state" stuff that Aaron wants.  He hinted that we will lose hiscores.dat at some point and if someone implements "save state", then this will give us a better and permanent solution.

Ah, I wondered why Savestate Status for every game now shows up in listxml. A whopping 5593 out of 5942 games officially don't support savestate in 0.103, though I notice that others do seem to work even though it says it's not working when you save.

Yes, hiscore.dat is a hack that causes a lot of problems and doesn't always work correctly.  The goal of the savestate plan is to emulate that the machine is always running instead of booting  every time you run it.  This has a number of possible advantages, hi scores automatically just work and  boot times for games should improve.

Ah, I didn't realize this was what it meant -

So if I understand correctly, you set SaveState 1 on in mame.ini and the game starts where it was last running, without you having to F7 to save and Shift-F7 to load state (or however it works currently). . .

I like the idea!!!!

Kinda makes -skipstartupframes a little bit overkill, though!!!!

[SirPoonga]

http://free.hostdepartment.com/S/SirPoonga/hacks.html

most of these have been obsoleted.  though I could see some of the old ctrlr file hacks still being used by BYOACers, mainly the buttonx and playerx hacks.  The input system has since changed twice, hence why I haven't kept them up to date.  I think someone else did a better job at artwork_filledges too.  I know the artwork system has changed since too.  I spent quite abit of time figuring out the math behind that and it changed

[XtraSmiley]

MikeQ,

First let me say thanks, from me and the community.  Second, please include some type of GUI because many of us have a tough time without one.

Third, this is in no way not supporting you, but do we need another version of MAME out there?  Is there no way to get this stuff into regular MAME?  If not, by all means, lets do this, I'll help in any way I can (joystick, button, input device reviews, testing etc) but if there is a way to work this out with Aaron and get it in regular MAME, have we tried it?

Again, this is a post to totally, 100% support you, but just making sure the other avenue has been checked out.

Thanks again.

[quarterback]

Might it be time to change the name of this thread so it doesn't sound like an angry Pay-Per-View event?

[SirPoonga]

Third, this is in no way not supporting you, but do we need another version of MAME out there?  Is there no way to get this stuff into regular MAME?  If not, by all means, lets do this, I'll help in any way I can (joystick, button, input device reviews, testing etc) but if there is a way to work this out with Aaron and get it in regular MAME, have we tried it?

No, because some of hte stuff mamedevs won't care about or think shouldn't be in mame.
Some stuff that scomes out of this might make it into mame.  For example, I worked on the analog handling of 49way for arch rivals with urebel for analog mame.  That ended up in official mame.  But there are other things, such as something specific to windows, that they won't accept.

[Santoro]

Might it be time to change the name of this thread so it doesn't sound like an angry Pay-Per-View event?

I agree.  Makes it sound like we are somehow taunting them.

[MikeQ]

Something I'd also like to see get looked at is adding the "save state" stuff that Aaron wants.  He hinted that we will lose hiscores.dat at some point and if someone implements "save state", then this will give us a better and permanent solution.

Ah, I wondered why Savestate Status for every game now shows up in listxml. A whopping 5593 out of 5942 games officially don't support savestate in 0.103, though I notice that others do seem to work even though it says it's not working when you save.

Yes, hiscore.dat is a hack that causes a lot of problems and doesn't always work correctly.  The goal of the savestate plan is to emulate that the machine is always running instead of booting  every time you run it.  This has a number of possible advantages, hi scores automatically just work and  boot times for games should improve.

This would be a valuable debugging tool too.  You save a game right at the point where a bug occurs so you don't have to play it for 3 hours just to find a bug.

[RayB]

How about a Save State that actually WORKS. I'm so glad I didn't include save/load admin buttons on my cab. Most games I saved progress on crap out and act all buggy when I then load.

I'm mostly interested in this version of MAME supporting the keyboard LEDs as player start indicators in ALL games, not just the Atari ones.

[MikeQ]

MikeQ,

First let me say thanks, from me and the community.  Second, please include some type of GUI because many of us have a tough time without one.

Third, this is in no way not supporting you, but do we need another version of MAME out there?  Is there no way to get this stuff into regular MAME?  If not, by all means, lets do this, I'll help in any way I can (joystick, button, input device reviews, testing etc) but if there is a way to work this out with Aaron and get it in regular MAME, have we tried it?

Again, this is a post to totally, 100% support you, but just making sure the other avenue has been checked out.

Thanks again.

This and a couple of other threads this week have been all about how the MAMEdevs don't want to support some of the ideas/changes we need in order to play games with real controls.  This is the reason for doing this.  It is also so that we can consolidate some of the versions of mame into one.

[Santoro]

Support for Serial LCDs would be cool, so that the FEs didn't have to code it separately. (simply dumping romname.lcd to the serial port before launching the game) 

[XtraSmiley]

MikeQ,

First let me say thanks, from me and the community.  Second, please include some type of GUI because many of us have a tough time without one.

Third, this is in no way not supporting you, but do we need another version of MAME out there?  Is there no way to get this stuff into regular MAME?  If not, by all means, lets do this, I'll help in any way I can (joystick, button, input device reviews, testing etc) but if there is a way to work this out with Aaron and get it in regular MAME, have we tried it?

Again, this is a post to totally, 100% support you, but just making sure the other avenue has been checked out.

Thanks again.

This and a couple of other threads this week have been all about how the MAMEdevs don't want to support some of the ideas/changes we need in order to play games with real controls.  This is the reason for doing this.  It is also so that we can consolidate some of the versions of mame into one.

Thats true and I've read a few, but there's been a lot of complaining, but has any of the programmers (you guys who know your 1's and 0's) actually talked with the MAME guys?  If it's been a long time, opinions change over time, maybe they would be more reseptive now?

Either way, if you are successful, I'm sure they will eventually adapt some of your settings into the official build.

[shags]

MikeQ,

Thanks... i would like to offer my time for anything you need ...  (except for programing) i can test and beat things up, your call...

Mike

[madmagician]

good stuff.  so the main goal is basically to make a version tha tis more specialty control and arcade cabinet gadget friendly?

[MikeQ]

MikeQ,

First let me say thanks, from me and the community.  Second, please include some type of GUI because many of us have a tough time without one.

Third, this is in no way not supporting you, but do we need another version of MAME out there?  Is there no way to get this stuff into regular MAME?  If not, by all means, lets do this, I'll help in any way I can (joystick, button, input device reviews, testing etc) but if there is a way to work this out with Aaron and get it in regular MAME, have we tried it?

Again, this is a post to totally, 100% support you, but just making sure the other avenue has been checked out.

Thanks again.

This and a couple of other threads this week have been all about how the MAMEdevs don't want to support some of the ideas/changes we need in order to play games with real controls.  This is the reason for doing this.  It is also so that we can consolidate some of the versions of mame into one.

Thats true and I've read a few, but there's been a lot of complaining, but has any of the programmers (you guys who know your 1's and 0's) actually talked with the MAME guys?  If it's been a long time, opinions change over time, maybe they would be more reseptive now?

Either way, if you are successful, I'm sure they will eventually adapt some of your settings into the official build.

I had a brief discussion with Aaron Giles about permission to distribute 3rd part .dll's without source.  Once PowerMAME is launched, I plan to open up a more serious dialog with him about what it would take to get some features into MAME.

[MikeQ]

MikeQ,

Thanks... i would like to offer my time for anything you need ...  (except for programing) i can test and beat things up, your call...

Mike

This goes for everyone too.

Send me an email at mikeq@unappliedbraincells.com.  Give me a list of your talents and how you would like to contribute.  I'm filing these away and when something comes up that needs to be done, I'll match it up with the person who can do it.

[MikeQ]

good stuff.  so the main goal is basically to make a version tha tis more specialty control and arcade cabinet gadget friendly?

That and anything else we can dream up.

How about MAME instant messaging so we can all chat while playing on our cabinets!!! 

[RobotronNut]

many thanks for taking on this task, which i'm sure will be of great service to this community.

another thing to put on your list - consistent support for both stay-in-place and return-to-center shifters for driving games.

[Silver]

another thing to put on your list - consistent support for both stay-in-place and return-to-center shifters for driving games.

Aha! Yes indeed. Get it to respond according to the input you set in the cfg file. So if you have a hi/low shifter the game will work with that. Some kind of consistency is required!

[Minwah]

Aha! Yes indeed. Get it to respond according to the input you set in the cfg file. So if you have a hi/low shifter the game will work with that. Some kind of consistency is required!

I agree the method for shifters should be standand...I think we only need one method tho, basically the one used in OutRun should work with all shifters (see the recent thread about this for more).

Also there are some driving games where the pedals are difficult to get going without the 'correct' pedal system (single/dual axis) - maybe we could work on something for this too.

I think some people may want the 720degrees controls changed back to dial which can be used with an original controller.

Gun game problems should maybe be looked at, where they are not fixed by the official mame.


These are the kindof things I would like to see done...I'm not really bothered about anything else.  Good Luck MikeQ, and if I can do anything to help I will...

[captainpotato]

For my part, I'd like to see that the AdvanceMAME mods are included as much as possible, as no other version that I've tried works so well in terms of screenmodes.

This, and another vote for working, accurate driving controls

[screaming]

don't forget about this one.

Almost time to create a PowerMAME thread?

[SirPoonga]

Almost time to create a PowerMAME thread?

Or support forum...

[Grasshopper]

It would be nice if PowerMAME could include lokki's mirrored screen hack so that simultaneous two player games can be played on a cocktail cabinet.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=38312.0

[Fozzy The Bear]

Damnit!! I missed most of this thread up until now, because the start of it was a pop at the MameDevs and I just lost interest once I saw that...

This thread is way too important for it to get misssed because of its poor starting posts and title.

In fact I'd suggest that this needs more than just a post IMHO it needs a complete section of its own in the forum.

I'm all for this idea, because MameDevs priorities are sometimes a lot different from the priorities we have as hardware builders and understandably so.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[jelwell]

I've been told that this has been tried before and failed.

It's easy to be successful when you're handing out patches. It's much harder when you redesign MAME code to handle things that don't exist. Here's a suggestion on how to handle this:
Every time you make a code change:

• Submit it MAMEdev - maybe they'll simply pick it up
• Submit a stub API to Mamedev - so that when they refactor, your code will still work.

I've been criticized for not starting with one of the already derivative versions floating around.  Most of these are not based on the current release.  I started with 0.102 and have made the move to 0.103.  I plan to make a release in conjunction with every major MAME release.

The sad part is that you should be starting with a derivative - especially if it already contains features you plan on adding. At the very least, you should go through all the derivatives, old or new, and figure out if there are features you want. AdvanceMAME and AnalogMame+ both have support for some great BYOAC hardware. And AdvanceMAME isn't even very far behind MAME.

However there's a reason derivatives are lagged behind so much - and it's not so much because of lack of interest. The problem is that every MAME rewrite is likely to break your patch - often irreparably. That is why I think you should consider my bulleted list above. If you can get MAMEdev to, at the least, consider your stubs then they'll include them in any refactor. If you can't you'll end up having to refactor your codebase every time they do.

If we can develop a positive relationship with the MAMEdevs, we may be better prepaired to handle these changes.

This is of course, the easiest solution. I wish you luck in trying to work with MAMEdevs. Not because I think they're difficult, but because I think you'll have the best chance for survival that way.
Joseph Elwell.

[JoyMonkey]

Another thing that would be nice to see in PowerMAME...

A new clone of Asteroids that plays as if it's wired for cocktail mode.

Mentioned a dozen times before, but I don't think anyone's ever actually made it work. If they have, it's not in any official build.

[SirPoonga]

A new clone of Asteroids that plays as if it's wired for cocktail mode.

working on it.  I need help form someone who knows more about hte vector rendering part of mame.  I added code to the asteroids driver t deal with cocktail mode the same way the hardware does.  But when the screen flips it isn't centered vertically for some reason.  I verified all my math and resulting numbers were correct so it's something to do with mame's converting vector to raster.

[lustreking]

It would be nice if PowerMAME could include lokki's mirrored screen hack so that simultaneous two player games can be played on a cocktail cabinet.

Yes, this is very cool!

[Lilwolf]

<ignore>

[MikeQ]

PowerMAME and PowerMAME32 0.104 are available for download.

[JoyMonkey]

Sweet! I'll be sure to click on a Google Ad when I download.

[MikeQ]

Sweet! I'll be sure to click on a Google Ad when I download.

Awesome!!  That .000001 cent will help pay for my hosting fees!!   

Thanks,

JoyMonkey

Thanks for the Beta testing help too.

[Silver]

Is there any kind of "What curently in the build" page or info? I realise the LED stuff is there...

[MikeQ]

Is there any kind of "What curently in the build" page or info? I realise the LED stuff is there...

Not yet since the only thing in the build is the LED stuff.

With all the work to setup a website, do the publishing, put together source managment and a release environment as well as test the code on multiple platforms, I didn't have a lot of extra time.  Future releases will have more features and therefore more documentation with them.  I've got a documentation page setup but nothing on it right now.

[mahuti]

being that this is should be a community project... someone else should begin working on the documentation.

I'm not volunteering... I have a few other irons in the fire, but somebody else... hint, hint.

[SirPoonga]

actually, the person who added the feature should document it since that person knows about it

[mahuti]

Yeah, well, that's great in the fantasy world. you live in... in the real world it seems that documentation regularly falls by the wayside without the aid of others. I.E. the majority of front-ends, minor apps and control panel viewers have lousy documentation included. That is until somebody here, or a group of somebodies puts together a faq, walk-thru, examples, etc.

[mahuti]

A skeleton outline of how the feature works is of course, important. But useful, readable, sensical documentation does not necessarily have to spawn from the original programmer.

[MikeQ]

A skeleton outline of how the feature works is of course, important. But useful, readable, sensical documentation does not necessarily have to spawn from the original programmer.

On the download page under a menu selection "setup notes", there is a bunch of info on how to setup PowerMAME but I'm sure someone could do a far better job than I did.  Most everything I've done has been after 1:00am so I'm a little fuzzy when I do it.

[MikeQ]

don't forget about this one.

Almost time to create a PowerMAME thread?

I had a few minutes so I threw this one into PowerMAME.  It is config file configurable so you can personalize the message and also get rid of it alltogether.  PowerMAME32 has a GUI interface that allows you to enable/set the message.