---fudgesicle--- mame!

[endrien]

I have the latest version, why the HELL do most all the games I want to play give me some missing rom files/chd files no matter where I download them from. One of the games being dig dug

[SirPeale]

Things change.  Use a ROM manager (ClrMAME) to audit/fix your ROMsets.

[GaryMcT]

If it really bugs you, learn how to debug.   It's free after all.

[Epyx]

Or just use the version of Mame your ROMs are for.  The reasons for this are documented here and on the official forums:

[endrien]

Things change.  Use a ROM manager (ClrMAME) to audit/fix your ROMsets.

I tried downloading that and it gave me errors too.

[Finchbyrd]

Because if you're playing something like Killer Instinct 1 2 or MK3, they aren't one downloaded rom file and that's all there is to it. You'll need all the roms (8 or more) and the .CHD images and THEN have them in the right locations for MAME to see everything together. It's a pain, and it'll take a lot of work for you to understand how things work out but you'll get around to it. If its an old school game that usually IS only one rom, you need to find a different place to get them that has updated versions if clrmame is giving you problems.

[Ummon]

I tried downloading that and it gave me errors too.

Dude, yer wiggin. Get off the rock (puns intended), then take a spell to learn how roms work, how rom managers work, etc. It ain't necessarily interesting to me, but I've messed around with it here and there.

[SirPeale]

Also the CHD format changed very recently, FYI.

[isucamper]

Learning ROMs (where to get them, how to use them, why they break) is kind of like a jedi building a lightsaber.  It's something you've got to do on your own (we can't help you, check the forum rules) and you're cabinet isn't going to be what you want it to be until you master them.

[wp34]

Learning ROMs (where to get them, how to use them, why they break) is kind of like a jedi building a lightsaber.  It's something you've got to do on your own (we can't help you, check the forum rules) and you're cabinet isn't going to be what you want it to be until you master them.

Well put.

[garnerb350]

Do or Do not...there is no Arrrrrrghhhh!

[SavannahLion]

Also the CHD format changed very recently, FYI.

Because if you're playing something like Killer Instinct 1 2 or MK3, they aren't one downloaded rom file and that's all there is to it. You'll need all the roms (8 or more) and the .CHD images and THEN have them in the right locations for MAME to see everything together. It's a pain, and it'll take a lot of work for you to understand how things work out but you'll get around to it.

I got the impression that he was griping about the ROM changes over releases. Like how Game X functioned with ROM X, Y & Z on Version Random but Version Random + 1 removes ROM X and requires ROM A & B in its place. What I mean is, I'm reasonably certain Dig Dug doesn't use CHD files.

If its an old school game that usually IS only one rom, you need to find a different place to get them that has updated versions if clrmame is giving you problems.

One of my own earliest gripes with MAME. Rip it once, rip it right. Oh well. Better late than never.  

[RyoriNoTetsujin]

Sigged for TRUTH.

[u_rebelscum]

One of my own earliest gripes with MAME. Rip it once, rip it right. Oh well. Better late than never.  

Yeah, be perfect the first time, all the time.

And what happens if it wasn't ripped right the first time.  Even though all the mamedev thought it was right back then, but now know better?  Why keep something known to be wrong if you have the right piece now?

And what if you know it was ripped "wrong" (say couldn't get past an encrypted rom), but it mostly runs even with the "wrong" part?  Many sets (358+689=~1047 withpossible overlap as of 0.133u4) wouldn't be in mame yet and almost zero progress would happen on those games, and the hundreds that had bad dumps/no dumps that were fixed latter wouldn't be as well emulated as the are now.

There are 358 sets with at least one known bad dump, and 689 sets with at least one "no dump" (maws stats, 0.133u4).  As of 0.133, there were 616 baddump roms, and 1393 "nodump" roms.  Add that it's sometimes found that parts of sets are missing or wrong only after finding the right part.


No one's perfect.  People make mistakes.  Replace what was done wrong and move on.

[ahofle]

I really wish someone would publish a video or tutorial on how complex dumping a game's roms is.  I have to admit, I also don't understand how there could be so many changes to some games' romsets over the years (very common games at that).  I thought it was just a matter of identifying the roms and connecting them to a reader.  For example, I didn't realize an encrypted rom would dump incorrectly (I thought the dump itself was an encrypted version of the rom which would have to be reverse engineered later).

[endrien]

Well it works with 2006 mame..... But why? I'd prefer to use the latest version.

[u_rebelscum]

MameDev has a (incomplete) wiki page, that talks about the different type of "roms".  The Guru's page is much moor in depth with picture, but maybe too detailed to start with, so see below.


In general, it's as easy as ahofle said.  But, the devil is in the details.  Not all chips alike, not all boards are alike, and not all dumpers are alike.  For good dumps:

A)  The board you're dumping has to be:

• complete (sometimes all that can be found are partial boards)
• uncorrupted (and it can be hard to tell if it's corrupted without dumping multiple boards of the same game version)
• and for best results, an original (so chips aren't mixed between different versions, hacks, etc)

B)  The dumper has to know or find all the chips with roms to dump.  Miss one to two on a board and the set will need to be undated..

C)  The dumper has to have the right equipment.  With Guru now, that's covered if he does the dumping (and the data isn't hidden/protected), but before he got all his equipment, and with others, might not have been true.  And it's been found that equipment thought to be able to dump a type of chip really can't.

D)  If the board has protected roms, getting the data can be a major pain, if not impossible.  Of course, chips though impossible before have been cracked, and a manufacturer has given mamedev copies of a game with chips thought to be impoossible.

E)  The dumper can't make a mistake.  Old roms with simple chips were easier to take off the boards and pluginto machines.  Newer ones, and protected ones, are a lot harder, and the harder it is, the more likely a mistake is made.

F)  The correct parent needs to be dumped in the first group of that game.  If all you can get a hold are a bunch of the unofficial hacks at first, or a local version and not the world version that you know existed, you have to make do with a temporary "parent" set until you get the real parent.


If anything isn't perfect, and with over 8000 games/sets and over 100,000 roms, over a period more than 10 years, with technology changing over those years, and with everyone working with donations and their own money buying what they can at that time, guess what?  Perfection wasn't reached many many times.

[SavannahLion]

I really really really hate to say this, but I must.

  Don't care.

At this point in my life, I find MAME to be a paradox in ideologies.

If I come off as an ---uvula---, so be it I guess. 

[Ummon]

Learning ROMs (where to get them, how to use them, why they break) is kind of like a jedi building a lightsaber.  It's something you've got to do on your own (we can't help you, check the forum rules) and you're cabinet isn't going to be what you want it to be until you master them.

Not necessarily true. For those who want the current mame (I've recently had issues with indytemp and msword, the latter of which I was able to find the right set, but indytemp I quickly gave up on....I still mainly play old mame anyways), or who are putting a really older verson on something.

[Haze]

I really really really hate to say this, but I must.

  Don't care.

At this point in my life, I find MAME to be a paradox in ideologies.

If I come off as an ---uvula---, so be it I guess. 

Well there aren't any other practical ways of doing things unless you'd simply prefer to see zero progress once a game is emulated in some form.

If you want old code which supports incomplete sets, use an old mame version with old roms.  If you want new code which supports more complete sets and better emulation use a new version with new roms.  There is no point at all in maintaining support for incomplete or incorrect romsets when better ones are available and to do so would be impractical beyond words and would simply put an incredible amount of pressure on the devlopers in terms of maintenance and handling of bug reports.

Without the developers the project would cease to exist, and cease to progress, without you, very little would change.  The priority is therefore in creating a maintainable project which encourages streamlined, clean code and progress, and appeals to those who care about that.  The priority is not maintaining 1000 versions of everything to allow progress to co-exist while appeasing people moaning about set changes, nor is it about halting progress to ensure nobody whines about set changes.

[Xiaou2]

 Firstly,  many Devs wouldnt have so many boards to Dump were it not for the
Non-Dev contributors.   So to say that we are basically useless, is very poor.

 There are people who contribute in many ways.  From Artwork preservation,
to talking other collectors into dumping boards... to scanning schematics,
and more.

 Mame was so stuck up in its ways once, that for anyone to use it they
had to have archaic dos box knowledge.  Why?  We could say that the team
didnt want anyone who wasnt a dev... or anyone who wasnt as computer
savvy as them to be able to use mame.

 Fast forward.. and mame finally at least created a minimal frontend selector.
After all that fear about floods of ignorant fools... has anything bad happened?
The worst thing that happened... was an idiot trying to use the Mame name -
which had nothing to do with making mame easier.

 And still, mame chooses not to support things like true Arcade shifter support,
so a wonderful community like this one... can not build a good race cab easily.
The original argument was that most people are using keyboards... and most
would complain about that setup.  However..  Why would it be so hard to add
BOTH ways ?  (By such a thing as switch in the INI that tells mame your
Choice of input method:  Arcade Shifter / Keyboard Shifter )    Maybe 2 hrs
go into this feature... and makes 10000 people happy.. and more considerate
when donation time pops up.

 There still is no surround sound support. (no more than 2 speaker channels)
 No force feedback.   No motor control.  No light control output.
(Framework may have been added... but it would appear that framework was
not good enough, considering there has been Zero progress on it.)


 And for the Roms....


 Its understandable that Roms change.  Its also understandable that mame
can not easily distribute roms to the masses.  However... recently many ISPs
have shut down newsgroup support.   That Used to be about the only way one
could get reliable roms.   Now where to go?   Some obscure website loaded with
popups / Trojans .... and who 95% of the time have incorrect Old roms?

 And when you get roms..  are they split?  Are they correct?  Can you
drop then in... or have to merge them with an existing set?

 Get a rom manager?   The things are a nightmare to figure out.  But whats worse...
is that after a few releases... it seems like those older roms which have changed,
are no longer recognized by these programs.   So even if there was something
valuable inside them... they would just be labeled as garbage.   Making the
task of updating even more frustrating.

 Ever consider the consequences of having 500 versions of the same rom... and
all of them different... all over the web?   Its not very good Imop.

 What about people who actually repair PCBs?   Have you considered how much
of a pain to not only find the correct rom... but to actually find one that is
supposed to work with the current board they have?

 Maybe what mame needs... is its own streamlined Rom manager.
As well as dumping a special file in every rom (that mame will not start a game with
unless its present).  The file would contain valuable rom information...
so that even if something went out of date... there would be actual data
to fall back on, so any rom manager could know what they actually were... and
thus know what changes would be needed.

 One could even go so far as to list the version that rom was valid inside
that text file... should a person be desperate enough, could dl the correct
older mame version to play it.

 
 Im not sure how to solve the Distribution aspect.  But I can say.. that if
rom mgt was easier..  maybe the ones who distribute would be correct.

 Trying to make it more difficult to sell pirate rom cds really only has
made it more difficult for the average user...  and doesnt really stop a
dedicated pirate seller anyways.



 
 

[Haze]

Firstly,  many Devs wouldnt have so many boards to Dump were it not for the
Non-Dev contributors.   So to say that we are basically useless, is very poor.

 There are people who contribute in many ways.  From Artwork preservation,
to talking other collectors into dumping boards... to scanning schematics,
and more.

Yes, there are other contributors, but if they killed the emulator by making it unmaintainable due to absurd requirements of supporting obsolete romsets, they wouldn't have anything to contribute to.  That's why it has to be developer focused.  The development team are the lifeblood of the emulator and without them nothing else can live off it.

Mame was so stuck up in its ways once, that for anyone to use it they
had to have archaic dos box knowledge.  Why?  We could say that the team
didnt want anyone who wasnt a dev... or anyone who wasnt as computer
savvy as them to be able to use mame.

Stuck in it's ways?  The old system worked for the devs, and the focus was on emulated the hardware.  There simply wasn't the focus or desire to spend time coding some fancy frontend when emulating hardware was what interested the developers.  That is still mostly the case, other people take care of frontend work.

Fast forward.. and mame finally at least created a minimal frontend selector.
After all that fear about floods of ignorant fools... has anything bad happened?
The worst thing that happened... was an idiot trying to use the Mame name -
which had nothing to do with making mame easier.

I doubt anybody actually uses it on a day to day basis, there have been plenty of complaints about it, but it serves a minimal purpose until people decide either to a) use the command line, or b) get a real frontend, or c) use mameUI or similar.

And still, mame chooses not to support things like true Arcade shifter support,
so a wonderful community like this one... can not build a good race cab easily.
The original argument was that most people are using keyboards... and most
would complain about that setup.  However..  Why would it be so hard to add
BOTH ways ?  (By such a thing as switch in the INI that tells mame your
Choice of input method:  Arcade Shifter / Keyboard Shifter )    Maybe 2 hrs
go into this feature... and makes 10000 people happy.. and more considerate
when donation time pops up.

There would still probably be arguments over what the real games have.  The number of people who think Terminator 2 is a light gun game and start mouthing off because it doesn't work with guns is crazy.

There still is no surround sound support. (no more than 2 speaker channels)
 No force feedback.   No motor control.  No light control output.
(Framework may have been added... but it would appear that framework was
not good enough, considering there has been Zero progress on it.)

The lack of multi-channel support surprises me really.  Internally you can specify multiple outputs, it's probably an OSD level thing.

As for force feedback, motor control, light control etc. they exist, the fact that people haven't used them extensively, or added output support in the drivers for them indicates a complete lack of demand for such features moreso than anything else.

FF, motors etc. can't be mapped directly to things like PSX pad rumble because that makes no sense and most arcade FF works in a completely different way.  For that reason MAME provides triggers which can be detected externally and acted upon.  People have used the light features in several projects.

And for the Roms....


 Its understandable that Roms change.  Its also understandable that mame
can not easily distribute roms to the masses.  However... recently many ISPs
have shut down newsgroup support.   That Used to be about the only way one
could get reliable roms.   Now where to go?   Some obscure website loaded with
popups / Trojans .... and who 95% of the time have incorrect Old roms?

There are sites, obviously I'm not at liberty to disclose them, but it's not hard to find anything you want without any popups.

And when you get roms..  are they split?  Are they correct?  Can you
drop then in... or have to merge them with an existing set?

 Get a rom manager?   The things are a nightmare to figure out.  But whats worse...
is that after a few releases... it seems like those older roms which have changed,
are no longer recognized by these programs.   So even if there was something
valuable inside them... they would just be labeled as garbage.   Making the
task of updating even more frustrating.

Things require effort.. big deal, writing the emulator requires effort too!  Can't go through life expecting everything handed to you on a plate.

Ever consider the consequences of having 500 versions of the same rom... and
all of them different... all over the web?   Its not very good Imop.

Ever consider the consequences of trying to support 500 versions of the same rom, with 499 of them being incomplete in some way, requiring workarounds to still function?  Do you realise how ugly and unmaintainable that would make the project?

What about people who actually repair PCBs?   Have you considered how much
of a pain to not only find the correct rom... but to actually find one that is
supposed to work with the current board they have?

The latest is always the most complete.  You're shooting your own argument in the foot here as many changes have come as a direct result of people wanting to repair PCBs, and expecting MAME to support complete dumps of every component.  As for hardware variations, and bootlegs, MAME documents more of those than ever, making it even easier for people to repair PCBs.  The latest version of MAME with the most current supported romset contains the maximum possible amount of information available at the present time, anything else is irrelevant.  I'm guessing you're one of these people who thinks it's great that all the 'Good Tools' set have every old bad dump ever, even when good ones are available?

If everybody just picked and chose which sets were right because the latest MAME supported 499 incomplete / bad sets, and 1 good one, but people such as yourself insisted that some older set was better then it actually becomes much harder for people to repair PCBs because you lose the absolute point of reference for what is *correct*.

Maybe what mame needs... is its own streamlined Rom manager.
As well as dumping a special file in every rom (that mame will not start a game with
unless its present).  The file would contain valuable rom information...
so that even if something went out of date... there would be actual data
to fall back on, so any rom manager could know what they actually were... and
thus know what changes would be needed.

So that you could complain that MAME's rom manager is too complex too?  romsets should contain devices dumped from the board, they should not contain information related to which MAME version etc. they belong to.  If other people want to externally maintain such files (and they have) that's up to them.  MAME just expects the most known complete dump of any game it supports, the  is no reason for it to expect or support anything else.

Rom Management isn't the purpose of MAME.  It tells you what something needs, the rest is up to you.  It's a database of information.

One could even go so far as to list the version that rom was valid inside
that text file... should a person be desperate enough, could dl the correct
older mame version to play it.

Well if MAME was to contain such information it would end up being bloated with said 499 versions of the rom getting in the way of the actual documentation, it's not the role of MAME to do this.  Other people, external to the project have done (hint, rollback sets) and that's just fine.
 

Im not sure how to solve the Distribution aspect.  But I can say.. that if
rom mgt was easier..  maybe the ones who distribute would be correct.

 Trying to make it more difficult to sell pirate rom cds really only has
made it more difficult for the average user...  and doesnt really stop a
dedicated pirate seller anyways.

This isn't about making it more difficult to sell pirate rom CDs, this is about supporting the most accurate sets, and providing the most accurate emulation, and providing the best documentation of the PCBs, hardware and games available, benefiting anybody who wants to use MAME as a reference for either their own emulation or repairing PCBs in the most comprehensive way that is feasibly possible.

Your trolling isn't very good.

If YOU want to use an older version of the emulator nobody is stopping you, but you'll simply lose out on any recent progress for the sake of a few rom files, and before you start throwing the 'old versions are better anyway' argument I suggest you try the likes of Galaxian in the latest builds because the sound is truly fantastic, better than any old samples ever were.

[Haze]

z

[Xiaou2]

 
 Maybe you should  "Read"  my reply before you answer.  Never once did I
say anything about making mame able to use old romsets.  You ASSumed it,
merely because it was in the thread which OTHERS were asking for that
very thing.  We all know what happens when you ASSume...

That's why it has to be developer focused.  The development team are the lifeblood of the emulator and without them nothing else can live off it.

 There is nothing that says Mame can not be user friendly, and have support
for things like real arcade devices.  It would be a hell of a lot more useful than
writing a zillion mahjong porno game drivers.

 And... if a rare game like BOUNCER came up... costing a heavy buck.. you think
the DEVs alone have a shot in hell to get it?   Nope.   They will NEED the funds
of the collective fanbase.   The very fans that Mame had originally chose to
shun... and later, just ignore pleads for simple things like arcade shifter support.

 AND... if mame were so encouraged to show more support of its fanbase...
maybe the amount and frequency of funds pouring in would triple.  Which would
mean getting hold of some very rare and expensive PCBs before its way too late.

There simply wasn't the focus or desire to spend time coding some fancy frontend

 There was no need for a Fancy Frontend.  The point was to make it at least
friendly enough to be ran by clicking on the Exe like every other modern program
of that time period.

 The need for the Frontend has lessened a bit... because Frontend and Mame32
released have been swift in their releases.  However... back then that was not
the case.

 The combination of new people getting frustrated because mame wouldnt
run... Plus the Mame board filled with snooty aHoles,  damaged a lot of possible
contributions.   From donations... to actual collectors who would otherwise
been happy to loan stuff out.

 You can tell us all how unimportant we are... how we should kiss the ground you
walk on... and then cry when you cant afford the latest rare PCB cause we
collectively tell you to kiss off.
 
 You make it out as an  "US vs Them"  senerio.. and that isnt how it should be.

 And I can tell you easily, that some of the Original game programmers would be
downright sickened by some of the crappy attitudes seen coming from some of
the Devs.

 That said... I have still thank the devs for all the hard work that they have
put into saving the history of these artworks.   Even if its only Partially saved...
(so many things Lost, merely because that isnt the Focus)

There would still probably be arguments over what the real games have.  The number of people who think Terminator 2 is a light gun game and start mouthing off because it doesn't work with guns is crazy.

 Mame already has the ability for a person to use almost any controller possible
to control a game.  T2 can actually be controlled via LCD Topgun lightgun.
Probably not very well... but Ive heard its been done.

 However, a game like  Spy Hunter... which Needs lightning fast reactions
NEEDS a proper arcade shifter (as well as the wheel, etc)  to play it to any
great success.   Toggle mode does not work well.   A shifter can not be
easily hooked up to toggle, as one switch is always depressed.  Trying to
use a button to play is impossible.  Might as well remove games like SpyHunter
cause they are not playable without a proper shifter.

 Having a 'held' switch is just about the Only function that mame can not do.
And maybe the simplest to add.  And maybe one of the more Important for
arcade playability.

 Also, if mame is Harcoded to tell you what control its supposed to use,
there would be no argument.  You can use whatever control you desire..
but mame lets you know what the original control are supposed to be..
by looking in the inputs menu.

 Mame also "Should" be documenting controls IMOP.  From number of teeth
on a Tron spinner... to diameter, and the type of encoder used.   Replicas
of real controls can be made... and should be made to original spec...
thus matching the original games controlability (so you cant cheat).
However... if no documentation exists for these controls... one day,
there might not be a way to know exactly what was supposed to be used,
and nobody knowing what level of control the programmers originally intended.

The lack of multi-channel support surprises me really.  Internally you can specify multiple outputs, it's probably an OSD level thing.

 Maybe the devs could consider making these Work rather than investing in
some crappy clone of an existing game that has 4 working variants?  Or
take a break from a Mahjong fest even.

 One would think that the goal of emulating a game would extend to
full replication of the arcade hardware.  A simple game like Turbo has 3 channels...
one Being the bass subwoofer.   Having the sounds directional, and separate,
makes a HUGE difference in how these games sound.

As for force feedback, motor control, light control etc. they exist, the fact that people haven't used them extensively, or added output support in the drivers for them indicates a complete lack of demand for such features moreso than anything else.

FF, motors etc. can't be mapped directly to things like PSX pad rumble because that makes no sense and most arcade FF works in a completely different way.  For that reason MAME provides triggers which can be detected externally and acted upon.  People have used the light features in several projects.

 As far as Ive heard... some have TRIED to get cooperation with mame system
and failed.  There were various reasons for it.. and Im not so sure they were
corrected.  I believe it needs changes on Mames end.

 Plenty of people have interest in adding support for something like T2 guns
recoil coils.   As well as the Shaker motor in Outrun  (which operates the same as
the shaker motors in a typical rumble gamepad). 

 If support is actually finally working, and working well... its news to me.
I will also add that such things take some time for hardware creators... such
as Groovy game gear, to make products which take advantage of them.  And
time for enthusiest to gather the cash to acquire them.

 Playing T2 without the recoil coils... or Outrun without the shaking wheel just
isnt the same.  These were put there for good reasons, as they add to the
realism and enjoyment of the games experience.  They should be replicated and
saved properly.

 If mame outputted motor control to gamepad shaker motors, it would be a
lot easier for hacking them into controlling larger motors.  Outruns shaker motor
operates exactly the same: A motor that spins a crankshaft.. which makes
the wheel assembly slide side to side.  T2, while coil based.. still operates on
pulses.  Pulses sent to the FFB motors of a gamepad hack could easily be
converted to high current Coil drivers.  The sitdown motion cabs in Outrun
used one motor for turning a shaft back/forth which moved leaned the seat.
While a gamepad rumbler only has one direction...  you could assign one
FFB rumble motor to driving the "Forwards" motion.. and the other FFB to
"Reverse".   Using 2 gamepads for cockpits like Afterburner which would need
4 rumble motors for both x & y directions.

 A FFB driving wheel is also merely a simple motor driven belt under tension.  Two way operation.  Its simple as pie if one really wanted to hack it to work.

 Even if someone had enabled the FFB and only had a rumble controller... if
configured "default" where motors only operate one way... then it wouldnt
cause any problems.  One side would be on when something moved forwards,
and the other side motor when something moved backwards.


 Using direct USB controllers like this would probably make it 20x easier for
a hardware company to produce a professional board option.  It would also make
it 1000x more easy for the hardware hackers to create working devices.

Things require effort.. big deal, writing the emulator requires effort too!  Can't go through life expecting everything handed to you on a plate.

 There is a difference between effort and stupidity.  Why ride a horse and
buggy to the store when there are cars which get there in less time, and
are much easier to deal with?

 Rom managers are dangerous.  They often have bugs which can cause problems
with accuracy - destroying some sets.  Mame does not Regulate them... and so
there is no telling if these things are correct or not.

 If there is something to make life easier, more efficient, more accurate...
than one would think that would be a better course of action...

The latest is always the most complete. 

 Making rom mgt easier and more mangeable would be a gain in keeping old
sets from being spread all over the place.  That was my point.  Your Assumptions
were all wrong,  as usual.

 Is looking at a roms data enough to tell that its not complete or partly
corrupted?  Are there cases where a repair man may need more information than
what is listed in the actual set data?

 This is my point.

 Guru used to put out information included in the rom files.  But, people took
these out to save a tiny bit of space.  If Mame were to make it mandatory
(wont start game without the file)  to have a special text file in them... then
it would better preserve such information that could be very useful / helpful
in the future.   The file could be CRC'd  so any changed made to it would make
it invalid to keep people from creating a blank file.

 This file could also have a tracking number of sorts, which would help should
the roms identity somehow got changed so many times that a typical mgr. could
not understand what it was supposed to be.

[Haze]

 Maybe you should  "Read"  my reply before you answer.  Never once did I
say anything about making mame able to use old romsets.  You ASSumed it,
merely because it was in the thread which OTHERS were asking for that
very thing.  We all know what happens when you ASSume...

Your post was defending a guy asking for this, so stop acting like an ASS yourself.

There is nothing that says Mame can not be user friendly, and have support
for things like real arcade devices.  It would be a hell of a lot more useful than
writing a zillion mahjong porno game drivers.

 And... if a rare game like BOUNCER came up... costing a heavy buck.. you think
the DEVs alone have a shot in hell to get it?   Nope.   They will NEED the funds
of the collective fanbase.   The very fans that Mame had originally chose to
shun... and later, just ignore pleads for simple things like arcade shifter support.

 AND... if mame were so encouraged to show more support of its fanbase...
maybe the amount and frequency of funds pouring in would triple.  Which would
mean getting hold of some very rare and expensive PCBs before its way too late.

zzzz Mahjong troll zzzzz  (you know we get more thanks for emulating these things from people in Japan than anything else?, Just because _you_ don't care...)

As for donations and rare games, I'm not holding a gun to anybody's head.  If games cost too much they often don't get bought even now.  It's just the way it goes.  The last couple of things I've worked extensively on have come out of the funds of the devs working on them with me, and we just bought a couple more boards for the next project.

Contributing towards rare boards is a choice.  There are some very rare and expensive mahjong games that could do with tracking down too.  Some PCBs will be lost forever, some already have been, it's just a fact of life.  Of course it's good to see rare things get picked up (although I cringe at some of the obscene prices) but really, people wouldn't be buying them if they didn't think somebody would emulate them.  I fail to see what any of this has to do with the rest of the argument.  You're saying the development team should bow down to nonsensical demands from users just because they're paying money for games?  It's a voluntary donation, it's not our wages and the users aren't our employers.  If the development team were paid for their work on MAME the entire donation budget for the last 10 years would probably be gone on 2 weeks wages.

There was no need for a Fancy Frontend.  The point was to make it at least
friendly enough to be ran by clicking on the Exe like every other modern program
of that time period.

 The need for the Frontend has lessened a bit... because Frontend and Mame32
released have been swift in their releases.  However... back then that was not
the case.

There are plenty of command line tools other than MAME.  I use them on a daily basis, I don't understand where you get this 'every other modern program of that time period' from, just sounds like another troll to me.  Heck, I'm using one right now, it's got a very similar name to MAME, it's called 'LAME' and it's by far the most popular MP3 encoder out there, and it's command line based!  (fancy that)

The combination of new people getting frustrated because mame wouldnt
run... Plus the Mame board filled with snooty aHoles,  damaged a lot of possible
contributions.   From donations... to actual collectors who would otherwise
been happy to loan stuff out.

 You can tell us all how unimportant we are... how we should kiss the ground you
walk on... and then cry when you cant afford the latest rare PCB cause we
collectively tell you to kiss off.
 
 You make it out as an  "US vs Them"  senerio.. and that isnt how it should be.

 And I can tell you easily, that some of the Original game programmers would be
downright sickened by some of the crappy attitudes seen coming from some of
the Devs.

 That said... I have still thank the devs for all the hard work that they have
put into saving the history of these artworks.   Even if its only Partially saved...
(so many things Lost, merely because that isnt the Focus)

No, the original posts here were making it out to be 'Us vs. Them' by stating that we won't do things they want like supporting old romsets.  MAME doesn't drop to such levels, we just get on with doing things, and doing things _right_.  It's other people who see the decisions are made as being against them when really they're just the most logical decisions that keep the project alive and moving forward, and as I said, that's where the focus is.  The focus isn't on ******* people over as you and several other posters here make out, however the focus also isn't on ******* the project over by making dumb changes on demand.

Maybe the devs could consider making these Work rather than investing in
some crappy clone of an existing game that has 4 working variants?  Or
take a break from a Mahjong fest even.

wow, back to the old Mahjong!!!!! OMG!!! troll.. Come on, you can do better than that.  I say we rip out Spy Hunter because it's a piece of garbage and causes people to moan about controls.  Maybe, just maybe I find working on these drivers more interesting than hacking up the OSD code?

One would think that the goal of emulating a game would extend to
full replication of the arcade hardware.  A simple game like Turbo has 3 channels...
one Being the bass subwoofer.   Having the sounds directional, and separate,
makes a HUGE difference in how these games sound.

As always, we await your submission, such a submission wouldn't be rejected if it was done properly.  Personally I'd rather work on emulating more Mahjong games and the occasional really cool thing like B.Rap Boys and Shogun Warriors.  Changing the OSD code is as much my thing as it is yours, so why should I be expected to do it instead of working on things I understand and enjoy working on.  Again, you seem to be treating the situation as if I'm your employee and you have some divine right to tell me what to do.  (Hint, this is why developers get fed up, and appear to have a bad attitude)

As far as Ive heard... some have TRIED to get cooperation with mame system
and failed.  There were various reasons for it.. and Im not so sure they were
corrected.  I believe it needs changes on Mames end.

 Plenty of people have interest in adding support for something like T2 guns
recoil coils.   As well as the Shaker motor in Outrun  (which operates the same as
the shaker motors in a typical rumble gamepad). 

 If support is actually finally working, and working well... its news to me.
I will also add that such things take some time for hardware creators... such
as Groovy game gear, to make products which take advantage of them.  And
time for enthusiest to gather the cash to acquire them.

 Playing T2 without the recoil coils... or Outrun without the shaking wheel just
isnt the same.  These were put there for good reasons, as they add to the
realism and enjoyment of the games experience.  They should be replicated and
saved properly.

 If mame outputted motor control to gamepad shaker motors, it would be a
lot easier for hacking them into controlling larger motors.  Outruns shaker motor
operates exactly the same: A motor that spins a crankshaft.. which makes
the wheel assembly slide side to side.  T2, while coil based.. still operates on
pulses.  Pulses sent to the FFB motors of a gamepad hack could easily be
converted to high current Coil drivers.  The sitdown motion cabs in Outrun
used one motor for turning a shaft back/forth which moved leaned the seat.
While a gamepad rumbler only has one direction...  you could assign one
FFB rumble motor to driving the "Forwards" motion.. and the other FFB to
"Reverse".   Using 2 gamepads for cockpits like Afterburner which would need
4 rumble motors for both x & y directions.

 A FFB driving wheel is also merely a simple motor driven belt under tension.  Two way operation.  Its simple as pie if one really wanted to hack it to work.

 Even if someone had enabled the FFB and only had a rumble controller... if
configured "default" where motors only operate one way... then it wouldnt
cause any problems.  One side would be on when something moved forwards,
and the other side motor when something moved backwards.


 Using direct USB controllers like this would probably make it 20x easier for
a hardware company to produce a professional board option.  It would also make
it 1000x more easy for the hardware hackers to create working devices.

MAME's current output system is as simple as you can get, mapping stuff to joypad rumble would only make it harder because it's pad specific.  Right now if you hook something up as an output in MAME you can detect it's exact state externally and hook it up to whatever you want, couldn't get more direct.
[

Rom managers are dangerous.  They often have bugs which can cause problems
with accuracy - destroying some sets.  Mame does not Regulate them... and so
there is no telling if these things are correct or not.

 If there is something to make life easier, more efficient, more accurate...
than one would think that would be a better course of action...

Can't remember the last time I encountered a bug in a ROM manager, nor one that was even hard to use.  Legally it makes more sense to keep things like this OUT of Mame.  Seems another case of you being unwilling to put in the effort to learn something.  CLRMame does a fine job, it's updated on a regular basis, you have to be pretty dumb to screw up with it.  There's no chance that MAME could ever implement anything even comparable (and if it did, you'd just make the same unfounded moans about rom management being dangerous, but this time blame MAME for screwing up the roms instead..no win situation for the development team)  Asking MAME to become a rom manager is like asking it to become a complete DVD burning package just because we support some games in CD format, a file sharing program, or asking it to make cups of tea for your break.  It's simply not the purpose of the project and choices are made on that basis.  Again, this isn't 'Us vs Them' it's simply the filtering out of suggestions which make no logical sense and have no real benefits.

Making rom mgt easier and more mangeable would be a gain in keeping old
sets from being spread all over the place.  That was my point.  Your Assumptions
were all wrong,  as usual.

 Is looking at a roms data enough to tell that its not complete or partly
corrupted?  Are there cases where a repair man may need more information than
what is listed in the actual set data?

 This is my point.

 Guru used to put out information included in the rom files.  But, people took
these out to save a tiny bit of space.  If Mame were to make it mandatory
(wont start game without the file)  to have a special text file in them... then
it would better preserve such information that could be very useful / helpful
in the future.   The file could be CRC'd  so any changed made to it would make
it invalid to keep people from creating a blank file.

 This file could also have a tracking number of sorts, which would help should
the roms identity somehow got changed so many times that a typical mgr. could
not understand what it was supposed to be.

Uh, then the roms you dumped wouldn't be able to run in MAME without creating some special magical file in a format only Guru can create.  You know that defeats the entire point, and again creates extra work for the devs in creating fake files?  I don't appear to have missed the point, you're again demanding the developers do extra work which has no benefits at all.

The source files give you all the information you want, there are plenty of sites (such as MAWs) which present a large amount of the data from the source in a human readable form.  The source also contains PCB layouts and other information.  I've worked with, and helped a lot of people fixing boards using the information in MAME and the one common thing they're always grateful of is the fact that the latest MAME sources will always contain everything the team knows about any given piece of hardware.  Considering you claimed at the start this wasn't your issue, you sure like bringing it back up.

The people worth working with are the ones who are willing to put in a bit of effort, given the number of success stories I've heard about people using MAME as a reference for repairs etc. I'd quite confidently say that the only people moaning now are the ones who are not willing to put in the effort and expect everything to be handed to them on a plate.

[Ond]

Without the developers the project would cease to exist, and cease to progress, without you, very little would change. 

Did I miss something or misunderstand?  Haze say’s “without” you very little would change  did this get misinterpreted by Xiaou2 here...

Firstly,  many Devs wouldnt have so many boards to Dump were it not for the
Non-Dev contributors.   So to say that we are basically useless, is very poor.

  huh?

Any way  I loved this...

Learning ROMs (where to get them, how to use them, why they break) is kind of like a jedi building a lightsaber.  It's something you've got to do on your own (we can't help you, check the forum rules) and you're cabinet isn't going to be what you want it to be until you master them.

@endrien -  finding out about Mame versions and how Mame evolves and how to get your ROMs to work is all part of the fun!  Thanks’ to the devs efforts and feedback from the Mame community,  Mame just keeps getting better and better.  That’s the bottom line.

Interesting vid Epyx , you’re always doing such practical stuff dude!

[Xiaou2]

Your post was defending a guy asking for this, so stop acting like an ASS yourself.

 You Fail reading comprehension 101  Again.

 I wont bother to counter argue a person who both cant read nor understand
what is said.

 I will only say that its understandable why the other Devs nearly kicked you
out of the group...  And how you get banned from every emu msg board.

[Haze]

Your post was defending a guy asking for this, so stop acting like an ASS yourself.

 You Fail reading comprehension 101  Again.

 I wont bother to counter argue a person who both cant read nor understand
what is said.

 I will only say that its understandable why the other Devs nearly kicked you
out of the group...  And how you get banned from every emu msg board.

real classy argument to use with your trolling, real classy.  I'm banned from one messageboard because the admin are too dumb to see / admit that their software is broken if a post is edited at the same time it's deleted.  *1* ONE.  If I'm banned from any other boards it's news to me!  As for mamedev, that was over people (IMO purposefully) breaking my code, then kicking up a fuss when I undid their changes which I had no way of fixing so that I could continue to make real progress, as well as people making demands that I upload and participate in rom distribution (which doesn't interest me in the slightest, I'm not a dumper, I'm a coder and I don't even wish to be part of a team with such ill-conceived rules)

I read what you had to say, multiple times.  You were repeating the age old 'OMG Mamedevs spend all their time emulating Mahjong games when THEY SHOULD BE DOING WHAT I WANT INSTEAD!!!!' trolls, which are plain and clear to see by everybody who reads this thread.  Your arguments have been comprehensively squashed and invalidated so you resort to basic personal attacks on my comprehension.  You don't like Mahjong games, you want me to work on changing the shifter behavior for Spy Hunter instead.  I get it, I don't care, It's my choice and the things I work on interest me more.

I'm quite capable of reading and understanding every word you've said, and you're basically acting like an ass and a troll because you're not getting the answers you want, and people aren't bending down to do the things you want.  People like you are why it appears that some devs have a bad attitude because bad attitude seems to mean 'defend their stance and won't be bullied about by users who think they know better and want to dictate what people work on'.

Note the contrast in replies to people who genuinely make an effort and want help with things, and the people who are blatantly trolling and looking for trouble.  If somebody has genuine questions, and wants help and is willing to put in the effort I have all the time in the world to help them.  If people want to get ratty, and twist simple sensible decisions made by the development team into 'us vs them' situations, then accuse the development team of creating the said situations on purpose to annoy people / make life difficult for rom sellers / other nonsense 'us vs. them' reason here, and are unwilling to accept that this is not the case without resorting to personal insults, then I don't.

You fall into the latter category.

[syph007]

What it seems to me is a difference in perspective.  It seems alot of the devs work on mame because emulating some weird CPU, ROM, aberrant behavior is FUN!!  I get that, Im a senior dev at a big company.  I love to do weird complex things.. I totally get it.  It seems though alot of the devs only get joy out of doing that, and dont really play the games much.  From an outsiders point of view it must seem weird.  Since they think, oh man if iwas a dev I'd totally make game x playable... difference in perspective.   

I've got the MAME source open right now as I was trying to get familiar with it.  I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed following MAME over the years and what I'm starting to feel is guilt.. yes guilt.  It's given so much to me and I want to give something back.  I was hoping to ramp up my understanding and one day be able to give meaningful contribution.

[isucamper]

I've got the MAME source open right now as I was trying to get familiar with it.  I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed following MAME over the years and what I'm starting to feel is guilt.. yes guilt.  It's given so much to me and I want to give something back.  I was hoping to ramp up my understanding and one day be able to give meaningful contribution.

I'm kind of going through this too.  It's easy to get selfish with MAME.  It's easy to lose sight of just how much it does.  I've had a lot of complaints about it over the years and more times than not my own misunderstandings have been at the root fault. 

If nothing else, these guys are working to document it now.  Once its documented, it'll be there forever... for everyone.  Petty quibbles about it not being optimized or not running a particular game correctly or at full speed will become distant memories in a few years.  In the meantime, it may take a little work, but it is more than usable.  Thanks MAME guys for everything you've done. 

PS:  Xiaou, sorry bud, but most of us here passed English 101.  I find it real annoying when you make incomprehensible arguments (as you usually do) and then blame everyone else for not reading correctly.  Instead of rambling on so much, try and be more concise and to the point with what you are saying.  No one wants to spend a half hour sorting through your long posts. 

[Bender]

MAME rocks!
and just keeps getting better
I mean we can play over 1,000 arcade games how F...ing cool is that, is it perfect, no, but man it's free and makes me very happy

Xiaou2:
I actually play spy hunter better on my mame than the real thing, and I don't have a steering wheel, shifter, or pedals

[Xiaou2]

Weather anyone can play a game without its intended controls is not this
issue.   The game is designed to be experienced a certain way for a reason.

 If you have no analog pedals,  you are not only cheating... but also
missing out on a ton of precise control and ability.

 The mass of the wheel gives the feel, and realistic control... along with well
placed buttons for quick access.  Trying to manage all those button on a keyboard
at speed is ridiculous, and I suspect you can not do it or do it well.  IE: Can you
get to the boat stage?

 BTW - I Own a SpyHunter machine... so Im well aware of the differences.  Im also
a decent player.   Ever knock the Switchblade guys off the road by bumping the
Front of their cars while the blades are out and spinning?


 Someone posted a harsh topic about mame.  I can understand the frustration
at times, because as much of a fan I am... there are things that make keeping
up to date very difficult.

 I made suggestions.  Such as how the rom managers seem to not know what the
heck old roms are after a few releases...  to include a file in the roms which contains
information about the roms.   In fact... Guru used to do this anyways.   The
difference I suggested... is to make that file mandatory to running a game.

 Thus keeping the file known... giving data about the roms to devs and game
fixers... and keeping the rom managers from not knowing what the heck the file is
after a few releases.   Its a win-win idea.  (minus a tiny bit of harddrive space loss)
 

 I dont just B*tch.   I try to come up with useful solutions.


 As for Devs doing what they want...   Its understandable.   Yet its also quite
sad.  Sad, because for some... these artworks mean nothing to them.  And they
may not be preserved in their entirety because of it.

 A game is much more than circuit boards.  Its artworks. Schematics, controls,
cabinet dimentions and shape, lighting, sound placement / reverberations,
3d artworks, and much more.

 You wouldnt catch me saying F-Mame.   I was merely putting out reasons why
people get frustrated by Mame.

 Hazel decides to attack all non devs, saying they are worthless.  That ticks me
off, considering Ive donated several times to the purchase of games, as well as
done other things to contribute to mame.

 Mame is great, but does not mean certain  devs & dumpers  are great.   They
may get the job done... but that does not mean they all are nice people.

[Haze]

Weather anyone can play a game without its intended controls is not this
issue.   The game is designed to be experienced a certain way for a reason.

 If you have no analog pedals,  you are not only cheating... but also
missing out on a ton of precise control and ability.

 The mass of the wheel gives the feel, and realistic control... along with well
placed buttons for quick access.  Trying to manage all those button on a keyboard
at speed is ridiculous, and I suspect you can not do it or do it well.  IE: Can you
get to the boat stage?

 BTW - I Own a SpyHunter machine... so Im well aware of the differences.  Im also
a decent player.   Ever knock the Switchblade guys off the road by bumping the
Front of their cars while the blades are out and spinning?

I've played Spyhunter twice maybe?  I didn't even like the original.  The hardware is certainly curious tho.  Recent work was even done on shifters to display something onscreen (which I find rather annoying, but that's not the point) It's not as if nothing is *ever* done. 

Someone posted a harsh topic about mame.  I can understand the frustration
at times, because as much of a fan I am... there are things that make keeping
up to date very difficult.

 I made suggestions.  Such as how the rom managers seem to not know what the
heck old roms are after a few releases...  to include a file in the roms which contains
information about the roms.   In fact... Guru used to do this anyways.   The
difference I suggested... is to make that file mandatory to running a game.

 Thus keeping the file known... giving data about the roms to devs and game
fixers... and keeping the rom managers from not knowing what the heck the file is
after a few releases.   Its a win-win idea.  (minus a tiny bit of harddrive space loss)
 

 I dont just B*tch.   I try to come up with useful solutions.

The rom managers know what you throw at them.  If you throw an old dat, or old version of MAME they will know how to use it.  The only exception might be ones which predated the xml output format (and before that predated any kind of support output), although again, if you have a clrMAME dat for them then it doesn't matter.  Honestly, I can't stress enough how absolutely insane it would be to try and do this any other way.  People who dump roms do it to the best of their ability, it's not as if they dump things badly on purpose knowing that they'll change again later.

As for Devs doing what they want...   Its understandable.   Yet its also quite
sad.  Sad, because for some... these artworks mean nothing to them.  And they
may not be preserved in their entirety because of it.

 A game is much more than circuit boards.  Its artworks. Schematics, controls,
cabinet dimentions and shape, lighting, sound placement / reverberations,
3d artworks, and much more.

Except most of the time when games are purchased they are simply the PCBs.

I've stated many times myself that I find the current artwork system to be worryingly inadequate in some areas and that it should be promoted to a full 3d reproduction so that graphics aren't being stretched, distorted and reduced in quality just to give a '3d' look, however, you should also realise that this is a hobby project and somebody would have to

a) code a 3d engine flexible enough to support all the materials, lighting configurations etc. etc. that would be needed to accurately model the cabinets
b) make the models, scan all the artwork, and painstakingly ensure it all works and looks right.

making artwork (and samples) to be accurate is subjective (and legally distributing such could easily be considered the same as distributing roms) so such tasks are left to external contributors.

MAME is a programming project, good artists can be incredibly expensive, getting them the reference materials they need, near impossible, and setting any kind of standard for art / models likewise.

I'd love to see a 3d engine for rendering the cabinets, the pictures of a real space encounters running simply highlight how MAME's 2d art system fails to do it justice at all, however, it's not a task for everybody.  Emulating hardware, and writing a good portable 3d engine are 2 differnet disciplines.  The new 2d rendering / artwork system nearly killed advancemame / dosmame because it was just impossible to port.

I'm in no way saying that the artwork isn't important, however, moaning because devs would rather work on Mahjong drivers is futile, because they're completely different areas requiring completely different skills.

MAME also now supports games with no video output at all aside from lights.  (eg Fruit Machines)  Currently the only one that anybody has even attempted to do anywhere near a complete reproduction of is the Dr. Who one.  There are thousands of these things, and in several years only one has been studied enough to create a *2d* reproduction in MAME.  The reason commercial game development costs are skyrocketing is because every new generation requires more and more attention to detail, bigger teams, specialist programmers / artists, and ever increasing amounts of work.  These kind of human resources don't seem to be available.  There is nothing stopping external contributors coming up with these things right now but only a handful do.

I signed up to MAME to emulate hardware, I'm not an artist, and I'll never be an artist.

If somebody stepped up to the plate and produced an acceptable, portable system to do the above I doubt it would be rejected, but nobody has.

Likewise, we've provided a system whereby output can be hooked up and read externally, and only minimal use has been made of it.

I think it's important that you see MAME as 2 distinct layers, there is the hardware emulation, it doesn't care what the inputs are (they're just bits in a port) or what the outputs are (they're also just bits in a port)  it emulates the hardware, reproducing the behavior of the CPUs, graphic chips, sound chips etc. and generates a bitmap which contains an image of the emulated game and sound streams with the output of the sound chips.

There is also the outer layer that wraps around that, which says what the inputs are, what the outputs are, where the sound gets routed, how the image gets presented to the user.

The latter is almost entirely Aaron's jurisdiction, he took it upon himself to write and rewrite most of these systems.  Personally I don't touch that code, and as somebody emulating the hardware I simply expect it to *work*.

You wouldnt catch me saying F-Mame.   I was merely putting out reasons why
people get frustrated by Mame.

 Hazel decides to attack all non devs, saying they are worthless.  That ticks me
off, considering Ive donated several times to the purchase of games, as well as
done other things to contribute to mame.

Resorting to personal insults again?

I said the project would continue without external contributors, it would.  This is not the same thing as saying all external contributors are worthless.  The project however wouldn't continue with *only* external contributors.

There is currently plenty of room for external contributors especially in areas such as artwork.  That said the expectations that the development team should do everything the way they want it, for them still makes no sense.  Decisions are made on what will take the project forward, nothing more, nothing less.

Mame is great, but does not mean certain  devs & dumpers  are great.   They
may get the job done... but that does not mean they all are nice people.

Indeed, I have my fair share of issues with the attitudes of several of the current developers, who I feel to be malicious in their changes, and expect everything spoon fed to them, however a good number of them are friendly, dedicated, always take time to explain things, always respond to questions and are a pleasure to work with.

I try to be the latter, however, it seems people take offense at my answers if they're not the ones they want to hear.

The same could easily be said about users.  Some will take the time to understand the changes that are being made, the nature of the project, the team, and the reasoning behind things.  Others .. don't.  I try my best to explain these things to people.

I don't agree with every decision made by the team, in fact, I'm unpopular with some people because I can also be quite critical of certain changes, and the direction being taken, however, I will at least try to see what reasonable logic is behind changes made rather than assuming they're just to annoy me.  I've suggested several times that the MAME/MESS projects are properly merged because a lot of hardware is shared and it would allow the MAME emulation of arcades based on console hardware to be greatly improved, and still really don't like the fact that the idea is rejected on political and philosophical grounds rather than practical ones for example (there is no technical limitation at all, it could be done right now with the flick of a switch)

Aside from forking the project, there is nothing I can do about this, just as there is nothing I can do about adding 3d artwork, changing the input systems or anything else.  I can go and emulate some Mahjong games tho, or sit around doing nothing.  I think for all intents emulating the Mahjong games is a better use of my time.

Mamedev is a collection of individuals who work together on certain projects.  This is why aiming comments like 'Only work on Mahjong' makes no sense.  The only person really likely to change the (artwork related) things you want changed is Aaron, and I can't remember the last time he sat down and emulated anything, let alone a Mahjong game, thus making your critisism rather invalid.  Aaron rather make core changes these days, rearrange the code, make things more object orientated with the overall goal of allowing MAME to run multiple machines at once.  If external contributions are up to scratch, they may well be accepted too.   The only other developer I remember doing recent input work was Derrick and he has little time for MAME anyway, and is neck-deep in discrete sound emulation which is another specialist area (and definitely a worthwhile one, couriersud's discrete improvements to Galaxian and Battle Zone are stunning)

What it boils down to is that people often want changes which are
a) Illogical (would create additional work for the development team for no benefit, or go against the overal goal of the project)
b) Technically infeasible
or
c) There simply aren't enough interested devs in that field to implement

Don't forget, it's a hobby project, just consider what it would cost to hire the entire team, and then all the extra specialists to do the things you want to see.  Each and every member of the development team has to find a way to squeeze doing all this between their real lives, real jobs, families etc.  Decisions have to be practical and the project has to be maintainable for the developers.  Time is a precious resource and one which can't just simply be donated.  B.Rap Boys which I recently emulated is the result of 8 years of work, on and off, by various developers and that was for just 2 games.

[Bender]

yes I can reach the boat stage

My set up is: an analog stick, the X axis is steering and the Y axis IS analog acceleration and deceleration, top fire for shifting, Four buttons that light up when you get the appropriate weapon and the start buttons flash yellow for the weapons van(Thanks Arzoo!)

it's actually very easy to control and quite fun, and yes I have knocked switchblade off the road while his blades are out

Cheating??? I'm just Trying to enjoy a game the best I can with the controls I have

I'm not trying to claim that these are arcade authentic controls, we are talking about Mame here, you'd practically have to have a dedicated machine to run that game "authentically"

[tcleary]

F ignorant newbies.  Mame is an incredible project and it deserves respect.  All the things you do in your life will most likely pale in comparison to it.  So have some patience and recognize the guys working on it are doing it for fun, not for the enjoyment of people like you.  your criticisms are lacking.  You could always just not use it.

[Xiaou2]

Your Response was definitely much improved this time round.  Props to that.

 You take the general criticisms as target for your own actions.   However, even I
was not directly targeting You personally... until you decided to jump at me.

 I understand how and why the project operates the way it does.  But from a perspective
of end result... things look very different.   Things that should be done, may not get done.
As such like the artwork... which in time, may be lost forever.  More so than actual pcbs.

 Current Art direction which aims at changing art to vectors isnt the best either.  The
look of the art is completely different than what you would see in person... even when
the games were brand spanking new.  It just looks too perfect / phony.   And sometimes
even compromises that actual art itself from intentional and artistic changes made.

 
 The shifter support does not just effect one game.  There are many classic games which use 2 way held down shifters, such as the ever Popular  Outrun, Pole Position, Turbo,
and boatloads more.   The idea to put a graphical icon in place to solve this really
does not fix or change the problem of input.   Which would have to be a button, not
an arcade shifter... in its current format.   On a scale of workability, for the end user...
it seems crazy that things like half-axis support has made it into mame... and yet
simple held down button support has not.

The rom managers know what you throw at them.  If you throw an old dat, or old version of MAME they will know how to use it. 

 Yes, but lets say you didnt update your collected roms for a several versions.   You have
a folder with misc. roms.   Some may have come from sites which were not updated
correctly.  Some may be from various versions of mame...

 How would you know which Dat file or version of mame to load up with the rom
manager to get them correctly detected and integrated into your current set?

 After a certain period of time... you end up with useful roms that you have parts in
them your main collection needs...  but the rom manager thinks are garbage and
or unknown files.

 Names of roms change, internally and externally.  But if an identifier code was present, that set would always be known to whatever read that file.

There is currently plenty of room for external contributors especially in areas such as artwork.  That said the expectations that the development team should do everything the way they want it, for them still makes no sense.

 I actually agree with this.   However, giving in to a few important request is more
beneficial than not.   Many have contributed without asking for a thing.  Yet, you may
get more contributions from people when they get certain important things done in
return.  IE: Make the driver fans happy, and maybe you get an additional $1000
in donations,  which may repeat again at a later date.

 I did a scan of the Disc of Tron artwork.  But it sat on my PC for over a year until
someone finally put the framework in there to support it.  Usually people wouldnt attempt
to do something there was no framework for... but it just so happened, I didnt realize
mames artwork was only 256 color limited at that time.

 Scanning in such things as sideart and control panels will not even
really get much attention because there is little reason to do work without framework
for it.   However, one has to wonder how much slowdown would occur if mame did
have a true 3d output...?

 I never said You personally have to do it.   I mealy said it would be nice if someone
on the team would.  And yeah, from an outside perspective... having most of the driving
games unplayable with correct controls seems a lot more important then a
mahjohng games emulation.

 Remember, we are voicing opinions here.  Not issuing commands.

 I being an arcade enthusiast and collector... I have a lot of passion about these
things.   And if I had the brain power to be able to fix the current issues... rest assured I
would.

 
 As for liking Spy Hunter...  Its a game that requires a lot of dedicated practice.  Its
very difficult, and lightning fast action.  But thats why its so fun... (when you get the
hang of it)  The insane challenge.   I dont think Ive seen better AI in any other game
Ive ever played.  The number of circumstances that the baddies can put you into,
is just amazing.  Gives you a real sense of accomplishment when you are able to
barely squeeze out of a nearly impossible situation, again and again.

[TheShanMan]

Xiaou2, when will it occur to you that you offend people so often that maybe it's worth looking at your approach and figuring out why you're perceived in such an offensive way? Probably because you enjoy being the troll. At least that's all anybody can reasonably guess based on the fact that you never change. You might be a perfectly nice guy in person, but it's hard to see it from your posts (at least any of the ones I've seen).

Haze, despite having been a user of mame for over 10 years, I don't pay attention to all the politics and whatnot, so I have no idea why certain people might not like you or if they're justified. But I will say that I appreciate mame immensely and only wish I could contribute back a fraction of what I've gained from it. If it weren't for mame, I wouldn't have transitioned to becoming a collector, and my kids would have never known the joy of playing classic arcade games (and they derive a lot of joy from it, let me tell you). And don't let people like Xiaou2 get you discouraged. I bet the users who simply appreciate mame outnumber the complainers 100 to 1. Keep up the good work.

As for rom management, once you know where to get the roms, management becomes a complete non-issue. I haven't used clrmame in years. Might be different if I was interested in running multiple versions of mame, or switching to an older version of mame, but I think there is only 1 game that I run an old mame for.

[Ummon]

Oh my god, X started writing posts without hard-returning his lines. He's as verbose as ever, though. The problem in this case is, while Haze is anal about stuff that makes a difference MAME-wise, it also results in indulging stuff like this. I'm not sayin don't do it, though. I can skim and scroll on.

[Beretta]

so someone mentioned that they changed teh CHD format recently.. anyone know when? i have a set i think from .127.. the games run ok but it complains at startup.

i know mame comes with a CHD utility im assuming i can extract the current CHD into the raw sector dump and then re CHD right?

[Ummon]

chdman