MAME could become obsolete

[DJ_Izumi]

Not obsolete with classic games but new ones.  The Aksys fighting game BlazBlue Continuum Shift has been leaked and is now running on PCs.  Not the 360 port, not the PS3 port, not a home PC port.  The arcade version has been decrypted and via a bootloader it that allows you to remap things like service buttons and coin in functions through the keyboard.  So long as your PC has sufficent hardware to match the Taito Type X2 platform ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taito_Type_X#Taito_Type_X.C2.B2 ) that this game runs on, you can run the complete arcade version at home. 

This is astounding.  An arcade game requireing no emulation other than a few inputs running on off the shelf PC hardware in Windows as if it were a PC game.  Service mode and the works operating just like they should.  No need to produce an a full hardware emualtor.  Considdering that the vast majority of arcade games are now built on custom propritary PC hardware with security/encryption features this could mean that modern games will come to your home brew arcade before MAME can accurately emulate the late 90's custom machines.

Now... Let's see someone do this for Sega Lindburgh. :3

[Aabra]

I don't think that this will make MAME obsolete.... that's a bit much.  This emulator/hack only works on 1 system.  Mame works on a *lot*.  It is cool though - I was one of the lucky ones to download it during the window of only a couple of hours before we knew it was a leak.

Don't ask me for the link or for me to send it to you as I won't.  The people who made this requested that distribution stop and I'm respecting that.  The place I got it from took it down as well so I'm not sure where you can even get this anymore.  Regardless it's very cool and here's a quick video I made proving that it works.

[DJ_Izumi]

I don't think that this will make MAME obsolete.... that's a bit much.  This emulator/hack only works on 1 system.  Mame works on a *lot*.  It is cool though - I was one of the lucky ones to download it during the window of only a couple of hours before we knew it was a leak.

But it does run on Windows which is the majority of systems.  And 5-10 years from now you could built something equal to a Taito Type X2 for almost nothing and maybe play other games that have been decrypted.

Honestly, for the effort of emulating these PC systems, it's likely going to be easily jsut to hack them into running natively in Windows.

[SavannahLion]

I'm a little confused. Is this a new Taito emulator (as it were if I understand the Taito boards right) that currently only supports Blazblue or is this a hacked version of Blazblue (that was leaked non-the-less) made to run on Windows boxes?

[DJ_Izumi]

I'm a little confused. Is this a new Taito emulator (as it were if I understand the Taito boards right) that currently only supports Blazblue or is this a hacked version of Blazblue (that was leaked non-the-less) made to run on Windows boxes?

BlazBlue DOES run on Windows.  The Taito Type X2 is built on PC hardware with a few minor variations and the operating system is Windows XPe (Embedded).  With whatever protection was on it removed from the game data, it now runs with just a boot loader that's used to map things like controls and coin slots.  Otherwise, BlazBlue is being executed entirely natively in Windows.

So it's not really being emulated, other than a simple program intercepting PC inputs and converting them to exactly what BlazBlue expects from the Taito Type X2.

When arcade hardware started moving to contemporary PC hardware the only thing that seperated the arcade machine from being a PC was encryption features.  Remove that and you basically have a PC game.

However compatability is likely to be an issue.  While technicly DirectX is acting between the software and the graphics hardware, we've seen all the time in the PC world where some cards or combination of other hardware just doesnn't work right.  This is after the best efforts of PC developers to ensure compatability.  I imagine that Aksys never tested BlazBlue outside of the Type X2 hardware because they'd never be running it on a different platform other than the Type X2.  But a lot of people are successfully getting it to run on their PCs.

If this can be done on one Type X2 game it could be done to others if there's interest to put effort behind it.  The same could be true for other arcade games running on PC hardware.

[SavannahLion]

Well... what I meant by "Windows" boxes is the standard Windows install by a home user. I realize X2 runs a stripped and/or modified Windows, but it's an install configuration one would most likely not find on your standard.

OK, so I did a little more reading on some... less than respectable sites about it. I'd be a little hard pressed to say this would replace MAME. MAME serves an entirely different role and in all likelyhood become more like some variation-hybrid-offshoot-bastard-cousin of WINE. MAME's goal is to emulate the full hardware of the board. This is more like a thin layer to run the game. Entirely different animals.

In any case, it looks like a pretty cool game. Not really my type of thing though.

[DJ_Izumi]

Well... what I meant by "Windows" boxes is the standard Windows install by a home user. I realize X2 runs a stripped and/or modified Windows, but it's an install configuration one would most likely not find on your standard.

It seems that in the case of Win XPe, it's more that XPe has everything that XP has, it's just that XP has a hell of a lot more.  The game seems to run just fine even in Vista which a friend of mine is using it in.  I havn't tried it myself because my PC is an Athlon 64 3200 and isn't remotely comparable to the Type X2.

OK, so I did a little more reading on some... less than respectable sites about it. I'd be a little hard pressed to say this would replace MAME. MAME serves an entirely different role and in all likelyhood become more like some variation-hybrid-offshoot-bastard-cousin of WINE. MAME's goal is to emulate the full hardware of the board. This is more like a thin layer to run the game. Entirely different animals.

Today a Windows PC is the 'full hardware' of the board.  It's not cost effective to do elaborate propriatary hardware when you can just throw off the shelf PC parts in a custom motherboard at it.  MAME's technique would be absurdly difficult to apply to modern hardware, heck it's a huge issue with a lot of old 3D games already.  To imagine a modern dual core advanced graphics PC game, then attempt to emulate one hardware platform on it entirely in a CPU.  The hardware requirements would be astronomical, especially when the graphics cards are so specially designed for that kinda graphics math and CPU is a general purpose machine.  I think the majority of devs looking at Windows code that would just execute in Windows will just go 'Let's make it work in windows'.

Of course by in 10-20 years, the current Windows based platforms these games are running in could be so obsolete it wouldn't be practical to put those operating systems on a modern system.  Maybe we'll see a Windows XPe emulator akin to 'DosBox'.  'WinBox' anyone?

[danny_galaga]

Good news. Maybe soon the MAME dev team can just concentrate on getting each classic game right, one at a time. Instead of a million changes over a decade or so. I suggest they start at the beginning, and work their way, in order to the end 

[SavannahLion]

Oi. Forget it.

[DJ_Izumi]

Good news. Maybe soon the MAME dev team can just concentrate on getting each classic game right, one at a time. Instead of a million changes over a decade or so. I suggest they start at the beginning, and work their way, in order to the end 

The MAME devs certianly have their work cut out for them with the games ranging more or less from 1995-2005.  Of course some work and some don't, depends on what's been focused on but that seems to be the era where MAME starts becoming really ineffective.  Of course that is a lot of complicated and powerful hardware they are trying to emulate.

[Haze]

People 0-day warezing the latest PC-based arcades will make MAME, an arcade emulator focused on emulating older titles at hardware level in entirely cross-platform code obsolete?

Pull the other one, or get a clue.  Your choice.

[DJ_Izumi]

People 0-day warezing the latest PC-based arcades will make MAME, an arcade emulator focused on emulating older titles at hardware level in entirely cross-platform code obsolete?

Pull the other one, or get a clue.  Your choice.

The very first sentance of my post was: "Not obsolete with classic games but new ones."  Speaking of 'Get a clue' that is.

[Havok]

** Yawn **

Another fighter game...

Shame it's not something with a shred of originality...

[Gorotsuki]

It's pretty cool stuff indeed.
The cat girl is interesting.
I'm still trying to learn all her moves.

[Haze]

People 0-day warezing the latest PC-based arcades will make MAME, an arcade emulator focused on emulating older titles at hardware level in entirely cross-platform code obsolete?

Pull the other one, or get a clue.  Your choice.

The very first sentance of my post was: "Not obsolete with classic games but new ones."  Speaking of 'Get a clue' that is.

but your choice of subject was purposefully inflammatory.  It's this kind of bulls**t that gives 'emulation' a bad name.  It has nothing to do with MAME, or emulation.  It's not about to make either obsolete.  This thing doesn't document any hardware at all, and is entirely about pirating the latest games.  There are completely different goals involved and MAME will continue to do what it does regardless of platforms or systems being emulated.  Maybe it makes MAME 'obsolete' to you, but to people with an interest in the actual hardware and seeing things done properly it has no impact whatsoever.

I can tell you first hand that the only result of this is that arcade manufacturers will end up spending more money on security for their latest games, and less on the games.  The net result being that reliability will decrease (more custom tamper-proof hardware as security), cost will increase, the quality of the games will decrease, and when it comes to emulating them properly later things will be much more difficult.  This isn't like when a console gets cracked, the arcade manufacturers will simply increase their security measures for each new machine, and because they're shipping the entire hardware for the game it's not hard to do.

[SavannahLion]

Thank you Haze, at least someone sees my point.

[DJ_Izumi]

but your choice of subject was purposefully inflammatory.  It's this kind of bulls**t that gives 'emulation' a bad name.  It has nothing to do with MAME, or emulation.  It's not about to make either obsolete.  This thing doesn't document any hardware at all, and is entirely about pirating the latest games.  There are completely different goals involved and MAME will continue to do what it does regardless of platforms or systems being emulated.  Maybe it makes MAME 'obsolete' to you, but to people with an interest in the actual hardware and seeing things done properly it has no impact whatsoever.

Actually I just think it's really cool to see a modern arcade platform running at home and running near perfectly instead of waiting until the year 2025 for it to show up in MAME.  I had no intention for this thread to be inflammatory though it's too bad that you couldn't be more polite about it.  Personally the game doesn't interest me because I'm not into fighting games, but it's neat.  Type X and maybe other platform games appearing for home arcade while MAME is still catching up and trying to get the Model 3, NAOMI, System 246/256 and Chihiro running before 2015.

As for the hardware and documenting it; Modern arcade hardware isn't interesting.  It's not inovative or crazy obscure solutions that are fun to look at.  They're all just x86 PCs with custom motherboards and some flavor of Windows or Linux, every single one of them.  There's nothing to document, it's already the most documented computer hardware on the planet.  Hell, any PC developer could develop games for these arcade platforms without any needs for backward engineering the hardware, it's just like making a Windows game only with a few unique input features and security being the difference.

[Haze]

As for the hardware and documenting it; Modern arcade hardware isn't interesting.  It's not inovative or crazy obscure solutions that are fun to look at.  They're all just x86 PCs with custom motherboards and some flavor of Windows or Linux, every single one of them.  There's nothing to document, it's already the most documented computer hardware on the planet.  Hell, any PC developer could develop games for these arcade platforms without any needs for backward engineering the hardware, it's just like making a Windows game only with a few unique input features and security being the difference.

They'll usually stick with one specific motherboard for a system, and various other unique features tho.  The security systems are interesting and worth documenting too, but the people making these bootlegs won't care to document that, just strip it away and forget about it.

Just remember, when pushed the arcade manufacturers can come up with security systems that last around 12 years (Capcom with CPS2/CPS3) or 18 years and still counting (Seibu with Legionnaire, Raiden 2 etc.)  Both those security systems were a *direct* result of excessive bootlegging of their previous titles and in the Capcom case came at a significant reliability cost.  The technology to produce even more secure systems already exists and is much stronger than back then, and the only reason home console systems have any kind of security weakness is because they need to be able to run whatever commercial software the user throws at them.  Arcades have no such limitation, they can be designed to run the game they ship with only.  There really are no winners in people hacking these games.

[mh12]

not minding the title here..
if this is all so easy, wouldn't we have seen Street Fighter IV all over the net months before its console release? it's X2. and if any title were to push people to crack some security, that is it.

besides issues of encryption, i think there's just too many games now, with relatively very few in the arcades. anything that comes out in an arcade on something like the X2 is just going to be ported to the home systems in a matter of months with more features, possibly better graphics, and internet play (eg. SF4!). pirating this arcade stuff, for home use anyway, just doesn't seem worth the hassle at all.

[DJ_Izumi]

not minding the title here..
if this is all so easy, wouldn't we have seen Street Fighter IV all over the net months before its console release? it's X2. and if any title were to push people to crack some security, that is it.

The X2's encryption may have just been figured out and I suspect this early in the system's life it's pretty hard to even get access to the software to dump it.  The older it is the more likely a version will end up in the hands of a dumper to get dumped.  Meanwhile a brand new game, I doubt most people can afford a machine of their own at this point and not a lot of operators would let someguy crawling around inside their Vewlix cab that they're still making payments on.

[Ginsu Victim]

Man, look at the number of views this thread already has. That subject line, false as it may be, sure attracted attention.

[TheSlim]

Man, look at the number of views this thread already has. That subject line, false as it may be, sure attracted attention.

No doubt.  I thought there was a new multi arcade emulator (or current mame build) that utilized all the function calls of a PC processor made after 1999.

[TOK]

Man, look at the number of views this thread already has. That subject line, false as it may be, sure attracted attention.

If he named the thread "Megan Fox With A Banana In Her Ass" it would have got even more views and still been just as irrelevant to the actual content of the post.

[riley454]

Man, look at the number of views this thread already has. That subject line, false as it may be, sure attracted attention.

If he named the thread "Megan Fox With A Banana In Her Ass" it would have got even more views and still been just as irrelevant to the actual content of the post.

Perfectly described TOK, although I wouldn't mind a link to the thread you mentioned

[Jack Burton]

It's completely possible that in 20 years time MAME will still be around and it will be emulating a full windows XPe system to play these games on Micro-Google Chrome 3d 2 for sunglasses.

[DJ_Izumi]

It's completely possible that in 20 years time MAME will still be around and it will be emulating a full windows XPe system to play these games on Micro-Google Chrome 3d 2 for sunglasses.

My main problem is emulation of a system like the Taito Type X2 could easily take 15 years for Mame, we're still waiting to see System 246, NAOMI and Chihiro going flawlessly afterall.  If you can execute native Windows code instead it'd beat MAME to the punch by a decade.

[mh12]

It's completely possible that in 20 years time MAME will still be around and it will be emulating a full windows XPe system to play these games on Micro-Google Chrome 3d 2 for sunglasses.

My main problem is emulation of a system like the Taito Type X2 could easily take 15 years for Mame, we're still waiting to see System 246, NAOMI and Chihiro going flawlessly afterall.  If you can execute native Windows code instead it'd beat MAME to the punch by a decade.

yeah cos it's all about competition to see who can emulate the newest the fastest 

[ragnar]

As long as uber nerdy computer science students exist, emulators will be made.  So, that sounds like forever to me.  They do it for the fun and satisfaction of doing it, not necessarily to play the game.  To many, the fun is in getting the software to work.

[Jack Burton]

It's completely possible that in 20 years time MAME will still be around and it will be emulating a full windows XPe system to play these games on Micro-Google Chrome 3d 2 for sunglasses.

My main problem is emulation of a system like the Taito Type X2 could easily take 15 years for Mame, we're still waiting to see System 246, NAOMI and Chihiro going flawlessly afterall.  If you can execute native Windows code instead it'd beat MAME to the punch by a decade.

It might beat it to the punch, but it won't make it obsolete.  As soon as it becomes a pain  to run the code natively its MAME to the rescue.  I think that  might happen soon than we think. 

MAME is as much a concept as it is a program, and one that is fairly future proof.  Any time it becomes difficult to play games on original hardware it's MAME's job to step in and act as a intermediate.  That job is never going to go away.

[Ginsu Victim]

It's completely possible that in 20 years time MAME will still be around and it will be emulating a full windows XPe system to play these games on Micro-Google Chrome 3d 2 for sunglasses.

My main problem is emulation of a system like the Taito Type X2 could easily take 15 years for Mame, we're still waiting to see System 246, NAOMI and Chihiro going flawlessly afterall.  If you can execute native Windows code instead it'd beat MAME to the punch by a decade.

No, your main problem is you don't understand the point of MAME.

[DJ_Izumi]

Ya know, I'm not trying to argue for MAME's obsolesense, just the awesomeness of of arcade code running native in Windows without the need of waiting for MAME to emulate it in 15 years or needing a hell of a lot of CPU power to do it.  (Well, 'a lot' comparatively speaking)

I just think it's pretty damn cool.

[Havok]

No, your main problem is you don't understand the point of MAME.

Exactly - it's about preservation, not zero day gaming.

[DJ_Izumi]

zero day gaming.

Ya know, there are games 5+ years old running on PC hardware, right?

[Havok]

zero day gaming.

Ya know, there are games 5+ years old running on PC hardware, right?

Artistic license used for emphasis - and when we're talking about 25+ year old games, comparatively speaking, it holds. Besides, I like the phrase - I made it up!

 

[DJ_Izumi]

Artistic license used for emphasis - and when we're talking about 25+ year old games, comparatively speaking, it holds. Besides, I like the phrase - I made it up!

No you didn't.  The term 'Zero Day' has long been associated with piracy.  Google 'Zero Day Warez' for example.

Not all of us are interested in 25 year old games, some of us are more interested in the 90s, late 90s and early 00's which is where MAME fails hard.  In a lot of places there are very few arcades around or arcades with decently maintained machines.  I primarily use console ports to get my more modern arcade fix which works well, but then by 2003 or so a lot of arcade games didn't get any ports to console or PC.  I'm extatic to see After Burner Climax coming to Xbox Live Arcade for this reasons.

In the upcoming years I'd like to be able to play some more modern arcade games that I can't go to an arcade and play so this interests me.  It's a modern machine executing native code in Windows, it's cool and very promising.  I don't get why some of you are acting as if this emotionally threatens you or something.

That said, even if running any Taito Type X/X+/X2 game becomes possible, the game data will be hard to come by.  There are still Sega NAOMI games that no one's dumped afterall.  (One day Sega Strike Fighter, I will play you!)

[Kevin Mullins]

Figured "what the hell, I'll check it out" ... hmmm, plays slower than frozen snot on my PC.
Guess I'll have to play the guessing game as to why my hardware doesn't like it now.
 

[DJ_Izumi]

Figured "what the hell, I'll check it out" ... hmmm, plays slower than frozen snot on my PC.
Guess I'll have to play the guessing game as to why my hardware doesn't like it now.
 

Is your computer even comparable to the Taito Type X2's specs?

Also, since Aksys only had to build their game to work on one version of the Type X2, apparently one with an ATi based card as reported by people who have opened the machine, it's safe to assume that Aksys NEVER coded the game to run on any other hardware.  Sure DirectX calls and such shoudl be universal, anyone with experiences in PC gaming knows that it takes a lot of effort by a developer to get good realistic compatability on a wide range of hardware.  When developing for an arcade platform, even a PC based one, you know your hardware will NEVER change so you only have to concern with making it run perfectly on that hardware.

Though years down the line I can see people building dedicated homebrewed arcade machines for themselves that closely match the hardware of the game they want to run.

Myself I havn't tested it.  The Athlon 64 3200 in my PC is well outclassed by the Type X2 and it wouldn't have a chance at running.  If I really wanted to play it, I'd go Xbox 360 for simplicity sake, but I'm not into fighting games much at all anyway,

[Kevin Mullins]

Is your computer even comparable to the Taito Type X2's specs?

I dunno..... pretty dang close according to these specs given, except maybe video card, I just swapped out my better one that died so my temp one may not be up to par for it.

System requirements:
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP2/SP3
CPU: Intel LGA 775 CPU. Supported CPUs include Celeron D 352, Pentium 4 651, Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Chipset: Intel Q965 ICH8
Video output: 640x480 (VGA), or 1280x720 (HDTV 720p)
RAM: 166/200MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Supported capacities 512MiB, 1GiB, 4GiB.
GPU: PCI Express x16-based graphics. Supported GPU include ATI RADEON (x1600Pro, x1300LE) or NVIDIA GeForce (7900GS, 7600GS, 7300GS)

Either way.... it did run fine so to speak, just slow frame rates.

And I'm not much into fighting games either.

[ark_ader]

Interesting.

What about the other Taito X2 games out there?

    * Aquarian Age Alternative (2006)
    * Battle Fantasia (2007)
    * BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (2008)
    * BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (2009)
    * Chase H.Q. 2 (2007)
    * Elevator Action Death Parade (2009)
    * D1GP Arcade (2007)
    * Eternal Wheel (2007)
    * Haunted Museum (2009)
    * Hopping Urodo (2009)
    * KOF Maximum Impact Regulation A (2007)
    * Nippon Senor! (2009)
    * Oppopo Booom (2009)
    * Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny (2008)
    * Senko No Ronde Duo - Dis-United Order (2009)
    * Street Fighter IV (2008)
    * The King of Fighters XII (2009)
    * Trouble Witches AC (2008)

[Grasshopper]

Personally, I think MAME is beginning to suffer massively from bloat, and a lack of focus. I wish the mamedevs would split the program in two and have one version for 2D era games and another for the 3D era.

It makes sense to try and emulate the 2D games as accurately as possible, even at the expense of speed, because modern hardware is more than capable of doing so. But 3D era games require a different approach at least for the time being. It not currently possible to emulate those games accurately at anywhere near full speed, so some compromises need to be made. Also, as others have already pointed out, "documentation" is not such an issue for the 3D games as most of them run on already very well documented generic hardware.