Main > Main Forum
the state of mame
Haze:
--- Quote from: nitz on January 02, 2011, 12:59:51 pm ---Yep, it's part of a big problem in our society I'm afraid. It used to be that if you went out of your way to give people something good, they'd be thrilled and love you for it. Now they're like, "Is that it? I want something better. MAKE IT BETTER!!!" ::) Don't let it discourage you Haze.
--- End quote ---
I can deal with it. It might put off new developers tho.
From what I'm told good old 'lets collect all the bad dumps with our goodtools' Cowering has ruined any potential MAME/MESS merged anyway by being his usual kiddie self and throwing his toys out the pram (he hosts the MESS SVN and makes sporadic contributions to the project so can't be entirely ignored sadly) I can only see having further detrimental effects on the project. The current separation really is a roadblock in cases where emulation of shared components needs to be improved which is an area needing ever increasing attention. To work on something you really want all the resources and test cases to improve it and ensure you don't break anything.
It seems that for everything I try to do, or set into motion to improve things some ego gets in the way somewhere and stops it for no real technical reason. To a degree this is also responsible for the state of things now. Having people involved in the project who are willing to stand in the way of real progress for their own personal benefit and the benefit of nobody else is never going to help.
I know a fair number of people don't like me that much for taking a tough line with things, but I've always tried to simply make sure progress is made rather than egos stroked. People who do care about the project will contribute anyway, people who only care about themselves are usually the replaceable ones.
Xiaou2:
--- Quote ---This is the very same point X2 can't seem to understand. MAME documents what it can, but also MUST remain accessible in order to progress this documentation.
--- End quote ---
Nope. I understand it. Its you who thinks in Black and White.
As I said, and I repeat... there is no GOOD reason why 720 cant be controlled by
BOTH an Original Controller, and the HACKED Analog Joystick. Just like just about
ANY other game in mame which supports MULTIPLE methods of controls.
And following your reply about general usability... it turns out that to select music in Superhangon, you need to use the brake. However, the Arcade brake assembly had two switches in it... which means that one has to be on while the other is off, and vise versa. This is not typical to be able to access with gamepad or keyboard input... and even to build a custom controller, was a pain in the Butt. Yet mame makes no effort to make that music easily selectable/accessible.
Why? As was told to me, that they will not alter the way that the game works from the way it worked in the arcade hardware. Which is Understandable. But why not make a cheat/hack to be able to bypass it for the standard users... like 99% of all other cases?
As seem from all of these examples... its very easily clear that Mames stance is based on Personal Preferences from the Developer. The Devs who spout their Holy values, are spewing Hypocritical BS that they dont even follow.
Every time Ive pinned Haze about these Glaring Inconsistencies, he has shifted his stance... and tried to dodge the reality. Every time I back him into a corner, he realized Im correct and that he cant lie his way out of it.. or BS me, he finally shifts the blame to another Dev. Yet all the while, he was 100% solidly attacking, thru the entire process.
Haze knows that the Hack to make 720 work is absolute CRAP. He personally would have never bowed to user request to make it Playable by adding such a gross coding hack... cause Haze is selfish, and really does not care if anyone else enjoys the fruits... so long as he gets His. (anyone who has read Hazes past comments would know this) He is very much Black and White, and you could probably call him an OCD Coder, as code has to be "just so" for it to be acceptable in his mind.
Aaron did the users a very nice thing by making 720 at least sorta playable with the Analog hack. However, to disable the ability to use correct controls is completely Wrong. He SHOULD know this. He should Fix it. Period. As said, there is no good reasons why multiple input methods shouldnt be available.
Mame is about Preserving games. They word it as preserving mere circuit boards. But thats a crock, and everyone knows it. To PROPERLY preserve a game, means that game has to be experienced the same way it was DESIGNED TO BE EXPERIENCED!!! This SHOULD include every aspect, from gameplay, PROPER control methods, controller Documentation/Specs, cabinet art, cabinet dimensions, internal artwork, history development notes/stories, and much much more. If these things are NOT being Documented... then you are NOT PRESERVING A GAME.
Instead, you are picking what You think is important... such as Documenting all the aspects of a Classic cars engine, to the degree that you could easily re-fabricate it... but have No knowledge of the cars interior, fabric, accurate body shape, controls, suspension, ect. We all know that the Engine is very important, as without it, the car will never move. However, a car is much more than the engine. The first thing you experience is the beauty of the shape of the car. Which leads to getting into the car, and experiencing the internal beauty and controls. Which leads to the handling of the car, thru its suspension aspects/controls, which are all built around the engine. Every aspect IS important.
Just as anyone who has ever experienced an Arcade, has immediately been excited by the Mere look of the artwork and cabinet shapes. Next being the actual original controls and gameplay. Which of course wouldnt be possible without the games PCB engine. The entire experience needs to be preserved 100%... or you are not Preserving it at all.
Imagine, In the future, they may have a museum where every machine is available to PLAY... but most of the cabinets will be Blank, generically shaped, with no artwork, missing artwork, or artwork that is painfully low-res due to low quality pictures being used as sources. A real dismal mess.
Controls? Many controllers may be missing... due to historical documents being lacking, missing, and inaccurate. Thus anyone walking up to play the game 720, for example, will try to mess with an analog stick that they thought might do the trick... and makes the game play completely wrong. Not as was designed and balanced. Not accurate at all.
Mechanical games? Discrete Circuit Games? More than likely lost forever...
But its not just about the Future. Its about Now. I school new generation gamers on Old-School games all the time. And when I do so, I take them to real machines, or a mame setup with the Accurate Arcade controls, so that they experience them correctly.
In a simple example, the kid who I forced to play Robotron... went from nasty comments about the look/age... to ecstatic giggles of joy as he got Hooked. Yet when trying it on his xbox, turned it off in 5 min cause the control was all wrong, and messed up the entire gameplay. Even though he was a FPS kinda guy, a new-Gen kid... he could immediately discern the game wasnt the same without the correct controls. Let alone the Look of the game, and missing the specialized cabinet.
720? Forget it. Its 1000x worse in control than Robotrons leaf-switch joy situation. Theres no way in hell you can move an analog joystick fast enough to do major spin tricks. Analogs travel in too wide an Ark, have too much spring resistance, and many other issues... that all add up to not being able to experience the game as it was intended and designed. Meaning... that its Not being preserved.
To make the New Gens "CARE" about these old Gems (to keep them alive, and further preservation efforts before its too late) ... us Old guys have to start Schooling them. And we are Not going to be able to school them, if we cant for example, hook up our mame cabinets and fire up a game with a real controller attacked to it.
AND, the more demand there is for people wanting to play a game with a certain specialized controller.. the more likely there will be someone who will re-produce it... which helps both the Original collectors fix their existing machines... as well as gets more controllers out there to extend their overall lifetime existences - further keeping them from becoming completely lost/extinct.
Imagine if Mame had an option for outputting Vectors to a real vector monitor. Its very possible that the demand for vector monitors would be so much higher, that it would be more than worthwhile for a huge production run could be made. Because it has not been done, by now, it "Might" be too late for that to even happen... as there might be only 1 or 2 tube Mfgs left.
---
Edit: And Ill add something about Hording. I myself spent a lot of time and money to get a real TX-1 machine. I Saved it from an Op who told me he only kept it cause he was considering hacking it into some other driver/machine. It cost me a huge bundle of money, and I had to drive 600 miles total in a uhaul to get it back. The game was not working... so I bought several PCB sets online in hopes. I finally got it to work with some help... and it was amazing.
In the process, I got Bashed for buying a PCB for under $100 away from a Dev. Whom I never knew was bidding. Then I got bashed for not sending the boards half way across the world to an anonymous Jerk, asap, with no assurance it would Ever come back... let alone come back working. (and he was unwilling to repair the boards if the were broke.. nor would assure a quick turn-around)
AND, while I wanted it to go to mame, I knew that it Never would be the same, because theres no option for surround sound (4 speakers in tx1) in mame.. as well as no option for a real arcade Shifter... making it feel / play pathetic (toggle button only)... that I was in No hurry to destroy the chance to play it correctly for myself and friends.
Had mame supported those very features, I would have been a lot more conductive to sending it in a much more timely fashion.
Eventually, I got a buddy to dump the remaining 2 roms.. but they were not needed, as were duplicates.
But the points remain... that if you want to get more collectors/hoarders onboard with mame, start by getting dumpers in other parts of the world (less distance to travel w/ less shipping costs) who arnt such jerks... and who are not so Paranoid as to be anonymous. Get full channel sound working as it SHOULD. Get shifters working As they Should. Etc.
It wont solve every case, but it will end up getting more rare pcbs sent in. Thats a Fact.
Hoopz:
--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on January 02, 2011, 06:22:58 pm ---Nope. I understand it. Its you who thinks in Black and White.
--- End quote ---
::)
--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on January 02, 2011, 06:22:58 pm ---He should Fix it. Period.
--- End quote ---
Pot, meet kettle.
Haze:
--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on January 02, 2011, 06:22:58 pm ---blah blah blah
--- End quote ---
blah blah blah, more stuff about how you think decisions are made when really you know nothing
blah blah blah, more blaming me for everything even when I have nothing to do with what you're complaining about
blah blah blah, more calling our statements outright lies
blah blah blah....
hint, you are not involved with the project, you haven't ever been involved with the project, you clearly have no concept or understanding of who makes decisions, or why decisions are made so stop trying to make out like the things you say are facts.
MAME currently has no clean run-time way to support what you want without just further confusing things. Coding this would be a significant task, and not one which anybody wishes to undertake at this time. As a result, the version of the code which offers the greatest accessibility is used. As others have noted, people doing ports have made the same choices. Nowhere in the mission statement is it specified that MAME will work with the original controls, this is not a priority.
Again you're making demands that MameDev should find some more dumpers. Sure, it would help, but the entry requirements aren't cheap if you want to do a good job and be able to dump every chip you're going to encounter, and that's not to mention the required skills needed to carefully handle the boards, remove the chips, reattach things so that they work again, provide good quality videos, scans, run tests. The more specialist the task, the harder it gets to find somebody, there is only one single guy willing to decap MCUs for us. This isn't just stuff anybody can pick up and do, it requires serious commitment, experience, and outlay as well as space to store all the PCBs, equipment, and possibly a workshop to do the serious PCB work. How about you do something? Oh wait.. too much to ask, as always.
Quick turnarounds can't be guaranteed. It's a good thing Guru kept hold of that Godzilla PCB because the graphic dumps were half size, but we didn't know this until it started doing something in the driver, which has required in total 10+ years of work. Now we can also ask for reference videos of specific parts of the game that are causing problems in the emulation. Re-sourcing the PCB would have been difficult. Actually getting this stuff right and the hardware understood is preserving it, the controls can be fiddled with and changed without consequence at any time in the future by anybody who has a specific need. If the actual EMULATION of something is broken it won't matter what freaking controls you give it and most people will find that a lot harder to fix that than fiddling with the input ports.
zzzzz
shateredsoul:
I believe Xiaou should make me a free arcade right now! Where we could all go play and eat pizza for free. But why hasn't he? because he's selfish and only cares about himself. He only thinks about what he wants, his arcade and not what we need. If Xiaou wasn't selfish he would do it. plain and simple.
:lol
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version