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the state of mame

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Vigo:

--- Quote from: Haze on December 28, 2010, 11:45:00 am ---
--- Quote from: Vigo on December 28, 2010, 10:36:31 am ---
--- Quote from: Haze on December 28, 2010, 09:05:38 am ---
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on December 28, 2010, 03:36:10 am ---
Hands up anyone who thinks of Mahjong games when they think classics?

--- End quote ---

Based on the posts I've had on my blog, and the requests we've had for some of them I think if you asked this question on a Japanese forum you'd be flooded with replies.

The early Dynax and Nichibutsu ones especially are considered 'classics' in Japan, and were just as popular, if not more popular than the likes of Street Fighter 2 was over here.  There is a reason they made so many of them and near enough every major manufacturer has a portfolio of them.  There have been just as many donations made *specifically* to buy Mahjong boards as anything else over the years.

On similar lines, if you asked on a Japanese forum 'Who considers Marble Madness a classic' you'd probably get hardly any replies, because it's an American developed game and they really didn't care for those as much.  (A trend which continues to this day, just look how difficult Microsoft found it to break into Japan)

It amazes me that people still try to use this argument to bash MAME, the project, and what gets emulated.  It's a global project, representing a global industry, not something tailored to your exact tastes.


--- End quote ---

Don't take this in a rude way, just a question. I honestly don't know how you guys are structured, but if it is the primarily Asia fanbase that considers these endless Mahjong titles of great value, is the development of these titles, the man hours, worked on by a designated Asia MAMEdev team? To me, I would think that a donation to buy Mahjong boards does not relegate that N. America and European support must be doing any further development to the endless sea of Mahjong titles out there.

I also wouldn't think that comparing your everyday Mahjong title with Marble Madness is accurate. I think it would compare much better to video slot machines. There are so many video slot machine games in N. America, and tons of people play them, but there really are not any classics that had the crowds watching on. Mahjong games were more or less your typical gambling games without the payouts.


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Asia / Japan don't really seem to believe in the open source culture as much unfortunately, so contributions in terms of actual code from that part of the world are more limited.  It's clearly a cultural thing, and when you do get Asian / Japanese emulators their approach to emulation is often very different eg. if you look at the NeoGeo CD emulators they've *rewritten* most of the bios code, to avoid emulating it.. In worse cases they will rewrite parts of the game for extra speed, rather than emulating it.. They will integrate the roms in the actual emulator, and encrypt the whole package to stop people reverse engineering it then package the whole thing with a ton of ad-ware so that they can make money of of people using their emulators.  Don't get me wrong, there have been contributions from Asia / Japan which have been valid but the cultural differences, and coding standards / practices make them fewer.  The *primary* development of MAME has always been European, which is ironic when you consider that only a tiny tiny handful of the supported games originate in Europe.  If European devs only worked on European produced games there wouldn't be much MAME at all ;-)

From a 'writing the emulation code' perspective it makes very little difference if you're emulating a Mahjong game or not.  The challenges are still the same, the hardware can still be interesting, and they can help fix bugs / improve things elsewhere.  The Mahjong games on Psikyo's SH2 based hardware were of great help in fixing the SH2 timers / interrupts which in turn also improved the music in several other games relying on that logic.  Improving hardware emulation is always beneficial to the project, and anything that helps that, be it emulation of a Mahjong game, or a console system in MESS is a step forward.  The best devs really aren't fussy over the nature of the games they emulate.  As I've said before, the role of Mamedev is to emulate, not discriminate, and there is a level of responsibility that comes with that to not simply ignore something because you don't like it.

Mahjong seems to have a bigger role in mainstream Japanese arcades than slot machines do over here.  Here slot machines more or less replaced arcade games in many places, in Japan they exist together.  I'm not really sure I'd say they were equivalent.

That said, even for slot machines, there are ones people consider to be 'classic'.  The original Cherry Master for example is really akin to the 'Pacman' of that genre.  It's simple, but to many still iconic, which is why it's copied / rehashed so often.  There are still hacks of this very same game being sold on newly manufactured PCBs today, and fresh 'classic' versions are pushed out just as Namco re-release Pacman every couple of years.  Overall there is a lot of hatred towards slot machines and the like tho, because many see them as the 'killer of arcades' 

For Australia, the early Aristocrat games are considered 'classics' too and have a substantial fan-base.

For a more central European base, Magic Card is another one that regularly gets requested because it doesn't yet work properly in MAME.

Just like any genre, you have a period of games, which are really stripped down to the basics, nothing too fancy, but advanced enough to be functional and memorable.

It's also interesting to see how slot machine mechanics integrate into normal games too.  You've only got to look at something like the Casino Night levels in Sonic 2 to see that elements of the whole 'slot machine' culture are iconic enough to end up as a mechanic in a more modern game, even Japanese developed ones.  Kaneko's Wani Wani World (a personal favourite) incorporates such elements too.

Pinball games are another example, some people see them all as utterly worthless, others will no doubt be able to name what they consider to be 'classics' in that genre too.

Asking if anybody considers Mahjong games classic on a US centric forum isn't going to give you many answers tho because it's a game heavily tied to Japanese culture, which doesn't translate well outside of Japan.


--- End quote ---

Thanks, Haze. That answered my question. Very Informative! :)

Haze:

--- Quote from: Warborg on December 28, 2010, 12:54:50 pm ---Ok...  This is just a question for my clarification and is probably a bit OT from the actual development of MAME, but it's something I've always wondered (so please, don't take this as any form of argument or criticism)...

I saw it mentioned again earlier, the idea that MAME is to document old arcade games so that they are not lost to obscurity, but no emphasis is made on their playability...  I guess I don't understand that, documenting games that their whole purpose IS to be played and nothing else.  It would seem to me like making sure we document classic movies, but not be concerned with actually being able to watch them, just have documentation to keep their memory alive?  So like I said, not being argumentative in any way, I am just curious as to why?

--- End quote ---

In terms of what? Performance?  You just have to hope that machines catch up, to do things properly sometimes they just have to be slow, unless you start rewriting / not emulating significant parts of the game to avoid emulating some of the hardware.  At that point it stops being emulation at all, and becomes more like a port.

In terms of controls?  Half of X2s arguments here have been that MAME cares *too* much about this kind of thing, and not enough about the original controls.  MAME is designed so that the developers can test it / use it / play it (which is necessary to make sure the emulation works!) on a regular PC.  It's made as accessible as possible, and it's only the special use cases that suffer.  For most cases in MAME you can fire up the emulator, and play the games with a keyboard / mouse / x360 pad.  Most things in MAME are figured out by looking at the behavior of the game when it's running, it's therefore vital that developers actually be able to play through the games, using ordinary hardware in order to find good use-cases that test the emulation code, and improve the overall emulation.  You can't tell that you've emulated something properly just from staring at the title screen!

Everything in MAME stands as a decent reference for if somebody else DOES want to do it their own way.  Things might not always be 'playable' at 60fps in MAME, or have the exact interface some people want, but MAME is a good reference, and people can do things their own way in their own projects based on the information we're giving them.  The DEmul guys are making rapid progress in Model 3 in their own emulator and I'm sure there are many ways in which MAME has helped them make that progress even if the games aren't playable in MAME yet (and are unlikely to run at 60fps even if they did boot properly)  Even in the cases where MAME does try to make things easier for PC users, there is sufficient information in the code (IMHO) for somebody to modify something to work with whatever input hardware they need.

If MAME was to take nasty shortcuts, people would just copy the nasty shortcuts, and things would never really be emulated.  Going back to the NeoCD stuff, every single emulator I've seen is more of less lifting the same 'avoid emulating the CD controller, bypass most of the bios' hacks that the original Japanese NeoCD emulators did.  As a result they're full of tiny hacks for specific games.  There is little excuse for this!  When the system actually ends up being emulated in MESS (which is really just MAME for everything that doesn't fit in MAME) it will be done properly, and thus provide a far better reference to how things work.  If people would then rather copy that it's up to them, but having an emulator that does things properly IS important.

To sum things up, I'm not really sure where you're coming from.

The emphasis is on documenting things, and figuring out how they work, but that by nature implies allowing a level of playability, otherwise the former is also impossible!

The emphasis on documentation just means that MameDev don't consider something to be 'finished' just because it's 'playable'  If there is room for improvement (emulating things more precisely/correctly, even if there is no visible difference) then that remains a target.  It also constrains MAME to trying to emulate things accurately, rather than the project allowing developers to fix bugs present in the original games, or otherwise 'enhance' things.  I'm sure you prefer your Pacman with the kill screen, than if MameDev patched it out ;-)

Warborg:

--- Quote from: Haze on December 28, 2010, 01:59:07 pm ---
--- Quote from: Warborg on December 28, 2010, 12:54:50 pm ---Ok...  This is just a question for my clarification and is probably a bit OT from the actual development of MAME, but it's something I've always wondered (so please, don't take this as any form of argument or criticism)...

I saw it mentioned again earlier, the idea that MAME is to document old arcade games so that they are not lost to obscurity, but no emphasis is made on their playability...  I guess I don't understand that, documenting games that their whole purpose IS to be played and nothing else.  It would seem to me like making sure we document classic movies, but not be concerned with actually being able to watch them, just have documentation to keep their memory alive?  So like I said, not being argumentative in any way, I am just curious as to why?

--- End quote ---

In terms of what? Performance?  You just have to hope that machines catch up, to do things properly sometimes they just have to be slow, unless you start rewriting / not emulating significant parts of the game to avoid emulating some of the hardware.  At that point it stops being emulation at all, and becomes more like a port.

In terms of controls?  Half of X2s arguments here have been that MAME cares *too* much about this kind of thing, and not enough about the original controls.  MAME is designed so that the developers can test it / use it / play it (which is necessary to make sure the emulation works!) on a regular PC.  It's made as accessible as possible, and it's only the special use cases that suffer.  For most cases in MAME you can fire up the emulator, and play the games with a keyboard / mouse / x360 pad.  Most things in MAME are figured out by looking at the behavior of the game when it's running, it's therefore vital that developers actually be able to play through the games, using ordinary hardware in order to find good use-cases that test the emulation code, and improve the overall emulation.  You can't tell that you've emulated something properly just from staring at the title screen!

Everything in MAME stands as a decent reference for if somebody else DOES want to do it their own way.  Things might not always be 'playable' at 60fps in MAME, or have the exact interface some people want, but MAME is a good reference, and people can do things their own way in their own projects based on the information we're giving them.  The DEmul guys are making rapid progress in Model 3 in their own emulator and I'm sure there are many ways in which MAME has helped them make that progress even if the games aren't playable in MAME yet (and are unlikely to run at 60fps even if they did boot properly)  Even in the cases where MAME does try to make things easier for PC users, there is sufficient information in the code (IMHO) for somebody to modify something to work with whatever input hardware they need.

If MAME was to take nasty shortcuts, people would just copy the nasty shortcuts, and things would never really be emulated.  Going back to the NeoCD stuff, every single emulator I've seen is more of less lifting the same 'avoid emulating the CD controller, bypass most of the bios' hacks that the original Japanese NeoCD emulators did.  As a result they're full of tiny hacks for specific games.  There is little excuse for this!  When the system actually ends up being emulated in MESS (which is really just MAME for everything that doesn't fit in MAME) it will be done properly, and thus provide a far better reference to how things work.  If people would then rather copy that it's up to them, but having an emulator that does things properly IS important.

To sum things up, I'm not really sure where you're coming from.

The emphasis is on documenting things, and figuring out how they work, but that by nature implies allowing a level of playability, otherwise the former is also impossible!

The emphasis on documentation just means that MameDev don't consider something to be 'finished' just because it's 'playable'  If there is room for improvement (emulating things more precisely/correctly, even if there is no visible difference) then that remains a target.  It also constrains MAME to trying to emulate things accurately, rather than the project allowing developers to fix bugs present in the original games, or otherwise 'enhance' things.  I'm sure you prefer your Pacman with the kill screen, than if MameDev patched it out ;-)



--- End quote ---

Thank you for your detailed response Haze, I just wanted to have a more complete grasp on what the perspective was regarding playability, and that answered a lot of it.  One question I do have is why isn't it possible to use current 3D acceleration with MAME wile still emulation, maybe just translating the original calls to current 3D hardware?  Mind you, I'm not a programmer at all, the last time I tried programming was BASIC on a C64...  More of a hardware guy myself...  ;)

Well...  Computer hardware and cars, love me some fast cars...  ;)

Haze:

--- Quote from: Warborg on December 28, 2010, 03:00:32 pm ---Thank you for your detailed response Haze, I just wanted to have a more complete grasp on what the perspective was regarding playability, and that answered a lot of it.  One question I do have is why isn't it possible to use current 3D acceleration with MAME wile still emulation, maybe just translating the original calls to current 3D hardware?  Mind you, I'm not a programmer at all, the last time I tried programming was BASIC on a C64...  More of a hardware guy myself...  ;)

Well...  Computer hardware and cars, love me some fast cars...  ;)

--- End quote ---

Getting modern 3d hardware to accurately represent graphics in a deterministic way (which won't differ from system to system) is near enough impossible.  Video drivers are nasty hacked up messy things and hardware implementations + capabilities differ from card to card, it' simply not that reliable.

There has been talk of using the pixel shaders on the next generation of cards to handle rendering, because they should be sufficiently powerful to do so, and give accurate output, however, with nobody to code such a system it's still quite unlikely to happen, and MAME would always have to have a software fallback for systems which don't have the hardware.

For the majority of cases where people think 3D acceleration would help however, it wouldn't.  A lot of the system requirements still come from the CPU emulation, which for various reasons is a lot slower in MAME than other emulators.

LeedsFan:

--- Quote from: Haze on December 28, 2010, 01:59:07 pm ---  I'm sure you prefer your Pacman with the kill screen, than if MameDev patched it out ;-)

--- End quote ---

Haha!   I remember when Donkey Kong finally got most of it's sounds emulated correctly and didn't need samples.... and people complained that the running sound of Mario sounded wrong. That was because they'd got so used to hearing the sampled sound in Mame for so long that when it was emulated correctly it didn't sound right to them. But I remember playing the game way back in 1982 and I always thought the sampled sound of Mario was too high pitched. In fact you can still hear the old sampled sound on some of the video clips used for frontends... then when the game starts you hear the difference (assuming your Mame is up to date ofc)

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