Is MAME going downhill?

[ark_ader]

I have been noticing that the updates of the latest Mame builds are really getting boring and just lack content. 

Is this a signal that Mame is losing its steam and going downhill now that Aaron has left the Project Coordinator's chair?

Where are the updates to all the old games that are not 100% emulated or too slow unless you have a cray on your desktop?

[Mikezilla]

What is a cray?

[spoot]

Supercomputer invented by Seymour Cray.........who unfortunately is no longer with the company.

[Xiaou2]

This is a total Troll post.

[Cakemeister]

In my opinion the project started going downhill when they switched to C++. Some would say well before that.

[Donkbaca]

What's up with ice cream coming in those smaller cartons?  I mean they USED to be half gallons, now they are less, what a ripoff!

(first to go off topic!)


To answer your question:
1) this has been debated ad nauseum here before.
2) there isn't that much to do; most of what people really care about is done
3) the stuff left to do is really hard to do, and there aren't enough resources/will to tackle the issues.

[torino]

I have been noticing that the updates of the latest Mame builds are really getting boring and just lack content. 

Is this a signal that Mame is losing its steam and going downhill now that Aaron has left the Project Coordinator's chair?

There is a new guy and he can't really issue orders to other developers, he can only motivate and do things himself. I'd say you are too haste to judge, it's way too early.

Where are the updates to all the old games that are not 100% emulated or too slow unless you have a cray on your desktop?

Wasn't it actually during Aaron's time when many old and previously emulated games stopped working, or are simply not playable any more? Wasn't it his decision and his own work that brought us the greatest slowdowns and bloat in the history of MAME? Yes, where are the updates to all the old games, however that stopped long time ago and Aaron might actually be the one who is most responsible for it.

[torino]

This is a total Troll post.

Are you referring to your own post?

Perhaps you mean to say this whole topic is "inappropriate" for some reason? Can you explain yourself? -- People expressing their opinion and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about, how is that your problem? What is your concern, exactly? What do you want?

[DaveMMR]

This is a total Troll post.

Are you referring to your own post?

Perhaps you mean to say this whole topic is "inappropriate" for some reason? Can you explain yourself? -- People expressing their opinion and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about, how is that your problem? What is your concern, exactly? What do you want?

I can't say I know exactly what Xiaou meant by the comment but it could have something to do with the recent, 15-page argument over the state of MAME which devolved very quickly and ended in a member ban, I believe.  I wasn't in that conversation but I read most of it.  Pretty ugly stuff. 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107935.0

[torino]

In my opinion the project started going downhill when they switched to C++. Some would say well before that.

I agree. They simply wrapped C++ around existing C, achieving nothing, solving nothing, just adding unnecessary overhead and instead of to use OO to their advantage, to make simpler structure, better organisation and increase readability, the whole thing became only more cluttered, bloated, more unmanageable, harder to debug and port to other platforms. To me it's particularly ridiculous to have HLSL effects requiring newest PC and video card, but in the same time have actual game rendering not use video hardware at all, for that they still use the old software algorithms dating back to DOS days.

Main emulator engine should have been finished and off the limits to inexperienced programmers long time ago, and the rest of the work should be primarily done on game drivers themselves from then on, but when we have wannabe programmers messing up with the core functionality in order to "fix" a single driver then we should not be surprised so many other games stop working out of the blue and never get repaired again.

[jennifer]

 
         I was excited way back in the beginning..... but unfortunatally [compared to the real thing] they still suck.

[fallacy]

What they need to get is Marval vs Capcom 2 working on MAME. I want no more excuses! 

[RayB]

I have been noticing that the updates of the latest Mame builds are really getting boring and just lack content. 

Is this a signal that Mame is losing its steam and going downhill now that Aaron has left the Project Coordinator's chair?

Where are the updates to all the old games that are not 100% emulated or too slow unless you have a cray on your desktop?

You should go work for Fox News.

[Mikezilla]

What they need to get is Marval vs Capcom 2 working on MAME. I want no more excuses! 

Dude. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Mikezilla]

This is a total Troll post.

Are you referring to your own post?

Perhaps you mean to say this whole topic is "inappropriate" for some reason? Can you explain yourself? -- People expressing their opinion and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about, how is that your problem? What is your concern, exactly? What do you want?

I can't say I know exactly what Xiaou meant by the comment but it could have something to do with the recent, 15-page argument over the state of MAME which devolved very quickly and ended in a member ban, I believe.  I wasn't in that conversation but I read most of it.  Pretty ugly stuff. 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107935.0

HAha yeah that was a great thread. Who got banned? It wasnt Haze was it? I could do a search, but Im THAT lazy and I dont really care. The guy was trolling for compliments for far too long. 

[DNA Dan]

Working or not, bloated or not, I don't know how to write such software so I'd be happy if they just threw me a kibble of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  The unskilled surely can't complain. Otherwise get your arse in there and get involved. Sitting on the fence is just too easy.

[Donkbaca]

Working or not, bloated or not, I don't know how to write such software so I'd be happy if they just threw me a kibble of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.   The unskilled surely can't complain. Otherwise get your arse in there and get involved. Sitting on the fence is just too easy.

Yeah, that is sort of how I remember the last discussion going.

[ark_ader]

The reason for the post regarding the downhill part, is to figure out where arcade emulation is going.  Mame is the god of emulation as it has such a huge following.  

The project alone is worth a bunch of cash to a retro game developer and to game companies alike.  How many game companies are there, that will invest cash to develop a classic 80s game to a current console/hand-held?  Why should they when you can just delve into what the MameDevs have created.  I would think such attention from a game manufacturer would be a form of flattery to the devs.

But recently the latest builds of Mame has been dribbling out, where there is a emphasis to direct attention to MESS.  Should both projects merge and become one entity?

I think the Mamedevs have come to the point that there are few games of importance out there that are worth keeping (console ports being attributed) and those in dire need of conservation being totally ignored.

The question of this topic:is Mame going downhill?

Do the BYOAC users on this board have a version of Mame they just stick to?  If so why?

Is there as much interest being generated with what the Mamedevs are doing versus what was going on 5 years ago?  If not why not?

If you think C++ was a disappointment, should the core be in assembler instead?

For those who think this is a troll thread - I'm providing references for my argument.  

I think the Mame story is coming to a close, and the politics surrounding the project is confusing matters.

If the project does indeed close, will the Mame hand over their efforts to the Library of Congress?

[DaveMMR]

HAha yeah that was a great thread. Who got banned? It wasnt Haze was it? I could do a search, but Im THAT lazy and I dont really care. The guy was trolling for compliments for far too long.  

Don't think it was Haze.  I want to say it was "abaraba" (...maybe...) but if it was him, it may have also been in one of the "spin-off" threads regarding a certain control set-up for a certain game I won't mention.  That was also the thread Ark changed his avatar to snow, I believe.  

EDIT:  Just checked.  I was mostly right.  It was in one of the resulting threads and it was abaraba.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108728.msg1155331#msg1155331

As for the topic at hand - Mame is fine for me because I haven't updated in a while because it runs all the games I want it to.  I'm happy therefore I can't complain. 

[Cakemeister]

Should both projects (MESS and MAME) merge and become one entity?

MESS uses the MAME core code. They are, pretty much, one entity.

Do the BYOAC users on this board have a version of Mame they just stick to?  If so why?

I use v0.106 as it is the last version before a big change to the video code

Is there as much interest being generated with what the Mamedevs are doing versus what was going on 5 years ago?  If not why not?

Definitely not. 5 years ago MAME was on version 0.106 and there just hasn't been too much good stuff happening to generate interest. Major video and sound rewrites plus discrete sound emulation plus a lot of change for change's sake isn't that interesting to the layperson.

If you think C++ was a disappointment, should the core be in assembler instead?

An assembler core would be an even worse idea than C++. Think of the ensuing complexity of the code! Assembler is not portable!

If the project does indeed close, will the Mame hand over their efforts to the Library of Congress?

Why would they do that? They could just turn it over to SourceForge or whoever.

[RayB]

The reason for the post regarding the downhill part, is to figure out where arcade emulation is going.

Why? Are you writing a dissertation on it? What's it matter to you where it's going?

[CheffoJeffo]

This is a total Troll post.

Are you referring to your own post?

Perhaps you mean to say this whole topic is "inappropriate" for some reason? Can you explain yourself? -- People expressing their opinion and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about, how is that your problem? What is your concern, exactly? What do you want?

I can't say I know exactly what Xiaou meant by the comment but it could have something to do with the recent, 15-page argument over the state of MAME which devolved very quickly and ended in a member ban, I believe.  I wasn't in that conversation but I read most of it.  Pretty ugly stuff. 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107935.0

HAha yeah that was a great thread. Who got banned? It wasnt Haze was it? I could do a search, but Im THAT lazy and I dont really care. The guy was trolling for compliments for far too long. 

The guy who asked Xiaou above if he was referring to his own post ... formerly known as Driver-Man, M.Batao aka Driver-Man, Babboo, aba blabba  and a couple of other names that I can't recall (although I do have some choice ones of my own after his repeated spamming of the boards).

Everybody's favourite spam man has a new name and it is torino!

[Howard_Casto]

I think only gamez kiddiez could flat-out complain about mame.  There are lots of exciting things going on in mame right now, but there aren't lots of exciting game releases, the two things aren't the same. 

It's my understanding that the decision to convert mame to c++, for example, was to make mame easier to debug and compile.  It is, btw, much easier.  Eventually, all of the C code will be converted over to c++, but as usual, aaron likes to ease in to these transitions, and he is the one in charge of the conversion, not the new head.

Right now mame is trying to address the fact that it's code is very old and things need to be tweaked/changed so that the source doesn't become some cobbled together dinosaur.  That kind of transition is slow and painful and it happens every few years. 


Mame is also at a crossroads.  Due to the almost pure software 3d rendering, mame can't run anything more complex than your most basic 3d game on the average computer.  With shaders recently being introduced into the source, I've got to wonder if just a bit of hardware accel code is in the works. 

Then again nobody seems to remember when mame was in it's infancy and we used third party emulators like Calice to run the most basic of 16 bit games.  Mame has always been the slowest on the block but there was this magical window just a few years ago where every arcade game currently emulated in any emulator ran on mame and mame ran it just as well as anything else.  It spoiled us a bit.  Now that a new generation of 3d hardware is getting emulated and mame just can't handle the load on current pcs, it's starting to look less appealing.  That doesn't mean that mame has gotten worse though, it just means that emulation has caught up to current pc specs, which is a good thing.

[torino]

The guy who asked Xiaou above if he was referring to his own post

That was very funny, admit it!!

... formerly known as Driver-Man, M.Batao aka Driver-Man, Babboo, aba blabba  and a couple of other names that I can't recall (although I do have some choice ones of my own after his repeated spamming of the boards).

Everybody's favourite spam man has a new name and it is torino!

No name-calling please. Let's concentrate on the topic at hand: Is MAME going downhill?

[torino]

But recently the latest builds of Mame has been dribbling out, where there is a emphasis to direct attention to MESS.  Should both projects merge and become one entity?

They already share common source in the same tree, so they are already "merged" in the most ugly way possible. MAME is arcade, not console emulator. There is much stuff in MAME not used in MESS and none of the MESS is used in MAME. There is no single good reason to keep them together and both projects would benefit if separated completely and properly, where they sure could still "share" much of the source code, but not in the same files for the love of drugs, that's crazy, so unnecessary and very inconvenient.

The question of this topic:is Mame going downhill?

I think it's all done actually, everything is already in there for quite some time now, as far as *emulator* goes. I don't know what more games do you want, I don't think that's fair objection. I don't even think they should emulate anything less than 20 years old. My critics is mainly their priorities are misplaced, that the main engine is not finalized and so constant changes make previously emulated games unplayable. I very much appreciate most of the work done, I'm just saying they are lousy programmers.

[CheffoJeffo]

... formerly known as Driver-Man, M.Batao aka Driver-Man, Babboo, aba blabba  and a couple of other names that I can't recall (although I do have some choice ones of my own after his repeated spamming of the boards).

Everybody's favourite spam man has a new name and it is torino!

No name-calling please.
[/quote]

But you have had so many of them ... and done so many annoying things using them.

I am just holding you to what you have done, which is bloody near everything except the one thing that you should have done.

[Corbo]

Then again nobody seems to remember when mame was in it's infancy and we used third party emulators like Calice to run the most basic of 16 bit games.  Mame has always been the slowest on the block but there was this magical window just a few years ago where every arcade game currently emulated in any emulator ran on mame and mame ran it just as well as anything else.  It spoiled us a bit.  Now that a new generation of 3d hardware is getting emulated and mame just can't handle the load on current pcs, it's starting to look less appealing.  That doesn't mean that mame has gotten worse though, it just means that emulation has caught up to current pc specs, which is a good thing.

I agree, in the old days of Atmospheric Heights and Daves Classics  there was Mame, solid reliable emulator of much, and then the other emulators.  Juno First, Calice even some single game emulators. 

I always liked to see the cutting edge and experimental emulation dealt with outside of Mame, and then swallowed up into Mame when it was working well.  I suppose Mame is a victim of its own success now, so we're seeing this happen within Mame itself.

Either way, at least we're still seeing progress.

[jimmy2x2x]

I think a lot of people have a stable version of Mame that runs most games of interest without issue, and they are sticking with that version.  Newer versions seem to ignore recent issues with classics:

galaga etc cocktail problems
gunsmoke/contra etc screen alignment problems

Combine this with higher PC specs for recent versions, hlsl effects which hold little interest for 15khz users and poor 3d performance.
You have a situation where people are looking backwards for a usable version, rather than looking forward.

I really don't think Mame is going downhill, but it does appear to be stagnant in some areas.

Personally I have been more excited about developments in Groovymame than core Mame.

Long live MAME!

[Mikezilla]

This is a total Troll post.

Are you referring to your own post?

Perhaps you mean to say this whole topic is "inappropriate" for some reason? Can you explain yourself? -- People expressing their opinion and talking about whatever the hell they want to talk about, how is that your problem? What is your concern, exactly? What do you want?

I can't say I know exactly what Xiaou meant by the comment but it could have something to do with the recent, 15-page argument over the state of MAME which devolved very quickly and ended in a member ban, I believe.  I wasn't in that conversation but I read most of it.  Pretty ugly stuff. 
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107935.0

HAha yeah that was a great thread. Who got banned? It wasnt Haze was it? I could do a search, but Im THAT lazy and I dont really care. The guy was trolling for compliments for far too long. 

The guy who asked Xiaou above if he was referring to his own post ... formerly known as Driver-Man, M.Batao aka Driver-Man, Babboo, aba blabba  and a couple of other names that I can't recall (although I do have some choice ones of my own after his repeated spamming of the boards).

Everybody's favourite spam man has a new name and it is torino!

No need to explain who driver man is Cheffo. Oh man. I guess Ill leave this thread alone then. 

[Donkbaca]

I think the better question: Is MAME going uphill?  Its a lot harder to go uphill.  Especially on a bike.  Lets think about that.  What is the metaphorical bike in this struggle? Why can't we get to the top of the mountain?  And who is peddling that bike?  And why, for Pete's sake are we peddling the bike when we could just jump off and walk it up the hill?  How many speeds are on this bike?  Is our clothing aerodynamic enough?  This is a big deal, you ever see bikers, even casual weekend warrior ones, it appears that aerodynamic clothing is a big deal.  So maybe the RIGHT question we should be asking is, how can we get MAME into more aerodynamic clothes?

[jennifer]

     On this bike, Are the controls correct? Does it even have handlebars?, Maybe it was just simpler for the Dev. to put a joystick on this bike.
Going uphill?.... Oh what a huge waste of time brakes would be. Mame still blows!

[ark_ader]

The reason for the post regarding the downhill part, is to figure out where arcade emulation is going.

Why? Are you writing a dissertation on it? What's it matter to you where it's going?

Nice to notice.  I am writing my dissertation on emulation. 

I think the better question: Is MAME going uphill?  Its a lot harder to go uphill.  Especially on a bike.  Lets think about that.  What is the metaphorical bike in this struggle? Why can't we get to the top of the mountain?  And who is peddling that bike?  And why, for Pete's sake are we peddling the bike when we could just jump off and walk it up the hill?  How many speeds are on this bike?  Is our clothing aerodynamic enough?  This is a big deal, you ever see bikers, even casual weekend warrior ones, it appears that aerodynamic clothing is a big deal.  So maybe the RIGHT question we should be asking is, how can we get MAME into more aerodynamic clothes?

Nice comment, but uphill was the first 10 years of Mame, as all the hard stuff has been done, the next 10 is all down hill.

[Vigo]

I think the better question: Is MAME going uphill?  Its a lot harder to go uphill.  Especially on a bike.  Lets think about that.  What is the metaphorical bike in this struggle? Why can't we get to the top of the mountain?  And who is peddling that bike?  And why, for Pete's sake are we peddling the bike when we could just jump off and walk it up the hill?  How many speeds are on this bike?  Is our clothing aerodynamic enough?  This is a big deal, you ever see bikers, even casual weekend warrior ones, it appears that aerodynamic clothing is a big deal.  So maybe the RIGHT question we should be asking is, how can we get MAME into more aerodynamic clothes?

I personally like to think mame is not on a bike, but rather on a trail...to Oregon. Does mame have enough oxen to make it's journey? Perhaps mame will make it to Oregon, but of course mame may also just die of dysentery. Should mame caulk it's wagon and float it, or should it attempt to ford the river? Does mame have enough food, because mame can only take 100 pounds of meat back with it each hunt. The journey is perilous with meager rations, set at a grueling pace -- especially if mame does not stop at Independence Rock. But lo! The reward is great! That is at least if Mame did not choose banker as it's occupation, as there is no point modifier for choosing banker and mame's final score will end up sucking no matter how well it did.

[Donkbaca]

Maybe MAME has made it to Oregon, and realized that the journey wasn't worth it.  It spent all this time and effort getting there, ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, little johnny DIED on the way there, and for what?  To be stuck in ---smurfing--- OREGON!  So Mame got on its bike and started going uphill.... in honor of Johnny... in order to find some way, any way, to get the hell out of Oregon....

You know what is neat about this forum?  We solve problems and answer questions.  I remember the last post of this kind that went for 15 pages.  It was called "The State of MAME".  We went 15 pages and couldn't resolve anything.  Now we know what state Mame is. Its Oregon.

[CheffoJeffo]

You know what is neat about this forum?  We solve problems and answer questions.  I remember the last post of this kind that went for 15 pages.  It was called "The State of MAME".  We went 15 pages and couldn't resolve anything.  Now we know what state Mame is. Its Oregon.

Now THAT is the best post in (either) thread!

 

[Gray_Area]

I think the results from the video and sound re-writing are very cool. The general color pallete is different, sweeter in its way. In particular, DK and Ms Pac-Man. Also, I enjoy the DK sound emulation.

Game/driver development, etc isn't the most important thing. I don't understand a lot of what's being done, but I read the entire 'what's new' just the same. I think C++ is a distinct future in the world, hence in MAME.

Also, I'm very interested in the HLSL development. In five or ten years, many of us still playing classic/15khz games who care about native display are going to need something like this.

Maybe MAME has made it to Oregon, and realized that the journey wasn't worth it.  It spent all this time and effort getting there, ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, little johnny DIED on the way there, and for what?  To be stuck in ---smurfing--- OREGON!  So Mame got on its bike and started going uphill.... in honor of Johnny... in order to find some way, any way, to get the hell out of Oregon....

Oh I crossed my old man back in Oregon - don't take me alive.

[Mikezilla]

Maybe MAME has made it to Oregon, and realized that the journey wasn't worth it.  It spent all this time and effort getting there, ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, little johnny DIED on the way there, and for what?  To be stuck in ---smurfing--- OREGON!  So Mame got on its bike and started going uphill.... in honor of Johnny... in order to find some way, any way, to get the hell out of Oregon....

You know what is neat about this forum?  We solve problems and answer questions.  I remember the last post of this kind that went for 15 pages.  It was called "The State of MAME".  We went 15 pages and couldn't resolve anything.  Now we know what state Mame is. Its Oregon.

Holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that was great.  to you and Vigo. I remember that thread, it was brutal. This post rules. 

[spoot]

I personally like to think mame is not on a bike, but rather on a trail...to Oregon.

Oh great....now it will die of dysentery.   

[yotsuya]

I wonder how fast MAME can type D-R-A-W?

[ark_ader]

I personally like to think mame is not on a bike, but rather on a trail...to Oregon.

Oh great....now it will die of dysentery.   

The bugs will definitely get ya. 

[DNA Dan]

Perhaps with all the success of MAME and the lack of new things to fix, MAME just lacks a real goal anymore.

Then again perhaps it's more a reflection of ourselves. That we've all played these games over and over so many times we just wish there were more to the story?

[RayB]

So maybe the RIGHT question we should be asking is, how can we get MAME into more aerodynamic clothes?

Or Haze could just shave his legs.

[torino]

It's my understanding that the decision to convert mame to c++, for example, was to make mame easier to debug and compile.  It is, btw, much easier. 

C++ does not make it easier to compile or debug, it's rather the opposite. The only thing that is easier about C++ is to misuse it.

Right now mame is trying to address the fact that it's code is very old and things need to be tweaked/changed so that the source doesn't become some cobbled together dinosaur.  That kind of transition is slow and painful and it happens every few years. 

You only need one good programmer and several months, or extraordinarily good organization and management of many wannabe programmers, and still a single good developer would have a better chance to do it faster and better than 50 average developers, especially if they are not organized and there is no any actual discussion going as to what to do and how to do it.


The first thing they have to do is to isolate game drivers from the main emulator engine, so no one needs to fiddle around core functionality in order to include any new game or fix something in already supported game, and fear some other game might stop working because of it.

[danny_galaga]

Do the BYOAC users on this board have a version of Mame they just stick to?  If so why?

78 for me. It does most of what I want, and it's too much bother mucking around with ROMs all over again. I suspect that is the reason most people stick with the version they are first happy with- updating ROMs.

[danny_galaga]

The reason for the post regarding the downhill part, is to figure out where arcade emulation is going.

Why? Are you writing a dissertation on it? What's it matter to you where it's going?

Nice to notice.  I am writing my dissertation on emulation. 

I think the better question: Is MAME going uphill?  Its a lot harder to go uphill.  Especially on a bike.  Lets think about that.  What is the metaphorical bike in this struggle? Why can't we get to the top of the mountain?  And who is peddling that bike?  And why, for Pete's sake are we peddling the bike when we could just jump off and walk it up the hill?  How many speeds are on this bike?  Is our clothing aerodynamic enough?  This is a big deal, you ever see bikers, even casual weekend warrior ones, it appears that aerodynamic clothing is a big deal.  So maybe the RIGHT question we should be asking is, how can we get MAME into more aerodynamic clothes?

Nice comment, but uphill was the first 10 years of Mame, as all the hard stuff has been done, the next 10 is all down hill.

Ethan Tremblay: My father always had a saying "When a day starts like this it's all uphill from here.
Peter Highman: Uphill? No, it's all downhill from here.
Ethan Tremblay: But nobody wants to be down, everybody wants to be up. It's all uphill from here.
Peter Highman: But it's easier to go downhill. So your dad had no idea what the ---fudgesicle--- he was talking about.

[torino]

You have a situation where people are looking backwards for a usable version, rather than looking forward.

That's it. But do you see it's not logical? The meaning of that sentence really begs the question: Is MAME going downhill? And if you are right, if your statement is correct, then it actually answers that question with "yes".

Progress and evolution is when things become consequently better and you look forward for the next iteration to see improvement, but when you need to look backwards to find "better", then you are obviously looking at what is called digress and devolution, or plainly said "going downhill". It's plain logic really, so the only question that remains is whether your statement is indeed true, and I think it is, it's certainly true for me. However, I also agree with you that this is not directly caused by "wrong" actions, it's more about the lack of right changes and reluctance or inability to make important decisions.

[Grasshopper]

C++ does not make it easier to compile or debug, it's rather the opposite. The only thing that is easier about C++ is to misuse it.

Agreed. C++ is a truly horrible incoherent bloated mess of a language.

If you want maximum portability and readability combined with speed then I still think it's best to stick with pure C, making sure your code conforms rigidly to the C89 standard. The C99 standard (which isn't properly supported by most compilers) introduced a lot of pointless bloat without adding significantly to the power of the language.

[gabe]

It's the circle of life.

[Haze]

The first thing they have to do is to isolate game drivers from the main emulator engine, so no one needs to fiddle around core functionality in order to include any new game or fix something in already supported game, and fear some other game might stop working because of it.

At the risk of replying to this nonsense.

Yes, MAME is going 'downhill' in the sense that it's getting worse (it's not however 'on the downhill straight' by a long stretch, there is a lot of hard work to do but also plenty of easy stuff which is simply being overlooked)  The reasons are varied, some of them built on sound logic, others complete nonsense.

The statement above makes absolutely no sense tho.

Each and every game board MAME, or MESS emulates is a bunch of off-the-shelf components in some cases mixed with custom chips for video / sound.  Take for example the YM3812 sound chip.  Emulation of this is in common, shared files, there is one copy of the emulation, shared by (according to MAWS) 404 different individual game boards.  Using a CPU as an example instead, the Z80, used by 4945 drivers.  M68000, 3175 drivers.

Of course there is going to be a risk of breaking one of those games if a fix is made to one of those cores, but the alternative would be to duplicate the sound core 404 times, once for each individual game, just to ensure that no chances could possibly affect anything other than the game being fixed.  That would be insanity to say the least.

Each of those emulation cores also often relies on common core implementations of other components.  There is the timer system, used to emulate accurate timing in the core, to schedule future events, run the CPUs for the correct amount of time etc.  Practically every core component in MAME depends on this, so again, if that were to be broken by a change, the fallout would be large, but likewise the alternative would be for each and every core to have it's own implementation of exactly the same thing.

Every component MAME emulates is like that.  Some of these chips were used thousands of times, some only once.

MAME drivers simply link components together in the correct configurations and provide the board-specific glue-logic needed in order for them to work therefore to isolate the drivers from the core would be to strip away the very emulation of the common chips the boards needed to operate.  How well does your Donkey Kong board work if you isolate it from all of the mass-produced CPUs, IO chips etc?

Right now a simple MAME driver can be a handful of lines of code, making drivers completely independent of the core yet still functional would result in an individual driver being several hundred KB of code which in the majority of cases would have been just copy+pasted from somewhere else.  You'd have no idea which implementation of any given component was actually the best with 4000 of them copy+pasted with slightly different hacks applied all over the place.  By simply merging the implementation of 16-bit Data East chips recently I was able to fix a number of long-standing bugs in things like Tattoo Assassins simply because the driver had previously been relying on an old copy+pasted implementation which hadn't been updated with the latest findings and thus was simply rotting; that's what happens if you're carrying duplicated code all over the place.

As I said, there are reasons things are getting worse, but that's not one of them.  Tighter sharing of component emulations, reuse of common implementations is hugely beneficial to the overall emulation quality even if it does incur the risk of things getting broken when common code is changed (which is a good indication that your changes are wrong, and thus useful to know)

The main argument thrown forward by the few remaining members of the team is that every left is just too hard.  This is something of a fallacy, or they're simply completely incompetent at actually writing *emulation* code these days.  Things like the Namco cocktail modes should be the most simple of fixes yet are completely overlooked, likewise broken save states, liable to cause MAME to simply crash on one of the most common sound chips doesn't help matters at all, but nobody looks at it.  I can't be bothered with fixing this kind of thing for them anymore.  There are also other systems which people have shown are nowhere near impossible to emulate (Model 2 for instance) which simply sit in a state of disarray in MAME.

[torino]

At the risk of replying to this nonsense.

Your blabbering is nonsense as it has nothing to do with what I said.

I was referring to "main emulator engine" and you are talking about "CPU cores".

I'm talking about host platform stuff, like control input and audio/video output handling.

[Haze]

At the risk of replying to this nonsense.

Your blabbering is nonsense as it has nothing to do with what I said.

I was referring to "main emulator engine" and you are talking about "CPU cores".

I'm talking about host platform stuff, like control input and audio/video output handling.

and I can't remember a single time a host platform related fix made for a specific game broke anything related to the actual emulation drivers.  Host platform fixes aren't made for specific games (and anybody attempting to fix an individual game bug by hacking such things would be pointed at and laughed at).  The two things are ALREADY isolated.  The actual OSD stuff is lightweight and portable.

If the OSD code is broken (which in the case of the HLSL stuff, it is, many games with dynamic resolutions fail) then it should be fixed, but nothing game specific lives there.

The most common cause (99%) of 'fix for game X breaking game Y' (your complaint) is the one I mentioned.  This is unavoidable, but as long as the breakage is dealt with, is actually a good thing.  If you want to misattribute the reasons for these breakages as OSD / host platform related that's where you're going wrong.

[ark_ader]

At the risk of replying to this nonsense.

Your blabbering is nonsense as it has nothing to do with what I said.

I was referring to "main emulator engine" and you are talking about "CPU cores".

I'm talking about host platform stuff, like control input and audio/video output handling.

and I can't remember a single time a host platform related fix made for a specific game broke anything related to the actual emulation drivers.  Host platform fixes aren't made for specific games (and anybody attempting to fix an individual game bug by hacking such things would be pointed at and laughed at).  The two things are ALREADY isolated.  The actual OSD stuff is lightweight and portable.

If the OSD code is broken (which in the case of the HLSL stuff, it is, many games with dynamic resolutions fail) then it should be fixed, but nothing game specific lives there.

The most common cause (99%) of 'fix for game X breaking game Y' (your complaint) is the one I mentioned.  This is unavoidable, but as long as the breakage is dealt with, is actually a good thing.

Ignore Torino.  He made me delete all my 720 roms from my collection.

Get the Mame project back under your leadership, and get rid of all those Mahjong kiddies.  I would be a shame to see Mame losing its focus with all this visual crap.  Playing the games was just a nice side effect , right?

Every release I see less and less, which should equate to more and more fixes.

[yotsuya]

Ignore Torino.  He made me delete all my 720 roms from my collection.

Get the Mame project back under your leadership, and get rid of all those Mahjong kiddies.  I would be a shame to see Mame losing its focus with all this visual crap.  Playing the games was just a nice side effect , right?

Every release I see less and less, which should equate to more and more fixes.

Interestingly enough, I can't even COMPILE Mame anymore since they introcused the HLSL stuff. It crashes on me, even though my video card has the latest drivers for it.

[ark_ader]

Ignore Torino.  He made me delete all my 720 roms from my collection.

Get the Mame project back under your leadership, and get rid of all those Mahjong kiddies.  I would be a shame to see Mame losing its focus with all this visual crap.  Playing the games was just a nice side effect , right?

Every release I see less and less, which should equate to more and more fixes.

Interestingly enough, I can't even COMPILE Mame anymore since they introcused the HLSL stuff. It crashes on me, even though my video card has the latest drivers for it.

I'm tripping the light fantastique with Mr Belmont on this very subject.  I like that guy. He has a wonderful sense of humor.

[torino]

Haze, at least we agree there.

I suppose I should now look into mametesters bugs database to find evidence and attempt to prove my point?


Can you tell me what's with "discrete audio" re-write? Why not keep such major re-writes separated until perfected and properly tested? Aren't such bugs too big and obvious to be released in public as official build, what's the hurry? I read too many complaints how games suddenly stop working as new releases come out and it's shame people have to roll-back to older builds. That simply does not fit the description of "progress", and it could be avoided even while constantly messing around CPU cores, with tighter organisation, more communication and better programmers.