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PiMame- are we finally there?
DHTech:
I think people use mame because it so well supported and loads of forums to help with issues and errors, users are familiar with it. I can understand why mame was chosen to port to the pi, I can't see another arcade emulator getting the same support for development. The Pi is so easy to swap the OS, just pull out the SD card and plug another one in, PiMame on one and Openelec (XMBC) on another. Yes the Pi has it's limitation and sometimes is painfully slow to use, buy hey it's fun, and that what is all about, right!
Haze:
--- Quote from: DHTech on September 23, 2013, 01:43:14 pm ---I think people use mame because it so well supported and loads of forums to help with issues and errors, users are familiar with it. I can understand why mame was chosen to port to the pi, I can't see another arcade emulator getting the same support for development. The Pi is so easy to swap the OS, just pull out the SD card and plug another one in, PiMame on one and Openelec (XMBC) on another. Yes the Pi has it's limitation and sometimes is painfully slow to use, buy hey it's fun, and that what is all about, right!
--- End quote ---
Oh, I agree.
That's one of the strengths of MAME and the MAME brand, people will continue to use it, and support it etc. even against superior offerings. In many ways sheer size and familiarity and ability to offer something for everybody are what made it what it is. This has some real advantages and helps establish MAME as a standard for documentation, something that people follow, something authoritative.
It's also one of the big negatives tho, it can discourage development outside of MAME because whatever you do people stick with MAME, stick with what they know, want your progress in MAME rather than wherever you're making it and this I feel is a more detrimental effect, and the one we see a lot with low powered systems like the Pi.
The person who ports "MAME" to 'new platform X' gets all the mainstream news coverage even if they've really achieved nothing except porting an old version of MAME. The person who wants to create their own more suitable emulator from the ground up or try something new doesn't get mentioned anywhere and is quickly forgotten even if they're doing something much more worthwhile. It's a little unfair.
Of course MAME / MAMEdevs can end up on the other end of the stick sometimes these days, as we see with MESS (which is where our future lies) It doesn't matter how much we do right, how many systems we emulate well or unique things we offer, people will stick with their established emulators and demand the improvements get made there too, or somebody hacks the ROMs so that they work in the other emulator; I've seen this a fair bit with the unlicensed Genesis games, even if there are a number of other emulators offering decent support for them now, including MESS, people only want them in Kega Fusion. It's counter-productive and discouraging to those putting in an effort.
Hell I've seen the same with UME/MESS for NeoGeo CDZ emulation, had people telling me they would use it if it was in MAME, but otherwise aren't interested even if UME/MESS *are* MAME in everything except the name and what they emulate. Incidentally this is one of the many reasons I feel we should just fully absorb it and support everything; people simply see our alternative offerings as inferior because they're 'not MAME' even if they're running the exact same cores, and in many cases the exact same code as MAME. If you run NeoCDZ in UME/MESS it's running the exact same MAME code that gets run if you run a NeoGeo MVS game in MAME aside from the bits to handle the CD. It's all psychological, it's all about the brand and perceived support networks, not the product.
That's why I'm saying you should really find somebody who is willing to do something more tailored to these platforms and throw your full support behind them, because it's the only way these platforms are actually going to see something better, there's no reason they shouldn't be running a lot more than they do if people were just willing to move away from MAME in such low-spec situations. Remember, even when those MAME versions were originally released they had much higher requirements than other emulators, because MAME never put performance as first priority but instead documentation and conveying what we knew in a clear way at the expense of that. By porting old MAME versions you take the disadvantages of them (poor performance relative to other emulators of the period) without really having any use for advantages (most correct / clear knowledge at the time) to a platform where good performance is everything, and documentation / code clarity means nothing (because it's 10 years out of date and irrelevant to the Pi anyway) It's a complete mismatch!
I know this must sound like Bill Gates telling people not to use Windows and to throw their money at Linus instead, but hey, sometimes you've just got to give good advice.
johnnygal2:
--- Quote from: UFO on September 22, 2013, 01:23:32 pm ---Has anyone got any further with a Pi build?
I'd love an update is someone is looking into this! :cheers:
--- End quote ---
If you mean a physical build, then yes.
I appreciate all the comments later in this thread about the Pi's limitations but for my key requirements i.e. cost, size, ease of use and ability to play older titles, it is perfect.
See here for some photos:
http://pimame.org/forum/discussion/530/build-pimame-cocktail-table
I am using the advancemenu frontend and using Mame4all as the emulator.
Each to their own... ;)
Regards.
WindDrake:
I haven't looked in a while, but did anybody ever do anything with one of the significantly higher horsepower ARM boards, like the Beaglebone Black? Seems like for a little more money, you'd have something a lot more flexible, capable of playing more games, and a better alternative to a (ugh) 60-in-1.
UFO:
--- Quote from: johnnygal2 on September 23, 2013, 03:35:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: UFO on September 22, 2013, 01:23:32 pm ---Has anyone got any further with a Pi build?
I'd love an update is someone is looking into this! :cheers:
--- End quote ---
If you mean a physical build, then yes.
I appreciate all the comments later in this thread about the Pi's limitations but for my key requirements i.e. cost, size, ease of use and ability to play older titles, it is perfect.
See here for some photos:
http://pimame.org/forum/discussion/530/build-pimame-cocktail-table
I am using the advancemenu frontend and using Mame4all as the emulator.
Each to their own... ;)
Regards.
--- End quote ---
:applaud:
Well done and a nice build - your woodworking skills looked pretty good!
:applaud:
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