Hyperspin / Ume Question about Hyperlaunch 2.0 AHK scripts

[nevbuster]

Hi,

I'm in the process of setting up hyperspin with Groovyume, but am finding on Hyperlist not many consoles have Hyperlaunch 2.0 MESS AHK's. I'm then starting to use different emulators for different consoles. I know the ideal solution would be to learn to write AHK scripts, but to say my programming skills were rusty from 25 years ago would be an understatement. For example, I'm adding all the Atari consoles at the moment and only the Atari 5200 has a MESS AHK script in Hyperlist, but scripts for other emulators are all there. So I'm using seperate emulators for the 2600, 7800 and Jaguar which completely defeats the purpose of MESS.

Is there a reason there are no MESS AHK scripts in Hyperlist for these consoles (does MESS not emulate them well ?), or is everyone just creating their own ? Would I be better off using Hyperalunch 1 where scripts are more readily available ? I'm trying to keep my setup as simple as possible as setting up consistent keyboard controls in all these emulators to use with a J-PAC is someone I wanted to avoid.

thanks, Nev.

[Circo]

It's just that mess isn't the best emulator for many of the systems it supports

[nevbuster]

Thanks Circo,

Would I assume that if an AHK script exists for MESS, I should use MESS or generally am I better off not using MESS at all which means I should not bother with UME and just use GroovyMAME and specific emullators for each console ?

Nev.

[Sparkolicious]

here's a good list of what emu to use for what system.

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?21065-What-Emulators-are-for-what-Systems-(List)

[Haze]

the main advantage of UME is convenience if you're used to MAME, general use of MAME and where to find MAME resources etc. then you use it in practically the same way (and can consider it a version of MAME with bonus support for everything from MESS)

As far as emulation goes UME/MESS is actually perfectly acceptable for a good number of cases*, and is improving all the time, although does still leave a bit to be desired for some popular systems and some usability issues due to MAME's full-screen interface.

However if you're using something like Hyperspin, and already have scripts for other emulators then it's probably just easier for you to use those in the first place because you're not really going to be benefiting from the added convenience, or MAME philosophy of something like UME/MESS.

Maybe that makes you think the whole MESS / UME thing is a bit pointless, but let me explain..

The MESS / UME development is the future of MAME anyway, and most development on the project is heading in that direction (if you look at work done in the last week 95% of it is to benefit MESS) so you could also see it as a preview of the future.  Of course you're got the guarantee that the code will always be available, and anything known will be documented in a public way, no secrets, in the consistent and fairly easy to understand MAME codebase.  Likewise this means that it can be ported to any new platforms that come out (and is thus futureproof) and provides a place where people can properly document ROM dumps from cartridges and stuff, rather than the hacked up/merged rom data+header approach most console emulators use.   Development of the emulation of many of these systems also leads to futher improvements in the arcade emulation indirectly, by setting a higher bar and providing more rigorous test cases for the cores shipped as part of MAME.

However, like I already said If all you want to do is play games in the short term those values probably aren't going to mean much to you at all even if it's a positive movement as far as emulation goes ;-)  Of course, if you have time, and like to tinker then UME/MESS gives you a lot more to play with, and shows a lot more of the potential of the emulator we have than the arcade emulation alone, so for the technically minded, curious, historians and archivists amongst us it's a dream.  (nothing quite like being able to compare 10 different ports of Pacman within a single emulator)

* For example, if you grab the CHDs then the NeoCDZ emulation is just as good as Final Burn Alpha, and only really fails on the 2-3 games it does because we attempt to emulate the CD controller rather than hack around / bypass it like most of the other emulators, and for some of the computers (eg. Apple II) it's basically the best emulator out there due to the flexibility offered, however for something like SNES while a lot of games run fine things using the SuperFX chips have significant performance issues.  Recent improvements to the Playstation emulation make it very competitive too, you can run something like The Raiden Project / Raiden DX to play Raiden 2 (the arcade version in MAME still doesn't work) and make use of the rotation controls provided by the MAME engine in conjunction with the TATE rotation controls in the game to play it in the native vertical resolution, you also don't have to worry about plugins etc. this is standard functionality.

[nevbuster]

Thanks Haze,

I appreciate there is much more depth to what MAME and MESS developers are doing than just gaming entertainment for guys like me. Putting together a common emulator with the resources of volunteers would be no easy task and is a long work in progress and being relatively new to the MAME and MESS world and stumbling upon this relatively unknown project outside of the gaming community was a revelation. Like wow, I can't believe you guys are actually acheiving this expecially for those of us that grew up in arcades trying to make $10 in coins stretch as long as possible.

The bit I don't understand, and it's not a criticism just a learning process for me is understanding why do these AHK scripts not exist ? Whilst Hyperspin is a completely independant project to MESS and I can understand why the  MESS developers stay out of third party software development, Hyperspin does seem to be one of the more popular and polished front ends. An AHK script is a relatively short and simple piece of programming and modifying AHK scripts to different projects would be relatively easy for someone who knew what they were doing (unfortunately not me). I see these scripts as the missing link. If I could get them, I would use MESS / UME even with it's faults over other emulators and maybe more Hyperspin users would do the same. More users = more testing, feedback, support, donations, future developers, bigger community etc. If there was complete set of MESS Hyperlaunch 2.0 AHK's I would use MESS 100%, but without them I don't have the option. I could use another front end, but after heaps of work setting up and learning Hyperspin I'm not keen to start again. I'm sure there are guys who have already done the AHK's for MESS and maybe its just a matter of getting them on Hyperlist ?

Nev.

[Haze]

I think the main issue is that regardless of what we do / improve MESS/UME have a userbase of close to zero simply because 'they're not MAME' and people always go for the standalones they've known for a long time.  It's written off by default, and because even regular MAME users have to go out their way to try the functionality (due to it being locked out of MAME, and only available in MESS/UME) it doesn't gain any traction either.  As a knock on effect even when drivers work well you rarely get people talking about them, therefore nobody recommending it, and you're back to the start ;-)

For that reason you don't find anybody writing any scripts, nor does it help the development process.

The commandline syntax etc. has fluxed a bit over the years with various improvements made, but it's been relatively stable for a while now, so it's hard to blame that..

It is kinda ridiculous, I've seen people making posts asking how to hack random NES games into the MAME Playchoice 10, Megatech and Timer based PCE drivers by renaming ROMs etc. when they should just be running UME or MESS for that, but refuse on the basis that they're not MAME, even if the MESS drivers are using the very same code as the MAME drivers and it would be much more sensible to just use the real console drivers from that with either UME or MESS for the desired result!

This is one of the reasons I think we should just collapse the projects to one, almost all the development is already focused on those areas already for technical reasons / natural progression, and I feel people are more likely to support things properly if it was just MAME, and a decent frontend could easily do the filtering for you.  At that point MAME could also place a greater focus on using some of the MESS features (like exclusively switching to Software Lists for NeoGeo, PC10, Megatech etc. giving impetus to support such features in the scripts you talk about, and make them instantly reusable for many other Software List driven consoles)

There is however still a lot of resistance to that idea.  Until then (and I'm starting to feel like 'then' is never) I can't see the situation changing at all unfortunately, so MESS will continue to be treated as second tier when it comes to the support networks even if it really the primary driving force behind our project and the bedding in of new features these days.

If you're familiar enough with MAME and the scripts then you might want to give things a play yourself tho.  Really for the simplest cases in MESS the only difference in the commandline between launching a regular arcade game (MAME) which is 'MAME/UME gamename' is that you have 'MESS/UME systemname gamename' to launch listed console software from the software list.  For more complex systems it becomes increasingly difficult, but that will see you home and dry with things like the Genesis, PCE and NES as well as many handheld consoles.  The latest MAME developments include integration of Lua which will ultimately gift scripting abilities to frontends to deal with the more complex cases where you need to type loading commands too.  (as I said, most new features these days are being added with the primary focus on MESS, including that one)

example for sonic the hedgehog
MAME mt_sonic
- this is the regular way to launch Sonic the Hedgehog for Megatech in MAME

MAME megatech mt_sonic
- this is launching Sonic the Hedgehog for Megatech using the 'MESS-like' syntax (not the normal MAME use case but works because MAME also recognizes megatech as a system)

in MESS your syntax is very similar

MESS genesis sonic
- this launches the Genesis version of Sonic the Hedgehog

and of course if you're using UME you can do

UME mt_sonic
UME megatech mt_sonic
UME genesis sonic

because it combines the functionality of both ;-)  Naturally if I actually wanted to play Sonic I'd use the "UME genesis sonic" version of this, because the Megatech menu is just an annoying waste of space and it's running the exact same drivers just without that ;-)

so really it should be fairly trivial to modify the scripts for that basic level of use. 

of course by using UME over MAME you also can try some entirely different versions of Sonic in your 'Mame'  (like I said, for anybody reading, just consider it an unlocked version of MAME with bonus functionality)

ume sms sonic
ume gamegear sonic
ume ngpc sonic  (press Q to turn the system on after loading)

[nevbuster]

I agree (from a users point of view) that UME should be the single emulator project incorporating arcade and console emulation. Whilst existing users probably feel comfortable with their existing emulators because they've invested the time understanding them and setting them up, would they make the same decision if they started today with UME available ? Probably not, until they find that Hyperlaunch 2.0 AHK scripts aren't available and then follow the path that Hyperspin directs them to with the other emulators. I don't have any contacts with the MESS development people, but if I was to make one suggestion, setting up the AHK scripts would be it as it would capture the next generation of users like me.

Nev.

[rock145]

Hi,

I'm in the process of setting up hyperspin with Groovyume, but am finding on Hyperlist not many consoles have Hyperlaunch 2.0 MESS AHK's. I'm then starting to use different emulators for different consoles. I know the ideal solution would be to learn to write AHK scripts, but to say my programming skills were rusty from 25 years ago would be an understatement. For example, I'm adding all the Atari consoles at the moment and only the Atari 5200 has a MESS AHK script in Hyperlist, but scripts for other emulators are all there. So I'm using seperate emulators for the 2600, 7800 and Jaguar which completely defeats the purpose of MESS.

Is there a reason there are no MESS AHK scripts in Hyperlist for these consoles (does MESS not emulate them well ?), or is everyone just creating their own ? Would I be better off using Hyperalunch 1 where scripts are more readily available ? I'm trying to keep my setup as simple as possible as setting up consistent keyboard controls in all these emulators to use with a J-PAC is someone I wanted to avoid.

thanks, Nev.

Check my thread for mess ahk scripts.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,132845.0.html