A MAME rant and a question.

[kuehnau]

MAME is by far one of the least user friendly, picky, finicky pieces of software I have ever encountered in all the years I've used or owned a desktop. With that being said sometimes you use what you are given..

I got most of it worked out, I got most of the games I want working. What's really frustrating is the avaible databases for rom data. I can't be the only person who has found a file that said it was compiled for [X]version online to find out it actually won't work. I know in order to get Battle Toads to work I had to salvage files from three different game compiles, all claiming to be for the same version.

Sometimes I really wish there were less picky versions of MAME that will run incomplete compiles for those of us who don't care. I know the point in MAME is to emulate the game as closely to the original as possible, but to be honest sometimes dealing with this crap is exhausting. I remember picking up an entire "working" database once just to cherry pick what I wanted and I still found stuff that didn't work!

Anyways... With that little rant over I want to understand MAME better. I've read comments that suggest that MAME makes no use of your GPU, that all emulation is entirely driven by the CPU of the desktop. I also read MAME will only make use of two cores.

What is accurate and what is not? The reason being is, I really want Mr.Driller in my cab, and while the documentation claims there's issues with the sound emulation, when I run it on my desktop, which is running a quad core 3.0G GHZ, 4GB of ram and a dedicated gaming GPU the sound issues are almost non-existent.

When I try to run it in the desktop I have for my cab, the sound is terrible and the game suffers from slow downs. I am using a eMachine desktop I bought from a friend, it's a quad core AMD CPU 2.0GHz, 3GB of ram and a embedded Nvidia GPU.

So if MAME relies solely on CPU horse power is my only alternative a PC with a stronger CPU?

[Slippyblade]

Keep in mind that the technical goal of MAME has nothing to do with playing the games.  It's all about the raw emulation of the hardware, being able to play the games is considered a beneficial side effect.

[Howard_Casto]

Man you sure haven't used a lot of emulators.  Mame is by far the easiest to use.  It's quite forgiving if you don't have exactly the same rom revision, the default settings won't crash your machine, if anything they are typically the ones you'll use, and it has a simple to understand command line interface. 

You are also severely misinformed about the program.  It uses hardware acceleration, but only for SFX like artwork and hlsl shaders. All 2d and 3d graphics are rendered via software for accuracy.  Your video card isn't the same as whatever chip the arcade pcb used afterall.  Mame can also take advantage of more than two cores, but only on multi-processor games and those are typically too slow for it to make any real difference. 

MAME isn't a consumer product...you get it for free.... please take your complaining elsewhere. 

[kuehnau]

Haven't used emulators before? Exactly where do you get your information? A majority of emulators I'ved used are as simple as finding the rom directory and running them, I've never run into the issues with other emulators like I have with MAME.

I have never had to go to half a dozen rom sites and look for a rom that'll boot up instead of error-ing out, even though all the sites claim the roms are all compiled for the same version. I've never had to re-compile rom data for a Nintendo rom, for instance. Hell, I've never even had to mess around as much with stuff like Dolphin.

I was just venting a little because I was a little frustrated with some of the issues I've had <edited by a very irritated saint>. The developers who work on MAME are insane, new versions break roms and instead of  just allowing backwards support for past versions the software rejects it. High score tables have to be re-compiled in and for some odd ass reason people aren't supposed to just link to pre-compiled files with the tables in included.It's kind of ironic, because with the developers refusal to accept requested features and concepts, they are directly forcing people to use other software or use other, compiled sources based off their own instead of just having them use their software. And command lines? What are you? Some sort of Telnet hillbilly that still lives in 1985? To hell with command lines, it's 2014. I wish it were a consumer product, because at least then I could have some expectorations. I could go on, but it doesn't really matter does it?

[Howard_Casto]

Aaand.. with that sort of attitude you'll be banned before long.  Nice knowing you I guess. 

[ed12]

i wanted to state that myself >>pout pout<<

>Keep in mind that the technical goal of MAME has nothing to do with playing the games.  It's all about the raw emulation of the hardware, being able to play the games is considered a beneficial side effect.<

u might to keep in the fact's
yes u will be using cmd line..our thought's are great..we get to learn something...
when it all work's..which 99.9% of the time it will..we get to kick back and
have a coffee which ever.pat ourself's on the back and say,---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- we did it...

now what do get from your store/on-line game's
play and that's it..short mind's need short thing's to do
never get a driver lic..u will suck..as u need to read to do it..

and this thought crossed my mind also,narrow minded ppl are not gamer's there lamer's

>Aaand.. with that sort of attitude you'll be banned before long.  Nice knowing you I guess.  <
thk-u to the respetive op's

ed

[Haze]

Your complains are unsurprisingly common, but also unavoidable.

MAME is actually incredibly easy to use, you give it the expected ROMs and you the emulation runs, with the level of performance depending mainly on your CPU.

Maintaining compatibility with 'old roms' is one of those absurd suggestions that comes up over and over, a lot of the time romsets change because a previously undumped ROM was dumped, allowing for inaccurate / wrong simulation code to be replaced with actual emulation.

We want everybody to have the same experience as long as they're running the same version, maintaining old buggy code just so people can run romsets from earlier versions of MAME isn't in our interests at all, nor is it really in the interests of end users, because it would result in a degraded quality of emulation without them realising anything was even wrong / missing.  MAME requires the correct roms for your own good just as much as for the good of the project.  Do you really want to run 'Pacman' with inaccurate colours and inaccurate audio just to maintain compatibility with a MAME 0.01 romset created when none of the colour or audio roms were dumped?  Do you want to run Sega System 16 games with hacked together bits of bootlegs with various glitches and imperfections as a result because it's all we had to work with at one point, or would you rather MAME tell you that you need the correct roms after we spent years cleaning that up and figuring out how the protections worked so the originals could be emulated.

MAME (assuming you're using the command line, which you should be, the UI builds are a tragedy) is also very good at telling you exactly what is missing, or incorrect.  If you don't like the command-line then put something like QMC2 as a frontend and be done with it.

I can understand people saying MESS is a more complex to run because you have to have an in depth knowledge of some of the systems, and how to configure them, but MAME is really simple, there are users with significant learning difficulties using it every day so by claiming it's too complex you actually only make yourself look lazy.

As for performance, yes, an AMD 2.2ghz is going to struggle, look at any raw single core CPU performance chart and you'll see how far down the list the AMDs are compared to Intel processors.  The 'Bad Sound' flag however represents developer confidence in the sound emulation, if you're running underpowered hardware you'll get bad sound in everything because you're not running at full speed.  In the case of Mr. Driller the Playstation SPU sound emulation isn't 100% trusted, so all Playstation based hardware is flagged even if a specific game might not exhibit any problems.

It's easy to compare MAME to console emulators where your same ROMs have worked for years, but the problem is with console emulators is that the scene has never cared about accuracy, they store ROMs in ways that 'work' rather than how the data is stored on the cartridge.  Even there things do change tho, if you want proper Snes emulation in a proper Snes emulator you'll need the internal DSP roms for the special cartridges, the old simulation code was never 100% accurate, and your 10 year old SNES roms don't contain that data.  Much of the console scene does need a big shake-up tho, it always pleases me to see MESS loading Quackshot on the Genesis properly rather than using some fake hacked together file to represent the weird addressing in the cartridge; the problem is a lot of people are too aggressively against change for the more popular emulators to even try.

Do you care? probably not..  but the 15+ years MAME has been around so far have only represented the short and rather turbulent start of the project during which time a lot of things can change.  As things mature they change less.

[pbj]

MAME is really simple, there are users with significant learning difficulties using it every day

No argument there.

[Xiaou2]

Without going through too much thought at the moment...  why not add a file inside the zipped rom, that denotes information on the driver, as well the rom information / versions ?

 Mame would not start any games unless the special file was included.   This keeps people from removing the information txts.

 However, mame would  pop up an error like

  "This rom is an older version, and may cause functional problems, and may not be accurate.   Press "Y" to Continue, or "N" to Cancel.
"Warning - Do not report Bugs or Issues when using this Older Rom Set"

 This would allow the running of Hacked, altered, or newly dumped roms...  as well as running the original sets, and shouldnt present much compromise to the experience.


 At worst case scenario, you get what... maybe 20 name changes in a 20 year span of mames operation.  Thats a few KB of txt.  And heck, it only helps keep better track
of the changes that have happened, and when.

[BadMouth]

.....or just stop getting roms from shady websites that stopped updating in the mid 120's.
Of course I can't tell you where to get them.  It would violate forum rules.

To answer some of OP's questions I didn't see answered  (keep in mind that I'm just another end-user):

With current builds the CPU is doing all the emulation, even emulating the video card that was in the original arcade machine.  To my knowledge, the GPU does scaling (not "pre-scaling" though), HLSL effects (simulated scanlines and shadow mask that were present on original monitors), and not much else.  Other emulators make use of the video card, so I still think it's important.  I don't understand why people get hung up on only using MAME.

Traditionally MAME has only utilized 2 cores, but from what I've read that is changing and some of the newer drivers do utilize more. (ridge racer maybe?)
I noticed a small improvement in my driving cab after moving from a dual core to a triple core of the same speed.  I assume the extra core is helping out with background overhead.  Not a big enough difference to make games playable that weren't, but fewer sound skips.  Given the choice between a quad core of a given speed and a dual core of a faster speed though, always go for the faster one.

2Ghz is ok for pacman and donkey kong, but isn't going to cut it for newer games.  I'm not sure about Mr. Driller.  In my experience, the other PS1 based games need around 3Ghz to run full speed.  There is an older emulator called Zinc that runs those games, utilizes your video card and is less demanding than MAME. 

If sticking with the 2Ghz machine, run MAME v.106
There were major changes at v.107 that made it more demanding.
v.106 is very popular for that reason, so you can find full romsets out there for it.
You'll miss out on newer games that have been added since then, but IMO you'll end up with more playable games due to it being less demanding.

Also check out other emulators like Zinc and Final Burn Alpha which are focused more on running the games at full speed.

[deadmoney5]

I just want to say..I LOVE MAME   If it weren't for the people who made time to figure out a way to emulate all those games in the 80s, I wouldn't be playing them now.

I have ZERO problem with the quirks.  But then again, I'm still using version .86 and basically running all the classics.  I gave up a long time ago having 5000 games on a machine, when only 50 were ever played.

Kudos to all the people who designed all the frontends as well!

[pbj]

Kudos to all the people who designed all the frontends as well!

Except for the masochists that made Advance Menu.  They can suck a duck.

[Howard_Casto]

Just to drive home what Haze was saying... console roms are a totally different animal.    Yeah there are hundreds of games for each console, but they all run on essentially the same cartridge, meaning once you've cracked it, you can dump them all.  Arcade pcbs, especially some with protection or odd hardware quirks are significantly harder to dump, especially considering a lot of games have completely unique hardware.  And more modern stuff from the psx era onwards... they are on discs, so dumping isn't even necessary. 

So comparing console emulators to arcade ones just make you look ignorant. 

I would have explained this last night but when someone offers fellatio just because you answered their question that they asked, it's a bit off-putting.  I'm flattered, but I'm not gay... find someone else. 

[Vigo]

[lamprey]

I get the OP is frustrated and maybe the attacking tone of his post is what is rubbing people the wrong way. Perhaps, the OP will learn to ask more questions instead of attacking. But, you've got to remember that you have all be involved with this hobby/scene for a while and it's just second nature to get new sets of roms and compile the latest builds. When I started I also scrapped around looking for complete rom and chd sets. But, the point is that now I know where to go to get these sets so everything pretty much works as I'd expect. Telling the guy he's an "idiot" for not being able to figure it out doesn't really endear this community to "newbies." As with anything new, there is a learning curve to get going. Heck, I spend the last couple of weeks dicking around with SDLMame and GLSL. Ultimately, I had to abandon SDLMame because I can't stop the damn cursor from appearing on my cabinet. It is frustrating. But, in the end, I learned a few things along the way.


To the OP:
There is another forum that has information about new dev work and more discussion around the state of the emulators: http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/ (hint, if you look at the banner at the top you might find some other information you need).

[Vigo]

I recommend people who just want a shiny consumer product to just get mame plus, then just get a complete romset that matches the mame version. 90% of the frustration eliminated.


My only comment is that I am curious about that the OP mentioned is high score support. My understanding was this feature was eliminated because it was not a true emulation function. Being that modern MAME has a number of side features like HLSL, does it still make sense to still have the feature nixed without recompiling these days?

[DaveMMR]

My only comment is that I am curious about that the OP mentioned is high score support. My understanding was this feature was eliminated because it was not a true emulation function. Being that modern MAME has a number of side features like HLSL, does it still make sense to still have the feature nixed without recompiling these days?

I don't know much when it comes to MAME code but I assume something like HLSL works outside of the actual emulation (it's just putting a filter on the screen) unlike High Score supports that has the games behave in a way they were not intended to (i.e. saving scores on power off.) 

[deadmoney5]

But, you've got to remember that you have all be involved with this hobby/scene for a while and it's just second nature to get new sets of roms and compile the latest builds. When I started I also scrapped around looking for complete rom and chd sets. But, the point is that now I know where to go to get these sets so everything pretty much works as I'd expect. Telling the guy he's an "idiot" for not being able to figure it out doesn't really endear this community to "newbies."

I had problems trying to get a newer ROM set when my computer crashed...plus I have no idea how to compile MAME for high score and other stuff.  It's just beyond my hamster brain..even with all of the tutorials on how to do it.  I'm an accountant, not a programmer.  SO I just gave up and used my old set that works fine.  I realize what MAME is and what the intentions are...the fact that I can actually play the games I want to play is just a benefit to me.  Point is I'm not gonna come out and say how horrible MAME is just because it's not plug and play..same with the front ends..it takes time to figure everything out.  Now if I actually paid for the software AND the roms that would be a different story.  This ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is FREE!

[Slippyblade]

Now if I actually paid for the software AND the roms that would be a different story.  This ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is FREE!

Ding ding, we have a winner!

[kuehnau]

Being free isn't a good enough excuse.

If being able to play the games is only a benefit for what they are doing then exactly what is the point? It's still literally boiling down to piracy. Hell, companies in the past have even sent C&D's for emulators in development. You can try and justify it all you want with other excuses, but it still is what it is, an emulator that allows people to illegally bootleg arcade games.

I got the answers I needed, so I am not going to return to this thread. If I seemed aggressive or defensive, it's because I am and quite frankly there's a moderate level of aggression on these boards to begin with, all you have to do is read past threads on these forums to see that. I wouldn't have responded the way I did if I wasn't addressed the way I was.

For those if you who helped, thanks, everyone else... Well I better not say.

[Haze]

You're right, being free isn't an excuse in this instance.

being CORRECT is a reason

older versions were less correct, the romsets were less correct, our knowledge at the time was inferior


re:hiscore support, it was a rather nasty hack , it still is, it silently left games in unnatural states and caused bugs.  It could have been part of the cheat system (making it more obvious that it was nothing but a hack, rather than something the original games did)  It's also possible somebody could reimplement it as per-game Lua scripts as part of the debug system, which again would make it more obvious that it was a hack.

 

[rpgposer]

Kudos to all the people who designed all the frontends as well!

Except for the masochists that made Advance Menu.  They can suck a duck.

Wait... what!?  Out of all the frontends around, this is the one I use for non-mame games.  I don't think I am a masochist, even though every female in our household bosses me around, including the dog.  Would you like some help setting it up?

[deadmoney5]

Being free isn't a good enough excuse.

If being able to play the games is only a benefit for what they are doing then exactly what is the point? It's still literally boiling down to piracy. Hell, companies in the past have even sent C&D's for emulators in development. You can try and justify it all you want with other excuses, but it still is what it is, an emulator that allows people to illegally bootleg arcade games.

I got the answers I needed, so I am not going to return to this thread. If I seemed aggressive or defensive, it's because I am and quite frankly there's a moderate level of aggression on these boards to begin with, all you have to do is read past threads on these forums to see that. I wouldn't have responded the way I did if I wasn't addressed the way I was.

For those if you who helped, thanks, everyone else... Well I better not say.

Like I said...Without MAME, I'm not playing Donkey Kong right now.  If it bothers you so much, make your own arcade emulator.  Jesus ---fudgesicle---.

[DaveMMR]

Like I said...Without MAME, I'm not playing Donkey Kong right now. 

Yes exactly. There is no arcade-perfect Donkey Kong as of this post that you can easily purchase. Same goes for Bubble Bobble.  (Sure, there are "ports" that are close, but not perfect.) And then there are the titles you cannot find literally anywhere else. And that's pretty much why MAME is the way it is.  For every game like Pac-Man that you can find on every device - there are hundreds that would be otherwise lost forever.

As others have said, if you don't like the way MAME's philosophy ruins your day, there are other emulators that favor pliability over authenticity. Use those instead.

(Since the OP stated he was leaving this thread, the preceding was basically addressed to the wall.) 

[jennifer]

    That's where I get lost, Right there.... The ROM set apparently is the game so it would stand to reason that it SHOULD be the game when it comes out of MAME.... But as just pointed out not really the case, it becomes more of a product of playability than the "real" thing. 

[Vigo]

re:hiscore support, it was a rather nasty hack , it still is, it silently left games in unnatural states and caused bugs.  It could have been part of the cheat system (making it more obvious that it was nothing but a hack, rather than something the original games did)  It's also possible somebody could reimplement it as per-game Lua scripts as part of the debug system, which again would make it more obvious that it was a hack.

Thanks for the inside response on that, Haze! So at this point, it sounds like the philosophy isn't against Hi-Score support, but it would need to be implemented through a different feature of mame that would be separable from the actual core emulation. Would love to see it officially back someday. For now, I am thankful for Headkaze's re-compiler.

[pbj]

People on this forum get really upset over really inconsequential things.

 


 

[rpgposer]

I know the OP said he left, but maybe this will help:
1.  Sorry man, your PC is a bit underpowered to play the games you want.  If you do upgrade, get a discreet video card.
2.  Nothing will ever be as good as playing the game on original hardware, or at least the correct controls.  Was Mr. Driller a Naomi game?  Just think how happy you could be if bought a Naomi system and stuck it in your cab?
3.  This is a hobby, and a never ending one; strategize long term.
4.  Do you realize that a MAME team member replied to your rant??  How awesome is that?

[DaveMMR]

People on this forum get really upset over really inconsequential things.

Welcome to the internet. 

[dkersten]

I was always under the impression that the point of Mame originated as a way to emulate a game you owned that no longer functioned.  You buy a galaga that doesn't work, and after fiddling for hours you figure out the board is fried.  You own it, so you have every right in the world to play it, but you have no idea how to do that.  So you download mame, and then get a dump of the version of the game you own, and emulate it with a PC. 

I have a lot of respect for what people are doing because it is keeping alive a bunch of games that are probably no longer a revenue stream for the original manufacturers, and certainly no longer worth trying to manufacture hardware that can run it.  Without projects like mame, these games would be more or less lost forever.

Personally I can see how when you are trying to make use of all the cool software out there it can be frustrating, but like it has been pointed out multiple times, most of this software is free, so how can anyone complain about a lack of support for something you aren't paying anyone to support?  Besides, if you can muster some patience and be friendly, there is enough support out there to get you through just about anything. 

One thing I can say that pertains directly to the OP's subject is that as time goes on, I find myself wanting to build my own set of roms, one at a time and as completely as I can, rather than try to download a set.  It may be more time consuming this way, and I will NEVER end up with a complete set of every game on one machine, but each game will work and I will be familiar with it. 

That being said, it would be nice to have a piece of software that can take the rom, any chd's or bios files, the artwork (bezel, marquee, snap, video, flyer, cabinet, control panel, and instruction card), a control.ini file, a history.dat file, a color.ini file (for RGB LEDs), and a config file and package it all together in one zip and keep a nice clean mame.xml file for just the stuff you have.  It would make life so much easier.  I can find all the pieces, I just want them to get put together into a nice, neat package so if I decide to add that to my brother's machine, or my mom's, or my friends', I can just grab the one file, copy it over, and add it to the FE's gamelist.  Instead I have to do it all manually, then edit each ini, dat, or xml file manually, and it can be a real pain in the butt.  But then who is going to take the time to put it all together and get all the various programmers of different emulators and front ends on board with it?

Point is, I can wish for something all day long, but until there is a viable economic model out there, the chances of things being that simple are pretty much zero.

[pbj]

I was always under the impression that the point of Mame originated as a way to emulate a game you owned that no longer functioned.

Your impression is wrong.

 

[jimmer]

as time goes on, I find myself wanting to build my own set of roms, one at a time and as completely as I can, rather than try to download a set.  It may be more time consuming this way, and I will NEVER end up with a complete set of every game on one machine, but each game will work and I will be familiar with it. 

That's what I did, up until about 60 games. Just worked off my memory and recommendations.

then I downloaded 2000 roms.

by the time i've got rid of allthe crap I will probably end up with about 100 games.

[Howard_Casto]

Well what people aren't getting is that downloading roms is highly illegal.  I'm not the moral police or anything..... we all enjoy mame even if our legal claim to using it is somewhat questionable.  That being said....

When your main gripe is that it's difficult to find and download illegal material to run on software you didn't pay for you just come off as the lady on the news that recently contacted her local police to complain about the poor quality of her crystal meth. 

It's also unbelievably stupid to call mame inferior or harder to use other arcade emulators because 100% of the time the other emulator is:

1.  Created via looking at mame's source, aka mame made it possible.
2.  Created by mame devs who are working on the special purpose emulator for playability's sake and mame for documentation's sake. 

My point is, if you don't like MAME feel free to use something else.  Just keep in mind that the "something else" you are using wouldn't be possible without mame and/or mame devs... so maybe quit crapping on mame so much why don't cha?

[cools]

Protip - for anyone wanting a "lean" ROM set, just maintain a text file containing the setnames you want and use clrmame to build it from a larger set.

http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=26088&p=360395&hilit=clrmamepro#p360395

[jennifer]

     Re Mr. Casto:   If you are directing that thread @ Jennifer you just need to stop that.... I do not complain EVER about mame (or any other emulator)  It is of no use to me however, in my opinion overly complicated, and don't really believe they are documenting or saving anything in a historical context, But that said There are a few Devs I do find quite promising and would not be surprised if they actually pulled it off someday. ... And I also feel you are wrong about downloading the roms, If you own the game you have a right to fix it, up to and including the PCB.

[Haze]

I guess a lot depends on what level of preservation you consider to be sufficient.

The most shallow end is simply the games being available to play, and while we've stated multiple times that our primary goal is much deeper than that it is important to look at the impact MAME has had in that area too.

MAME provides an absolute reference in most cases for people doing ports / emulations of old arcade games on modern platforms.  If MAME didn't exist then the rich ecosystem of fully licensed emulation offerings available on modern consoles etc. simply wouldn't exist, you'd be stuck with the rough ports of the 80s-90s era, where things often looked like the real thing, but didn't play the same at all (completely different internal game logic) because they were imitations / ports rather than emulations.  For less popular titles you'd see them fade away completely because it wouldn't be cost effective to research them then rewrite / port them.  With emulation they become nearly cost free bonus content to the developer.

Like I said, our actual goals are deeper, we try and move to lower levels of emulation where realistically possible, documenting things better and in mode detail as part of that process (one reason the romsets change - it is discovered that more of the devices on the PCBs can actually be dumped or simply that thing had been overlooked the first time) but at the most shallow level of all (and the one most users here are likely to understand) it's very hard to argue that MAME hasn't played a significant role in helping to preserve the games by making it possible for the original manufacturers to reissue them by providing a reference for any work done in that field.

[BadMouth]

^^ Proof = Raiden Legacy missing Raiden II which is the only one in the series not working in MAME

[rpgposer]

Protip - use clrmame.

Best tip so far.  Even for those running older versions of mame.
http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/

[pbj]

downloading roms is highly illegal.

Why is this now a 'thing' to repeat around here?  There are ROM sites, based in America, that instantly pop up on Google searches, that have been around over a decade.  Multiboards are sold by most BYOAC forum sponsors, and can be found openly on E-Bay, Amazon, New Egg, et al.

Are you people truly so sheltered that copyright infringement is "highly illegal?"  Who, exactly, has gone to jail over it?

And before you say Dave Foley - he was ultimately popped for contract fraud, and the other charges were a lot more involved than someone punching "pacman rom" into google.

 

[jennifer]

    Not to worry Haze, Im only saying from a coin-op standpoint, yes maybe not-so-much. However in the realm of dumps some real advancements have been made, and this is a product due to the popularity of emulators so how could it be bad?.... I have been on this study for quite some time now, And continue to outfit my bench in this direction...Btw, Haze Thank you for the help in that awhile back,   Jenn.