Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?

caver01

This post is deleted!

dankcushions

@Riverstorm said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

Hey guys I've been slowly porting over to lr-mame2003 and I noticed a couple things that I may be configuring wrong as I can't seem to get them working.

One is history.dat (& mameinfo.dat) I put the files in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/ directory but when I check the history it tells me no history file available.

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

The other is artwork located in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/artwork/ but it doesn't seem to use it.

it should be in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/artwork/though i've not tested it.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

I haven't rebuilt in a while I bet that's the issue. I will try that tonight.

it should be in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/artwork/though i've not tested it.

I made a mistake I do have it in mame2003/artwork under the BIOS directory. I tried a few different versions of Artwork (0.37b5, 0.94 and 0.106 basically MAME4All and AdvMAME's artwork) but their really isn't DATs for Artwork. Are you downloading them from a specific place that works with 0.78 by chance?

dankcushions

@Riverstorm

i've not tested it.

:)

no idea how artwork works in mame but that's the code picks it up from at least. it's another thing you'll need the latest version for, probably.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm

i've not tested it.

:)

no idea how artwork works in mame but that's the code picks it up from at least. it's another thing you'll need the latest version for, probably.

Ok, I'll dig around and test out some different versions after grabbing the latest version of lr-mame.

caver01

@Riverstorm There's a website where a guy has gathered the samples from different eras of MAME, and a similar list of artwork files if I recall. Probably not something I can link to, but you should be able to find it.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm There's a website where a guy has gathered the samples from different eras of MAME, and a similar list of artwork files if I recall. Probably not something I can link to, but you should be able to find it.

Thanks Caver, I will poke around and see what I can find. :) I know there's so many websites dedicated to MAME. It's just finding the right one.

I think I looked once and didn't see a way to send private messages on this forum correct? I think that would be a handy feature. I had a question or two for you a few times that I didn't want to create a new thread and end up piggy-backing off another where it would have been a nice feature to use instead.

Riverstorm

@caver01 I found Artwork that is compatible for MAME 0.61, up to MAME 0.106. It still doesn't work.

It sounds like I'll need the newer version. Are you running the latest? Do you know if it works for any like Boot Hill, Gorf, Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander. Basically if any artwork works then I am sure it's good to go. Almost a tongue twister. :)

caver01

@Riverstorm I haven't tried this in lr-mame2003. Some of the games you cited are not ones I want to run in 2003. Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander--these are all vector games and I will run them with AdvanceMAME 1.4. Artwork is great for those in that emulator, although often a bit bright, but you can tweak that by following my instructions here.

caver01

Come to think of it, I would like to get artwork running in Space Invaders using lr-mame2003.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm I haven't tried this in lr-mame2003. Some of the games you cited are not ones I want to run in 2003. Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander--these are all vector games and I will run them with AdvanceMAME 1.4. Artwork is great for those in that emulator, although often a bit bright, but you can tweak that by following my instructions here.

Yeah I know most of that list was vector games. I think the only two that aren't are Boot Hill and Gorf. I use AdvMAME for them but I figured they might be an easy test to see if Artwork is a functional feature.

@dankcushions I was going through this link Floob posted:

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/lr-mame2003

I noticed the values aren't enclosed in quotes but in the file (/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg) they are. I am assuming the settings from the Wiki should also be enclosed? That's a nice Wiki can it be linked on the Retropie Documentation Wiki? I think it's more informative then this one that you end up at drilling down.

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro

dankcushions

@Riverstorm thanks, I wrote it :) I have corrected the quotes thing. well spotted!

and that link you posted is the readme for the core - it's not retropie specific, so some of the instructions are too retropie -centric to go there.

our mame2003 wiki linked on the retropie wiki (scroll down in the mame page), but I know what you mean - the first links at the top of the mame page are to the GitHub projects. that's just how the wiki was originally written, but I do think it could be restructured in that regard, so each core has its own wiki page, but yeah... someday!

briankross

@dankcushions

Wondering if you mind scrolling up a bit and have a look at my reply to you. :)

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm thanks, I wrote it :) I have corrected the quotes thing. well spotted!

and that link you posted is the readme for the core - it's not retropie specific, so some of the instructions are too retropie -centric to go there.

our mame2003 wiki linked on the retropie wiki (scroll down in the mame page), but I know what you mean - the first links at the top of the mame page are to the GitHub projects. that's just how the wiki was originally written, but I do think it could be restructured in that regard, so each core has its own wiki page, but yeah... someday!

Ok, I found it further down the page where you indicated. The Github projects are a bit confusing to say the least. The one you wrote is fantastic! I was able to get lr-mame2003 up and running and tweak it perfectly using it. Thank you! :)

dankcushions

@briankross said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@dankcushions

Good idea!

Which file are you editing to change or include directories?

the .rc files in /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/

When you have multiple paths for the same thing, will it still recreate folders in the rom folder? (I'm assuming it will). I'm looking to point the AdvanceMAME folders to another logical location so it will no longer recreate folders in the rom folder root directory, cleaning it up a bit.

it only creates folders where you tell it to in the .rc. if you have multiple it will create them in both. it seems to read files from both, but it will only update or create files in the first one in the list, at least in my tests.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

I downloaded the source code from RetroPie Setup. Is there a Wiki on the steps to compile it? I did a search and found steps for 2010 but not 2003.

I saw a lot of errors similar to this downloading the source. Is that fairly typical more like warnings of defined unused variables?

src/vidhrdw/konamiic.c:6347:24: warning: variable âsrc_moduloâ set but not used [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
  int count, src_pitch, src_modulo;
                        ^

I was wondering also with the newest can you use the left and right analog sticks on a controller like the XBOX 360?

The other button I see that doesn't work on the older version is the XBOX action button (silver button in center). I was using that to enter the MAME TAB setup from controller as it was pretty handy.

dankcushions

@Riverstorm said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

I downloaded the source code from RetroPie Setup. Is there a Wiki on the steps to compile it? I did a search and found steps for 2010 but not 2003.

that's all done for you by retropie-setup as part of the update/install from source process. downloading the raw source would take seconds.

I saw a lot of errors similar to this downloading the source. Is that fairly typical more like warnings of defined unused variables?
src/vidhrdw/konamiic.c:6347:24: warning: variable âsrc_moduloâ set but not used [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
  int count, src_pitch, src_modulo;
                        ^

typical of old code :) warnings are 'fine'. errors will cause the compile to fail.

oh, depending on your version of retropie you may also need to update retroarch (from binaries is fine).

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

oh, depending on your version of retropie you may also need to update retroarch (from binaries is fine).

Thanks Dank, I am mainly using 3.7 would that require a Retroarch upgrade?

Also should the left and right analog sticks and the XBOX action button (silver button in center) work or is that a feature request? :) I used them frequently in my TAB--General Input Configuration for MAME. Referring to lr-mame2003 of course as it does work in mame4all-pi, lr-imame4all and AdvMAME.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions The new source fixed the history.dat issue. Very nice! There's some good information in the history.dat. Cheats work great.

Everything works except using the analog sticks and XBOX button in the Configure Input menu. Is their a way to enable them or is that an enhancement that might come in the future?

Nice job with lr-mame2003! Have a great holiday weekend if it applies! ;)

Riverstorm

@dankcushions & @caver01 Artwork does work with the new source.