mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support

thelostsoul

@grant2258 @Darksavior May I ask you guys at what resolution you play and if you do any shader? Both are affecting the fps too.

Darksavior

@thelostsoul 1080p output res with crtpi shader.

thelostsoul

@darksavior How do you determine the fps? I want to see how much I get with 480p and scanline only shader. Just for curiousity.

Darksavior

@thelostsoul You turn it on from the rgui by pressing hotkey+x. They changed the area where it was. I forget where. Onscreen overlay options or something.

Scanlines are achieved by an overlay which is just a picture with lines (yuck) and doesn't affect performance. Or by a crt shader like the optimized crt-pi shader or zfast shader which produces a crt tv's dots and properly produces the scanlines. The PC version of retroarch has more advanced crt shaders that benefit from a 4k tv.

You can also tinker with the shader settings. I don't like the crt-pi shader's default. Too dark. I max out the shader's brightness setting and use that.

thelostsoul

@darksavior Ah ok, I just thought there would be a different way to do this properly. I remember that option now you mention it. About the shaders, I like the crt-pi shader and its vertical counter part, but 1. they aren't made for 480p 4:3: pc monitor and second for some arcade games it just looks awful. And I read somewhere even the crt-pi can have an inpug lag effect on "some" systems, but probably even not noticeable.

Anyway, thats a different story and probably this isn't the right place for talking about it. I will test some games and check the fps.

markwkidd

Tatsuya79 from the libretro team says that the very latest RetroArch nightlies/source provide improved mame2003-plus runahead lag reduction via the "2nd Instance" approach.

It remains to be seen whether that will be practical on low power systems but there are examples of runahead working with some other cores on the rpi -- it is likely to vary from one game driver to another with this core.

Riverstorm

@markwkidd said in mame2003-plus: 350 new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

improved mame2003-plus runahead lag reduction via the "2nd Instance" approach.

What is the "2nd Instance" approach?

markwkidd

That's a setting in the RetroArch latency settings -- it should be enabled for mame2003-plus runahead.

Riverstorm

@markwkidd - Ok, I see why that could be resource intensive but it would be slick if it works well on the Pi. I wonder what console cores are using it. Here's a Libretro link that explains what it is and how to use it.

markwkidd

There are some posts in these forums you can probably search out -- my sense of the state of runahead on pi is that it's limited but better than many were initially predicting considering the pi cpu.

markwkidd

The RetroArch developers have said they will add support for MAME artwork files to RetroArch (including backdrops and bezels) if someone will code it.

I've started a bounty for anyone interested: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/7419

This would be a great step forward for all arcade emulation via RetroArch if it is added.

UDb23

@markwkidd said in mame2003-plus: 350 new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

The RetroArch developers have said they will add support for MAME artwork files to RetroArch (including backdrops and bezels) if someone will code it.

This would be absolutely great !

Actually full Mame .LAY format implementation is probably not that easy as it involves not only overlays and backdrops but also LED implementation, bezels and buttons.

Getting just backdrop support as you proposed (possibly with same .cfg settings approach as currently for LR overlays) would be enough.

UDb23

@markwkidd said in mame2003-plus: 350 new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

I've started a bounty

Bounty increased ;-)

Riverstorm

Added to bounty. I think it would be great to see backdrop support. I know you guys have made some fantastic ones that I would love to see implemented with the bezels. That alone is pretty exciting and further consolidating to one emulator as I use AdvMAME for backdrops now even though they aren't very good.

UDb23

@riverstorm said in mame2003-plus: 350 new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

use AdvMAME for backdrops now even though they aren't very good.

Have you seen this ? Advmame 3.9 has a new function to manage overlays and backdrops in better quality but it also seems this slowdowns roms significantly on the Pi.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Nice, I had not seen that one. I'll do some testing once it's released on the Pi too.

lockescow

Sorry to side track current discussion, but I just started getting my mame games into retropie. is there any major advantage to switching from lr-mame2003 to mame2003-plus? I'm currently on a Raspberry 3B+ with RetroPie 4.4 on stretch. Just trying to decide if I should upgrade to 2003-plus before I invest too much time configuring the 2003. Is the plus an out-right replacement of 2003, or would i still need the standard 2003 for some fallback?

mitu

@lockescow Have you read the originating post of the topic ? Itt should answer most of your questions.

lockescow

@mitu From page 1, plus is capable of back-porting for more rom compatibilities. better speed and functionalities. basically everything is better. my guts say i should switch over to plus. however, retropie 4.4 says 2003 is still the recommended emulator... probably because plus is still considered experimental. Any issues running plus on raspberry 3b+? I didn't see any specific on this particular note.

Riverstorm

@lockescow - You should be fine switching and it works great on the Pi 3. There's definitely more features, to many to list. A recent feature not listed anywhere yet (I don't think) is @grant2258 implemented 4-way joystick support. Basically it ignores the diagonal positions on a 8-way joystick so 4-way games have improved game play. It's really new but seems to be working very well.

Another relating to the first example, two games, Q-Bert and Congo Bongo used 45 degree rotated joysticks and I do something like below from the TAB input screen in MAME. With the new 4-way option toggled on it breaks that setup and needs addressed. Basically you might see things change or need addressing as the core evolves.

Up = Up/Right
Down = Down/Left
Right = Right/Down
Left = Left/Up

If you already have a 2003 ROM set complete Plus is over 99% the same (there's 1 or 2 ROM difference but neither are major titles). In addition you get another 130 or so games which is perfect if among them is a favorite or not if they aren't.

You'll also see improvements/upgrades to some of the existing common ROMs between the cores like Bubble Bobble is more accurate with back ported code and better/newer ROM dumps. If a game is compatible with the code base that doesn't require an overhaul they devs are pretty friendly and will add it whereas I think 2003 will not add any new games for consistency.

It's still experimental so things might change or be improved and it could break your current setup, whereas, 2003 is pretty rock solid and doesn't change much. Maybe code changes but not ROM changes. I would call it a strong point. It's stable, it's better for troubleshooting vs. new features that could break things.

The ROM set will be the same regardless but Plus might add, remove or update ROMs from day to day. It's kind of like recommending a "beta" over a "general release" build but honestly Plus is pretty solid too.

If you like to set it and forget it 2003 might be the better choice but if you're willing to address the occasional break, reconfiguration or ROM set update than Plus offers more features and is still actively being developed on the other hand improvements in one core often make it to the other. Both are solid choices and you can't go wrong with either.

Really the biggest differences are going to be interface options and features, game play is pretty much identical. Get into the core options and poke around a bit. You could load both cores and test with one or two ROMs to get a feel for both to see if one sits well with you over the other.