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

markwkidd

First off @caver01 , welcome to Plus :) I'm not the most versed in the backdrop vector artwork project but that's been generating all kinds of activity and improvements, as well as discussion of the best core options for certain games, so I'll let those folks help you on that point.

@caver01 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

Anyway, I am excited to be back and testing some of the new stuff here. 4-way joystick logic? WHAT?

I'll let you in on something that I don't think anyone other than grant, dankcushions, or twinaphex knows this, but Grant's 4-way code and a partial set of the other new core options from Plus are now in standard MAME 2003 as well as of a week or two ago. It has to be compiled from source of course.

Clyde

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

Now that I've had more time to see how the frontend messages are working -- and I've seen how these messages may get some visual flair with the new RetroArch widget system -- I am going try to move all of the information from the "legacy/MAME" warnings to the new system.

That would be great! I never liked the very intrusive MAME messages, but I still want to be noticed about issues and limitation of a given rom.

UDb23

@caver01 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

I think the fix was to enable bilinear filtering?

Yes, that's it.

Is there a core option for that or a retroarch setting?

Not sure about that, maybe @grant2258 knows.
Still when you set vector options in the RA menu there's the possibility to save game specific settings. Got to check if the generated settings file is in a readable format (and therefore contain RA settings in clear) or binary.

grant2258

bi-lin filtering is an ra option its in settings->video :)

caver01

@grant2258 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

bi-lin filtering is an ra option its in settings->video :)

I figured, but is there a setting it saves that I can add to my .cfg?

mitu

@caver01 I think it's video_smooth , which you can set either globally or per-system/game.

# Smoothens picture with bilinear filtering. Should be disabled if using pixel shaders.
video_smooth = "false"

EDIT: welcome back !

caver01

@mitu thanks! I wondered if it was that setting. I remember this one from a few years ago when a lot of discussions hit the forum about smoothing before davej’s shaders hit the scene. I will try it!

markwkidd

Update today: All driver warnings are displayed via the libretro frontend rather than the legacy MAME UI. Not the most exciting development perhaps, but it has a nice finality that I appreciate.

grant2258

Well this is good and bad some messages like working clones should be in a pop up box with user interaction so people have time to read it. But the rest can scroll away np.

just tested moon walker (moonwalk) its not working shows no message about clones. Think the samples are over riding the message or it just not working. If some messages over ride others i think you might want to reconsider using this

ward614

I just wanted to make a quick post here to thank you for adding a 4-way option to Mame2003-Plus! I can't tell you how annoying trying to play Pac-Man has been! I am using Xbox360 controllers with my Pi, and simply turning on this option and setting it to use the d-pad has made many classics much more playable. Thank you!

ward614

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue,

I had time for the first time in a while to work on my build. I was able to install and use LR-Mame2003 -plus, to play Pacman for the first time with some decency thanks to the 4-way controller feature. Later that day, I upgraded my system from Jessie to Stretch, but since then Pacman will no longer load in Mame-2003-plus, even though regular 2003 still works.

Kinda a niche situation, but I figured its worth pointing out and asking is anyone else has experienced something like this.

grant2258

I would recommend you update your setup script and compile mame2003+ again and let it install mame throuhg the retropie scripts part of this install is the configuring if its changed since the update

Clyde

@ward614 If the problem remains after re-compilation, you could run mame2003-plus with verbose logging via the Runcommand menu and then look into the logfile /dev/shm/runcommand.log for any clues. Or you could upload the log to a pastebin service like http://paste.ubuntu.com/ or http://pastebin.com/ and post a link to it here, so that @grant2258 and @markwkidd can have a look at it.

ward614

@Clyde I will have to look into giving that a try.
I'm going to restore to my backup and try making the upgrade to Stretch again, and if that doesn't work, I will run the log.

markwkidd

@grant2258 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

Well this is good and bad some messages like working clones should be in a pop up box with user interaction so people have time to read it. But the rest can scroll away np.

just tested moon walker (moonwalk) its not working shows no message about clones. Think the samples are over riding the message or it just not working. If some messages over ride others i think you might want to reconsider using this

The new message widget system was just merged into RetroArch, although its only available for the GL video driver at the moment. The new message widgets "stack" so we can display more than one at once. This new system uses the same libretro callbacks we use, so there is no change needed in the core for MAME 2003-Plus to start benefiting.

After this functionality reaches the GDI or D3D10 video drivers and I can test it, I'll rework our notification code to make use of multiple messages. I think that will get us back to where we need to be on the driver warnings and clone suggestions.

Edit: Our notifications now look like this video, assuming the GL video driver is in use. https://twitter.com/natinusala/status/1085260327351173120

grant2258

looks good to me hopefully they will add an option to keep the message there till someone presses it and that will fix a lot of problems.

Good news if ra supports your platform really bad news if it doesnt hopefully it will filter through all the platforms its something that is needed.

ward614

@Clyde After doing a reinstall of Stretch, this issue seems to have been fixed. I must have miss-flashed my ad card somehow. Thank you for your help!

grant2258

@markwkidd expect a shed load of these types of issues now https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/issues/657 this should have been disabled when ra could implement something workable.

ward614

A question for you all,

I am working on enabling use of a mouse as a dial in 2003-plus, and while I figured it was similar to 2003, I wanted to ask what the proper configuration text was for adding to the config file.

In 2003 you use:

mame2003-dial_device = "mouse"

But is it:

mame2003-plus-dial_device = "mouse"

OR

mame2003plus-dial_device = "mouse"

For 2003-plus?

Thanks!

Riverstorm

@grant2258 - There seems to be an issue with the TAB menu input fields are being reset to defaults when you change core options.

If you delete all your cfg files and start a new game. Make changes in TAB menu. Then if you go into the RA core options and change Artwork Multiplier from 1 to 2, exit the core and restart the game the TAB menu options seem to be reset back to the defaults.

I've deleted my default.cfg along with all the other cfg files. I'm on a Pi 3B+ running RetroPie 4.4.8, Plus commit 7c17094 and RA 1.7.5.