Mame compatibility lists

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon please share thinking. If there are things to improve, would love to do so.

[Darksavior]

@roslof Fbneo is my first choice on a pi3 or 4. There are exceptions:

• For later midway games (mk, smashtv, rampage world tour, etc) I use mame2003plus (mame2016 on pi4)

• For sega system16,18 (maybe 16 is fine but I want them together) I use bootleg versions on mame2003plus (non-bootleg on mame2016 on pi4)

• For taito f3 games I believe they're full speed on advmame? (fbn on pi4)

• Anything fbn runs slow like Ninja Baseball Bat Man I use mame2003plus (fbn on pi4)

• Anything fbn doesn't support at all like konami gx games, I use mame2003plus (gx games run too slow on mame2016 on pi4, so I use mame2010)

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof tbh i didn't go far or in-depth in your list, and i didn't power on my pi3 to double-check, but here are a few potential improvements :

• i'm pretty sure batsugun run full-speed with sound on pi3 with FBNeo, sounds better than using advmame without sound
• i would expect asurabld to play full-speed without any issue either with FBNeo on pi3
• FBNeo is the reference emulator for neogeo games (apparently even current mame still has some issues with neogeo emulation), you should probably use it

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon @Darksavior helpful.

Yeah, I certainly didn't ignore FBNeo.

I used 2003-Plus as a base, and whenever I noted any performance or imperfection that didn't work with any of the "MAME"s, I'd check FBNeo. Almost every time, there was not a supported ROM. Could have missed a few so any extra love like your feedback above will only improve the list.

[roslof]

Found a more accurate ROMset for FBNeo. Night and day from my old set. Updating list.
Great product.

[Voljega]

@barbudreadmon said in Mame compatibility lists:

@jamietuley with random users tagging working games as not working just because they are using wrong romsets, those lists are basically useless. The "best arcade" list maintained by @Voljega might be your best bet for a somehow accurate list (The FBNeo tab is quite outdated though).

Unless you mean some games working fine before which now lag, I feel the list is pretty much uptodate ? I just did a repass on some non working games and corrected most of it (only missing a few games from late May), adding information about clones which should work for non working parents
Minus the few and far errors about controls and everything ...

EDIT : yeah ok I see a lot of games previously not working entirely due to controls or sounds issues seem now corrected, so I stand corrected too :p

I also started to retest lagging games on N2 and it's so far very good (not shared, I'll share it and integrate it to my tool when I finish retesting fbneo set)

@Darksavior my list is totally locked to avoid this kind of problems

[barbudreadmon]

@Voljega hmmm i think the sega system 24 games were still tagged as non-working just a few days ago, but maybe i didn't look properly. I'll look at the updated list of non-working games this week-end.

[Voljega]

@barbudreadmon yeah I retested them quite recently, maybe last week or something ! The fbneo version in Batocera is uptodate around May 15th or such, so only a few commits from end of month are not working

Once I finish retesting previsouly lagging games on the N2, I will try to address some remaining issues, like missing samples, cases where a clone works and ki/ki2

[roslof]

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Sharing something that may be useful to some.

When I was using my Pi 3B+, I spent... um, too much time, installing the best possible ROM for the emulator that rendered the games well, but was the best performing.

Needless to say, finding a blend of 2003, 2010, 2015, 2016, AdvanceMame, lr-fbneo... was a pain...

My goal was to have an "optimized" set of games (minus mahjong, gambling and bootlegs of games that merely changed title or minor graphics).

This is my private list... It was meant for me, but if it helps you guys, enjoy.

Be sure to read the notes, legend and such...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rq4shU1RUSdcc7cTVWeORMD-mcO6BwXwQ7TGw8f5_zw/edit#gid=0

My personal, highly optimized arcade compatibility list has been updated with lr-fbneo information. Thank you @barbudreadmon for the heads-up that lr-fbneo is much more than lr-fbalpha of the past.

Again, this list was originally intended to be private, but sharing in case anybody wants to have an optimized ROM-list that goes beyond a single emulator.

A few notes:

• It only contains a few roms that require CHD. Several of these exist in the wild. I'll update this once I move to a larger memory card.
• It typically tries to have one (1) ROM from a ROMset, and that is typically "World". A few exceptions
• Casino [Bet] games are mostly removed.
• Several Mahjong games are removed.
• "Bad" games don't exist in my sets
• Horrifically sluggish working names do not exist in my list (a few, small exceptions)
• ROMs used are those supported primarily by lr-fbneo, lr-mame2003, lr-mame2003-plus and lr-mame2010. Some ROMs from lr-mame2015, lr-mame2016 and lr-mame are included, but there are some missing.
• It's probably not perfect, but I'm trying to get there
• Some names are prefixed in brackets for easy filtering (eg. [Adult], [Homebrew], [Quiz]...)
• I'm a stickler for naming the games. I obsess over capitalization, punctuation, spacing and believe this has superior naming to the scrapes
• Names are optimized. In most cases, titles do not include sub titles. Looks much better in EmulationStation for just about every theme
• As this is cloned from my personal list, note that I also love Donkey Kong and Pac-Man hacks. Not many other hacks in this set.

Hope this information is helpful to people who like clean, optimized collections. If you're looking for a list that supports every ROM for every emulator in one place, not sure it exists.

See something broken? Let me know. I'm human and there are errors in there somewhere.

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Thank you @barbudreadmon for the heads-up that lr-fbneo is much more than lr-fbalpha of the past.

Np, feel free to report anything that seems like a bug at https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/issues (PS : our cps3 driver doesn't require the disc imgs in subfolder)

Edit : i tried looking through the issues you mentioned in that file, i probably missed a lot but noticed those :

mgakuen (freeze) => fixed
bradley (freeze) => turns out this one's emulation was never finished, so it was supposed to be marked as not working
hydra (accelerator bad sensitivity) => i can't reproduce, is it happening too if you remap to a non-analog button ?
luctoday (180 deg) => fixed
mtlchamp (run too slow) => performance was improved, not sure it's gonna be sufficient for pi4 though
pdrift (doesn't accelerate) => i can't reproduce, is it happening too if you remap to a non-analog button ?
robowres (no punch controls) => weird, but we might be misunderstanding something about controls in this game, tutorial seems to say grab is same as punch, and grab seems to work
sdungeon (dual stick, not working properly) => oops, fixed
spacecho (crash when shooting a ship carrying a human) => fixed
tdpgal (180 deg) => fixed
victoryc (180 deg) => fixed

Edit2 : what's the issue with pleiads color on fbneo ? i compared it to a few videos from the pcb on youtube, colors seemed to be accurate

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon said:

Edit : i tried looking through the issues you mentioned in that file, i probably missed a lot but noticed those :

Wow, this is great. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Been unavailable. Will review.

@barbudreadmon said in Mame compatibility lists:

Edit2 : what's the issue with pleiads color on fbneo ? i compared it to a few videos from the pcb on youtube, colors seemed to be accurate

I see the same. Some PCB videos showing the black/yellow/green aliens.

There are others with magenta.

http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/1981/pleiades/

EDIT: Try this video:

One more:

I used to play the Centuri version of Pleiads when it was new and in arcades. In the first level, the aliens that fly around are supposed to always be magenta and never black. They appear correct in their "ball" state and when they are building 'bricks", but when they are flying, they are black, which is incorrect. The "SCORE AVERAGE TABLE" that displays during attract mode demonstrates the issue perfectly:

Ironically, the same flying aliens in the Spanish version (pleiadss) look closer to what I remember. Still wrong, but closer:

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon regarding the fix list above:

mgakuen (freeze) => fixed CONFIRMED FIX!
bradley (freeze) => turns out this one's emulation was never finished, so it was supposed to be marked as not working CONFIRMED PROPERLY DISABLED
hydra (accelerator bad sensitivity) => i can't reproduce, is it happening too if you remap to a non-analog button ? User error. Default Acceleration appears to be 200%. Set to 100%
luctoday (180 deg) => fixed CONFIRMED FIX!
mtlchamp (run too slow) => performance was improved, not sure it's gonna be sufficient for pi4 though CONFIRMED FIX! Fine on Pi4
pdrift (doesn't accelerate) => i can't reproduce, is it happening too if you remap to a non-analog button ? User error. Default Acceleration appears to be 200%. Set to 100%
robowres (no punch controls) => weird, but we might be misunderstanding something about controls in this game, tutorial seems to say grab is same as punch, and grab seems to work No issue/User Error. Understanding buttons are chorded
sdungeon (dual stick, not working properly) => oops, fixed CONFIRMED FIX!
spacecho (crash when shooting a ship carrying a human) => fixed CONFIRMED FIX!
tdpgal (180 deg) => fixed CONFIRMED FIX!
victoryc (180 deg) => fixed CONFIRMED FIX!

Amazed to see so many fixes get addressed so quickly (and I didn't even request or properly post in github).

The only other issue I've seen (via list):
Drakton (drakton): No audio in lr-fbneo

Thank you again for re-introducing me to lr-fbneo and for all the great fixes.

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Drakton (drakton): No audio in lr-fbneo

For that one there won't be a fix soon, FBNeo doesn't have the emulation code for its sound cpu (MB8884), which is also why dkong, which run on same hardware, uses samples.

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Amazed to see so many fixes get addressed so quickly

There are some amazing people in the team

2 other issues from your list were fixed :

• digdugat was added
• dodgeman should now have more proper colors

For pleiads, i believe the running version is same or close to this video :

(it's from an actual pcb on the right)
Different versions of the game seem to show different colors, the one you are looking for might be a clone, did you try all of them ?
The thing with your videos is that none of them clearly state that they are running on an actual pcb.

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon said in Mame compatibility lists:

Different versions of the game seem to show different colors, the one you are looking for might be a clone, did you try all of them ?

Yes, tried all of them. The closest was the Spanish version. All others feature the black flyer. Thing is, growing up, I'm certain that the colors were magenta. While it's possible there were color variants in the 80s, I'm sceptical.

[Theorizing] Wondering if the base ROM set is inaccurate. Also wondering if PCBs shown in videos are using EPROMs based on MAME sets and are not original. Could explain.

The fact that no set yields the proper colors that I'm familiar with (for any version of MAME) suggests either faulty emulation or bad color palette in the ROMs themselves. One or both must be true, since I've seen 3-4 of these in the 80s and they all looked the same.

Not a major issue, but I don't believe the original have intended to have that shape, only to make it black/invisible and have it clash with the other states.

Very odd.

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Also wondering if PCBs shown in videos are using EPROMs based on MAME sets and are not original. Could explain.

There is no way to know if one of your videos is from an actual arcade pcb or not, generally a youtube video of an arcade pcb would mention it in the title or show the pcb itself, that's not the case here.

Edit : actually pretty sure none of them are, the 1st and 3rd with their static screen looks like capture from an emulator, and the second one (which is the one that looked most like a pcb) shows a menu with games like 1943 before launching pleiads

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon said in Mame compatibility lists:

@roslof said in Mame compatibility lists:

Also wondering if PCBs shown in videos are using EPROMs based on MAME sets and are not original. Could explain.

There is no way to know if one of your videos is from an actual arcade pcb or not, generally a youtube video of an arcade pcb would mention it in the title or show the pcb itself, that's not the case here.

Very good point. I suppose I can sum up my thoughts like this. Pleides emulation is very good. When it was first emulated in the 90s, I remember how happy I was to see it, because I played it to death. It had the magenta flyers, but at that time, the MAME What's New informed colors were not accurate, but they were close to what I remembered.

Time passed and the ROMs/driver were updated and the flyers went black. I should have reported it back then. I kept thinking they would change in a future update, but they never did. I've tried all the clones as new versions of MAME were released.

So I admit it's possible there original PCBs had the pallette I'm less familiar with, but the fact none have the pallette I remember suggests something is wrong either with the driver or with one or more of the ROMsets, it it's also possible the common version I remember was simply never ripped. Doubt the last one is true. The machines were in multiple locations in Silicon Valley and I would think they would have been ripped by now.

Regardless, not looking for you to find the solution for me. Lol. Appreciate everything you're doing for this community.

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof Wondering if there could be something unemulated with the video signal processing, that could explain why my video has the same colors as fbneo, since the signal seems to be converted for display on lcd.
You should bring up the issue at MAME, they might know something.

[roslof]

@barbudreadmon said in Mame compatibility lists:

There are some amazing people in the team

You're ain't kiddin'.

2 other issues from your list were fixed :
digdugat was added
dodgeman should now have more proper colors

Confirmed, Dig Dug Atari is working/supported!
Dodgeman colors look good!

[barbudreadmon]

@roslof Ok, if you find any other issues, feel free to send a report, you can also try asking for specific clones/hacks support since they are generally easy to implement. It might also be worth mentioning new games are supported almost every weeks, you can generally find more about them by browsing our forum (especially dink & iq_132's topics, they are the 2 main devs)

Edit : bradley is now available and working !

[niculinux]

There are sime compatibility lists at buildbot libretro page, click here.

As of now are covered:

mame2003
mame2003-plus
mame2010
mame2015