Soul Calibre

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon Yes but I wanted to see if they run at all. I didn't even realise Tekken Tag ran until I looked into this. I only ever had the PS2 version.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott said in Soul Calibre:

I didn't even realise Tekken Tag ran until I looked into this. I only ever had the PS2 version.

As far as arcade is concerned, tekken tag is actually running on PS1-based arcade hardware, which runs well on mame (it requires a decent device though).

George Spiggott

I think that the Pi can probably handle it, it's just a matter of finding the right combination of features in an existing emulator. I'm currently installing Mame 2015 to see what results I can get.

Hopefully I can get all of the last few arcade games I have that won't run in FBNeo to run in a single emulator.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott said in Soul Calibre:

I think that the Pi can probably handle it, it's just a matter of finding the right combination of features in an existing emulator

I wouldn't count too much on MAME for those, iirc namco system 12 (that PS1 arcade hardware) with MAME ran around half speed on my 2.56Ghz NUC.

Zering

@barbudreadmon The System 11 is the PS1 arcade hardware, not 12, if I recall correctly.

barbudreadmon

@Zering system 12 is system 11 with upgraded cpu (100 Mhz instead of 66), as far as emulation is concerned it's basically the same hardware, it's just that you have to run more cpu cycles per frame.

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon said in Soul Calibre:

I wouldn't count too much on MAME for those, iirc namco system 12 (that PS1 arcade hardware) with MAME ran around half speed on my 2.56Ghz NUC.

I would agree. Mame being built for accuracy makes it a poor fit for high end emulation on low spec devices. FBNeo seems to have a more suitable goal as it prioritises speed, but it doesn't support system 11/12. Maybe one of the PS1 emulators supports it like Flycast does for Naomi.

[Edit] I should also correct myself. Soul Edge (system 11) runs at near full speed at approx 57FPS on my Pi4 on Mame 2010.

George Spiggott

I got hold of a Mame 2010 rom for Tekken Tag Tournament. It plays well with or without frameskip on (over 50 FPS without). It does have slight audio and graphical problems but it is very playable.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott I don't know about the tekkens, the only game i was interested in on that platform was Fighting Layers (fgtlayer), which was unplayable on that NUC using MAME (i don't remember if it was 2010 or 2016).

George Spiggott

Both Tekken Tag and Soul Calibur are a good 15FPS slower on Mame 2016 compared to Mame 2010 even before taking into account 2016s lack of frameskip. I'll try to take a look at Fighting Layers.
Sadly Soul Calibur has fairly unsurmountable graphical errors on Mame 2010 rendering it quite unplayable.

Does anyone know what the situation is with Mame 2015/2016. Are they in active development? They've been around in experimental at least as long as I have owned a Pi so I assume they were added when they were the latest version. Has anyone found a game that can only be played on them? ( I'm not counting Soul Calibur as it is only borderline playable).

I feel that Mame 2015 adds nothing but potential confusion to the already complex line up of Mame versions available to Pi users. It is just as slow as 2016 but has even fewer features. Is anyone out there actually using Mame 2015? I feel that FBNeo and Mame 2010 are the best two choices at the moment for a Pi4 user. Mame 2016 is fun to experiment with but not useful to game with.

barbudreadmon

@George-Spiggott said in Soul Calibre:

Does anyone know what the situation is with Mame 2015/2016. Are they in active development?

By definition, any core with a year after its name is not in active development (sometimes there will be some improvements, but those are only about their libretro implementation, not about the emulation code itself), the only exception might be mame2003+ where some emulation improvements are backported from more recent mame versions.

George Spiggott

@barbudreadmon Fighting Layer runs at over 50FPS in Mame 2010 and is very much playable. I didn't even test frameskip. It is about about 15FPS slower in Mame 2016.

Perhaps I need to check out Mame 2003+ for system 11 and 12 compatability. Further to my previous experiments with System 246/256 (PS2) my understanding is that no version of Mame currently supports these.