MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates

dankcushions

@mediamogul said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

The right joystick solution is ingenious, but it raises and almost answers a few questions for me at the same time. I take it that the analog sticks from the virtualized 'RetroPad' are incapable of passing the actual analog information from the physical controller to Mame2003?

they can! but only a few arcade games actually utilise left stick analog controls. eg, afterburner, lightgun games, centipede, etc. basically anything that would have some sort of analogue control should pick up your left analogue stick. this was added in july.

After looking at your addition, I realized that even when the device type is set to 'RetroPad w/ Analog' it also doesn't pass the left stick input, leaving only a solution similar to what you've done here where the Dpad is mapped to it. Is this just a limitation of RetroArch and what potential benefit comes from setting 'RetroPad w/ Analog' in the first place?

see above. for me with my dual shock 4 it will pass the left stick analog stick input to games that support it (actually regardless of whether 'RetroPad w/ Analog' or 'RetroPad' is set, weirdly). HOWEVER, if you turn on the analog to DPAD option on, it will instead convert that to a digital signal (duplicating your dpad).

In regard to controls that are potentially messed up, I imagine that any game with tank controls that also have action buttons will be affected by the right stick being mapped to a,b,x,y. I tested 'Cloak and Dagger' late last night and found this to be the case. It could be that this is the only game affected, as tank control games usually don't have extra buttons. I just remapped the action button to the 'r' button and it played very well.

i'll have to try this. all tank control games should now be mapped correctly as i corrected the retropad mappings (now X = up, Y = left, A = right, B = down). previously it was all messed up. you should delete any .cfgs (retroarch or MAME) if you remapped it before the fix, though.

all the right-stick-to-buttons thing does it make the right stick do something when it previously did nothing.

mediamogul

@dankcushions said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

they can! but only a few arcade games actually utilise left stick analog controls.

Very cool. I'll have to reconfigure my preferences a bit to take advantage of that.

all tank control games should now be mapped correctly as i corrected the retropad mappings (now X = up, Y = left, A = right, B = down).

I have cleared my previous mappings and the new controls indeed work very well, it's just that since the 'down' direction and the primary action button are now both mapped to the 'b' button by default, AgentX continuously launches a bomb whenever the down direction is pressed. Again, it only took a moment for me to remap, so it's no big deal, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention.

caver01

@dankcushions said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

only a few arcade games actually utilise left stick analog controls. eg, afterburner, lightgun games, centipede, etc. basically anything that would have some sort of analogue control should pick up your left analogue stick. this was added in july.

I am curious about the use of analogue sticks with games that had a 49-way stick. Games like Sinistar and Food Fight both had 49-way sticks, yet, even an 8-way seems clunky to me. It's very difficult to control the ship in Sinistar, and I always wondered if using an analog stick would be better--not that I have one, but maybe for my next build. Thoughts?

UDb23

@dankcushions said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

http://samples.mameworld.info/wav/invinco.zip

Unfortunately I already had samples installed. I double checked and it's the same zip you suggested.

Invinco / Deep Scan was a dual game so the ROM is two different games in one:
Invinco - invaders like game (sound with samples works) and Deep scan - no sound at all.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@dankcushions said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

http://samples.mameworld.info/wav/invinco.zip

Unfortunately I already had samples installed. I double checked and it's the same zip you suggested.

Invinco / Deep Scan was a dual game so the ROM is two different games in one:
Invinco - invaders like game (sound with samples works) and Deep scan - no sound at all.

Thanks Dank for the new updates, great work! :)

Great call on Depth Charge UDb I was just playing it a few weeks ago. I wish the overlays worked as the blue hue (plexi-glass I think?) is nice but none of the early versions of MAME code support that game overlay.

I don't think sound samples are working but Dank might have snuck an update in there somewhere. There's a reference in this thread about sound samples. Donkey Kong is a must for working sound samples.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2588/keyboard-tab-key-not-working-in-mame-retroepie/26

dankcushions

ok thanks all for all the testing and ideas!

@mediamogul said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

I have cleared my previous mappings and the new controls indeed work very well, it's just that since the 'down' direction and the primary action button are now both mapped to the 'b' button by default, AgentX continuously launches a bomb whenever the down direction is pressed. Again, it only took a moment for me to remap, so it's no big deal, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention.

ahh i see! thanks :) i have put a fix in that binds this to button5 (i think this is L2, will confirm) - will update when this is accepted.

@caver01 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

I am curious about the use of analogue sticks with games that had a 49-way stick. Games like Sinistar and Food Fight both had 49-way sticks, yet, even an 8-way seems clunky to me. It's very difficult to control the ship in Sinistar, and I always wondered if using an analog stick would be better--not that I have one, but maybe for my next build. Thoughts?

i just tested sinistar and it works properly with the analog stick :) i remember playing a clone on the BBC micro that had 4 (at most 8) way control, so this is cool! i still suck, though. didn't get how you find the gems :( but yeah, i think an analog stick would be cool in a cab but i guess there's not too many games that use it (at least, on mame2003). i guess you could put a few driving games on from the 32-bit console era!

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@dankcushions said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

http://samples.mameworld.info/wav/invinco.zip

Unfortunately I already had samples installed. I double checked and it's the same zip you suggested.

Invinco / Deep Scan was a dual game so the ROM is two different games in one:
Invinco - invaders like game (sound with samples works) and Deep scan - no sound at all.

fixed! there's not many fixes i can do to the original mame code but this seemed to be a bug in this version where it was looking for a sample pack that doesn't exist! i changed it to the invinco sample pack and now it correctly retrieves that one (it seems to re-use samples from invinco which i hope is right? can you confirm?). anyway, i will update when the fix is live :)

UDb23

@dankcushions Thanks for trying to fix Deep Scan sound.
This game is basically an enhanced version of Depth Charge (it adds color and the "radar" at the bottom). Therefore sounds are supposed to be the same as Depth Charge.
Invinco sounds are not related to Deep Scan.
Depth Charge does use an external sample file; maybe you can modify the code to look for these samples.

UDb23

@Riverstorm I too was looking at recreating the blue hue for Depth Charge. As Libretro overlays are supported I will try with a full screen dark blu overlay with a low opacity settings and see how it works. Will let you know.
Also I'm making/adapting some bezels for the new correct core aspect ratio fixed by Dank in lr-mame2003. Idea is to have maximum gaming area with integer scale factor in 1080p and bezel covering remaining black areas.

dankcushions

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@dankcushions Thanks for trying to fix Deep Scan sound.
This game is basically an enhanced version of Depth Charge (it adds color and the "radar" at the bottom). Therefore sounds are supposed to be the same as Depth Charge.
Invinco sounds are not related to Deep Scan.
Depth Charge does use an external sample file; maybe you can modify the code to look for these samples.

i'm having a play with the code and nothing seems to be working. i think this is just not supported in this version of mame i'm afraid :( advmame or mame2010 may work properly

UDb23

@dankcushions thanks a lot anyway. Efforts really appreciated.
As far as I know even current mame version does not support sounds for Deep Scan.
Either nobody cares or it is difficult to implement (as you just confirmed).

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@Riverstorm I too was looking at recreating the blue hue for Depth Charge. As Libretro overlays are supported I will try with a full screen dark blu overlay with a low opacity settings and see how it works. Will let you know.
Also I'm making/adapting some bezels for the new correct core aspect ratio fixed by Dank in lr-mame2003. Idea is to have maximum gaming area with integer scale factor in 1080p and bezel covering remaining black areas.

Deep Scan looks great I guess that one slipped under my radar! It's nice to discover new gems. :)

That would be great filling in the black areas. I like the looks of the Depth Charge bezel on Mr. Do's Arcade but I think it would take up to much of the actual game areas as most of the bezel is top/bottom coverage (combined marquee with the control panel it looks like) but it's a nice bezel none the less.

Mr. Do's Depth Charge Bezel

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

I'll check if Depth Charge uses a specific external sample zip file (that could be reused for Deep Scan) and let you know.

The current samples use depthch.zip:

longex.wav
shortex.wav
sonar.wav
sonarena.wav
spray.wav

Riverstorm

In case you didn't know sound samples for Depth Charge (depthch.zip) do work in both advmame & lr-mame2003. I saw a few references to Deep Scan (invds.zip) using invinco sound samples but also found this. The information is a bit contradictory.

MAMEInfo wrote:

Samples required (Invinco) 

TODO: 
* Add sound/samples for Deep Scan (Depthcharge samples)

UDb23

@Riverstorm thanks. Invds.zip does use invinco samples but only for the invinco game.
Talking about sub games I recently discovered: "the deep" and "In the hunt". Both are evolution of Depth Charge and really enjoyable in lr-mame 2003 :-)

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@Riverstorm thanks. Invds.zip does use invinco samples but only for the invinco game.

Sorry, I am confused, what is the name of the Deep Scan game ROM?

Talking about sub games I recently discovered: "the deep" and "In the hunt". Both are evolution of Depth Charge and really enjoyable in lr-mame 2003 :-)

Thanks for the tip, will give them a go here later today!

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in MAME development: lr-mame2003 Updates:

@Riverstorm thanks. Invds.zip does use invinco samples but only for the invinco game.

Ah, I see now button 3 toggles between the two games.

dankcushions

small update!

7th September 2016

Fix default controls in Cloak & Dagger
Idea by @mediamogul in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2889/mame-development-lr-mame2003-updates/63
Fix bug where you couldn't rebind Retropad B button
Idea/bug reported by @silentq in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3854/cannot-remap-b-button-to-any-other-button-other-than-button-1-in-mame2003

mediamogul

@dankcushions Much appreciated sir.

BuZz

Binaries are updated.

dquez

Has anyone looked into adding "autocenter" to the analog control options for lr-mame2003? I end up using mame2010 for a lot of games that had analog controls because mame2003 lacks the "autocenter" feature.

@dankcushions The core input remapping addition was fantastic! Great work. mame2010 needs this too.