Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@rott42 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

I already installed cdimono1 but due to defective bios or roms (probably both), couldn't pass the "initializing" screen

CD-i definitely works on the Pi 4, at what seems to be full speed. Hotel Mario! I used the BIOS files from the latest MAME ROMset, seemed to do the job.

[Folly]

@jimmyfromthebay said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

can you see picture 2 after entering from picture 1 ?
can you see picture 3 after entering from picture 2 after selecting Z ?

Yes and no in that order.

Ok, if you don't seen picture 3 sometimes then it seems there is something wrong with building this up in this particular menu.
I have a look at this.

[Folly]

@rott42 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly Excellent menu frontend and a great idea. A few year ago I was playing with my pi 3, trying to get CDi to work through lr-mess. Although I managed to make it work, it was hard enough for me to not try it again with other systems. Your work is great. I've installed your frontend a few days ago on my pi4 and it seems that it works very well. I already installed cdimono1 but due to defective bios or roms (probably both), couldn't pass the "initializing" screen. Anyway the emulator works. I also got sometimes the error message that was reported by @jimmyfromthebay. It seems to happen in any of the menus, except the Handhelds menu, sporadically and with no pattern. After reboot it usually works fine. Thank you again for the great work.

Great to hear that there are more people using it now.
I hope I will find the issue in the front-end.

[Folly]

@DTEAM @JimmyFromTheBay @rott42

I just found a second issue in the front end-script.
I was not able to use the joystick in the sub-menus.

I fixed this by reordering some lines within the script and now it works.
Somehow I think this issue could be related to the other issue (Expecting at least 5 tokens.... have 4)

Can you update the script and try it again ?

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@folly I'm a dummy, what exactly does "update the script" mean? Redownload add-mamedev-systems-test6.sh or update RetroPie-Setup or both?

EDIT: I did both. Joystick now works in the add-mamedev-systems menu, but I still get the same crash.

[Folly]

@jimmyfromthebay said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly I'm a dummy, what exactly does "update the script" mean? Redownload add-mamedev-systems-test6.sh or update RetroPie-Setup or both?

EDIT: I did both. Joystick now works in the add-mamedev-systems menu, but I still get the same crash.

Thanks for testing.

I meant just redownload add-mamedev-systems-test6.sh and overwrite it in the RetroPie-Setup.

So issue 1 still remains.

I will look further.

[Folly]

@jimmyfromthebay

I am a bit in the dark as I can't reproduce the problem.
But I have changed some things again.
Could you re-download it, overwrite it and try it out ?

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@jimmyfromthebay

I am a bit in the dark as I can't reproduce the problem.
But I have changed some things again.
Could you re-download it, overwrite it and try it out ?

No change :(

[Folly]

@jimmyfromthebay @rott42

On which RPI do you run the script ?
Do you use the binary or source of mame ?

I don't have a solution right now.
But I can reproduce the error on a RPI3.
The RPI4 doesn't seem to have a problem.

So I tried the script on my old RPI3.
It seems mame complains about having too little virtual memory :

drc_cache: Error allocating virtual memory

Right now it looks like it's an issue of mame and RPI3 combined.
Mame can't get enough virtual memory an therefor can't output all the data.

So when you go into another sub-menu it just get's only a part of the database and then produces the error because it doesn't have all the data in the memory.

So it looks like there are no issues with the script.
But if there is no fix then perhaps I should come up with a different database solution for the RPI3.

It seems more alike issues are posted here :
link_to_issue

EDIT ( latest conclusion) :
I backupped mame on the RPI4 and updated the binary from 0.227 to 0.232.
Now I have the problem also on the RPI4.
Basically it's a mame issue, not sure how to deal with this.

[Folly]

@DTEAM

Do you have this problem too ?

[DTEAM]

@folly
I didn't update MAME to 0.232.
I'll do It this week and I'll do some tests.

[Folly]

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly
I didn't update MAME to 0.232.
I'll do It this week and I'll do some tests.

Thanks,

Be sure you backup the old version !
Otherwise it's gone.

[Folly]

@DTEAM @JimmyFromTheBay @rott42

I created add-mamedev-systems-test6_temp.sh to fix the issue with mame temporarily.
It will use a good mame0310 database placed in my repository.

Install instructions are changed in post 1.

Be sure to remove the old version as it will clash !

Let me know if it works for you.

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@folly All seems to work fine :)

[Folly]

@jimmyfromthebay said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly All seems to work fine :)

Thanks for testing !

Glad we have found the problem.
At first I wasn't really sure what it was.
Nice to know it wasn't an issue in my script in the first place.

Also a nice discovery is that extracting the data from a text file will improve the speed drastically.
For now we don't see that because the data is still downloaded.
I did this for the simplicity, otherwise it get's too complicated now.

But if I can structure it decent then we could place the files on the SD/harddrive and get the data from there, this could be quite an improvement.
We could even filter multiple data files, If we know how to, and use these multiple data files.

[rott42]

@folly now it works without any errors. Thanks again.

[Folly]

@rott42 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly now it works without any errors. Thanks again.

Super, thanks for testing ;-)

[JimmyFromTheBay]

Guys, any chance of support for the NEC PC-6000 series with tape loading? Works beautifully straight out of the box with ROM carts, but sadly only about 1% of its games were on cart.

You can boot to the OS and type CLOAD, and a little counter briefly flashes up, but then nothing happens.

I notice in the MESS menu there's a reference in the Devices section to something called "-cashack", but no way to change its settings and I can't find any documentation about it.

[dmmarti]

@jimmyfromthebay Hm....interesting.

Looking at the MAME -listmedia for the pc6001, it looks like you load cassette files into the "-cart2".

pc6001
cartridge1 (cart1) .bin
cartridge2 (cart2) .cas .p6

Try loading the cassette files using the -cart2 emulator config.

===UPDATE===

I just tried it on my Windows PC MAME 0232 loading a cassette *.cas file using the "-cart2" option.

I just hit <enter> when asked about number of pages.

Then once loaded, I typed "CLOAD <enter>"....saw the counter....then got my prompt back. I typed "RUN <enter>" ... and lo and behold .. the game started!

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@dmmarti said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@jimmyfromthebay Hm....interesting.

Looking at the MAME -listmedia for the pc6001, it looks like you load cassette files into the "-cart2".

pc6001
cartridge1 (cart1) .bin
cartridge2 (cart2) .cas .p6

Try loading the cassette files using the -cart2 emulator config.

===UPDATE===

I just tried it on my Windows PC MAME 0232 loading a cassette *.cas file using the "-cart2" option.

I just hit <enter> when asked about number of pages.

Then once loaded, I typed "CLOAD <enter>"....saw the counter....then got my prompt back. I typed "RUN <enter>" ... and lo and behold .. the game started!

Ooh, that's excellent info. But something's going wrong at the last step for me :(

I load with the -cart2 option and I get the menu asking me which version of BASIC I want and how many pages. The filename specifies what those should be (it includes "m2p2"), then I type CLOAD and the counter goes nuts but when it's finished, no prompt :(

Will try other tapes, maybe it's just that one.