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

arcadez2003

MAME2003+ was always about taking the base MAME78 core and backporting new game support plus many fixes and improvements
from later MAME releases, the core sees many new commits everyday but i wanna focus on a couple of noteworthy happenings

Contra

A recent fix was just added where as the bullet and rolling mines now behave correctly on the 3D sections of the game
now rather than simply always ending up on the right of the screen regardless of where your character is they now
correctly target you directly as it would have been the case when playing it back in the day down your local.

It's harder now as a result but no gains without some pains :)

Turbo Out Run

You can now play Turbo Outrun in this core but however since MAME2003+ does not have a M68K CPU which can
decrypt the FD1094 Sega protection, we're hacking around this by making the original MAME78 Turbo Out Run
romsets use some pre-decrypted roms.

As a rule do the following and merge these romsets to create a working version a dat will help you right enough...........

toutrun.zip + toutrund = working
toutrun3.zip + toutrun3d = working

I've already added the Contra fix and another which sorts the missing road layer in Hang-On so it's now playable in
the MAME2003 core, but since those who deem themselves to be in charge of MAME2003 do not want to see the roms
changed then i'll just leave Turbo Out Run in a broken and non working state for that core.

REK607

Hello! Does Mame2003Plus have a 2 players version of Sunset Riders? I am using the 4 players one. I'm considering trying with a child 2 players rom I have for 0.78 if that works

dankcushions

@rek607 you're "considering trying"? why not just try? :)

yes it looks like it's supported: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/755e64ed8c7f1fdc5d69e65084a3355c51107937/src/mame2003/frontend_list.h#L1894-L1901

Clyde

The mame2003-plus.xml also lists multiple 2P versions with driver status "good". Just make sure you use the right romset or build one yourself.

REK607

It simply worked flawlessly as I suspected. I am not that good with computers but I'm having fun and learning a lot with this project. By the way my favourite Sunset Raiders character is Cormano :-P

arcadez2003

We're still plodding along adding new game support plus the usual assortment of fixes and improvements to the core
one of many was a fix for Bonze Adventure so it no longer crashes on level 6, but just a heads up you can now play this
super rare long hoarded Atari prototype in MAME2003+ should you wanna :)

Danger Express

Adding this was good practice for when Marble Man - Marble Madness II finally leaks as it'll likely use the same driver

Pablo 0

@arcadez2003 Thank You!

Please add Vs. From Below

https://vs.frombelowgame.com/

matchaman

"As of May, 2018 a complete MAME 0.78 romset collection and a complete MAME 0.139 romset collection together include nearly all ROMs needed to rebuild a complete collection of mame2003-plus romsets."

I'm about to make a brand new installation for Pi 4. Is that still the case for romsets?

barbudreadmon

@matchaman I believe a few more recent dumps are also used by mame2003+, like recently dumped MCUs.

Clyde

@matchaman

In order to build a complete MAME 2003-Plus collection, the ingredients are:

A complete MAME 0.223 or later romset collection

A complete MAME 0.223 or later "rollback" romset collection

MAME 0.78 CHD collection

The NeoGeo UniBIOS 3.3, freely available at http://unibios.free.fr/

Source: https://docs.libretro.com/library/mame2003_plus/#building-romsets-for-mame-2003-plus

Riverstorm

You'll need a little more than current MAME and the rollback. You also need a handful of unofficial ROMs for some decrypted, demo and free play games. It's worth the time to find them as arcadez has added some real gems and updated classics with more accurate game play.

If you want to be posh, if you will, ;) and 100% complete check out the OST's added by KMFDManic and grant. They are a very nice complement to games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, Moonwalker, NBA Jam and Outrun.

I think they are in the DAT so you'll have to find them or be ok with set errors. I know some people can be real nutters when it comes to incomplete sets, they just can't stand seeing the report of a few missing ROMs.

It seems the stereo versions are a little more challenging to find but the mono are fairly easy. I think the custom OST's will become more widely available soon though, so keep an eye out.

The mono version will play either the left or right channel bilateral and the stereo is basically split-stereo that is remixed on the fly (they are named identical but suffixed with a "-1" and "-2", for left/right channels respectfully. Some of the 16-bit stereo versions are over 300MB but they are easy to resize and keep the original intact if running on an NES mini or other limited resource console.

I wouldn't worry to much about the CHD's pending your platform of choice and ability to rum them but I I think they are only around 16GB which is relatively small as current CHD's plus rollback CHDs combined are like 600 or 700GB. A current MAME complete set is so big now it has its own drive, I think it's around 1TB without extras.

arcadez2003

Believe it or not dev still continues on this core just a wee update from me to let ya's all know you can now play the most requested
"and up until now hoarded" Arcade game in the history of emulation using MAME2003+

Marble Madness II

Ashpool

@arcadez2003 Don't forget to mention Megumi Rescue ;] Had just read yesterday about marblmd2 and megrescu in the FBNeo Thread andthen I noticed that they are also within the current mame2003plus datfile ;)
My Guess is in current Mame they will appear in the next incarnation (0.245) ;)

arcadez2003

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

@arcadez2003 Don't forget to mention Megumi Rescue ;] Had just read yesterday about marblmd2 and megrescu in the FBNeo Thread andthen I noticed that they are also within the current mame2003plus datfile ;)
My Guess is in current Mame they will appear in the next incarnation (0.245) ;)

I didn't think anyone would bother :) but yes Megumi Rescue is a decent wee game which is also now playable in MAME2003+ as i added support
for it last week nice game i like it mind and press the button to make the fireman dive through the windows

Ashpool

By the way: I ever wanted to ask this, but somehow I always forgot to actually do it...

Besides the changelog mentioning updated/added "games", is there a database or some reference where we can check about the "state/rough mame version equivalence" of the roms in Mame2003Plus? So that we may cross reference within the Mameinfo Metadata whether certain roms may better be played using a more recent core? Just looking at the driver/emulation/graphic/sound states within the mame###.xml ain't helpfull here (just thinking about the cases where former driver: good states where changed to driver: preliminary, etc.). Or are the "drivers"/"implementations from"/"developments for" mame2003+ simply not comparable/locatable to a certain version/timestamp within mames history?

Riverstorm

@Ashpool - I'm not sure if this helps for what you're looking for but it's a compatibility table, of the state, of each ROM in the core.

The core base comes from 0.78 is about as close as you'll get. Through the years several hundred games have been added/updated based on what the devs can make work on the old drivers in the core.

Riverstorm

@Ashpool - Here's a rough MAME equivalent version for each Libretro core. I think current MAME has also been ported but I've never tried it.

mame2000 (based on MAME 0.37b5)
mame2003 (based on MAME 0.78)
mame2003-plus (based on MAME 0.78 + additions)
mame2010 (based on MAME 0.139)
mame2015 (based on MAME 0.160)
mame2016 (based on MAME 0.174)

Ashpool

@Riverstorm Thanks, sounds like I "feared" that the information from mameinfo.dat ain't a usable reference in regards to mame2003+. To be more precise of what I had in mind, here is an example: If I look at the mameinfo data for llander1 (for reference here via the arcade database, the maminfo.dat information is on the info tab), I'm inclined to say that I want to use at least a mame version of .141u2, better .153 or even .190/.198 for that rom ... now, if llander1 would be (it ain't) among mame2003+ changelog list for games now fixed (or whatever), it would be nice to get some clue of where in this mameinfo.dat changelog it could be placed. Was just a thought, and no big deal if those thoughts where in a not-possible zone. [Edit: Well, at least one may assume (?) that each game mentioned within the changelog ain't .78 anymore]

barbudreadmon

@Ashpool https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commits/master/src/drivers/asteroid.c => there should be no major change from how it was in 0.78.

Riverstorm

@Ashpool - Ah, ok, yeah it's much less "formal". It's basically one long string of commits. There's no official change list between builds/commits with version numbers to help make an educated decision on the best version(s).

They have over 4,000 commits. You can see half dozen changes one day down to none for several in a row. They add and tweak games here and there when they have time.

You could search pull requests something like is:pr is:closed llander and see there have been some updates to llander but that's not quite as handy. There's nothing quite as organized like in mameinfo.dat.

If I remember someone built a fairly extensive spreadsheet of games, based on which emulator works best for each game. That's in the context of RetroPie supported emulators but I don't have the link off hand. I suppose that changes over time too! :-)