MAME Romset question

Retro Arcade Fan

Quick question about MAME romset versions.

According to the website below, a game from the romset 0.181 should work with MAME 2016 on the Raspberry Pi4, correct?

https://www.mamedev.org/oldrel.html

windg

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in MAME Romset question:

Quick question about MAME romset versions.

According to the website below, a game from the romset 0.181 should work with MAME 2016 on the Raspberry Pi4, correct?

https://www.mamedev.org/oldrel.html

Better check RetroPie wiki : https://retropie.org.uk/docs/MAME/

Retro Arcade Fan

@windg That's very helpful, thank you! So it looks like 0.181 isn't supported on the RP then.

Floob

@Retro-Arcade-Fan
Its more that a given emulator may not support a given romset.
This may help give some background:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2859/how-to-use-mame-with-retropie-help-guide

Was there a specific game you were looking to play?

Retro Arcade Fan

@Floob Thank you Floob. I've actually read that one over quite a bit. For the most part, once I know which romset the game belongs to, it usually works with the corresponding emulator on the Pi. There are the occasional exceptions (if the rom itself isn't bad).

You asked which game I'm trying to run. San Francisco Rush and San Francisco Rush - The Rock. I have them in my 0.180 romset. Or I "find" the rom and don't know what romset it belongs to. According to https://retropie.org.uk/docs/MAME/ that romset isn't emulated on the Pi. I've seen versions of these games for the N64 and PSX, but not the best running games.

The Arcade Database mentions 0.77 being the first romset and 0.245 being the latest. These aren't listed on the Pi.

Just to add, I did add the .chd file to the sfrush folder in the rom folder. It just boots back to ES.

Floob

@Retro-Arcade-Fan

If you run the game in verbose mode, then check /dev/shm/runcommand.log it should tell you the issue - likely an unsupported chd version.

Retro Arcade Fan

@Floob I ALWAYS forget about that! Thank you. I'll try that later and see what it says.

barbudreadmon

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in MAME Romset question:

San Francisco Rush

Judging by the updates to this game's mame driver over the past 5 years, i'd recommend avoiding mame2016 and directly going for current mame (as far as i can tell, there were a number of issues involving input, sound and video back in mame 0.174). See :

0.243: Fixed calibration failure regression in San Francisco Rush [Ted Green]. Added partially support of variable sound output channels (audio\cage.cpp) [cam900]. Added 'Atari CAGE Seattle' sound.
0.242: Fixed input port for 'San Francisco Rush' [sjy96525].
0.239: Dumped security PIC for San Francisco Rush and clone [CAPS0ff, neSneSgB].
0.234: Major Voodoo rewrite: Changed to use modern poly.h instead of polylgcy.h. Moved helper classes into separate voodoo namespace. Derived device classes from video_device_interface. Split classes so that later versions derive from earlier versions. Created device maps to be directly included. Redesigned register mapping to use helper classes and delegates. Rewrote rasterizers to use C++ templates instead of macros. Added logic to compute equations for color/texture combine units. Added special generic identity-texel rasterizer cases. Removed pipeline stalls on texture and palette changes. Removed pipeline stalls on most all parameter changes. Generally re-thought and cleaned up logic throughout. Parameterized cycle stealing on status reads; updated all existing voodoo consumers to configure it as it was before. Restore some cycle stealing on vretrace to allow San Francisco Rush to boot [Aaron Giles].
0.226: Sample rate now saved as part of the stream (emu\sound.cpp). Fixes distorted sound in sfrush and sfrushrk when loading from save state [Aaron Giles].
0.222: Added 'Unknown0001' dipswitch.
0.197: Ted Green fixed volume button mapping for San Francisco Rush.
0.193: Ted Green added gearshift to San Francisco Rush.
0.184: Andrew Welburn and The Dumping Union added clone San Francisco Rush (boot rom L 1.06A). Changed parent description to 'San Francisco Rush (boot rom L 1.0)'.
0.179: Risugami added layout for San Francisco Rush.

Also, don't expect this game to run full speed on a pi4, its board is some kind of super beefy Killer Instinct board, with notably an improved version of its mips cpu running at twice the speed.

Retro Arcade Fan

@barbudreadmon Wow, that's pretty interesting. I appreciate you digging deeper into this. When you say "current mame" what do you mean exactly? I know we're limited on the Pi compared to the PC.

barbudreadmon

@Retro-Arcade-Fan i mean mame 0.245

Retro Arcade Fan

@barbudreadmon Right, which doesn't run on the Pi.

I did finally get it to run. Had to add c31boot.bin to the sfrush.zip file. But you're right. Graphically very sluggish even on an overlocked P4. Kind of surprising it's such a hog like you said.

dankcushions

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in MAME Romset question:

@barbudreadmon Right, which doesn't run on the Pi.

sure it does - it's 'mame' in the experimental packages.

Retro Arcade Fan

@dankcushions Wait, "mame" on the Pi is 0.245? Or it's always updated to the latest romset?

barbudreadmon

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in MAME Romset question:

Kind of surprising it's such a hog like you said.

Hmmm no it's not, MAME has no multi-threading, no dynarec, and no gpu rendering. There is no way it can run "fast" 3D games with some "high frequency" cpu, i wouldn't expect anything above 80mhz to run full speed on a pi4, and this one is 200mhz. This is like trying to emulate a dreamcast, without any of the features making fullspeed dreamcast emulation possible on a pi4.

@Retro-Arcade-Fan said in MAME Romset question:

Or it's always updated to the latest romset?

it's updated every month, sometimes with some time lag (i think it's still 0.244 currently)

Retro Arcade Fan

@barbudreadmon I had no idea! This particular emulator never hit my radar. Going to have to try it more often. Thanks so much.