AdvanceMAME Bezels (redux)

ChaosEffect

Hello,

I am using RetroPie 4.8 on a Raspberry Pi 4 with Sinden lightguns.

There is at least a few lightgun games (ghlpanic, golgo13, and g13knd) that run better for me in advmame (3.9) than in any of the Libretro MAME ports. AdvanceMAME is also the only standalone emulator I have come across that recognizes multiple mice as separate input devices on a Pi.

The Sinden lightguns require a white border to be put on screen so that the guns can place the coordinates accurately. That's easy to do in RetroArch via an overlay, but standalone emulators are more challenging.

My immediate thought was to apply the border via MAME artwork. However, performance in AdvanceMAME tanks for me when I apply artwork (or even open the MAME tab menu, it seems). The emulator then crashes after a few seconds. A quick search indicates that this was a known problem a few years ago.

Is there a way to apply artwork in AdvanceMAME without causing the emulator to crash? I just need a thin white border on the very edge of my 16:9 screen.

Failing that, could I possibly run AdvanceMAME in a window over a desktop background that is all black except for a superimposed border?

Folly

@ChaosEffect

I have never used AdvanceMAME but came across these threads:

Seems you need to use old style artwork files using the .art file structure.

This might be the solution to your problem.

ChaosEffect

@Folly Thanks. I should have mentioned that the older .art files were what I tried to use.

In other versions of MAME, applying artwork doesn't seem to have an effect on performance (though you have to keep it low-res). The same is true with overlays in RetroArch (but you can have much higher resolution overlays without affecting performance).

However, activating artwork in AdvanceMAME via an appropriate .art file causes the performance to go down the tubes. I got the border on Ghoul Panic, but the game slows to a crawl and then crashes after about a minute or so. I am also now realizing that I had relative coordinates activated for the controls anyway. There doesn't appear to be an option for absolute coordinates like many of the Libretro MAME ports have.

Performance is decent in lr-mame2010, and with its recent lightgun additions, that is probably the best choice until a new iteration of the Raspberry Pi can be tested.

Folly

@ChaosEffect said in AdvanceMAME Bezels (redux):

Well, It was worth a "shot" ;-)

I am also now realizing that I had relative coordinates activated for the controls anyway.

Can I conclude that even, if artwork could work, you still have a problem with how the coordinates are configured.

ChaosEffect

@Folly 😆

I don't have much experience with AdvanceMAME either, but what I'm reading indicates that its lightgun controls function as emulated joysticks and/or are Windows only. A quick test with the border applied via artwork gives an inaccurate cursor with bad sensitivity. The performance loss is a hurdle that seems to make further testing pointless.

A careful application of the RetroArch lightgun API doesn't require any sensitivity adjustments by the user. As long as the coordinates are scaled properly by the emulator, where you point the gun is where the cursor goes.