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

Ashpool

Remember : the test versions (253.06) can't be updated right now because they are still in the 00-workdir-00. If update is selected it will downgrade to 253.05.

That was the one I've used, update option not choosen and no previous (AFAIR)/later lr-gw install.

Do you use VWware or something else ?

I've tried virtualbox in pre-Win7 times, but since vmware(-player) offered native support for xpmode vms, i've switched to that player and well, stayed with it so far (though for legacy systems as win9x, i would prefer QEMU/PCem/DOSBox-x)) .

Still, I guess that I have to raise the memory used by the VM from 4 GB to 8+, the mame compile (initiated via mamedev.sh) failed/retropie crashed back to the desktop... in the meantime i also tried add-mamedev*.sh on a fresh &updated retropie image (the basic retropie install one i've created for my backdrop experiments) and at least there g&w installed fine.
Will play with that setup in the next few days and report back (I've never really tried software lists/mess systems and maybe elite on the archimedes could be a self-set milestone I want to accomplish ;] )

Edit: At least the ArchElite (ever wanted to play that since I read the revue in a Computer magazine back in its time, and though Ian Bell himself is hosting various elite versions [1] to be used on emulators/real machines since aeons - i never came to try it) goal may be troublesome, i thought of giving it a try 'cause of nonmame mentioning the acorn/archimedes systems as mature in mame, but querying the systems from the xml/arcadeitalia-database ain't that promising. We may see ( honestly, previously i only ever used your scripts for g&w out of childhood memories ;] ).

1: And also "Elite - the musical", I really love "a contract is a contract" from that ;D

Edit: -> P.S.: OK, maybe those memories/anectodes would be better placed/suited within the Old Computer Appreciation Thread. ...

Folly

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

Still, I guess that I have to raise the memory used by the VM from 4 GB to 8+, the mame compile (initiated via mamedev.sh) failed/retropie crashed back to the desktop...

Indeed, compiling mame takes a lot of memory.
I use 8 GB, that should work.
You have to know that the install-lines for mame/lr-mame and lr-mess are just links/redirections to the original module-scripts.
They are there so everything is in reach and that someone doesn't forget to install it.
Basically it doesn't matter if you install them from the experimental packages or from my module-script.
Is this information I should add in the help for these lines ?

in the meantime i also tried add-mamedev*.sh on a fresh &updated retropie image (the basic retropie install one i've created for my backdrop experiments) and at least there g&w installed fine.

Aha, good to hear !

Will play with that setup in the next few days and report back (I've never really tried software lists/mess systems and maybe elite on the archimedes could be a self-set milestone I want to accomplish ;] )

Sorry some bad news ;-)
I just tested elite and it will show the files when opening 0: but it will not boot when selected.
In the hash table archimendes.xml you can find elite as not supported.
So you probably can't get it working on archimedes with mame or lr-mess.

Ashpool

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

I use 8 GB, that should work.
You have to know that the install-lines for mame/lr-mame and lr-mess are just links/redirections to the original module-scripts.

Just to report back on the VM... (raspi/binary installs and tests still going fine): to be sure I've used 12GB and mame compiled without a flaw, now it is lr-mess wich breaks (no crash, just fail):

Compressing src/mame/layout/zoo.lay...
make: *** [makefile:1333: build/projects/retro/mamemess/gmake-linux/Makefile] Segmentation fault (core dumped)

No Fun, and not a fault of the script (as you mentioned it just calls the native retropie script)... bloody thing is, i installed all that in a previous VM (including games&watch via add-mamedev-systems.sh) earlier this year and it all went without a problem (also on Ubu 22.04) - sigh! But I hadn't encountered this "error" back then, now I have :[

Well, to cite a somewhat famous movie series "I am getting to old for this s*..", otherwise said "It may be that we are indeed living in interesting times" ;]

P.S.: Damned and curses to hear about "<software name="elite" supported="no">", wasn't there a way to disable softlist s and load images via CMD (Just to see what will happen)?

Edit: Wasn't there an option to convert(/copy?) mame art to be used by lr-mess? I can't find that (at the moment) in the (current) tool. If mame is selected as emulator, the downloaded artwork works fine, but it ain't present in lr-mess)

Folly

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

Just to report back on the VM... (raspi/binary installs and tests still going fine): to be sure I've used 12GB and mame compiled without a flaw, now it is lr-mess which breaks (no crash, just fail):

Not that much time but if I can I will try to compile lr-mess and see what happens.

Well, to cite a somewhat famous movie series "I am getting to old for this s*..", otherwise said "It may be that we are indeed living in interesting times" ;]

Indeed, nice quote ;-)

P.S.: Damned and curses to hear about "<software name="elite" supported="no">", wasn't there a way to disable softlist s and load images via CMD (Just to see what will happen)?

It will load with softlist enabled, you will get into the OS of Archimedes and the files can be seen when opening the drive in the explorer. But the game will not run it will freeze. You can test with softlist disabled, that means just using the runcommand with the media option -flop (this will disable the softlist loading in the specific custom-core-options.cfg and is loaded via the retroarch.cfg.add).
Not tested yet, but this will likely have the same result.
Sure, you can use a .cmd file, if that is what you mean, but you will have to create one, and it will have the same result as mentioned earlier.
(if having a good working .cmd file, that is)

Edit: Wasn't there an option to convert(/copy?) mame art to be used by lr-mess? I can't find that (at the moment) in the (current) tool. If mame is selected as emulator, the downloaded artwork works fine, but it ain't present in lr-mess)

You have to download the artwork first and then you will be able to convert the artwork into Retroarch backgrounds/overlays.
First select :

Download/update mame artwork (+/-30 min.)
Then select :
Create RetroArch background-overlays from artwork
Create RetroArch 16:9 bezel-overlays from artwork

Folly

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

now it is lr-mess wich breaks (no crash, just fail):

Indeed it does not compile.
Tested Debian 10 (x86), Debian 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 on x86_64 VM.
Seemed an issue with the Makefile.libretro that has been changed 5 days ago.
Though I tried the older Makefile.libretro and sadly still fails.

What a nightmare again ;-(
Will have a look later.

I will open a separate thread for this :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/34238/lr-mess-will-not-compile-17-may-2023

Edit :
lr-mame has the same issue !

Folly

@Ashpool

One or more commits, in lr-mess from May, have broken something that will break compiling lr-mess.

There is no solution yet, but you can use an earlier commit to use a bit older source from april to compile.

The only thing you have to do is add the commit to the original lr-mess module-script, like this (cd5.....1b):

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/libretro/mame.git master cd5f7d077cdab2eac09faf642ddd121d80f3ad1b"

The only disadvantage is that about 1,5Gb is dowloaded as source so downloading will take a bit longer.

Once the source is ok again you can revert the line again to :

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/libretro/mame.git master"

ps :
lr-mame has the same issue because it comes from the same source !
Above temporary solution will also work for lr-mame.

Ashpool

@Folly Well, after some meddling with the script and mess systems, I can only say: so far (as said, had just used it before for the handhelds) I was pleasantly surprised that it covered a lot of the hazards I feared so far whence using mess systems. But somewhat disappointing is that from all things I tried (appleII|appleIIc/bbcb/pc8801/lynx), only lynx was somewhat satisfying and the other ones had various issues, but as those are not related to the scriptmodules, i also have to say that neither i had found anything that I could report in this regards :]

Folly

@Ashpool

Thanks for testing ;-)
Did you already discover that you can update the test versions from within the script ?
I am planning to do some more work when I have the time.

Will try those systems you mentioned and see what results I get.
Indeed much is related to the source code of mame itself.
For bbcb I know it works but other emulators do a better job.
What was your issue with bbcb ?

Btw,
I am working and testing now on Ubuntu 22.04 ~~and all seems to work pretty good now.~~

I ~~only~~ had 2 issues so far :

auto removing the top-bar so emulationstation will use the whole screen. (installing extension manager and enable hide top-bar)
changing some shortcut key-combinations in OSX so they don't interfere with ctrl in combination with the cursor keys in the Ubuntu VM (^->,^<-, etc)

Edit :
Sadly, Ubuntu 22.04 has a lot more issues described over here ;-(

Ashpool

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

Did you already discover that you can update the test versions from within the script ?

Nope, good to hear ;) last think I remember is:

 Remember : the test versions (253.06) can't be updated right now because they are still in the 00-workdir-00. If update is selected it will downgrade to 253.05.

What was your issue with bbcb ?

gfx glitch in "elitea", the cobras "console"/interior ploted fine, but the "outside" view/grafic wasn't fitting the screen (only ~1/4 visible, as if zoomed into the topleft position of a virtual display).

I am working and testing now on Ubuntu 22.04 and all seems to work pretty good now.
I only had 2 issues so far :
auto removing the top-bar so emulationstation will use the whole screen. (installing extension manager and enable hide top-bar)

Mh, didn't know that hiding the top-bar was possible, I avoided it by "falling back" from wayland to xorg.

Folly

@Ashpool

I am adding update info in this post now :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-lr-mame-and-mame-standalone/1364

You first have to update manually, after that updating is possible from within the script.

Folly

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

gfx glitch in "elitea", the cobras "console"/interior ploted fine, but the "outside" view/grafic wasn't fitting the screen (only ~1/4 visible, as if zoomed into the topleft position of a virtual display).

Indeed too bad, I have the same issue.
Also tested bbcm but that makes no difference.

DTEAM

@Folly

Hi Folly,

I tried to use th PCECD add-on with:

mame-system-pcecd-cdrm-autoframeskip = "/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -v -c -autoframeskip -ui_active pce pcecd  -cdrm %ROM%"

I tried to use the "no intro romset" and it doesn't work.

If I don't use the "basename" command, normally I should be able to use a ROM no matter the name? Right?
I don't remember if it's different for .chd (cd ) games.

Here's my log. If I use the good MAME Rom, It should work, but I'm trying to use it without the hashfile.

Parameters: 
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -v -c -autoframeskip -ui_active pce pcecd  -cdrm "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/tg-cd/Buster Bros. (US).chd"

"pcecd" approximately matches the following
supported software items (best match first):

* Software list "pcecd" (NEC PC Engine / Turbografx-16 CD-ROMs) matches: 
fanspc1           PCEngine Fan Special CD-ROM Volume I (Japan)
hyprcata          PCEngine Hyper Catalog Duo-RX - Disc A (Japan)
hyprcatb          PCEngine Hyper Catalog Duo-RX - Disc B (Japan)
hypercap          PCEngine Hyper Catalog (CD-ROM Capsule) (Japan)
policeco          Police Connection (Japan)
prinmak2          Princess Maker 2 (ACD, SCD)(Japan)
spcfzone          Space Fantasy Zone (CD, SCD)(Japan, prototype)
psycdet3          Psychic Detective Series Vol. III - Aya (Japan)
psycdet4          Psychic Detective Series Vol. IV - Orgel (Japan)
psycdet3d         Psychic Detective Series Vol. III - Aya - Auto Demo (Japan)
hyperdyn          Hyper Dyne SideArms Special (Japan)
princesm          Princess Minerva (Japan)
priveyed          Private eye dol (ACD, SCD)(Japan)
psychics          Psychic Storm (Japan)
spaceinv          Space Invaders - The Original Game (Japan)
supersch          Super Schwartzschild (CD, SCD)(Japan)

* Software list "pce" (NEC PC Engine HuCards) matches: 
pcdenj            PC Denjin - Punkic Cyborgs
pcdenja           PC Denjin - Punkic Cyborgs (alt)
pcgenj            PC Genjin - Pithecanthropus Computerurus
pacland           Pac-land
pcgenja           PC Genjin - Pithecanthropus Computerurus (alt)
pcgenj2           PC Genjin 2 - Pithecanthropus Computerurus
pcgenj3           PC Genjin 3 - Pithecanthropus Computerurus
pcpachi           PC Pachi-slot
gecd              Games Express CD Card
circusld          Circus Lido
cyberdod          Cyber Dodge
pcgenj3t          PC Genjin 3 - Pithecanthropus Computerurus (Taikenban)
spaceinv          Space Invaders - Fukkatsu no Hi
makaipri          Makai Prince Dorabocchan
cybrcore          Cyber Core
jchan             Jackie Chan

Folly

@DTEAM

Just found something about pcecd I read that it's an addon.

Will have a look if I can find the files and how to load it.

This command gives information that -cdrm (.chd) file can be loaded with just using pce.

pi@pi-2204:~$ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listmedia pce
SYSTEM           MEDIA NAME       (brief)    IMAGE FILE EXTENSIONS SUPPORTED
---------------- --------------------------- -------------------------------
pce              cdrom            (cdrm)     .chd  .cue  .toc  .nrg  .gdi  .iso  .cdr  
pce              cartridge        (cart)     .pce  .bin

So, again, I think you have typo in the runcommand :
pce pcecd

Just use :
pce

Edit :
Above did not work.
It will ask for a cartridge.
Tried gecd boots but Loom.chd did not work.
(Haven't got your game yet.)
Will try some more.

DTEAM

@Folly
Same problem on my side. It ask for a cartridge. I'll take a look on the notes in the pce_cd.cpp file

http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/download_file.php?tipo=sourcefile&codice=pcecd&emulator=964&oper=view

Folly

@DTEAM

Everything is down now so I can't get any files.
Will try to get bbros tomorrow so I can test with softlist loading and eventually without.

Folly

@DTEAM

Edit : A solution is in the next post. This post seems irrelevant.

I think they need to add HuCard slots in pce_cd.cpp.
(// TODO: correct name, split into incremental HuCard slot devices)

Listslots will give :

pi@pi-2204:~/RetroPie/roms/pcengine/cylums-turbo-grafx-cd-rom-collection$ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listslots pce
SYSTEM           SLOT NAME        SLOT OPTIONS     SLOT DEVICE NAME
---------------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------------------
pce              ctrl             arcade_pad_6     NEC Arcade Pad 6
                                  avenue_pad_6     NEC Avenue Pad 6
                                  joypad2          NEC PC Engine Pad
                                  joypad2_turbo    NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 2 Button Joypad
                                  mouse            NEC PC Engine Mouse
                                  multitap         NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Multi Tap
                                  pachinko         Coconuts Japan Pachinko Controller CJPC-101
                                  pcjoy            Micom Soft XHE-3 PC Joystick Adapter for PC Engine

                 cartslot         [none]           No options available

You see that there are no cartslots available.

Don't know if it is correct but it seems it's only possible to softload pcecd files.

Folly

@DTEAM

I have Loom.chd booting now ;-)

I had a look at the PC-Engine docs and found that lr-beetle-XXXXX needs syscard or equivalent to boot cd's.
So I had a search in the the software for pce.

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware pce|grep cdsys

The cdsys.zip file contains all version of syscard (cdsys,cdsysa and cdsysb)
I tried them all on my Loom.chd and It booted in the CD boot screen.
After pressing "1" it will mention that Loom requires the Super CD-ROM System.

After a good search the rom for mame is scdsys, obviously.
So I did a test with that rom with this test cmd :

pi@pi-2204:~/RetroPie/roms/pcengine/cylums-turbo-grafx-cd-rom-collection$ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -rompath . pce scdsys -cdrm Loom.chd

Putting the scdsys.zip in the same directory as the game.
Now after pressing "1" the game boots !

So I don't have the bbuster.chd yet, as everything is still down.
But this is something you can try.
Just add these cdsys and scdsys files in BIOS/mame and add one of them instead of ~~pcecd~~.

Let me know if it works.

ps. scdsys is probably the best way to go as it looks like it is the latest version and will probably cover most games.

DTEAM

@Folly

Wow, nice work! You are now a MAME expert!
Glad to see you solved this puzzle!

NEW EDIT: I can't find cdsys and scdsys. I'll continue to search them on google

Folly

@DTEAM
Added to the normal versions (now 253.08) (commit has wrong version (mistake)) :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/e6b9900cc28e4d6b673a28e4e19c71066db05e0f

Can you test !

Help has been added, look at that too.
BIOS can be in BIOS/mame/pce

Folly

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

NEW EDIT: I can't find cdsys and scdsys. I'll continue to search them on google

Read my help in the install line.