Mame versions and Gyruss

Meneer Jansen

I always liked the classic arcade game Gyruss. It had a very original idea of gameplay: you fly round the outer boundary of the game screen in a circle and fire at the middle. Enemies and bombs fly to you from the "depth" or "warphole" in the middle of the screen.

The background music is

(Bach). However, the only mame version on RetroPi with which this epic background music is not all garbled up for me is mame4all (based on ROM set 0.37). Mame4all is not my favorite Mame flavor in RetroPie because it cannot save games. Other Mame versions I've tried in Retro are:

Libretto Mame 2003 (lr-mame2003) w/ the proper rom set
Advance mame 0.94 (with rom version 0.94)
Advance Mame 1.2 and 1.4 w/ other rom versions

On my PC it works and always has. The game seems to run a little slow too (I have a Pi 1B). Could it be that my Pi is too slow for this antique game? Or might it need some tweaking sound wise?

Screenshot of Gyruss

dankcushions

it runs fine for me on mame2003 on a pi3. pi1 B is very underpowered for mame - the complexity/age of the game doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the computing power required to successfully emulate it (in fact, it's often the opposite, as early generation arcade games had very strange and bespoke hardware).

your only real option for the pi1 B is the mame4all-pi, which is optimised for the hardware, and is based off mame in 2000 which had less complex and accurate emulation. and even then...

also, mame4all-pi probably does support saving. at least, the code does: https://github.com/RetroPie/mame4all-pi
you might need a hiscore.dat to save scores on some games.

Meneer Jansen

@dankcushions said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

it runs fine for me on mame2003 on a pi3. pi1 B is very underpowered for mame - the complexity/age of the game doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the computing power required to successfully emulate it (in fact, it's often the opposite, as early generation arcade games had very strange and bespoke hardware).

your only real option for the pi1 B is the mame4all-pi, which is optimised for the hardware, and is based off mame in 2000 which had less complex and accurate emulation. and even then...

also, mame4all-pi probably does support saving. at least, the code does: https://github.com/RetroPie/mame4all-pi
you might need a hiscore.dat to save scores on some games.

Thanks for the info. Is mame4all-pi the same as the mame4all that I can choose in the menu that I get when I press a key during the loading of a rom? I placed a Gyruss ROM that works for me in the dir /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all/. I can't see it in the menu (press TAB). My mame4all (actually called mame4droid) on my Android phone cannot save games either. In the help file of mame4droid it says that the mame version on which mame4all is based cannot save games/states.

However, on mame4all's dev site it says indeed:

sta/ -> Save states directory

This sta dir is located (on my pi) in /opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all and it is empty. I tried to save a game w/ the default key combo Shift F7 (link) . Maby the "save functionality" was in the source code on which mame4all is based, but has not been compiled in... Strange.

Anyway, I'm glad Gyruss works (in mame4all). Is mame4all the fastest classic arcade emulator on the RetroPie system? If I'm not mistaken then some FBA (or another) incarnations can play Mame games too. I kinda like Mortal Kombat (even though I'm not into 2D fighters). But MK runs too slow on my Pi. Fascinating though that the Pi can run Quake III just fine (and Jedi Outcast reasonably) but has a hard time running Gyruss. For computer buffs this is no surprise of course, but for me Gyruss and Quake III are ages apart. Fascinating! Makes my jaw drop, ha ha. :-)

dankcushions

@Meneer-Jansen said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

Is mame4all-pi the same as the mame4all that I can choose in the menu that I get when I press a key during the loading of a rom?

yes

I placed a Gyruss ROM that works for me in the dir /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all/. I can't see it in the menu (press TAB)

i don't understand. what menu? what do you want to see in the menu?

My mame4all (actually called mame4droid) on my Android phone cannot save games either. In the help file of mame4droid it says that the mame version on which mame4all is based cannot save games/states.

hmm, well: https://code.google.com/archive/p/mame4all-pi/issues/25

Anyway, I'm glad Gyruss works (in mame4all). Is mame4all the fastest classic arcade emulator on the RetroPie system? If I'm not mistaken then some FBA (or another) incarnations can play Mame games too.

fba (pifba, specifically) might be faster. fba isn't built with emulation accuracy in mind, like mame is. we have compatibility lists on the wiki which you can compare.

Fascinating though that the Pi can run Quake III just fine (and Jedi Outcast reasonably) but has a hard time running Gyruss. For computer buffs this is no surprise of course, but for me Gyruss and Quake III are ages apart. Fascinating! Makes my jaw drop, ha ha. :-)

this is an interesting read: http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:Performance

jimd0586

I have a follow-up question here. If I have a rom that doesn't work on the mame emulators on my pi3 when I installed (libretro, 4all, advancemame) am I SOL? Or are there other options to get it to work?

dankcushions

@jimd0586 said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

I have a follow-up question here. If I have a rom that doesn't work on the mame emulators on my pi3 when I installed (libretro, 4all, advancemame) am I SOL? Or are there other options to get it to work?

what mame emulator it works in depends on a lot of things. i suggest you start with https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Managing-ROMs

i'd get a 0.78 romset and start from there.

Meneer Jansen

@dankcushions said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

@Meneer-Jansen said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

Is mame4all-pi the same as the mame4all that I can choose in the menu that I get when I press a key during the loading of a rom?

yes

I placed a Gyruss ROM that works for me in the dir /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all/. I can't see it in the menu (press TAB)

i don't understand. what menu? what do you want to see in the menu?

My bad. I was a bit vague. I meant that I don't see an option to save a state (save a game mid-game) in the Menu (when you press TAB.).

Meneer Jansen

@jimd0586 said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

I have a follow-up question here. If I have a rom that doesn't work on the mame emulators on my pi3 when I installed (libretro, 4all, advancemame) am I SOL? Or are there other options to get it to work?

Which game/ROM?

dankcushions

@Meneer-Jansen said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

My bad. I was a bit vague. I meant that I don't see an option to save a state (save a game mid-game) in the Menu (when you press TAB.).

well, save states are different from normal game saves (nvram/hiscores), so we're talking about different things.

for states: according to http://easyemu.mameworld.info/mameguide/mameguide-controls.html
shift + F7 should attempt to save a save state on standalone mame emulators. i think it will depend on directory paths and such being set up, although mame2003 should do it as it auto-creates those.

of course, if you're using a libretro core you should use the standard hotkey (select, typically), plus R bumper to save, and hotkey plus L bumper to load, as that 'just works'

Meneer Jansen

Unfortunately, Mortal Kombat appears not to be supported by (Pi)FBA. I'll have to stick to Mme4all then.

jimd0586

@Meneer-Jansen

This thread brings up a good question. FBA is for NEO Geo right? So can FBA run some MAMEs? I am confused. Some of the posts here suggest that FBA can run standard MAME files.

Finhead

@Meneer-Jansen
They seem to work fine with Advmame, IMO it's far better then mame4all for smooth graphics and sound. Plus you can change up the video to suit your monitor, style etc.

dankcushions

@jimd0586 said in Mame versions and Gyruss:

This thread brings up a good question. FBA is for NEO Geo right? So can FBA run some MAMEs? I am confused. Some of the posts here suggest that FBA can run standard MAME files.

for the most part, when there's crossover, FBA will run things faster, but it's possibly less accurate.

FBA (and there are several versions on the pi) runs a subset of MAME roms. the full gamelists are on the wiki.