lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport

[markwkidd]

Announcement: the mame2003.xmlfile generated by mame2003-plus is now going into save games folder. I was being lazy and let the default case statement catch the XML filetype but today is the day to get things locked down in that part of the code. It's 'user-initiated' and therefore it's going into the save folder I spose!

Eventually this change will work its way back to mame2003 but not for a day or two at least.

Thanks grant!

[Riverstorm]

@markwkidd said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Eventually this change will work its way back to mame2003 but not for a day or two at least.

I don't know if there's a short answer but I noticed when I compile lr-mame2003 from source yesterday certain ROMs now do work that previously didn't which is nice. Are "related" changes merged but games specific to mame2003_plus not. The main difference are the new/updated games. If that makes sense.

Will it eventually be one emulator as the changes overall seem very beneficial as many games that previously didn't work now do in lr-mame2003. There seems to be a lot of fixes going in to place for both emulators.

[markwkidd]

@riverstorm said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Will it eventually be one emulator as the changes overall seem very beneficial as many games that previously didn't work now do in lr-mame2003. There seems to be a lot of fixes going in to place for both emulators.

That would be nice and I think everyone would like it to happen eventually. Right now I think we're all kind of enjoying having a place to try things out without disturbing all of the mame2003 users who just want their existing libraries to work the same or better with each update.

It was very telling to me that twinaphex tried out the build modernization and libretro-common update on mame2003-plus, and then let me backport it to mame2003. That's a pretty good role.

[markwkidd]

Today's new feature: CD soundtrack hacks for Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam.

Coding by KMFDMFan and gpstar. Rebase and port to mame2003-plus by twinaphex.

[markwkidd]

One new feature I'm very excited about in mame2003-plus is support for MAME backdrops.

warrior demonstrates the role of backdrops

This is how the game looks in mame2003:

mame2003-plus makes progress

There is a graphics bug -- but this feature is having a revival!

[mediamogul]

@markwkidd

Very nice! Seeing as how backdrops are an inherent feature of MAME, do you know if this will be included in mame2003?

[markwkidd]

@mediamogul said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Very nice! Seeing as how backdrops are an inherent feature of MAME, do you know if this will be included in mame2003?

If we can get the backdrop image to display correctly I think there is a very strong chance this will get merged into mame2003!

[UDb23]

@markwkidd said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

One new feature I'm very excited about in mame2003-plus is support for MAME backdrops.

This is great news ! Been waiting for this for a long time, thanks.
Advancemame still has issues to display overlays correctly and mame2010 becomes too slow if you enable overlays.

Will it use the "old" mame overlay format or is it implemented differently?

[markwkidd]

@udb23 said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Will it use the "old" mame overlay format or is it implemented differently?

It uses the old pre-0.107 (aka version 2) format. Same as AdvanceMAME.

[mediamogul]

@udb23 said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Advancemame still has issues to display overlays correctly

I haven't noticed any issues myself. How is it displaying them incorrectly?

[UDb23]

@mediamogul said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

I haven't noticed any issues myself. How is it displaying them incorrectly?

Here you can find detailed info and tests done:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/12135/advancemame-3-5-overlays-resolution-problem

[mediamogul]

@udb23

I moved the discussion here, so as not to further interrupt this thread.

[markwkidd]

There have been quite a few improvements made over the last few days.

Two that I'm excited about are:

1. the ability to open and close the MAME menu from within the RetroArch GUI (by toggling a core option)
2. a core option to toggle whether input should be read only from the retropad, only through mame's keyboard interface, or simultaneously as with mame2003

This input interface selection feature lays the groundwork for continued future improvements for people playing with joypads (like most RetroPie users I imagine).

[UDb23]

@markwkidd
Mame .196 includes important fixes thanks to Team Caps0ff that have extracted the Taito C-chip data for Volfied, Superman, Rainbow Islands and Bonze Adventure.
As this provides "real" emulation of those ROMs, would it be possible to backport these into lr-mame2003 ?

[Darksavior]

Would it be difficult to backport neogeo cd along with its chd support ?

[Stuart2773]

@darksavior

probally be quicker to port the " NeoraineCD" emulator
http://raine.1emulation.com/download/latest.html

[markwkidd]

@darksavior said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

Would it be difficult to backport neogeo cd along with its chd support ?

This is a bigger project than I know how to tackle, but other folks here may know how!

As @Stuart2773 said it might even be easier to port another emulator than to add NeoGeo CD to mame2003-plus

[UDb23]

@markwkidd So no chance for the Taito C-chip backport?

[markwkidd]

@udb23 said in lr-mame2003 driver improvement and backport:

@markwkidd So no chance for the Taito C-chip backport?

I haven't had a chance to really look at that one. We have only one coder who understands how to backport memory maps from recent MAME. That person does read this thread so we may hear something.

Alternately I am trying to learn at least the basics of the memory map process so I can answer this question for another title I'm interested in. I should say it may be a while before I know an answer.

[UDb23]

@markwkidd Understood. Thanks !