mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support

markwkidd

What is mame2003-plus?

mame2003-plus is a relatively new libretro emulator core which aims to combine the speed and functionality of the mame2003 codebase with bugfixes and new game support from later versions of MAME.

arcadez is the founder of mame2003-plus, and arcadez has been using their experience backporting MAME drivers for the original xbox in order to develop mame2003-plus.

Installing mame2003-plus

In order to install mame2003-plus, first update RetroPie-Setup! You can find mame2003-plus in the Experimental section. You will need to compile it from source.

New games and features are being added on a nearly daily basis. Should I update the core every day?

Although development will eventually slow down on the core, it is still happening at somewhat a rapid pace. As more people start to use the core and report bugs, its likely that development will still be clipping along for another month or two at least.

To that end, it is great when people compile the latest and greatest version, so we can have fresh reports. However if you are about to set out your RetroPie system at your garden party or give it to your grandma, it would probably be better to not update mame2003-plus just then because sometimes there are temporary "regressions" when an update has unintended consequences. (No significant regressions have lasted more than a day or so thus far, knock on wood!)

Where are all these changes described?

The mame2003-plus CHANGELOG is the essential resource to track new and fixed games: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

You can also read about some of the new and improved functionality in the README: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/master/README.md

Input system

libretro's retropad abstraction, pictured as an xbox 360 controller

One highlight of the new functionality is a new input system, created in partnership with @dankcushions, which allows the user to easily select between a traditional mame_keyboard input mode and a retropad input mode oriented towards playing with a gamepad. Within the retropad mode there are three "flavors" which allow you to chose a default controller mapping that best suits your hardware: modern, SNES, and MAME Classic

BONUS: The modern mode matches the default controller mapping for the libretro Final Burn Alpha core!

This is also described in the README: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/master/README.md

What Arcade romsets work?

mame2003-plus is built on the same codebase as MAME 0.78, meaning that 95% or more of MAME 0.78 romsets will work as-is in mame2003-plus, where they immediately benefit from its bugfixes and other improvements. In order to play the new games and games which received ROM updates in mame2003-plus, you will need to find or build the correct romsets.

mame2003-plus has the ability to generate an XML "DAT" file directly from the MAME Menu. When mame_keyboard input is enabled, you can enter the MAME menu by pressing the Tab key. With any input mode, you can also access the MAME menu by turning it on as a core option.

How to source ROMs

As of May, 2018 a complete MAME 0.78 romset collection and a complete MAME 0.139 romset collection together include nearly all ROMs needed to rebuild a complete collection of mame2003-plus romsets. If you are stuck on one of the handful of games that can't be built from those collections, post here.

It should also be possible to build a complete mame2003-plus collection from the most recent MAME collection plus the MAME "Rollback" collection.

WORD TO THE WISE ABOUT CLRMAMEPRO SETTINGS

ClrMamePro remains the most popular tool for rebuilding MAME romsets, at least for now. That said, ClrMamePro is focused on supporting more recent MAME versions so there are at least two things to know if you are using ClrMamePro to generate a mame2003-plus set:

If you are scanning CHDs, go to Settings -> Compressor -> CHDMan tab and change Req. CHD Version to 3.
If you are using the suggested setting of Disable Separate BIOS Sets then ClrMamePro will report the BIOS romset files as missing even though you told the program you don't want them. mame2003-plus incorporates 15 different kinds of BIOS romsets, so it is normal to see a ClrMamePro message like this after a clean and complete scan: You are missing 15 of 4831 known mame2003-plus.xml sets (+ BIOS sets)

Sourcing CHDs

mame2003-plus uses exactly the same MAME 0.78 CHDs as mame2003.

Sourcing Samples

Generally mame2003-plus uses the same samples as mame2003 however there are some exceptions. It should also be mentioned that the new CD soundtrack samples are not circulated as part of any common packs.

Sample sourcing docs are a work in progress. If you have sample issues, post about it and I'll try to help.

Photo By Datagod - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Note: Billy Mitchell does not yet endorse mame2003-plus

markwkidd

There was an old thread, but it has more than 500 messages! https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/13638/lr-mame2003-driver-improvement-and-backport

I'd like to tag a few folks who are involved in this effort so they know about the new thread. @grant2258, @Riverstorm, @ZappaUtopia -- anyone else?

A few more highlights!

Metal Slug 5 - thanks to arcadez

Zookeeper - thanks to arcadez

Rampage (and a passel of other Bally/MCR games) - thanks to @grant2258

Tapper - thanks to @grant2258

markwkidd

Outrun Arcade with Sega CD Soundtrack hack thanks to KMFDManiac

NBA Jam Arcade with Sega CD Soundtrack, ibid

Final Fight and Mortal Kombat 2 also have CD soundtrack hacks!

darknior

Thanks for all these informations :)
I love this new MAME 78 upgrade version :D

Riverstorm

Thanks @markwkidd @arcadez @grant2258 @dankcushions it's a great core with some nice enhancements. Nice job guys!

Any chance to add up above the location in RGUI to switch between '''mame_keyboard''' and '''retropad''' and the controller layouts?

Love the Billy Mitchell pic! :)

markwkidd

Thank you @Riverstorm for taking so much of your time to investigate and try out the different aspects of the core including the romset rebuilding issues. You were here in the very beginning, before me I am pretty sure!

It might be good to list the mame2003-plus core options, in order of their appearance in the GUI, since that is also one of the ways to share some of the new functionality.

@Riverstorm below the core options I've included a screenshot of the core options in RGUI -- you will see the two new input options are near the top as in the list.

Core options

The first value listed for the core option represents the default. "Restart" indicates that the core must be restarted in order for changes to that option to take effect.

Frameskip: 0|1|2|3|4|5
Input interface: retropad|mame_keyboard|simultaneous
RetroPad Layout: modern|SNES|MAME classic
Mouse Device: mouse|pointer|disabled - Switch between mouse (e.g. hardware mouse, trackball, etc), pointer (touchpad, touchscreen, lightgun, etc), or disabled. Defaults to pointer in iOS.
Show Lightgun crosshair: enabled|disabled
Display MAME menu disabled|enabled
Brightness: 1.0|0.2|0.3|0.4|0.5|0.6|0.7|0.8|0.9|1.1|1.2|1.3|1.4|1.5|1.6|1.7|1.8|1.9|2.0
Gamma correction: 1.2|0.5|0.6|0.7|0.8|0.9|1.1|1.2|1.3|1.4|1.5|1.6|1.7|1.8|1.9|2.0
Use Backdrop artwork (Restart): disabled|enabled
Specify BIOS region (Restart): default|asia|asia-aes|debug|europe|europe_a|japan|japan_a|japan_b|taiwan|us|us_a|uni-bios.10|uni-bios.11|uni-bios.13|uni-bios.20
Share 2 player dial controls across one X/Y device: disabled|enabled - Some dial/spinner hardware are actually one device with one axis for each player. This supports that setup, by invisibly breaking down the normal mouse x/y into two separate inputs.
Dual Joystick Mode (Players 1 & 2): disabled|enabled - Player 1 uses Joysticks 1 & 2, Player 2 uses Joysticks 3 & 4
Right Stick to Buttons: enabled|disabled - Invisibly remap the retropad's right analog stick to serve as buttons
TATE Mode: disabled|enabled - Enable if rotating display for vertically oriented games (Pac-Man, Galaga, etc). Requires video_allow_rotate = "false" cfg setting in RetroArch.
EXPERIMENTAL: Vector resolution multiplier: (Restart) 1|2|3|4|5|6
EXPERIMENTAL: Vector antialias: disabled|enabled
Vector translucency: enabled|disabled
EXPERIMENTAL: Vector beam width: 1|2|3|4|5
Vector flicker: 20|0|10|20|30|40|50|60|70|80|90|100,
Vector intensity: 1.5|0.5|1|2|2.5|3
EXPERIMENTAL: Skip ROM verification: (Restart) disabled|enabled
Sample Rate (KHz): 48000|8000|11025|22050|44100 - Change this manually only for specific reasons. The audio sample rate has far-reaching consequences.
MK2/MK3 DCS Speedhack: enabled|disabled - Speedhack for the Midway sound hardware used in Mortal Kombat 2, 3 and others. Improves performance in these games.
Skip Warnings: disabled|enabled

0_1526272943265_Screenshot 2018-05-13 23.40.28.png

Darksavior

Will you guys take a look at system16 sometime? Games like Moonwalker are only playable with the correct audio in mame2000 with a lower end pi. Mame2010 and fba has huge requirements that still make a pi3b+ struggle.

Just about all the system16 games have audio bugs of some sort in mame2003. Some are unnoticeable until later like in the 2nd level of Shinobi.

markwkidd

@darksavior said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

Will you guys take a look at system16 sometime? Games like Moonwalker are only playable with the correct audio in mame2000 with a lower end pi. Mame2010 and fba has huge requirements that still make a pi3b+ struggle.

Have you tried the Moonwalker bootleg in mame2003/mame2003-plus? I've had good luck running it on low-power systems, although not any rpis specifically.

Please post what you know about the system16 audio bugs in the mame2003-plus github repository Issue section. https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro

Someone will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is an issue report for this in the repos for either versions of mame2003.

Darksavior

@markwkidd I've tried the bootleg, yes. Michael Jackson and everything else has a higher pitch.

markwkidd

@darksavior said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

@markwkidd I've tried the bootleg, yes. Michael Jackson and everything else has a higher pitch.

I think I have only ever played the bootleg version on an emulator. I had no idea!

Darksavior

@markwkidd I asked arcadez back when he was active, and my misreporting of a bug he possibly made (but didn't) + the pressure of breaking the main mame2003 core often enough to cause drama, made him abandon the possible research in going to backporting.

I haven't tried the games in a while, I'll retry them in plus and report my findings on the github if you like.

markwkidd

@darksavior said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

I haven't tried the games in a while, I'll retry them in plus and report my findings on the github if you like.

That would be great, thanks.

Riverstorm

@markwkidd - Thanks for the options list that's really helpful.

When in mame_keyboard mode <not> operators now work in a Libretro core which is wow.

The Bally/Midway games in 2003+ are great. A couple of classics that I was glad to see working are Rampage and Xenophobe. I moved them back over from AdvMAME and having them running with a decent shader. It's great playing Donkey Kong with full audio vs. missing the stomps, running, etc.. :)

ClassicGMR

TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!

mediamogul

@riverstorm said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

I moved them back over from AdvMAME and having them running with a decent shader.

With all the advancements the core has seen, I've been considering doing the same. Especially now that we have arcade RetroAchievements. One, thing though; 'Donkey Kong' shouldn't have any problems playing samples in AdvanceMAME. I play the game a lot and they all play fine. Were you on one of the older versions?

mediamogul

@classicgmr said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Do you prefer the hard stuff, or are you a root beer guy?

ClassicGMR

@mediamogul
Root Beer... PHUH
Suntory... PHUH

Gimme a Bud! :)

mediamogul

@classicgmr

Ha! I hear you. If I ever owned any one cabinet besides my MAME cab, it would definitely be that. It's freakin' gorgeous.

ClassicGMR

@mediamogul Tapper, Funhouse Pinball, Mania Challenge. I'd love to own just those three. :)

Of course my X-Arcade stays too....

mediamogul

@classicgmr said in mame2003-plus: 250 new games, new input system, new features, new bugs:

Funhouse Pinball

Funhouse fun fact; Rudy was actually voiced by Midway legend Ed Boon who was of course one half of the creative force behind 'Mortal Kombat'. He does a damn good job too. 'Funhouse' is easily in my top five pinball favorites and maybe even number one. As odd a choice as it might be, I actually hold Gottlieb's 'Rescue 911' in such high regard that it might even muscle out the likes of 'Addams Family', 'Jurassic Park' and 'Indiana Jones'. That's the thing with pinball machines though. You end up bonding with the physical play style of certain ones that just make sense to you on a fairly personal level.