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

BJRetro

@arcadez2003 question - for the bubble bobble and ninja kids fixes specifically do I need a different rom for those games than the standard .078 or does just updating mame2003-plus alone implement those fixes? Thank you for all the work you are doing!

arcadez2003

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

@arcadez2003 question - for the bubble bobble and ninja kids fixes specifically do I need a different rom for those games than the standard .078 or does just updating mame2003-plus alone implement those fixes? Thank you for all the work you are doing!

For this core you need a different Bubble Bobble rom Ninja Kids however uses the same rom as MAME2003

arcadez2003

@grant2258 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

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

@arcadez2003 Hmm, that's odd. It happened on mame2003 and also, though to a lesser extent, on 2003-plus. Running a 3B+ with stock 1400Mhz and Retropie governor set to 'performance'.

Tested this on it does crawl to a slow speed on the pi but is fine on a pc so must be using to much cpu power somewhere when doing this effect. If this isint happening on the xbox build it shouldnt happen on a pi though

Alright tested this as well on the Xbox, same thing a drop from 60fps to around 12fps when the raster effect triggers on the screen transition into and out of the bonus stage,
although you'd hardly notice it without the fps turned on, this doesn't happen when using FBN i get a steady 59fps so it must be an issue with the NeoGeo raster handling in
the older MAME code maybe this is the fix.............

0.103u3: David Haywood rewrote NeoGeo video system, removing distinction between raster and non-raster games and cleaning up the code significantly. Cleaned up the Neo Geo mess from 0.103u2 [David Haywood, Razoola]. Changed visible area to 320x224.

From experience big changes like the above = lots of work to backport em.

WeirdH

@arcadez2003 Well, if it's not worth it, you shouldn't bother imo. It's not a super essential game or anything, I was just wondering. Thanks for looking into it anyway.

Lyle_JP

In Mame 2003-plus, I've noticed a major slowdown in Super Dodgeball '96 (Neo-Geo) when there is sprite-scaling over the fire effects in the attract mode. It's completely gone in AdvanceMame 3.9. I wonder if it's related to these other Neo-Geo slowdowns.

grant2258

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

In Mame 2003-plus, I've noticed a major slowdown in Super Dodgeball '96 (Neo-Geo) when there is sprite-scaling over the fire effects in the attract mode. It's completely gone in AdvanceMame 3.9. I wonder if it's related to these other Neo-Geo slowdowns.

Yea checked this is happening on the pi 3b+ fps dropping to 40 fps when there is fire audio slows down as well but gameplay is ok. Now for these two games just press f1 on your keyboard to disable raster effects. The games run fine I dont notice any issues but im not 100% familiar with these games but if the slow downs get you down this will fix it.

arcadez2003

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

In Mame 2003-plus, I've noticed a major slowdown in Super Dodgeball '96 (Neo-Geo) when there is sprite-scaling over the fire effects in the attract mode. It's completely gone in AdvanceMame 3.9. I wonder if it's related to these other Neo-Geo slowdowns.

A number of NeoGeo games fire a raster IRQ line when performing certain graphical effects, i suppose on some lesser spec platforms you'll get a big performance hit
while this is occuring, as you say since it doesn't happen when using a later MAME build on the same hardware a fix for this issue was done by the MAME dev's at
some point tracking it down and then attempting to backport the required changes to this core will be a fair amount of graft.

I dunno if im up for big core updates at the moment :) it might be easier as @grant2258 suggested to just turn off the raster effects while playing said games
or we can make a list of the ones that make use of raster lines and depending on how they perform recommened you play them using another MAME core
or FBN.

WeirdH

@grant2258 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

Now for these two games just press f1 on your keyboard to disable raster effects. The games run fine I dont notice any issues but im not 100% familiar with these games but if the slow downs get you down this will fix it.

This totally works. Judging from the notification when pressing F1, it's a MAME setting, correct? The setting doesn't stick on exiting and restarting the rom, however. Is that at all possible, or will I have to press F1 every time?

grant2258

@WeirdH Yes it is indeed a mame option you will have to press it for the moment as is.

WeirdH

@grant2258 Okay, thanks.

EDIT - I just noticed something: am I correct in stating that Mega Play titles don't save high scores?

So far, I've seen this on mp_sonic and mp_sor2, which both came from a reference set. All other games save scores perfectly fine.

WeirdH

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

EDIT - I just noticed something: am I correct in stating that Mega Play titles don't save high scores?

So far, I've seen this on mp_sonic and mp_sor2, which both came from a reference set. All other games save scores perfectly fine.

Any insight on this? TIA

arcadez2003

@WeirdH The simple answer is i dunno not having played any of the Sega Megaplay games in my local arcade back in the day, nor is there any mention
of adding save state support to the driver in the MAME WIP as far as i can tell from a quick glance.

REK607

Hello! I just tried to play my Smash TV V.8.0. Everything works fine... but the controls! I've been changing this and that on retroarch with no success. How should I have it done? I can move the character, but no shooting at all, I would like to have my right analog stick.

grant2258

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17766/mame2003-plus-hundreds-of-new-games-improved-input-features-new-bugs-now-with-runahead-support/1026

The problem is you using retroarch to set controls rather the the mame tab menu. I would suggest you use digital mode and forget you have analog sticks if you want to use retroarch for remapping until someone fixes the code. The mame tab menu works fine the information is in the above link. Personally if it was up to me which it isint. I would leave mame to do the work because RA isint capable of mapping all of mames options. I would disable the RA remapping until its stable.

There would be a little work involved not much to remap analog controls but someone in RA end would need to do that.

I dont mind fixing bugs in mame tab menu controls or drivers ect.

Frontend/backend (retroarch remapping) limitations are strictly libretro team issues and the biggest reason its not capable of mapping mame properly at the moment is a player is restricted to one controller with libretro. Mame tab menu does not have this limitation until a way is found round this I dont see RA mapping working with mame properly.

Riverstorm

@REK607 - You could try the following settings for testing. If you have have a lot of custom ROM control configs they may get messed up flipping between digital and analog so I would recommend backing them up along with the default.cfg before testing or have a backup image.

If you don't have a lot of custom configs then I would just punt and test it out! :)

Pull RA menu and go to Quick Menu -> Options and change the following options.

Input Interface = Simultaneous
Legacy Remapping = Enabled
Control Mapping = Analog

grant2258

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

@REK607 - You could try the following settings for testing. If you have have a lot of custom ROM control configs they may get messed up flipping between digital and analog so I would recommend backing them up along with the default.cfg before testing or have a backup image.

If you don't have a lot of custom configs then I would just punt and test it out! :)

Pull RA menu and go to Quick Menu -> Options and change the following options.
Input Interface = Simultaneous
Legacy Remapping = Enabled
Control Mapping = Analog

above is good advice but you will need to set your controls in the mame menu.

You wont need to back up the default config anymore it uses two separate ones (Legacy Remapping) now so they dont break each other.

If you have been using 2003-plus before this update was done you will need to clear the cfg file directory. Just keep in mind when using this mode the netplay and RA remapping isint supported for this this mode(analog controls ) until someone at libretro can do it properly. You will be limited to dpad and buttons digital mode if you want these features to work properly.

grant2258

for anyone interested in taking this on the description code is here.
https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/382cb6fe4af15a9b2259fc4687bde8a69f1234f5/src/mame2003/mame2003.c#L1532-L1710

Thing to note here is this is generic assuming mame is using the global defaults. Drivers dont always do this but you could just add the analog descriptors when analog is chosen and it should patch it up for now.

The proper solution is to get the input from the machine and map it to RA descriptors. If its across multiple devices like a dual arcade panel joystick there is no way for Ra to handle it but most games are on one device.

It can be improved upon no doubt. For me mame tab menu works in an easy to configure way and it works. RA isint capable of providing whats needed fully at the moment might change in time... so if someones up to the task on making it better go for it! else use legacy with controller type as analog and use the tab menu.

This is how stand alone works digital mode is just a simple way for people with digital only controllers to set input general settings to digital only controls without setting them all themselves. The only difference between analog and digital is what input general defaults are set too hope this clears and confusion up.

Riverstorm

@grant2258 - Thanks, yeah that does help. I usually get a lot from your explanations. I always wondered why RA doesn't have "input descriptors" in the MAME TAB menu for movement similar to the button inputs like RP A, B, C, etc.

I have my RA and RAW inputs aligned right now but I also have a setup where I stripped out all the RAW and used RA inputs only in the TAB menu (simultaneous plus legacy) which works pretty well.

I can do <NOT> mappings and few things I didn't know I could do before without "ghosting" issues. I had one situation where I used the ES A+B button swap that really threw things off and had me scratching my head when the inputs weren't aligned.

Not knowing a lot about @REK607's setup I was hoping he would at least give the settings above a try as with very little setup several dual stick games work well in analog like Smash T.V., Total Carnage, Robotron, Crazy Climber, etc.

grant2258

to be honest I made my own barcade build with a few changes to make life easier for me. I changed sf2 driver to map to jamma standards and the 123 buttons are on the bottom row and sf2 works properly. There is no none legacy mode and the old warning screens are back with info telling you if there is a working game if you one your using isnt working and you cant set the RA controls they are disabled in the code not removed. All in all i can say im happy with it this way if i had to use my pi. I cant really see that happening though too used to the mini pc i have in it running big box

Brigane

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

@arcadez2003

Thanks for the updates, I really appreciate the work you put into this. Could you by any chance take a look at Wyvern Wings. The game plays fine, but I have no sound. Thanks :)

Anything new about this issue?
Also can anybody confirm that this is a common issue and not just my setup?