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

arcadez2003

Alright Final Fight 30th Anniversary Edition is up and running is this core, i had to guess as to what sort of gfx mapping to use but it seems to be all good we also
use custom samples for the Final Fight games in this core if you have em, so give the game a whirl and let me know if you think it's all good in the graphical
and sound depts.

Note only the main CPU and the Gfx roms are actually different from the original world version of this game, so for ease of use i've made it a clone and it will hang off
our parent rom rather than the one in current MAME, what does this mean in practice nothing really other than you can just drop in the ffightae rom and it'll work a
treat for ya's.

darknior

@arcadez2003 I see your push on GIT, thanks a lot :)

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/7d422450bb9cad9fb890231cd64010dd44fd42a6#commitcomment-36275427

I will try to patch the rom to try it ;)

WeirdH

Hey, I was wondering if there's any chance to see Dogyuun, Batsugun or Shienryu ever working on m3+? Or is the Pi 3b+ just not equipped for that?

barbudreadmon

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

Dogyuun, Batsugun or Shienryu

dogyuun & batsugun are toaplan games and should work pretty well with FBNeo on pi3b+.
shienryu is a stv game, aka a sega saturn arcade game, it's not gonna run full speed on pi3b+, and you would need a rather recent version of mame to play it (or kronos if we ever find a fix for https://github.com/FCare/Kronos/issues/676)

WeirdH

@barbudreadmon Cool, thanks. I'll mess around with FBNeo then.

arcadez2003

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

Hey, I was wondering if there's any chance to see Dogyuun, Batsugun or Shienryu ever working on m3+? Or is the Pi 3b+ just not equipped for that?

We're missing the V25 CPU in this core, which is required to decrypt some of the sound roms for certain Toaplan 2 games, so although they work
Dogyuun, Grind Stormer, and V-Five have no sound, but it's not all bad news on the Toaplan front in MAME2003+.....................

Added support for a working version of FixEight
Fire Shark and Vimana now have full sound
Batsugun and Knuckle Bash now have partial sound
Added Knuckle Bash 2 which is a bootleg of the original game but with full sound
Ghox and Teki Paki will have full sound via Toaplan samples should you have em in your samples folder
And finally added new graphical code via ShmupMAME which gives the Toaplan 1 games a lovely performance boost

As for Shienryu you'd likely need to weld two Rpi's together and maybe you'd then have the power to run it :)

Clyde

@arcadez2003 said in mame2003-plus: hundreds of new games, improved input, features, new bugs - now with runahead support:

As for Shienryu you'd likely need to weld two Rpi's together and maybe you'd then have the power to run it :)

How about the RPi 4?

barbudreadmon

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

How about the RPi 4?

The only "saturn hardware" emulator that might perform correctly on pi4 atm is yabasanshiro, and it doesn't support stv games, however it should support the console version.

grant2258

@arcadez2003 dont know if your still working on this core at all mame done a few v60 updates changes are backported here if you want em m8

https://github.com/grant2258/mame2003-plus-barcade/commit/86346d6591f67912e41a8e05bae458f2963000a2

arcadez2003

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

@arcadez2003 dont know if your still working on this core at all mame done a few v60 updates changes are backported here if you want em m8

https://github.com/grant2258/mame2003-plus-barcade/commit/86346d6591f67912e41a8e05bae458f2963000a2

Aye im still plodding away here and there i should be finished up soonish though, what do the V60 changes improve exactly.??

grant2258

its basically getting the cpu flags to set right barbudreadmon also make a fix for eagle shot on the arm for the pie in fbneo thats probably worth adding as well matey https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/abe00a3d6cb11d5af0e8b462dbc5597d24fa7282

arcadez2003

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

its basically getting the cpu flags to set right barbudreadmon also make a fix for eagle shot on the arm for the pie in fbneo thats probably worth adding as well matey https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/commit/abe00a3d6cb11d5af0e8b462dbc5597d24fa7282

Thanks for the heids up, i'll port across the changes later on.

arcadez2003

Unfortunately due to code incompatibilities we cannot support the latest Taito C-Chip dumps in this core, but the next best thing is to add a damn good simulation of it
this brings us nicely to Operation Wolf which now has C-Chip sim code in MAME2003+, what does this mean exactly.?? for the unversed the C-Chip is a protection
device that Taito used for certain games in the late 80's but apart from that it also sends commands that handle certain gameplay mechanics.

With alotta the games it was minor stuff but Bonze Adventure, Operation Wolf, and Rainbow Islands made extensive use of it to trigger certain level events
the sim code is more or less perfect for Rainbow Islands same with Bonze Adventure although with the latter you sometimes get that respawn error on later
levels, in this core Op Wolf had no sim code until now which meant the following was missing................

End of level 2 boss

The enemy has located you random level which can trigger anytime before level 5

The enemy counter keeps track of how many you have killed in each level and will trigger certain events when you hit it, like on level two loads of paratroopers will start
to parachute en masse into the level or on level 4 and 5 the screen will scroll up and you'll have extra helicopters to kill before the level will end.

Obviously i'd like to support the proper C-Chip dumps in this core for the above games so they'll be perfect but since it's not possible at least we now have a decent sim for
Op Wolf created by studying the unprotected prototype which means we get lots of extra game content which was missing beforehand.

0.176: Bryan McPhail fixed all the Operation Wolf gameplay problems by improving the C-Chip protection simulation. Gameplay should be a true 100% match to original now.
Put extensive notes in the machine file about what has changed. Fixed bug in 68K->C-Chip simulation that could lead to level 2 boss not appearing after first run.

0.98u1: Nicola Salmoria fixed crash in Operation Wolf due to improper timer usage.

0.97u1: Bryan McPhail added proper C-Chip emulation to Operation Wolf (machine\opwolf.c). Added 2nd sound channel. Removed Z80 CPU3 and cpu3 rom.

grant2258

nice work mate what the issue with the c-chip emulation anything thats doable ?

arcadez2003

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

nice work mate what the issue with the c-chip emulation anything thats doable ?

Everything bigman :) seriously so much of the code in the drivers the machine and the UPD7810 CPU from MAME is so not compatible with this ole core i'd rather
jump off a pier than attempt it ha ha, dink tells me to look at how they added it to FBNeo as a guide rather than how it was done in MAME we'll see i guess

grant2258

haha i hear you sometimes it better to see the rabbit hole before you go down it matey!

arcadez2003

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

haha i hear you sometimes it better to see the rabbit hole before you go down it matey!

Aye i hear what your saying, but hey the Op Wolf sim is a good one as it was created by firstly checking the reads and writes of the bootleg and then
the unprotected prototype, so it's as good as we're gonna get short of having the proper C-Chip hooked up you'd not notice the difference really.

arcadez2003

Did a little graft on the NMK16 driver fixing up the sound balance in the games that use the NMK004 to drive the music and Sfx, i also fixed up some
graphical problems with level 5 and after you kill a boss in GunNail, as of today MAME2003+ now supports the location test version of GunNail
which is totally different..............

https://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2019/12/31/nailgun/

Proto's or location test versions can be hit or miss in the sense they might only have two working levels or no sound, this one is worth having as it's complete
more or less and plays like a totally different game hence i thought it worth supporting here, you may want to check my comments on the original commit
for additional info.

arcadez2003

Well we've had a good run these past few years with regards to MAME2003+ lots of fixes and improvements backported, a bucketload of new games playable
and many others with emulation improvements, i think the time is right now for me to bring down the curtain finally with regards to active dev on this core.

I've enjoyed working on this and all the banter with the guys who helped along the way i hope you've enjoyed using it as much as we did working on it.

Happy new year folks!!!

grant2258

Well I wish you the best big yean never say never might be another update at some point you created it and done a damn good job. I would appeal for you not to give it up completely you one of the few sane devs i know thats down to earth the choice really is yours though im 100% behind you choice matter what happens the core is in a good place . Happy new year bud. Thats half the problem i was looking at the ost stuff and ended up paying games instead cant help myself sometimes :(.