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

barbudreadmon

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

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

you can now play three classic Sega games which due to the usual drama and politics will not be supported in the official MAME releases.

Thanks! Could you elaborate a little about MAME? (just curious)

iirc those rarities were dumped for the sake of preservation but not added to MAME because the group that dumped them forbade it (something along the lines of "if you add those games to MAME, we won't dump anything anymore for you"). those dumps were leaked anonymously some time ago. they were added to HBMAME though so i don't understand the logic.

Clyde

@barbudreadmon Thanks. Whatever the reasons of the dumping group were. As for HBMAME, maybe its developers just did it anyway and the group either didn't care or didn't go through with their announced consequences.

edit: typo corrected (devekopers)

dankcushions

i was curious so did some research: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=159689.0 - see haze's (mame dev) reply. i'm not sure how the end result is that it is not within official mame, but it sounds like the dumps had the potential to burn some bridges so for the sake maintaining their japanese contacts, i guess they chose to exclude these (crappy?) games.

ie what @barbudreadmon said :D

arcadez2003

There are two sides to every story so as a "former" member of the dumping union here is my "opinion" :)

The return of Team Jadump several years ago required that the MAME guru the man responsible for dumping 80%
of your favorite arcade games the man who single handily has done more to further the preservation of classic arcade
games than all the rest of us put together needed to be sidelined, This is due in no small part to several members of team
Jadump having an issue personally with him.

Some people myself included consider Team Jadump to be nothing more than a pcb hoarding collective, sure they'll throw
MAME dev the odd bone like say a Japanese version of a game there is already multiple dumps available for or some lame
prototype no one cares about, any good stuff they have will require that the DU, MAME DEV and or general users all have to club
together and raise something like 5K so they will dump it like we seen with Hang-Zo for example.

What MAME and the DU fail to realise is this only helps to fill their pockets and they'll use that money to secure yet another
rare arcade game which disappear into their private collection never to see the light of day again, so in the long run
MAME DEV and the DU are only cutting their own throats here.

And i guess they fail to remember that team Jadump sat on a copy of a rare game called Monkey Magic, they knew the DU
was going to bid big money to try and secure the game and did not inform them they already had a copy of it which could
have been dumped and shared with the DU for free, but no they let the DU waste thousands of pounds securing another
version of that rare game when that money could have been better spent elsewhere not exactly DU friendly behaviour IMO.

HAZE is spinning a yarn sticking to the company line that these games were stolen, certainly there is a leak in Japan otherwise
the Guru would not have obtained the dumps for these super rare prototype Sega C2 games from several different sources,
what he fails to mention however is several members of Team Jadump actually own the pcb's for these games so have a vested
interest when it comes to their inclusion into the official MAME project or not.

Well at least there is the upside that there are now three less games they can charge 5k to emulate :)

Ofcourse his argument around why these games are omitted from MAME kinda falls flat when you consider they support this stolen game............

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/after-a-lost-atari-rom-leaks-retro-fans-ask-was-it-stolen/

A clear double standard here then i guess they only bother if the arcade pcbs which belong to "certain" people are released when they shouldn't be :)

Anyway if MAME dev want to bite the hand that constantly fed them for 20 years eg The Guru and side with a bunch of rom hoarders who
only see MAME as some sort of cash cow that can be milked constantly all in the vain hope they might share something half decent with them
down the road and not charge $$$$$$ in the process then that is their choice.

Personally i was always taught to choose your friends very carefully only time will tell if the DU and MAME DEV have made the correct decision.

barbudreadmon

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

these (crappy?) games

I know ooparts is a nice variant of breakout, i never tried the 2 others.

arcadez2003

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

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

these (crappy?) games

I know ooparts is a nice variant of breakout, i never tried the 2 others.

It's a decent wee game if you like Arkanoid you'll love this one, it has some boss battles a nifty trick where if you slam your
paddle into the side of the screen it will shudder and shuffle the enemies around and change the pitch of the ball direction
it's got some smart powerups and nice graphical effects here and there you could do alot worse than to give it whirl.

I'll now review the others :)

Unless your a Sonic The Hedgehog fanatic then your not gonna really find too much worth when it comes to playing
Sega Sonic Bros as it's just puzzle dropper more or less, and well the Bust A Move games by Taito really are IMO the pinnacle
of that type of game.

Head On Channel is nothing more than an update to the Head On franchise which sits alongside Counter Run, but unlike those
games it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's chock full of japanese whackyness, so not a bad game not a good game it sits
somewhere in the middle and you'll likely never play it more than a few times.

But whether a game is crap or not the jist of it is a preservation society should seek to use dumps of any game which become
available rather than picking and choosing which ones to support in their project incase they upset certain people who as i've
already stated i think do not have the projects best interests in mind.

There is a divide also when it comes to two Atari prototypes namely Danger Express and Marble Madness II from what i can tell
most people in the DU want to see them emulated where as certain MAME dev's are sticking to a gentlemens agreement struck
years ago with collecters who are not on friendly terms with the project anyhow, and since there will be no future dumps
forthcoming from them there would in a sense be nothing to lose if the romsets are leaked anyway.

From reading my comments people can clearly see where i stand on this, MAME Dev are entitled to their viewpoint as well
the only difference being my "opinions" dont impact on others in the sense im not preventing you all from playing certain games.

gomisensei

@arcadez2003 pretty sure it's JaPump... Here's the rest of the story as i've been told it...

https://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Number=366886

barbudreadmon

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

As for HBMAME, maybe its developers just did it anyway and the group either didn't care or didn't go through with their announced consequences.

HBMAME is maintained by a MAME Dev, Robbbert.

arcadez2003

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

@arcadez2003 pretty sure it's JaPump... Here's the rest of the story as i've been told it...

https://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Number=366886

Yeah i know i just thought it sounds daft hence i call em Jadump :) i remember reading that thread years ago my thoughts at the time
being it was something which would further the preservation project, but now i think it was nothing more than a pure propaganda piece
and a big mistake was made by shutting the door on the Guru.

You'll notice anyone who dared to pipe up with an opinion which went against the mutual backslapping on display was quickly jumped on from all sides.
anyway i've nothing more to add really time will tell if the DU and all those MAMEDev's have backed the correct horse.

arcadez2003

MAME2003+ was always about taking the base MAME78 core and backporting new game support plus many fixes and improvements
from later MAME releases, the core sees many new commits everyday but i wanna focus on a couple of noteworthy happenings

Contra

A recent fix was just added where as the bullet and rolling mines now behave correctly on the 3D sections of the game
now rather than simply always ending up on the right of the screen regardless of where your character is they now
correctly target you directly as it would have been the case when playing it back in the day down your local.

It's harder now as a result but no gains without some pains :)

Turbo Out Run

You can now play Turbo Outrun in this core but however since MAME2003+ does not have a M68K CPU which can
decrypt the FD1094 Sega protection, we're hacking around this by making the original MAME78 Turbo Out Run
romsets use some pre-decrypted roms.

As a rule do the following and merge these romsets to create a working version a dat will help you right enough...........

toutrun.zip + toutrund = working
toutrun3.zip + toutrun3d = working

I've already added the Contra fix and another which sorts the missing road layer in Hang-On so it's now playable in
the MAME2003 core, but since those who deem themselves to be in charge of MAME2003 do not want to see the roms
changed then i'll just leave Turbo Out Run in a broken and non working state for that core.

REK607

Hello! Does Mame2003Plus have a 2 players version of Sunset Riders? I am using the 4 players one. I'm considering trying with a child 2 players rom I have for 0.78 if that works

dankcushions

@rek607 you're "considering trying"? why not just try? :)

yes it looks like it's supported: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/755e64ed8c7f1fdc5d69e65084a3355c51107937/src/mame2003/frontend_list.h#L1894-L1901

Clyde

The mame2003-plus.xml also lists multiple 2P versions with driver status "good". Just make sure you use the right romset or build one yourself.

REK607

It simply worked flawlessly as I suspected. I am not that good with computers but I'm having fun and learning a lot with this project. By the way my favourite Sunset Raiders character is Cormano :-P

arcadez2003

We're still plodding along adding new game support plus the usual assortment of fixes and improvements to the core
one of many was a fix for Bonze Adventure so it no longer crashes on level 6, but just a heads up you can now play this
super rare long hoarded Atari prototype in MAME2003+ should you wanna :)

Danger Express

Adding this was good practice for when Marble Man - Marble Madness II finally leaks as it'll likely use the same driver

Pablo 0

@arcadez2003 Thank You!

Please add Vs. From Below

https://vs.frombelowgame.com/

matchaman

"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."

I'm about to make a brand new installation for Pi 4. Is that still the case for romsets?

barbudreadmon

@matchaman I believe a few more recent dumps are also used by mame2003+, like recently dumped MCUs.

Clyde

@matchaman

In order to build a complete MAME 2003-Plus collection, the ingredients are:

A complete MAME 0.223 or later romset collection

A complete MAME 0.223 or later "rollback" romset collection

MAME 0.78 CHD collection

The NeoGeo UniBIOS 3.3, freely available at http://unibios.free.fr/

Source: https://docs.libretro.com/library/mame2003_plus/#building-romsets-for-mame-2003-plus

Riverstorm

You'll need a little more than current MAME and the rollback. You also need a handful of unofficial ROMs for some decrypted, demo and free play games. It's worth the time to find them as arcadez has added some real gems and updated classics with more accurate game play.

If you want to be posh, if you will, ;) and 100% complete check out the OST's added by KMFDManic and grant. They are a very nice complement to games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, Moonwalker, NBA Jam and Outrun.

I think they are in the DAT so you'll have to find them or be ok with set errors. I know some people can be real nutters when it comes to incomplete sets, they just can't stand seeing the report of a few missing ROMs.

It seems the stereo versions are a little more challenging to find but the mono are fairly easy. I think the custom OST's will become more widely available soon though, so keep an eye out.

The mono version will play either the left or right channel bilateral and the stereo is basically split-stereo that is remixed on the fly (they are named identical but suffixed with a "-1" and "-2", for left/right channels respectfully. Some of the 16-bit stereo versions are over 300MB but they are easy to resize and keep the original intact if running on an NES mini or other limited resource console.

I wouldn't worry to much about the CHD's pending your platform of choice and ability to rum them but I I think they are only around 16GB which is relatively small as current CHD's plus rollback CHDs combined are like 600 or 700GB. A current MAME complete set is so big now it has its own drive, I think it's around 1TB without extras.