Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?

briankross

When AdvanceMAME games are played, I do notice new folders created automatically.

Edit: It doesn't seem to affect EmulationStation selections, Arcade is the only MAME emulator shown.

caver01

@briankross Those folders are created because the .rc file which you use to configure AdvanceMAME is pointing there for those things. If you were running Asteroids Deluxe with a background, the artwork would have to go in there. Samples too, where needed. I actually changed mine so the config file points to the BIOS folder (this is where mame2003 is pointed, so I am doing the same). It keeps my roms folder cleaner.

My wife is wondering when the project is going to be finished. She's caught on now that it is never finished, and by the time it seems to be, a new Pi comes out and we start again!

I am glad you got everything working. Now, it's about incremental improvements, learning about a game you never heard of, and adding things to it as you go.

dankcushions

@caver01 said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

I actually changed mine so the config file points to the BIOS folder (this is where mame2003 is pointed, so I am doing the same). It keeps my roms folder cleaner.

this is a good place to ask a couple of questions i have about the advmame directories. i was going to update the defaults so these are saved in a sensible place:

        iniSet "dir_artwork" "$romdir/mame-advmame/artwork:$romdir/arcade/advmame/artwork"
        iniSet "dir_sample" "$romdir/mame-advmame/samples:$romdir/arcade/advmame/sample"
        iniSet "dir_diff" "$romdir/mame-advmame/diff:$romdir/arcade/advmame/diff"
        iniSet "dir_hi" "$romdir/mame-advmame/hi:$romdir/arcade/advmame/hi"
        iniSet "dir_image" "$romdir/mame-advmame:$romdir/arcade"
        iniSet "dir_inp" "$romdir/mame-advmame/inp:$romdir/arcade/advmame/inp"
        iniSet "dir_memcard" "$romdir/mame-advmame/memcard:$romdir/arcade/advmame/memcard"
        iniSet "dir_nvram" "$romdir/mame-advmame/nvram:$romdir/arcade/advmame/nvram"
        iniSet "dir_snap" "$romdir/mame-advmame/snap:$romdir/arcade/advmame/snap"
        iniSet "dir_sta" "$romdir/mame-advmame/nvram:$romdir/arcade/advmame/sta"

colons (:) separate multiple paths for the same thing.

so basically, all supplementary files will be in subdirectories of the 2 rom folders, with nothing in bios, rather than deep within within the /config/retropie/.... my thinking behind this is that mame2003 is only split over rom and BIOS folders because of a few arbitrary standards in libretro cores. we don't NEED to do this split for other mame emulators, so i figure it's better to just keep everything in one place.

the only thing i have to check is what happens when you have multiple directories for one setting set in the .rc file - not sure where new files are saved in the first, or all of the directories. if it's all, i might keep the previous /config/retropie/ there also, just so any old files are picked up. not sure who would notice if it stopped working, though...

dankcushions

@briankross said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@briankross said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@caver01
Since we have a similar setup for MAME, I noticed the graphics appear smoothed out and perhaps an added glow for centipede and millipede in AdvanceMAME. But I actually like the bit graphics better in lr-mame2003. Do you know about this by chance? I'll dig around.

Found it.

Once in the game using AdvnaceMAME, press TAB, Video, Resize Effect = no, then "save for this game".

does this basically give a raw pixelly image like the other mame emulators? in that case, should this be a default? i could add that to my changes...

caver01

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

this is a good place to ask a couple of questions i have about the advmame directories. i was going to update the defaults so these are saved in a sensible place:

@dankcushions The defaults are probably fine as-is. I just moved mine to bios because I already had samples and artwork there. It made sense--one less thing to forget.

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

does this basically give a raw pixelly image like the other mame emulators? in that case, should this be a default? i could add that to my changes...

@dankcushions Yeah, the parameter is display_resizeeffect none and display_rgbeffect none will prevent pixel smoothing. That's probably the best default to be consistent with other emulators. However, I always change mine to display_resizeeffect filter and display_rgbeffect triad3dot, as this is as close as I can get to a CRT shader in AdvanceMAME. Some games look good with it, some don't. Sometimes the triad6dot looks better. It just depends on the game resolution.

I am running far fewer games on AdvanceMAME than I used to. It's coming down to Vector, Trackball/Spinner, and a few oddballs: (can't run Arch Rivals, Sarge, and Xenophobe on lr-mame2003 for some reason).

dankcushions

@caver01 ok good! thanks - i will implement those above defaults after i've tested them.

briankross

@dankcushions

Good idea!

Which file are you editing to change or include directories?

When you have multiple paths for the same thing, will it still recreate folders in the rom folder? (I'm assuming it will). I'm looking to point the AdvanceMAME folders to another logical location so it will no longer recreate folders in the rom folder root directory, cleaning it up a bit.

Riverstorm

Hey guys I've been slowly porting over to lr-mame2003 and I noticed a couple things that I may be configuring wrong as I can't seem to get them working.

One is history.dat (& mameinfo.dat) I put the files in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/ directory but when I check the history it tells me no history file available.

The other is artwork located in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/artwork/ but it doesn't seem to use it.

caver01

This post is deleted!

dankcushions

@Riverstorm said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

Hey guys I've been slowly porting over to lr-mame2003 and I noticed a couple things that I may be configuring wrong as I can't seem to get them working.

One is history.dat (& mameinfo.dat) I put the files in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/ directory but when I check the history it tells me no history file available.

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

The other is artwork located in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/artwork/ but it doesn't seem to use it.

it should be in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/artwork/though i've not tested it.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

works for me. are you using the latest version? i fixed this stuff semi-recently. you might need to rebuild from source.

I haven't rebuilt in a while I bet that's the issue. I will try that tonight.

it should be in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/artwork/though i've not tested it.

I made a mistake I do have it in mame2003/artwork under the BIOS directory. I tried a few different versions of Artwork (0.37b5, 0.94 and 0.106 basically MAME4All and AdvMAME's artwork) but their really isn't DATs for Artwork. Are you downloading them from a specific place that works with 0.78 by chance?

dankcushions

@Riverstorm

i've not tested it.

:)

no idea how artwork works in mame but that's the code picks it up from at least. it's another thing you'll need the latest version for, probably.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm

i've not tested it.

:)

no idea how artwork works in mame but that's the code picks it up from at least. it's another thing you'll need the latest version for, probably.

Ok, I'll dig around and test out some different versions after grabbing the latest version of lr-mame.

caver01

@Riverstorm There's a website where a guy has gathered the samples from different eras of MAME, and a similar list of artwork files if I recall. Probably not something I can link to, but you should be able to find it.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm There's a website where a guy has gathered the samples from different eras of MAME, and a similar list of artwork files if I recall. Probably not something I can link to, but you should be able to find it.

Thanks Caver, I will poke around and see what I can find. :) I know there's so many websites dedicated to MAME. It's just finding the right one.

I think I looked once and didn't see a way to send private messages on this forum correct? I think that would be a handy feature. I had a question or two for you a few times that I didn't want to create a new thread and end up piggy-backing off another where it would have been a nice feature to use instead.

Riverstorm

@caver01 I found Artwork that is compatible for MAME 0.61, up to MAME 0.106. It still doesn't work.

It sounds like I'll need the newer version. Are you running the latest? Do you know if it works for any like Boot Hill, Gorf, Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander. Basically if any artwork works then I am sure it's good to go. Almost a tongue twister. :)

caver01

@Riverstorm I haven't tried this in lr-mame2003. Some of the games you cited are not ones I want to run in 2003. Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander--these are all vector games and I will run them with AdvanceMAME 1.4. Artwork is great for those in that emulator, although often a bit bright, but you can tweak that by following my instructions here.

caver01

Come to think of it, I would like to get artwork running in Space Invaders using lr-mame2003.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Need guidance: Best MAME emulator to use for classic 80's games?:

@Riverstorm I haven't tried this in lr-mame2003. Some of the games you cited are not ones I want to run in 2003. Asteroids, Solar Quest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Lunar Lander--these are all vector games and I will run them with AdvanceMAME 1.4. Artwork is great for those in that emulator, although often a bit bright, but you can tweak that by following my instructions here.

Yeah I know most of that list was vector games. I think the only two that aren't are Boot Hill and Gorf. I use AdvMAME for them but I figured they might be an easy test to see if Artwork is a functional feature.

@dankcushions I was going through this link Floob posted:

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/lr-mame2003

I noticed the values aren't enclosed in quotes but in the file (/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg) they are. I am assuming the settings from the Wiki should also be enclosed? That's a nice Wiki can it be linked on the Retropie Documentation Wiki? I think it's more informative then this one that you end up at drilling down.

https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro

dankcushions

@Riverstorm thanks, I wrote it :) I have corrected the quotes thing. well spotted!

and that link you posted is the readme for the core - it's not retropie specific, so some of the instructions are too retropie -centric to go there.

our mame2003 wiki linked on the retropie wiki (scroll down in the mame page), but I know what you mean - the first links at the top of the mame page are to the GitHub projects. that's just how the wiki was originally written, but I do think it could be restructured in that regard, so each core has its own wiki page, but yeah... someday!