MAME4All per-game configuration

Retroid

Retropie 3.8.1.

So, back in the day I used MAME4All on the GP2X, and it had an excellent per-game configuration screen. Screen aspect, mono-stereo, sound rate, rotation, whether to use C or ASM cores, all of that. VERY useful.

Now, MAME4All on the Pi still has the same UI when launched from the command line, but I've found no way to access that per-game config screen before the game is launched. Is it still there?

No, I'm not talking about the TAB menu BTW.

Floob

You can access the service menu if thats what you mean? Details here for mame-2003
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/lr-mame2003

If you use a libretro mame emulator, i.e. anyone prefixed with "lr" you can use retroarch config files on a per game or per system basis.
These options can be seen in the RGUI, or the configuration editor:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

Basically name a file the same as the game with .cfg at the end. i.e. ffight.zip.cfg in the same directory as the game.
This can be managed with the runcommand menu to set per game configs if you dont want to do it wholly manually
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/runcommand

This diagram may help understand the configs:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2199/specific-retroarch-emulator-settings-are-being-over-written-after-i-quit-the-game/24

Retroid

No, not the service menu. I'm also keen on using the non-LR version as it definitely seems faster for me (I'm running this on a Pi 1 in preparation for my Zero - it's just easier)

As seen on my Xperia Play:

alt text

BuZz

The RPI port probably doesn't have it then.

Retroid

Yeah, I can't find any hint of it.

Which is a shame, because it hobbles it. The ASM cores mean it's noticeably faster than lr-MAME4All but CPS games - as an example - are in 1:1 pixel mode and horribly stretched. :(

Retroid

I wonder what options are available when compiling, I may look into that....

BuZz

lr-mame4all on retropie uses the cyclone asm core, but not the DRZ80 as it has some compatibility issues, as well as not working on later ARM cpus. mame4all standalone has a built in array containing per game configurations so it can disable the asm cores for certain games. lr-mame4all doesn't have this so it's better to just disable the DRZ80 core.

dankcushions

looks like you can get into the GUI in mame4all-pi if you run it directly via the command line (ie, run the mame binary, not with a game as an argument). not tried it, but that's what the readme says.

Retroid

@BuZz Interesting about the Cyclone core in lr. One of my test games is Pacmania which runs noticeably slower / higher frame-skip on lr-MAME4All in comparison with MAME4All standalone.

@dankcushions Yeah, that's what I was playing with. But the MAME4All UI seems restricted to game selection & the functions you could already access when running through ES, nothing like the photo I posted above. Sadly.

In the meantime, I'm doing things on a per-game basis in the Arcade directory. Thankfully PiFBA has some aspect ratio control & is a nippy bugger ;)

rbaker

@Retroid Have you by any chance managed to get 2 player working in piFBA?

meleu

@rbaker said in MAME4All per-game configuration:

@Retroid Have you by any chance managed to get 2 player working in piFBA?

I think you should start another thread for this problem, but I answer in advance: Yes. I have no issues to get player 2 working in pifba.

Reading recommendation: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/FinalBurn-Alpha#pifba-controls

rbaker

@meleu I already did. See here, ages ago. Never been able to solve it. Says it was fixed back in 2013 but when I alter that config, it makes no difference. Wouldn't know how to replace the binary as described here. Just tried updating from source as advised in the thread I started.

Retroid

@rbaker I have to admit I've not tried; I'm fiddling with a single-player thingy and that's not come up for me. Yet!