Mame2003 game runs on 4.3 but not 4.7

[Dochartaigh]

@mahoneyt944 said in Mame2003 game runs on 4.3 but not 4.7:

Just open it in a text editor then search for the rom name. At the bottom of each games data you'll see a line:

driver status= "good" color= "good" sound="good"

This is probably the closest you'll get to a "compatibility list". Don't be discouraged to test a game that has "imperfect" tags as the imperfections may not be noticable to the average user.

That's a good tip, thanks, was seeing that on a new site I discovered as well, http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php, where they have status for a bunch fo different aspects of each rom (think that one is solely for the most recent MAME though).

@dankcushions said in Mame2003 game runs on 4.3 but not 4.7:

@dochartaigh the compatibility lists are so bad BECAUSE they're open to user contributions

That's what I feared. I would have also liked to help, but looks like that boat has sailed a while ago.

[mahoneyt944]

@dankcushions why don't you pull the latest xml dat from the mame cores git page then write the game status to a retropie.org page. That could be a decent compatibility list. Each time the page is loaded it grabs the latest xml dat and populates the list:

Mame2003- plus
Rom | driver status | color | sound
pacman | good | good | good

[dankcushions]

@mahoneyt944 aren't those statuses what are used to generate the in-game MAME warning message? if not, they should be IMO. if the core knows about them internally, it shouldn't need a user to go out seeking some external document.

besides, my personal feeling is that trying to being so granular about what games work on what isn't what RetroPie should be trying to track/maintain - it would just be so much work. we should focus on documenting RetroPie :)

however, it's something for emulator authors to consider i suppose. for example: duckstation

[mahoneyt944]

@dankcushions the xml dat is generated from the game tags in the drivers and the warnings when loading are also are grabbed from here. So you could use the xml dat to generate a compatibility list per say that would be fairly accurate to the cores ability. Nothing's perfect though.

My thought is to generate a webpage that grabs the latest xml dat then populates a simple chart. That way it's always live updated.

[dankcushions]

@mahoneyt944 i think it's a fine idea, but will leave that for the core maintainers for the reasons i've said before.

[Riverstorm]

@Dochartaigh - Some of the errors are probably due to your ClrMamePro settings. I believe they are minor changes in the DAT but still maintains the original ROM set integrity. Basically it's shuffling ROMs around a bit. Very minor.

Interesting though is I believe the core set has been expanded by several games. I haven't built a set from scratch for a while but by just looking at the errors above it seems to be true.

Which is going to require people to track down some new games if they want to have a complete mame2003 set.

Here's a list of what appears to be new ROMs added. Their may be more but I was just going off the list of errors above.

Mortal Kombat II Plus (Beta 2) - (ROM: mk2p)
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Plus (Beta 1) - (ROM: umk3p)
Monster Maulers (ver EAA) - (ROM: mmaulers)
Night Slashers (Over Sea Rev 1.2) - (ROM: nslashers)
Night Slashers (Japan Rev 1.2) - (ROM: nslasherj)
Success Joe (World) - (ROM: scessjoe)

[Dochartaigh]

@riverstorm said in Mame2003 game runs on 4.3 but not 4.7:

@Dochartaigh - Some of the errors are probably due to your ClrMamePro settings. I believe they are minor changes in the DAT but still maintains the original ROM set integrity. Basically it's shuffling ROMs around a bit. Very minor.

Thank you, but already sorted above. It was some issue in lr-mame2003 itself which mahoney fixed and updated.

[Riverstorm]

@dochartaigh - No problem, I was referring to the discrepancy you pointed out between the official DAT and the Libretro core DAT. I wasn't aware until now.

Basically the reason the official 0.78 DAT shows a perfect set and but the mame2003 DAT doesn't is they used to be identical sets but not anymore with the additional games.

It was one of the main "features" of vanilla mame2003, to have a consistent set without changes but at least they are good games. :)

[Dochartaigh]

@riverstorm said in Mame2003 game runs on 4.3 but not 4.7:

@dochartaigh - No problem, I was referring to the discrepancy you pointed out between the official DAT and the Libretro core DAT. I wasn't aware until now.

Basically the reason the official 0.78 DAT shows a perfect set and but the mame2003 DAT doesn't is they used to be identical sets but not anymore with the additional games.

It was one of the main "features" of vanilla mame2003, to have a consistent set without changes but at least they are good games. :)

On Mahoneyt's suggestion I actually pulled the XML/DAT file from the lr-mame2003 program on the RP4 itself and just ran my previously-100%-correct set through it in ClrMamePro. 14 bad ROM's showed up now, and I think all of those you listed above are in that list (and I would assume the others are games they fixed before as well). How do people then fix these ROMs (i.e. get them) if it is still constantly changing, to this day, ~18 years later? I'm only going to use these on a Raspberry Pi so I'm fine with editing my list so it's basically ONLY for RP3/4 use (have mame 0.227? for my actual Windows PC).

Not that I would play any of those games in mame2003 (since MK's and Night Slashers work on fbneo now) but I would like to know, and also like keeping 100% complete sets just in case!

[Riverstorm]

@Dochartaigh - The short answer is you have to hunt around and find them. Due to forum policy we can’t post links or discuss where to find ROMs.

There’s a long history behind 2003 and things got heated where adding games started causing several issues. It was decided to roll back 2003 to keep the set identical to the original 0.78 set and adding only the enhancements [but not ROMs] to the core so people had a static set that didn’t change.

Basically I baseline my mame2003-plus off of mame2003 staying “static” to track changes down to the ROMs in individual sets but now that some new games are popping up in both cores again I’m not sure what to think. I just don’t see a need for new additions in both cores I guess.

I have a list of ROMs that are in the m3plus set but not in 0.227 or the current rollback sets if it helps. I also like to complete the sets if possible.

[mahoneyt944]

@riverstorm yes, ideally 2003 should be left the same but there is some grey area which is where these few games were added. I'd like to stress that a lot of thought goes into these very rare additions because I know how people react to this sort of thing. These weren't just thrown in to add more games like we do in 2003+ quite often.

Mortal kombat plus additions. These are hacked versions of roms that were already supported in the core and we already support other mortal kombat hacks... so it seems logical to add them. These are really optional so if a user doesn't want them it won't effect their official working set. It's also noted that these were added by user request and are part of the bootstrap hassles explained below.

Night Slashers. This game was broken and unplayable in this core, it was also the only game in it's "parent" line up. This game was fixed but then did not have an english version available so the clones were added. There is also the issue with maintaining bootstraps that these games happen to use. Bootstraps are created for 2003+ and are copied to 2003. Bootstraps are incredibly long and tedious to maintain and are loaded by name so keeping them identical between the cores reduces the work load of the maintainers.

Success joe is in a similar boat as night slashers. I believe it was also not working and the only rom in it's parent line up. So it was fixed up and a english clone was added.

Monster Maulers was also a bootstrap addition. It's an english version of a game we already supported. The Japanese version was a single parent as well.

I guess there is a debate to be had on these very few additions but these roms were unplayable and isolated. The additions have not broken any existing roms as they did not work beforehand and it was needed to maintain bootstrap compatibility. Otherwise 2003 most likely will not receive any further bootstraps which directly benefits the user base. 2003 is highly used yet at this point only receives a small handful of updates ported from 2003+ when they do not disturb the rom base.

These are minor exceptions that could be reversed if the user base requests so and I'll gladly do so but I can't see the point in reversing working games to non-working games in my opinion. But again these are rare additions / exceptions. It will not be the norm to add games to 2003.

[Riverstorm]

@mahoneyt944 - I hear what you're saying and it's not my call but why not just use mame2003-plus if you want to play those games? That's the whole reason it was created! There's always going to be a logical reason to add another parent, clone or game set and yes bootstrapping mame2003 is not a deal breaker for most games and can be done manually. Doing so would maintain the original 0.78 set integrity that's stays static for mame2003 users.

The removal of extraneous ROMs that were not part of the original 0.78 is the fundamental reason mame2003-plus came to fruition. Right after the ROMs were removed development started on the new core [mame2003-plus].

In a short time mame2003-plus surpassed mame2003 in features and functionality in addition, to all the newly added ROMs.

Mame2003-plus was a better core in almost all aspects. There was no real good reason to use mame2003, except it had a static ROM set which is a stronger selling point than I had realized at the time.

Then they started porting all the enhancements over to mame2003 from mame2003-plus and they [both cores] became for all intents and purposes identical cores, minus the games and some complex input enhancements.

Now that games are being added again and it's only a matter of time before something breaks or fails. The one true distinction of mame2003 is that it had a static set that may be built with current MAME and rollback sets. You could stick with the official channels so to speak, for ROMs. With these new additions you have to go hunting again for them at some obscure websites.

The Mortal Kombat ROMs linked above are from the original arcade cabs but they look like they are hacked to fix bugs, moves, combos and other enhancements, etc? If they have the ROMs listed on that URL it probably shouldn't be posted as I imagine it's still the illegal distribution of modified original ROMs.

I think mame2003's strongest attraction point was the no hassle static set that is available dang near everywhere and the polar opposite is mame2003-plus with all these newly added games.

The DAT's are linked to the code and just like @Doc noticed his set wasn't complete, then someone is going to mention a enhanced hacked version of MK runs in the core but it's not available in any of the sets. Where do I get it! It's just a matter of time before people start complaining of incomplete sets.

My preference would to be keep the official static core set [mame2003] intact and leave the new additions to mame2003-plus. Why add them to both?

When you update a driver or some audio code that's attached to multiple games or a family of games, as sure as the sun shines, it's going to break something eventually and we will be right back where we we started. It'll start as a half dozen games but you know it's going to grow and there's always going to be a rock solid bullet proof reason to add more and more games over time. In a couple years we'll have the same mess.

It doesn't make sense to me and seems more logical to have at least one worthy distinction between the cores that's a benefit to users but you're at the helm of the mame2003-plus core now so I'll respect your decision to start adding the same games to both cores.

[mahoneyt944]

@riverstorm I guess the easy answer is it's very complicated as you know. As much as I use, maintain, prefer 2003+ over vanilla I try to keep vanilla alive for the benefit of the community. Typically games are only fixed when they are isolated games that don't share anything with any other games. These game are usually dead to start with so it can't hurt to improve them. 2003+ gets the book thrown at it with updates while vanilla gets very little.... Maybe 1 or 2 out of everything 20 we fix in plus.

The additions were added to vanilla more out of necessity for bootstraps. That's not to say that vanilla can't live without them but I believe the user base whether they understand them or not wants these because they auto setup problematic games. Games that end up on the help page here.....
If the bootstraps differ between cores I won't be able to maintain them easily in vanilla so vanilla just won't get anymore.

It's easy enough for you and I to just say well use plus, but a lot of people have their entire system setup around vanilla so changing over means going through every rom again which doesn't sit well with everyone.

I guess it's a rock and a hard place situation with hammers falling from the sky. Lol 😂

[Riverstorm]

@mahoneyt944 - I do appreciate the explanation but I'm still not quite understanding. Why do you need to add a game to vanilla 2003? If a game didn't exist or didn't work previously in the vanilla set it shouldn't need a bootstrap??

Also I do flip back and forth between the two cores when running games and I haven't had any issues that were apparent. More to the point you don't have to be totally on one core or the other. That's the point of mame2003-plus. You can run multiple cores and choose which core runs which game. RP makes it a snap as I'm sure other frontends do too.

Roughly 4,721 games are identical and the rest are all the new additions and a good number of updated (changed) ROMs in Plus also. Now with the new additions it just not a static set anymore it's more of a moving target again. I like the idea of a static set. It makes the core a solid and dependable set to rely on.

Over time it will continue to grow until it's probably a substantial list of additions. From a HD space perspective it's quite small for a core too. My vote is to remove them and use mame2003-plus for the new games but I'll have to be ok with whatever you decide to add for new ROMs.

[mahoneyt944]

@riverstorm The bootstraps are made for 2003+ then the entire list is copied to vanilla. If a rom is named differently between cores the bootstrap will need altered to load correctly and to keep our naming convention Then every time after that when a new bootstrap is made you'll have to hand edit the list because the lists aren't the same. For example look at this diff when adding the nbajam bootstraps (bootstrap.c) there's about 5500 lines of binary. https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/commit/9106f659f498fa5eb306588ad9c954caf562b31d#diff-052cf6ad0faeb2d4eeabe627d91cd472f7b934179a2d1ef02f1ddeb2da782624

Now let's say these are named differently between cores. Can you tell which lines are different between each bootstrap?

The main reason vanilla is kept static is so existing roms don't break. This avoids the "this rom use to work" issue. In these rare exceptions the games did not work anyhow, so no one's roms were working and became broken. These games were not being played or functional.

In my opinion, I value having the bootstrap feature with on going development over the these rare exceptions. The diff is just too large to micro manage the bootstraps....And again we're talking about.. was it 7 or so games out of over 4700.

I have no issue reverting these games. But then I'm not going to micro manage the bootstraps. Too much time involved. So this will revert a hand full of games to not working....

[Riverstorm]

@mahoneyt944 - OK, I’ll concede to your better judgment of all things code related behind the scenes! I was hoping for clarification and I appreciate you taking the time explaining everything. I know previously they were able to update hundreds of games with thousands of commits without changing the original set. It makes sense that you don’t have to track two sets of bootstraps as they are pretty handy.

As far as the fiasco when all these new games were being added to vanilla MAME everything was great and then the foundation started cracking and more and more issues were cropping up as time went on. It was a bummer and I just hope that doesn’t happen this time around with Introducing new ROMs into the set.

Anyway thanks a bunch for all the great changes you’ve been adding, it’s all about the games! :-)

[Riverstorm]

The other thing but I was thinking about is if it sets a precedence where others say you added a few games. I’m going to add a few games for convenience or set completion or hacks etc. if that makes sense. At the end of the day someone has to make the decision on which games to add or how many more for what reason.

[Riverstorm]

One time this guy wanted to add like 75 hacks for a game. I can’t remember the game but it’s in one of the closed requests on GitHub somewhere. To him it made perfect sense and he submitted the code changes and everything to do it but I think they ultimately declined it for what seemed like obvious reasons but you just never know I guess.

[dankcushions]

one important thing to remember is that mame2003 should never be modified to enable a game that was previously disabled, otherwise it breaks its own license: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/blob/master/LICENSE.md (VII).

but hey, on pi4 it looks like we should be able to run current MAME at good speeds, if we can just iron out the performance outside of X.

[mahoneyt944]

@dankcushions
"enabling games that are disabled"

Hmm that's interesting. Can't say I've ever seen that before. How do they define disabled exactly? To me a "disabled game" is a game that is purposely not allowed to run. Or a game that was causing harm so it was disabled? It's not very clear....