Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

duglor

@Folly Is there support via this method for the BBC Micro? Or is there another thread somewhere, Folly? I remember reading something about it sometime ago. I'm looking for a BBC Micro Emulator that works through the Emulation Station like most other games do (like the archimedes emulator) and with joystick support via remapping or what have you? Also any bios files if needed's names and where they go. And location for any roms or .ssd files? etc etc i recently downloading the electron versions you had and the electron bioses and tried to run them but it always kicked me back out. Seems like Mame was trying to run them, but no luck. Perhaps i needed exact roms or exact updated bioses. Anyway, I'm now trying to get a BBC Micro going since the Electron failed on me. Still enjoying Archimedes and FM Towns. - be well!

Folly

@duglor

Well, there is support for bbc micro on mame/lr-mess.
However there are many games that will not run on it.

In the past I made some module-scripts that use other emulators like you mentioned the one for electron.
Sadly everything in linux world is going quick and compiling older source code on newer linux/gcc will not work anymore.
That is probably the cause why my bbcmicro and electron scripts do not work correctly anymore.
Sadly I have too little knowledge to fix these problems for newer linux/gcc.
So in time these emulators can't be used anymore unless somebody has the knowledge to fix these older emulator sources.

Remember what I told you about fmtowns.
Try to do the same with bbc micro.

duglor

@Folly Thanks for the tip. Yes, I remember about the fmtowns. Off hand , do you know if Boffin or Citadel will run on the lr-mess mame bbcmicro? Those are the main two I wanted to play on the pi, but i'll play it on windows if i must . Also to make those work , what is the bios i need for that if you know? Be well and :D Take care!

duglor

@Folly thank you

Folly

@duglor

These are the systems you can choose from :

pi@Bullseye-VM:~$ cat '/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame0253_systems_sorted_info' |grep "BBC Micro"
Driver bbca (BBC Micro Model A): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcb (BBC Micro Model B): @computer@forum@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcb_de (BBC Micro Model B (German)): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcb_no (BBC Micro Model B (Norway)): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcb_us (BBC Micro Model B (US)): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcbp (BBC Micro Model B+ 64K): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcbp128 (BBC Micro Model B+ 128K): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade

pi@Bullseye-VM:~$ cat '/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame0253_systems_sorted_info' |grep "BBC Master"
Driver bbcm (BBC Master 128): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcm512 (BBC Master 512): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmaiv (BBC Master AIV): @computer@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmarm (BBC Master (ARM Evaluation)): @computer@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmc (BBC Master Compact): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmc_ar (BBC Master Compact (Arabic)): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmet (BBC Master ET): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade
Driver bbcmt (BBC Master Turbo): @computer@good@home_system@non-arcade

Folly

@duglor

Both games are in the hash table.
You can find in which they are by doing, for example :

pi@Bullseye-VM:~$ cd '/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/hash' 
pi@Bullseye-VM:/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/hash$ grep -r Boffin
bbc_cass.xml:		<description>Boffin</description>
bbc_cass.xml:		<description>Boffin 2</description>
electron_cass.xml:		<description>Boffin</description>

Then look into the bbc_cass.xml file and you will see that it probably will run as there is not a mentioning of "not supported".
For Citadel it is the same.
The load command is also found in the hash table for Boffin :
<info name="usage" value="Load with *RUN" />

Otherwise look in the page of @dmmarti :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AQ28J9OUKg55R3d-TZkWO3GH50KjC2hHteCP1Bx59Ns/edit#gid=0

Folly

@duglor said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

what is the bios i need for that if you know?

Decide what driver you want to use.
Then use the same trick that I told you about fmtowns.
Bios files are found in the mame-merged romset (arcade game bios files + non-arcade bios files)
Cass files can be found in the bbc_cass.zip from mame-sl (sl = softlist = software list)

Folly

@duglor

I used bbcb and both games worked.
load command for boffin is :
*TAPE
*RUN

For citadel it is :
*TAPE
CHAIN ""

Use "page-down" to speed up loading in mame. (or space in lr-mess)

duglor

@Folly Yep. Both games worked here too! Thanks a ton for your help. If not for you, I probably would not have 4 systems on the pi, and so many games. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DTEAM

MAME 0.256 is release

New working systems

Addometer Company Addometer Calculator [hap, Sean Riddle]
Lakeside Strobe [hap, Sean Riddle]
Mortal Race [Museo del Recreativo, David Haywood, ClawGrip]
Player's Edge Plus (X000014P+XP000055) Standard Draw Poker [Brian Troha]
Player's Edge Plus (X000127P+XP000038) Deuces Wild Poker [Brian Troha]
Player's Edge Plus (X002004P+XP000038) Double Double Bonus Poker [Brian Troha]
Player's Edge Plus (X002046P+XP000038) Ace$ Bonus Poker [Brian Troha]
Systemhuset / Loproc Conchess Plymate Glasgow Plus (set 1) [Mr. Lars]
Tiger Electronics Finger Bowl [hap, Sean Riddle]
Yamaha DD-9 Digital Percussion [BCM, Devin Acker]

nothing for us
Maybe Tiger Electronics Finger Bowl . Doesn't look easily playable with a gamepad or a keyboard

Folly

@DTEAM

Indeed not much new for us.
I will do an easy update of the database or skip updating to 256.

I have compiled some mame binaries for rpi0 / x86 / x86_64.
(rpi0 will only do channelf, apfm1000 and svmu at around 100% for now)
I will probably add them into the "wip test" script.
What do you think, would that be an interesting "addon" ?

I also tried the first lr-mess0255.
Probably something to share too in a future script.
Somehow the progress of lr-mess seems to become very weak.
Added some comments in the pull-request today :
https://github.com/libretro/mame/pull/376

DTEAM

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

I will probably add them into the "wip test" script.
What do you think, would that be an interesting "addon" ?

Good idea

Folly

Here some information about lr-mame / lr-mess :

lr-mame / lr-mess source has been updated to 0255
and compiling for arcade and mess sub-targets has been implemented again

Hopefully everything will work like it did before.

For those who still want to play the arcade games :

cave's akai katana
dodonpachi saidojou

Then be sure to make a backup of the lr-mame0251 mamearcade_libretro.so as @HoJo215 described over here.

Folly

Some latest news about mame / lr-mame / lr-mess :

All binaries in retropie are now on 0256.
The lr-mame 0256 binary has the issue that vertical (3:4) games, like galaga are somehow wrongly displayed in rotated mode.
The lr-mame 0251 binary did not have this issue.
Not sure yet where to fix or disable this rotation.
The lr-mess 0256 binary has the issue that many handhelds run far too slow.

Hopefully the issues will be solved in the future.
The advice is not to update or certainly backup your old binaries so you can turn back to an older ones.

For now I will not update the script until, hopefully, better lr-mame / lr-mess versions come out.

Folly

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

The lr-mame 0256 binary has the issue that vertical (3:4) games, like galaga are somehow wrongly displayed in rotated mode.
Not sure yet where to fix or disable this rotation.

RetroArch has the default core option :
mame_rotation_mode = "libretro"
(choices with older RetroArch are : libretro|internal|none )
Setting rotation mode to internal will fix the problem for a non rotating screen.
( strange but setting it to none doesn't help, it will still rotate )

Newer ReatroArch versions seem to have more options which has been comitted to lr-mame / lr-mess :
mame_rotation_mode = "libretro"
(choices with newer RetroArch seem to be : libretro|internal|tate-rol|tate-ror|none )

The mame2003-plus doc describes the TATE mode :
From the Japanese 縦 (ta-te) meaning "vertical", TATE Mode renders vertical games lengthwise along the display. This mode is intended for use with rotating monitors and portable devices that can make the full use of their viewable area for games which used vertical monitors

Presumably "tate-rol|tate-ror" will force to rotate to 1 specific direction whereas "libretro" depends on the how the game wants to rotate.

Overall this could somehow be an improvement although rotation is now enabled by default in "libretro" rotation mode.

mitu

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

Presumably "tate-rol|tate-ror" will force to rotate to 1 specific direction whereas "libretro" depends on the how the game wants to rotate.

More likely the libretro option will obey the video rotation parameters from RetroArch's config (i.e. per-game/system overrides that might rotate the screen)

Folly

@mitu said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

More likely the libretro option will obey the video rotation parameters from RetroArch's config (i.e. per-game/system overrides that might rotate the screen)

Indeed, seems to be a better explanation ;-)

jamrom2

@Folly Hi. Been a while, but I'm still hanging around and watching this script continue to develop. I recently (finally) bought a Pi4 for a sensible price and am in the middle of doing a build.

I loaded the mamedev.sh and working with the classich games. Already I see a problem that my Pi3b+ didn't have with the older version of the script I have loaded.

The classich games seem to have issues with the sprites not being displayed properly. I hear sounds, and I can hear that input is accepted, but the screen just loads up with more sprites.

This goes with the lr-mame native mame choices. The games were updated to the mame24* version, so I don't see it as a rom issue. I had the same results with older rom versions I used as well.

Thanks in advance.

Folly

@jamrom2

I doubt that it's due to my script.
More likely that it's due to lr-mess on which classich hanhelds will run.
Can you see which versions for standalone mame / lr-mess do you use right now ?
Which "classich" game(driver) are you trying ?
Does the "classich" game(driver) run with standalone mame ?

Edit :
I tried cgalaxn on :

standalone mame 0256
lr-mess 0244, 0251 and 0256

cgalaxn failed on all except 0244.
So it's almost certainly an issue with mame / lr-mess or the created 32 bits binaries.
More investigation is needed but it could be that some of these classich games are broken just like others from version 0251.
You can read more about it here.
It explains that a flag for 32 bits binary compilation has been added for version 0257.
Could be that this fixes these issues.
(solved : in the end the rom needed to be updated)

I have place my working lr-mess0244 binary on my google-drive :
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q_GykUt8yXsCTrhvL-ihZpAx8Dnj-4AM
(so you can manually replace it if you want and able to)

Edit 2:
I tried cgalaxn on :

standalone mame 0252 (x86_64 debian 11)
lr-mess 0255 (x86_64 debian 11)

cgalaxn does indeed correctly work on 64 bits (x86_64).
lr-mess however doesn't run at full speed with this driver but that's a known issue.
(perhaps I used a good updated rom with this test)
(solved : in the end the rom needed to be updated)

Edit 3 :
I tried cgalaxn on :

lr-mess 0250

My cgalaxn.7z did not work however when I used the new cgalaxn.zip it worked so the romfile has been changed.

jamrom2

@Folly I agree. It looks like a lot of stuff seems to be having issues. I even tried the auto-loading option on the Coco2 and Coco3, they seem to either fail on every choice, or add in more characters to the loading command on the screen.

I am away for a few days, but I will test all of this. I'll fall back to the script you posted and see if that works. If it does, I suggest holding back posting any newer versions of the script until the issues are sorted. To simple minds like mine, it looks like the script is the problem when in fact, it's the MAME/MESS core that is screwing up.

Best!

JR