New Arcade (MAME) issue. Lockup (Little rectangle)
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I fully get that what I'm using is experimental. The whole ROM things is, of course, dodgy to begin with so I try to do what I can with what I already have. Unfortunately that has its own challenges. Going back to 2003 seems drastic, but that does seem to be the mame version that has the most support in Retropie. Ultimately I'll want hiscores and the ability to auto-load save states (to by-pass each game's POST test) along with support for overlays and sound packs. It appears most of the newer versions seem to lack a lot of that.
Thanks for pointing out the distinction in the logs. Still wish I could find out what that little rectangle said (looks like the screen is just so scrunched for some reason) and to find out why it can't be exited from normally, but that's ultimately just a waste I suspect.
Lastly, thanks for the info on runcommand images. I suspect I'll just turn it off until it's more evolved. One would assume someone is, or will be, working on it.
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Mame2003 is very stable and works well. Though, this is also why cores like mame2003-plus exist. They aim to blend the compatibility and lower hardware requirements with newer fixes, game support, and features that leaves the user with a good experience.
Both support nearly 5000 games, and most of the iconic goto games people want are available.
A compatibility project I created under libretro shows a lot of what to expect from mame2003, mame2003-plus, mame2010, and mame2015.
Without a doubt, newer isn't always better here. As stated before, both 2003 cores have nearly 5000 games....but wait, mame2015 has 29,000 games? However over 20,000 of those are listed as not working....that's a lot of extra space for nothing.
Here's the lists I created for each core so far. Have a look and search for the games you're looking to play. https://buildbot.libretro.com/compatibility_lists/
Note that these lists are as accurate as they can be, but still imperfect. Part of this project is to flush out these imperfections.
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@agrajag said in New Arcade (MAME) issue. Lockup (Little rectangle):
I fully get that what I'm using is experimental. The whole ROM things is, of course, dodgy to begin with so I try to do what I can with what I already have.
it’s up to you of course, but i would always recommend picking emulator first and obtaining romset second. the romsets for those recommended ones (and even most of the others in retropie) are trivial to locate, let’s say.
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Okay, great info and argument. I took my list of MAME games (about 250) and started checking the Mame2003 compatibility chart. I gave up at letter F as everything but one title (Dr. Micro) showed up as supported (and Dr. Micro just didn't show so maybe it even works).
Given that I really want hiscores to work, overlays (Star Castle, Asteroids Deluxe), bezels (for games like Lunar Lander where it helps to have the instructions there) and sound packs (Armor Alley) to all work, which MAME core would you recommend? I notice, for example, that 2015 includes Dr. Micro as working (and this is a game I'm curious about, but haven't even played so it wouldn't be a show-stopper). However, I've read that 2015 lacks other features. Much of what I read is dated and suggests that overhead for newer MAME cores is a problem, but mainly on older Pi's. The 4 seems to run every MAME core I throw at it, well.
Thanks so much for doing that work!
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To be honest, accessibility was one of the issues, but it sounds trivial. In the end it's just another platform. I've always been a bit confused on why different versions of MAME require different ROM sets. It's not like the ROM from the 1984 Pac-Man keeps changing over the years. It's the same ROM, no? So why 10 different versions?
Would I be better of tracking down say, the correct set or using something like clrmamepro which I think can just take current rom sets and create older ones?
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@agrajag known issue : https://github.com/libretro/mame/issues/158
Give it the proper romset and it'll work.
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@barbudreadmon Thanks for the explanation. That answers that. At least it's a known issue.
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@agrajag said in New Arcade (MAME) issue. Lockup (Little rectangle):
To be honest, accessibility was one of the issues, but it sounds trivial. In the end it's just another platform. I've always been a bit confused on why different versions of MAME require different ROM sets. It's not like the ROM from the 1984 Pac-Man keeps changing over the years. It's the same ROM, no? So why 10 different versions?
MAME explain this pretty well: https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:ROMs
Would I be better of tracking down say, the correct set or using something like clrmamepro which I think can just take current rom sets and create older ones?
no - to do that you would need to start from the current mame romset and the full rollback set, which would be fairly massive download, and then you'll have to learn clrmamepro. just download the romset you need - so much easier and quicker.
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@agrajag said in New Arcade (MAME) issue. Lockup (Little rectangle):
It's not like the ROM from the 1984 Pac-Man keeps changing over the years. It's the same ROM, no? So why 10 different versions?
You have a big misunderstanding here, for obvious reasons if you read https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:ROMs i doubt there is a romset that was redumped 10 times, and that's definitely not the case of pacman, afaik pacman was dumped only once. Your issue here is that you are using a split pacman romset, however pacman is a clone, so you'll need its parent (puckman) if you are using split romsets, or you'll need a non-merged pacman romset, whatever you prefer. If you don't know what i'm talking about, read https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating%2C-Rebuilding%2C-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/ , if you didn't read https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating%2C-Rebuilding%2C-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/ yet, then read it anyway. As i'm always saying, clrmamepro is your friend.
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@barbudreadmon @barbudreadmon Thanks. It's been a while since I was into MAME on my PC so I'd forgotten about split vs merged, etc.
Got it.
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@agrajag mame romsets change versions because they become more complete as time goes. So where pacman has always been the same, our copies of the roms, proms, and eeproms from the hardware maybe incomplete. When the chips were dumped initially they could have been corrupted or missing from the board all together. There may be newer revisions from certain games found later on, etc.
What core would I recommend? As a mame2003-plus developer, I'm biased. I use mame2003-plus in my arcade cabinet build for all the mame games I personally use. It works very well.
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Just an update for anyone watching.... I grabbed a reference 2003-plus set and started dropping in some roms to test. Working GREAT and already this is better. I automatically seem to be getting hi-scores. Nice!
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@agrajag yes, high scores are auto installed. Not every game supports high score saving though. These are essentially hacks to reload the memory and are made custom for each game that doesn't natively support saving.
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Is there a good source site for backdrop art already set up for 2003 Plus?
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Artwork isn't my department but @Riverstorm might be able to give you some tips.
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@mahoneyt944 Thanks again. Everything is working fine post-skyscraper scrape. Had an issue with about half the video snaps not working, but a trip to Youtube for an hour fixed it all.
Now to decide if I should hack my Mayflash to add a spinner to it or just pick up a controller that has one (and maybe a trackball). I miss Tempest, Front Line real Wild Western and Arkanoid.
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@mahoneyt944 said in New Arcade (MAME) issue. Lockup (Little rectangle):
Here's the lists I created for each core so far. Have a look and search for the games you're looking to play. https://buildbot.libretro.com/compatibility_lists/
Note that these lists are as accurate as they can be, but still imperfect. Part of this project is to flush out these imperfections.dkong (and clones) should probably be listed as having wrong colors for mame2003/mame2003-plus/mame2010
@Agrajag you might also want to take a look at FBNeo. MAME2003+ and FBNeo are the 2 best arcade emulator as far as libretro integration is concerned.
Pros of FBNeo :
- overall more accurate emulation, meaning less glitches
- all games should have proper savestates support, meaning they also have proper runahead/rewind/netplay support
- retroachievements support
- it supports some games MAME2003+ doesn't
Cons of FBNeo :
- it's overall a tad slower than MAME2003+ (accuracy is a double-edged sword), shouldn't be a major issue on pi4 though
- since it's not MAME, it doesn't have a MAME OSD
- it doesn't support some games MAME2003+ does
- romsets aren't "fixed", the emulator is kept in sync with current MAME romsets
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@barbudreadmon Looking into this now.
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