MESS Version?

fdr4prez

lr-freechaf will probably be best choice for the pi0.

For sure this does not work with the newer homebrew. that was tested and rejected.

EDIT: I should note that lr-freechaf seems to be only for 1-player. I was not able to get a second player to be functional. Also, the mapping to the real controller doesn't seem possible - unless I just don't know how to do it.

I will tinker with your other suggestions.

I can understand that the Pi0 is underpowered for most mame/arcade games, but the Channel F can't be that resource demanding.

barbudreadmon

@fdr4prez said in MESS Version?:

I use the standalone Stella, jzintv, coolcv, etc. So is there any reason to use "lr-mess" instead of "mame" for Channel F?

Libretro has a number of interesting features you might find missing while using standalone emulators : shaders, rewind, runahead, netplay, retroachievements, centralized controller setup, ...
However that's only true if the libretro api was properly implemented within the emulator : MAME isn't in that category.

fdr4prez

@barbudreadmon said in MESS Version?:

@fdr4prez said in MESS Version?:

I use the standalone Stella, jzintv, coolcv, etc. So is there any reason to use "lr-mess" instead of "mame" for Channel F?

Libretro has a number of interesting features you might find missing while using standalone emulators : shaders, rewind, runahead, netplay, retroachievements, centralized controller setup, ...
However that's only true if the libretro api was properly implemented within the emulator : MAME isn't in that category.

yes, I know; thanks.

I am not interested in any of those.

Plus, I use the OEM controllers, so i don't use a centralized controller at all.

Unless lr-stella has been updated recently, then it doesn't work for newer homebrew and other controller types don't really work (paddles, driving controller, etc)

Folly

@fdr4prez

I tested a few things on my pi zero with Bullseye.
I tested the standard mame from the raspberry pi os repository.
This version is 0.228 and works and has the most speed when using the full gl video driver.
But you still need to skip 10 frames to get the emulation speed around "100%", though the sound is not that good and the resolution is very low.
Also there isn't a recent mame binary for the pi zero.
I also tested retroarch+lr-mess but couldn't get it to run in a decent speed although lr-mess says that the speed is about "81%".

All in all the conclusion is basically the pi-zero is too slow for this.
Save yourself the time and effort and use a better pi.

Dit you get it running and what is your conclusion ?

fdr4prez

@Folly said in MESS Version?:

Dit you get it running and what is your conclusion ?

I couldn't get anything to run at all. I guess I am just not smart enough to figure out the basics

I tested a few things on my pi zero with Bullseye.
I tested the standard mame from the raspberry pi os repository.
This version is 0.228 and works and has the most speed when using the full gl video driver.
But you still need to skip 10 frames to get the emulation speed around "100%", though the sound is not that good and the resolution is very low.
Also there isn't a recent mame binary for the pi zero.
I also tested retroarch+lr-mess but couldn't get it to run in a decent speed although lr-mess says that the speed is about "81%".

That's more than I could do

All in all the conclusion is basically the pi-zero is too slow for this.

Thanks. I was hoping that the Channel F system will be OK for the Pi0. How resource demanding can this system be?

Channel F works great with AdvanceMAME 3 (advmess) on the Pi0 and Pi3B for the older games, but that is version 0.106 so the newer homebrew don't run.

I saw that lr-mame2016 and lr-mess2016 are available for the Pi0, and that is at 0.174 level, so I installed them on both the Pi0 and PI3B

We suspect that this is new enough for the newer homebrew that need larger memory mapping, that the newer mame/mess supports, but I couldn't get either to run any old/simple Channel F game.

Since lr-mess2016 is an available package to be installed on the Pi0, then i'd hope it would at least run the older games.

again, it just could be that I don't have the BIOS in the right place and not having the correct opt/retropie/configs/channelf/emulators.cfg setting, etc. Anything I put in there would just be a guess on my part.

Save yourself the time and effort and use a better pi.

Thanks. You helped me get it running on the Pi3B, so we are good there and grateful for that. I was hoping to use one of my many Pi0W and Channel F cart as a case. The Pi0W will fit right nicely in there.