Tetris (any set) ROM glitch and help

Petros

Hello all,

I'm very new in the emulation world, but I'll try to give all info possible in order to get some help.

I'm running Retropie on a pi Zero in order to introduce my kids to the games I played when I was their age(pac-man, bubble bobble, arkanoid and Tetris:) ). I'm using mame4all as I've read pretty much everywhere that it's the best for Zero. All games run glitch-free except Tetris. The following happens:

If a block is dropping on the right part of the screen, it leaves a part of it mid may - which also registers as active, so subsequent blocks will stay on top of it.

This happens in all 3 modes of the game, both 1 and 2 players, and all different rom-sets(bootlegs, sets 1-2, etc) so it looks like the problem lies with the parent ROM's code(atetris). I find it weird that there is no other posts about it, it's a pretty popular game and I'm sure that if it was a problem with the actual ROM it would have come up already, so I fear it's a problem with my setup, but I don't know how to debug it. I tried switching to lr-mame2000 but the game doesn't even load.

Any ideas?

barbudreadmon

@Petros said in Tetris (any set) ROM glitch and help:

mame4all

What you are using is a MAME version from 24 years ago, it doesn't contain the MAME improvements from the past 24 years, so it is expected for its emulation to be shitty.
Don't use decades-old version of emulators if you expect a glitch-free experience.

mitu

@barbudreadmon said in Tetris (any set) ROM glitch and help:

What you are using is a MAME version from 24 years ago,

Because of the Pi Zero, which is the most under-powered Pi variant.

barbudreadmon

@mitu It's still better than a pi1, and i doubt it's bad to the point it can't run atetris at full speed with something a little less outdated.
Anyway it doesn't change the fact glitches are to be expected when using an emulator missing 24 years of improvements.

Petros

@barbudreadmon given that the rest of the games are fine, which is the emulator I should use to try tetris?

mitu

Try either mame2003 or fbneo, with the correct ROMset for tetris.

barbudreadmon

@Petros said in Tetris (any set) ROM glitch and help:

the rest of the games are fine

Just to clarify, it is extremely unlikely that any of those other games are actually fine, it's just that the issues are less obvious to you. Just for bubble bobble i know there were several issues affecting frame animation and input lag back in 2000.

There have been multiple sound and gfx fixes over the past 24 years for atetris, but if playability is your only concern, this game seems playable enough in mame2003.

If you weren't using that pizero crap (and assuming it's not a pizero2), i'd tell you to read https://docs.libretro.com/guides/arcade-getting-started/ and only use mame, mame2003-plus or fbneo, which are the only arcade cores people should use.

Petros

I used 2003+ and the issue went away, very happy with it:)

Do understand that it is my first foray into emulation so there are plenty of things I'm not aware of(yet).

I'm using zero because I had it for a different project that didn't need it in the end. I hate having unused stuff around me and always look for ways to repurpose them. I understand that it is not fast enough, but I think it will do for now as I've only added pac-man, arkanoid, donkey kong, galaga, Tetris, asteroids and bubble bobble, games that might not be too taxing(I hope). Before the cabin is ready I will switching all of them to 2003+ and try to play enough to see if they lag, crash etc.

Thank you all for the help, much appreciated:)