MESS 0.149u1 Out - XM/XBoard POKEY Support

[Trebor]

Both with and without GUI available here in 32 and 64-bit flavors:

http://messui.the-chronicles.org/

 

Necessary BIOS files - leaved zipped - do not unzip - and create a ROMS folder in the root MESS folder (I.E. C:\MESS\ROMS):

 

NTSC: a7800.zip

PAL: a7800p.zip

 

For those interested in utilizing all the fancy HLSL video options you need these files: hlsl.zip

The hlsl.zip file you need to unzip and place the folder in the MESS root folder (I.E. C:\MESS\HLSL)

 

Here are some additional support folders - to be handled similarly to the HLSL folder:

Artwork (Provides additional screen/monitor effects and overlays): artwork.zip

[C:\MESS\ARTWORK]

 

Controller Mappings (X-Arcade, HotRodSE, etc.): ctrlr.zip

[C:\MESS\CTRL]

 

Emulator Documents (Command line options, explanation of settings, etc.): docs.zip

[C:\MESS\DOCS]

 

 

Donkey Kong XM and Bentley Bear - Crystal Quest are now playable with full POKEY support.

 

Of course Commando, Ballblazer, Beef Drop, Froggie, Pac-Man Collection XM/POKEY edition still work beautifully as well.

 

Any game images you have can be zipped or unzipped, but must have a header (*.a78 files) and placed in a folder called software (I.E. C:\MESS\SOFTWARE). Of course, you may place you game images anywhere, but need to configure MESS accordingly.

[tep392]

Thanks Trebor!

 

Does MESS emulate the High Score Cart?

[Trebor]

Thanks Trebor!

 

Does MESS emulate the High Score Cart?

 

Unfortunately, not. This update just adds the XM/Xboard POKEY sound addressing.

[carmel_andrews]

Did CV and Co. help out (as in provide technical info/documentation to assist with programming the patch) with patching the MESS 7800 emulation to work with XM

[Trebor]

Did CV and Co. help out (as in provide technical info/documentation to assist with programming the patch) with patching the MESS 7800 emulation to work with XM

 

The information was obtained via the data posted on the POKEY sound address mapping (http://www.x-game.se/products/xboard.htm) which both the XBOARD and XM utilize.

 

To be clear again, this is not full XM support; rather, just the POKEY sound portion. For example, High Score Cart/saving is still not present.

[Trebor]

For a little more assistance in setting MESS up and having the options readily and easily available to change, here are some mess.ini files to be place in the same folder as your mess.exe file (I.E. C:\MESS)

 

MESS default ini settings (Basic video options available) : mess.ini_Default.zip

 

MESS default ini with HLSL enabled (Many more video options available) : mess.ini_HLSL.zip

 

MESS default ini with HLSL and YIQ enabled (All video options available) : mess.ini_HLSLwYIQ.zip

 

*Note: The more video options you enable the more powerful graphics card you need.*

 

If you are having performance problems with the ini file which has both HLSL and YIQ enabled, you may need to scale back to just HLSL enabled or the basic video options.

 

You can easily open and update mess.ini files under Notepad.

 

 

Some basic 'troubleshooting':

 

Controller/Gamepad/Joystick is not recognized...

Change:

joystick 0

To:

joystick 1

 

Scrolling has tearing/jerky movement...

Change:

waitvsync 0

To:

waitvsync 1

 

I don't want the system info screen every time I launch a game...

Change:

skip_gameinfo 0

To:

skip_gameinfo 1

 

I can't get passed the initial warning screen...

Press arrow key left, then arrow key right.

 

Any questions or issues, feel free to ask and post here. I will do my best to assist.

[AnnaWu]

I can't get passed the initial warning screen...

Press arrow key left, then arrow key right.

 

The only way is to create your own build.

 

src\emu\ui.c

 

Check the line 317 and change from

 

int show_warnings = TRUE;

 

to

 

int show_warnings = FALSE;

[Trebor]

Very cool info, Anna. Thanks for posting that.

[ColecoGemini]

Can anyone reccommend what kind of video card you need to have to play MESS with the HLSL stuff enabled and not have it be unplayably slow? I have a few computers but right now I'm using a Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with the NVidia NVS 4200m graphics with 1gb of video ram, and everything I've tried is skip skip skip skipping ing ing ing.

 

This laptop is only a year old, and runs AutoCAD 3D 2012 with no problems at all.

 

Thanks

Edited August 14, 2013 by ColecoGemini

[Trebor]

Can anyone reccommend what kind of video card you need to have to play MESS with the HLSL stuff enabled and not have it be unplayably slow? I have a few computers but right now I'm using a Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with the NVidia NVS 4200m graphics with 1gb of video ram, and everything I've tried is skip skip skip skipping ing ing ing.

 

This laptop is only a year old, and runs AutoCAD 3D 2012 with no problems at all.

 

Thanks

 

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=255593&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

 

2.2 Your performance is greatly enhanced by using graphics cards which contain more GPU memory and bandwidth. In cases for bare minimum usage (Geforce 6,7 Series, ATI Radeon R520/X1300–X1950, Intel GMA X3000 G965), you should expect that full screen HLSL shading effect will not be possible without severe frame-skipping. You can, however, run in a smaller window to allow many games to run at 100% with HLSL effects. Only by testing your particular setup can you find the optimum relation of size and performance.

If you want better performance for full-screen display and you aren't already using it, use the -switchres toggle which lowers your actual screen resolution resulting in less work that your card needs to do. For some, it makes a huge difference.

[ColecoGemini]

I found that link on Google yesterday too. I tried all those suggestions, and none of them helped. running in a window makes it run even slower than running full screen, and that's always been the case since the beginning of MAME/MESS. It doesn't really make any sense either, because those video cards they are referring to are like 6 years old, two generations older than what I have and 1/4 of the video ram.

 

I was asking for suggestions from anyone who has HLSL effects running at full speed without frame skipping needed.

[Trebor]

I have a ATI Radeon HD5670. Running at 1920x1080 - default HLSL settings / changes settings...Having YIQ enabled or disabled it runs fine under all conditions with no frame skipping.

 

If you have triplebuffer turned on - turn it off.

 

Try turning sleep off - sleep 1 --> sleep 0

 

Try changing numprocessors from 'auto' to '1'.

 

Have you tired updating your graphics card drivers?

 

Have you installed Direct X 9.0C?...

 

"2.6 If you are on Windows 7, running DirectX 10.0 or above, you may not have DirectX 9.0c installed on your system. DirectX 10 and above are known not to be backwards compatible in this instance. Even if you have DirectX 9.0c, you may be missing the SDK .DLL needed for this! If you are receiving an error mentioning such files as "dx9_43.dll" as missing, you need to install the DirectX End User Runtime SDK linked below.

http://www.microsoft...6A-9B6652CD92A3"

 

 

Also, post your mess.ini file details - you may have something turned on or an odd setting causing an issue.

 

You're not posting too many details that can really assist in nailing down the problem. Not sure either what you mean by: "...that's always been the case since the beginning of MAME/MESS"

 

The beginning of MAME/MESS dates back to the mid-to-late 90's. HLSL support is a couple of years old.

Are you just referring to since you have owned the laptop (?)

[ColecoGemini]

Ok, here's where I'm at:

 

Triple Buffer is already off.

 

Sleep is set to 0

 

numprocessors is at 1

 

graphics driver are up to the latest.

 

Direct x 9.0c is installed. In fact, I just reinstalled it.

 

Same result.

 

and I'm only running at 1600x900.

 

The Mess.ini I'm using is the one posted above in this thread.

 

What I meant with "that's always been the case" was referring to the fact that running it in a window is always going to be slower than running it fullscreen. When you run MAME or MESS in a window, your graphics card then has to deal with all the MAME processing, plus continue to output your desktop/gadgets/widgets/icons etc. When you run fullscreen, it forgets all of that and just focuses on MAME/MESS. So the suggestion to run it in a window to speed things up from that site you linked is bogus. And yes, I've been playing around with MESS and MAME since the very early 0.34ish days. I even did a bit of dev work way back when on MESS.

 

I haven't played with the HLSL stuff before, but I knew it was around and I figured since this was a newish machine with the "nicer" graphics card option, vs. the cheap integrated Intel one, it would run OK. But it doesn't.

 

One note: turning off YIQ helped a lot, it's still not really skip-free, but it's better than before.

Edited August 15, 2013 by ColecoGemini

[Trebor]

One note: turning off YIQ helped a lot, it's still not really skip-free, but it's better than before.

 

Reading about that particular card has it more geared towards business than gaming - Yes, I know AutoCAD 3D works fine, but the HLSL code and more so YIQ evidently could be utilized in a way your card may not handle (well).

 

If turning YIQ off helped a lot, curving the screen may be too much for your card as well - So try changing this:

 

curvature 0.03

pincushion 0.03

 

to

 

curvature 0.0

pincushion 0.0

 

And it is not bogus what is written on the site.

 

You are correct that running in a window would be slower than full-screen if you ran in a large Window, but say your full-screen size is 1920x1080, then try running MAME/MESS as the quote says:

"...in a smaller window..."

 

They key is smaller. A window running MAME/MESS @800x600 will be faster than full-screen @1920x1080. Nothing bogus about it.

 

That has been my exact experience on a Latitude E6410 core i7 2.8GHZ running Windows 7 64-bit. It has Intel HD graphics and indeed runs MAME and MESS faster in a smaller window than a full screen display.

 

Speaking of size, try changing all prescale options that state 0 to 1 under the HLSL section. (Zero is autodetect and may be trying too high of a value for your card to handle).

 

Additionally, try turning off the "bloom" effect, if the screen curve being off still wasn't enough of a performance gain and/or prescale modifications didn't make a change for the better:

 

raster_bloom_scale 0.225 to raster_bloom_scale 0.0

 

If your card still is having issues, then as a last resort you could also turn off scanlines:

 

scanline_alpha 1.0 to scanline_alpha 0.0

 

If none of that works, I'm out of options for you outside of suggesting turning off/close out of background tasks to see if one of them are having too much of an impact on the system while MAME/MESS is running.

 

You could try posting to the MESS boards to see if anyone else has any additional suggestions.