PS2MAME & my demo

[iesposta]

I've been fascinated with the PS2 MAME tech demo.

Why run MAME on such a low MHz machine? "Because it is amazing that you actually can!"

I've built an .iso image of my favorite classic arcade games.

If you have a way to launch unsigned PS2 code, like Free McBoot, you can use this with Open PS2 Loader (OPL) from a USB hard drive, possibly a thumb drive, possibly the internal PS hard drive, and possibly a burned CD. Apart from the USB laptop hard drive in an external case, I have not tried the other ways.

You can e-mail me at the e-mail address located in my profile, where I can send you a link to MEGA for the image. I do not want to violate the forum policy of sharing.

I have some previously non-working games running. Tapper, for instance, needed a mixture of a .zip file and a few unzipped files to launch. Pole Position was another problem one that now works, but needs frameskip and even then it might be too much for the PS2's low MHz CPU. Ms. Pac Man I also got working, it was really fully playable starting with the MAME this demo was based upon 0.37b16, which is higher than some other devices port of 0.37b11 and 0.37b12. Hard to find working Ms. Pac for MAME 0.37b16.

I have not found a way to get the samples to play, no one has. The sound sample folder is there. So Donkey Kong, Q*bert, the ship explosion in Galaga don't play, Carnival, no speech in Wizard of Wor, etc.

The vector games also do not work, even though I have the Artwork folder for some of them. The software PS2 emulator debugger shows MAME throwing errors every frame with vector games.

I have also noted in the debugger after loading a game, it reports failure to open cdrom0:/cfg/default.cfg and the game-specific cdrom0:/cfg/[name-of-rom].cfg

Even having these set in the disc image they fail to load, but PS2MAME is trying to load them.

If that worked, or can be figured out how to be made to work, then overall it would be a much nicer experience having each game's setting already set.

Explanation: PS2MAME is running from a CD. It always starts in its first-launched state. Any changes made to frame-skip, dip-switch settings like bonus lives and number if starting players per credit, and high score name entry ARE NOT SAVED, so every time a game is launched, if you want more starting lives you need to go into MAME's Dip Switch menu to change it.

Most old games play fine without having to go into settings or setting a controller button to change frame skip, but some that you think can't be played or enjoyed, REALLY RUN WELL if the frame skip is 1 or 2 or Auto.

If the .cfg loading worked, then a starting state of the proper frameskip and extra lives and starting number of players could be hard set on a per-game basis.

I was disappointed in Satan's Hollow on Midway Arcade Treasures because some sound is missing, this MAME plays it better, but needs the start difficulty lowered. This is one of those games where changing game settings requires assigning controller buttons, going into "service mode" and navigating menus to make changes. NOT as simple as the dip-switch setting, and you need to do this evey time the game is launched. Again, I'd love a .cfg of settings to actually work!

If you would like to discuss PS2MAME here, I'd be glad to talk about it -- or any classic gaming on the PS2.