MAME 0.208 Released!

[Tafoid]

MAME 0.208

Today we’re proud to bring you MAME 0.208. There are some big improvements to SunPlus SPG240/SPG280 audio emulation. Not only does this greatly improve the enjoyability of the JAKKS Pacific TV games, it’s also timed perfectly for the addition of the Fisher-Price I Can Play Piano music teaching system. That’s not the only newly supported music system this month: we’ve added Jumping Popira, and Popira 2 has been promoted to working. Continuing with the audio theme, moralrecordings fixed BSMT 2000 4-bit ADPCM sample playback, cam900 added support for the VRC7 as a separate device with its unique instrument patches, and schnitzeltony improved Atari POKEY performance substantially. Newly supported TV games include Disney, Disney and Friends, Justice League and SpongeBob SquarePants – The Fry Cook Games from JAKKS Pacific, and XaviX titles Geigeki Go Go Shooting, Gururin World and MX Dirt Rebel. You’ll be able to enjoy the XaviX-based games even more now with improvements to the colour palette.

The Nintendo Game & Watch progress has continued with the addition of Balloon Fight (new wide screen), Fire Attack, Octopus, Parachute and Turtle Bridge. You’ll notice some big software list updates this month. The TOSEC Spectrum Plus 3 disk images have been imported, Spectrum Opus support has been added with software from World of Spectrum, and SDX floppy controller support has been added to the Memotech MTX along with a corresponding software list. The PlayStation, PC-98 and Saturn software lists have been updated with testing results and new dumps, original Apple II disk images have been added as they’ve been made available, another batch of Japanese e-kara cartridges has landed, and coverage of Spanish V.Smile releases has been improved. Speaking of software, AmatCoder has fixed a number of issues affecting Amstrad CPC software. The long-neglected Bally Astrocade home system has had tape and lightpen support added in this release.

On the arcade side, we’ve added Atari’s TTL-based Rebound, early English releases of Karate Champ, an earlier version of Nihon System’s Omega, and world releases of DJ Boy and Gemini Wing. In changes you probably won’t notice, we’ve switched the toolchain used for building official Windows binary releases from GCC 7 to GCC 8, and a new tools package has been made available.

As always, you can get the source and Windows binary packages from the download page.

[Inky]

Another release already? Damn.

[Keatah]

They are on a forced monthly schedule.

[phoenixdownita]

I used to want to keep up, now I look at it once every 6 months ... maybe.

I understand they want to "preserve" everything ....
they added TTL Atari Game Rebound:
https://youtu.be/P59jCXTWOH8
The video had me laugh. Dooh, Dooh, diih, dooh, dooh .... lol

[Keatah]

Pretty neat.

 

But I wish that mame's bad-to-good ratio increased from 27:1 to what it was years ago.

Edited April 3, 2019 by Keatah

[youxia]

I think it's awesome that some folks care for the obscure (or even "ridiculous) machines and try to emulate them.

 

I am not however sure that merging MAME and MESS was a good idea (ok, I do think it's silly). I don't follow the development closely, was there some sensible explanation for that move?

 

EDIT: just saw that they added Bally tape support, awesome. We were bemoaning the lack of it last year here.

[mr_me]

There's a lot of emulated components (e.g. processors) and there's video processing that's shared between the two projects. Saves duplicating efforts and sees that all emulators benefit from improvements.

Was any Mess functionality lost in the merger. As a user, I find it convenient.

Edited April 3, 2019 by mr_me

[Keatah]

EDIT: just saw that they added Bally tape support, awesome. We were bemoaning the lack of it last year here.

Tape, Printing, LightPen, and new file formats are the bane of most emulators. None of it is glamorous but it's still a huge part of the retro experience.

 

No emu I know if can read A2R, and Applewin is still lagging with getting WOZ support.

 

Merging name and mess does indeed benefit from cross-development and sharing of modules however.

Edited April 3, 2019 by Keatah

[youxia]

I thought they were always cross-developing, and just had separate launchers. That's my only gripe - I'd rather have only arcade stuff in MAME, seeing as it's already bit cluttered anyway. I haven't really used MESS yet. Also the "software lists" are still a mystery to me...is this just another name for "romsets"?

 

I'm out of the loop because the last ~2 years I've been using RetroPie/Emulationstation for MAME and it's all kinda easier there. Now about to switch to a PC-to-CRT setup so may need to re-learn all the proper MAME stuff (...already dreading the clrmamepro sorcery)

[MrMaddog]

I thought they were always cross-developing, and just had separate launchers. That's my only gripe - I'd rather have only arcade stuff in MAME, seeing as it's already bit cluttered anyway. I haven't really used MESS yet. Also the "software lists" are still a mystery to me...is this just another name for "romsets"?

 

I'm out of the loop because the last ~2 years I've been using RetroPie/Emulationstation for MAME and it's all kinda easier there. Now about to switch to a PC-to-CRT setup so may need to re-learn all the proper MAME stuff (...already dreading the clrmamepro sorcery)

 

Software Lists are stuff that MESS used to handle but now have to be in the same naming convention as MAME roms. In other words you can just use No-Intro roms like you could with say Retroarch. That's the only thing I hate about the MAME/MESS unification but it's something that has to be dealt with since RA can't play "every" console game (ie. requires special controlers).

[mr_me]

As far as I know mess software lists transferred over to mame. For the emulators I use, mame softlists are optional and I just open the cartridge/disk/tape image file directly like any other emulator. Softlists are an internal database of cartridge/disk/tape files. The database might have additional information like rom memory maps. Sometimes the file format softlists use is different than what's used by other emulators. Like I said I've never bothered with softlists while using mame.

 

I think people still build "mess" with the mame stuff stripped out if you're interested. Similarly, there are arcade only mame builds. I find it convenient to have everything together.

Edited April 4, 2019 by mr_me

[S1500]

I can't tell you how long I have been waiting for them to emulate the Fisher-Price I Can Play Piano system. I mean, no MAME cabinet is complete without that.

 

This could make a great crappy Black Mirror episode. A MAME author starts emulating every electronic thing around his house, and then his kids, his wife, then, himself....

[MrMaddog]

I can't tell you how long I have been waiting for them to emulate the Fisher-Price I Can Play Piano system. I mean, no MAME cabinet is complete without that.

 

 

Or using MAME to emulate an Atari Plug & Play joystick that emulates a 2600 using a NES-On-A-Chip.

 

Whoa....MESSception......

[Keatah]

Messconception.

[mr_me]

I'd like to see the Intellivision plugnplay from the early 2000s emulated. It's nintendo-on-a-chip with intellivision games converted to nes.

[Inky]

They are on a forced monthly schedule.

 

How did I not know this?

 

I'm probably not going to upgrade again until a specific game is working.

[mr_me]

The nice thing about frequent updates is that you don't have to wait when that feature you're looking for gets implemented.

[Keatah]

I'm probably not going to upgrade again until a specific game is working.

Yup. Upgrade when there is a fix or specific game. Otherwise you're just chasing busywork for nothing.

[Swami]

Sorry, I never seem to run out of questions lately. So, my new PC has a 128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. Most of my roms are very old versions. These MAME ROM and Software list packs are about 60 GB each, 50+% of which I will likely never use.

 

Question 1: Would MAME load the game rom from the HDD and run it on the SSD, where MAME is, or would it keep reading from the rom on the HDD during gameplay? This is about maximizing game behavior. This is possibly even more important with emulators like Retroarch.

Question 2: I'm assuming if I just download the old 0.157, or whatever, roms from wherever, one-at-a-time, as I become interested in them, that if I run the update packs now, it will only try to update the roms I have and not leave a bunch of flotsam and jetsam around. True?

Question 3: Do I need the roms in the MAME "roms" folder for these rom updates to work or does it hunt around the whole disk drive to update them?

 

Thanks.

[S1500]

So far in all the fights I've had with MAMEUI64, I've played a grand total of zero games.

 

Lesson 1 learned: Don't add a roms folder to a network drive. It will take eternity to build the game list.

 

Lesson 2 learned: It will randomly crash when you fire up a game.

 

Lesson 3 learned: It won't remember any preferences when you bring it back up.

 

Lesson 4 learned: It's painfully slow and I haven't even gotten to a game yet.

[Swami]

So far in all the fights I've had with MAMEUI64, I've played a grand total of zero games.

 

Lesson 1 learned: Don't add a roms folder to a network drive. It will take eternity to build the game list.

 

Lesson 2 learned: It will randomly crash when you fire up a game.

 

Lesson 3 learned: It won't remember any preferences when you bring it back up.

 

Lesson 4 learned: It's painfully slow and I haven't even gotten to a game yet.

Was that you I said I could try to send a pre-installed setup to? I have figured that part out. Just need to see how big it is zipped. There would only be a couple test roms, of course, to show where they go. Then you at least have a known state to work from. No promises until I check the size, though.

[S1500]

Was that you I said I could try to send a pre-installed setup to? I have figured that part out. Just need to see how big it is zipped. There would only be a couple test roms, of course, to show where they go. Then you at least have a known state to work from. No promises until I check the size, though.

 

That was not I. I've used MAMEUI64 before, successfully. I am just stumped as to why it's not remembering my configuration.

 

I'm wondering if the mistake was that I copied the whole installation(not the roms obv) to a subfolder on c:\Program files. Windows was yakkin' at me about needing admin privs to do that. I'm not running MAME as an admin, wonder if I should fire that up, or just do it the old way by just running it in a separate folder like C:\MAME.

 

Wish there was a more formal .MSI installer for this, instead of a self-extracting EXE.

[Swami]

 

That was not I. I've used MAMEUI64 before, successfully. I am just stumped as to why it's not remembering my configuration.

 

I'm wondering if the mistake was that I copied the whole installation(not the roms obv) to a subfolder on c:\Program files. Windows was yakkin' at me about needing admin privs to do that. I'm not running MAME as an admin, wonder if I should fire that up, or just do it the old way by just running it in a separate folder like C:\MAME.

 

Wish there was a more formal .MSI installer for this, instead of a self-extracting EXE.

I am running everything MAME from C:\MAMEUI64 or C:\MAME64. I run everything I can from the main C:\ folder as the two "Program Folders" have hyper-security. For instance, my experience was that jzintv will not even run from C:\Program Files\ on my new laptop, but I cut it and pasted it, wholesale, into C:\ and it runs. Also, I have to unzip any rom file or whatever in a C:\folder\, because the two program file folders won't let me. If you can't open zip files in the Program Files folders, it makes things very messy for MAME (pardon the pun). I'm sure this is why some people are still buying old 32 bit computers and running WinXP or Ubuntu. I know windows does this because people are opening torrent files with malware in them or maybe downloading malware from an unsafe website and Windows is trying to minimize their customer support needed on such issues. Maybe it's "safer" as far as security to run it from another drive, but I am not sure about this.

[mr_me]

Not sure what is meant by a "games list" in mameui64 but if I run an audit on my PC it takes forever. I avoid running audit.

 

I have several rom folders added to mameui64. I have an old rom set in one folder. When I find one that doesn't work I download a single file for that machine from the latest set I can find, and place it in a different rom folder. I have never bothered with update sets. There might be a few duplicates and wasted kilobytes but there aren't that many.

 

I never put anything in "program files" if I don't have to. I have an "apps" folder and put things like mame and other installerless programs in there.

[S1500]

Speaking of rom sets, where does one get .DAT files(or is it XML?) for various rom set versions? I have a rather large ROM set, where I would rather slim 'er down to just originals.