MESS Commodore 64 Emultaror - please Help

[pocketmego]

Can anyone here tell me how to operate the C64 emulator on Mess. I have a few ROMS and can ge the Emulator up and running to where it gets to the C64's start screen. But from there I do not know how to load a ROM.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

-Ray

[Cybergoth]

Just forget MESS for C64 emulation. Use WinVICE or CCS64.

[yuppicide]

I can't find ANY C64 emulator that works. I've tried CCS64, not sure if I tried WinVICE. I couldn't figure out how to get any of the controls to work. Like, I could load a game and that's it. When I get in the game I can't play.

 

I really want to play some Hero of The Golden Talisman or whatever it was called.

[Mayhem]

You need to set up the controls... joystick mapping etc. Look under Options for Vice.

[BONK]

For CCS64 u gotta Hit F9 key then go to Options then go into Input and there u will see the Joystick ports.

[pocketmego]

Just forget MESS for C64 emulation. Use WinVICE or CCS64.

 

 

Using Winvice turned out to be awesome, thanks for the advice it worked MUCH better than Mess.

 

-Ray

[S1500]

Just tried C64 in MESS, and lo and behold...it doesn't work. Going straight for VICE.

[Brenry]

dunno why people have negative comments on mess. I've been going through and setting up emulators for my arcade monitor. I've had better results setting up mess like i did mame with native 15khz resolutions in directdraw mode than individual ones (so far atari, c64, sega, nes, snes looks badass). was running into irritations of the timings off and getting audio clipping with other ones (in particular c64 because of that whole 50hz pal and 60hz nstc thing).

 

if you're just using it on some lcd display in direct3d mode ... mmk. but mess is awesome because you can easily batch configure emulators so the timing and 15khz res is accurate and not look muddy or have added smeared pixels added.

[Cybergoth]

dunno why people have negative comments on mess.

 

Read again. MESS sucks for C64 emulation. It's great for emulating other machines.

[S1500]

dunno why people have negative comments on mess. I've been going through and setting up emulators for my arcade monitor. I've had better results setting up mess like i did mame with native 15khz resolutions in directdraw mode than individual ones (so far atari, c64, sega, nes, snes looks badass). was running into irritations of the timings off and getting audio clipping with other ones (in particular c64 because of that whole 50hz pal and 60hz nstc thing).

 

 

Because it doesn't provide what most users looking for, the feature of it "just works". You try to get the BIOS files right, get some worthwhile games(with hopefully the file extension it will recognize), fiddle through the sometimes difficult GUI, and..nothing.

 

It claims to support all these different consoles & computers, only to have them not work. You try a dedicated one like WinVICE, and it "just works", with minimal effort on the user's part.

It's just not for Vic20.

 

It's too bad since it has that nice pane on the right to select your favorite rom, instead of a less-convenient standard Windows open dialog.

[carmel_andrews]

to get the mess emulator to see your c64 games, if you are using a recent mess build you should see a section on the main mess window (next to the system select window) with 2 tabs, one is called picker and the other is called device viewer

 

for the picker tab, you need to configure that option within the c64 emu you want emulated (as there are different c64 emu's within mess), back click on the c64 emu you want emulated and select the properties then select 'software' tab then select browse or insert and direct that option to where your c64 games/roms are stored then select apply/ok on the software tab and the properties tab to close 'properties' and you will notice that on the 'picker' tab you will see a list of roms/games sotred in the directory you told the 'software' tab to search/direct to, just select whatever game you want to play by clicking on that game within the picker tab

 

for the 'device viewer' tab, it works basically the same as what you were doing in the 'software' tab only difference being is that it splits up the various software mediums (devices) the c64 uses, like cassette, disk, carts (and something called 'quickload') so like the 'software' tab as previously mentioned you dimply direct the various devices/mediums to the directories were that c64 software is, i.e for tape softwaere you direct that option cassette to where your cassette images/roms arwe stored...and similarly for the other options on dice viewer tabs

 

to change software images within mess, first of all dont' select new UI, old one is miles better and easier to follow

 

whilst mess emulation is running, press the scroll lock key (to enable partial keyboard emu) so that you can access the UI from in mess emulation, press the tab key to bring up the UI and select the file manager section, you will notice the same options on file manager section as you saw in device viewer, and just follow the step's mentioned in device viewer and apply it to file manager, this is for changing the program you wish to run/execute

 

Once the file has loaded or being found, just exit the UI, press the f3 key (i think) to reset the emulation and type in the following

 

load "*",8

 

after a while the emulator will return with 'ready' and all you do is type run (like you would do on a real commy 64)

Edited September 25, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[Brenry]

 

Because it doesn't provide what most users looking for, the feature of it "just works". You try to get the BIOS files right, get some worthwhile games(with hopefully the file extension it will recognize), fiddle through the sometimes difficult GUI, and..nothing.

 

It claims to support all these different consoles & computers, only to have them not work. You try a dedicated one like WinVICE, and it "just works", with minimal effort on the user's part.

It's just not for Vic20.

 

It's too bad since it has that nice pane on the right to select your favorite rom, instead of a less-convenient standard Windows open dialog.

 

What features are you talking about? The irritation I kept running into on winvice and ccs64 is issues with the throttling. From the complains I see when I google this many people have the same issue. The emulator code was tweaked to 50hz pal timing. Running on an ntsc display at 60hz the audio pitch would be higher or audio clipping would occur from the different clock rates. If you can suggest how to fix this, would be much appreciated. In the long run I think I would be happier with an emu that supported a fastload function. But I am not running this on a lcd in hi-res mode, it's on an arcade monitor at 15khz so the directdraw mode is kinda important to me as well as the ability to disable stretching in a .cfg file.

 

The Amiga WinUAE is a real bitch about this. The guy is .eu, run's 50hz. and his philosophy is piss on everyone else that doesn't run off PAL.

 

I'm not sure I follow you either with the file handling system, I dont use the built in emulator selectors to pick files, I use a front end to manage all my systems.

Edited September 25, 2010 by Brenry

[Brenry]

oh man you guys are right !! I finally discovered the joy of pal resolutions and exact clock timing with powerstrip. if i could only get my settings for ccs64 for joystick to stick it would be perfect. and MAN does 720x576 at 50hz on WinUAE the image is amazing on a multi sync monitor. blows away anything i've seen on my ntsc lcd.

[SexToyKiosk]

Can anyone here tell me how to operate the C64 emulator on Mess. I have a few ROMS and can ge the Emulator up and running to where it gets to the C64's start screen. But from there I do not know how to load a ROM.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

-Ray

 

I agree with the posters that say WinVICE is the way to go, especially with Windows 7. I just tried the latest 64-bit version of WinVICE and was pleased with its features, especially color adjustment and volume slider. I also like the joystick display at the bottom because sometimes the ini file "spaces out" and this is the only way you can know up front if your stick's not reading. My only issue with WinVICE is that you really only get 2 windowed screen sizes to choose from, and neither are big enough on a 1600*900 setup.

 

So I tried out MESS. Once you get the BIOS downloaded and the directory pointers set up, Commodore 64 runs fine enough and allows you to stretch the screen in a window at will. However, the major shortfall of MESS's version is an (apparent) inability to set up and use flip lists, critical when you're on a platform that used two-sided floppies. When you run everything out of front-ends like I do, being able to do this from a command line is what wins, and MESS isn't quite there yet. It's also frustrating that you can only create one artwork file for each console, not for each game (particularly with Atari 2600).

 

If you're going to go C64, the latest version of WinVICE really is the only way to go for now.

[Cybergoth]

If you're going to go C64, the latest version of WinVICE really is the only way to go for now.

 

Some good features of VICE are the speed controls that e.g. let you play Starglider twice as fast or let you on-the-fly slow an endboss battle down to 80%.

 

I also love their Quicksave buffer, so if you accidentally save a state while your player is exploding you can just delete the last quicksave and load the previous instead. Or if you went a wrong path, you can just delete a few saves to go back. The quicksaves are also ultra fast and easy on hotkeys, so you can even save in the middle of a fast action game without problems.