Android MAME

[skeezix]

Note also that "MAME" is a larger topic -- you coudl be having a por tbased onan older MAME or a newer one, and it matters; older MAMEs (for one particular example) supported native rendering to lower bit-depth displays (say, 16bit or even 8bit) but newer MAMEs just support higher depths -- simplify the code. But it means on lower powered devices that a more recent MAME port will have more game support, but even Pacman may run slow.


You can break down many different sub topics like this, but suffice to say .. 'theres more to it', even if you know your way around the user-side settings, theres a hell of a lot more under the hood stuff too.


jeff

 

[Ian J]

I think this has now gone of the

Not, but I have seen mame4all running on a pandora mate... (runs well of course) but Mame4droid running in a tegra2 400$ honeycomb device running at 1280 resolution with image filtering and CRT or scanline overlays is far better experience.. Also with 60 fps all time in mk1.. And with 10' screen inches... Not color... Pair it with a icp or an iCade and you have the best MaMe experience on an arm device...

I think this is a bit off the radar from what I want, I could carry round my laptop and have the same experience. The point is I want something I can stick in my pocket and use while on public transport.

 

[Ian J]

Note also that "MAME" is a larger topic -- you coudl be having a por tbased onan older MAME or a newer one, and it matters; older MAMEs (for one particular example) supported native rendering to lower bit-depth displays (say, 16bit or even 8bit) but newer MAMEs just support higher depths -- simplify the code. But it means on lower powered devices that a more recent MAME port will have more game support, but even Pacman may run slow.


You can break down many different sub topics like this, but suffice to say .. 'theres more to it', even if you know your way around the user-side settings, theres a hell of a lot more under the hood stuff too.


jeff

The version in Mame4all that I used had the option to switch between 8 and 16bit colour depths but that made little difference when I selected the appropriate depth for the games.


Switching from GL to software rendering caused a massive slow down, I was getting around half the frame rate.


I've downloaded the latest version of TigerArcade and will give that a go.


I'm still wanting to go with the Pandora, not having to worry about battery life is a massive bonus. If I played MAME on my way to work and all through lunch I'm sure my phone would be dead before I finished work.

 

[Seleuco]

I think this has now gone of the

Not, but I have seen mame4all running on a pandora mate... (runs well of course) but Mame4droid running in a tegra2 400$ honeycomb device running at 1280 resolution with image filtering and CRT or scanline overlays is far better experience.. Also with 60 fps all time in mk1.. And with 10' screen inches... Not color... Pair it with a icp or an iCade and you have the best MaMe experience on an arm device...

I think this is a bit off the radar from what I want, I could carry round my laptop and have the same experience. The point is I want something I can stick in my pocket and use while on public transport.

There are 7 inches tegra 2 tablets... with less than one centimeter wide are really portable... But I still prefer the combination of a 10 inch tablet and a 4'7 inch phone like a samsung galaxy prime.... I think it will be my next phone...

 

[Seleuco]

Note also that "MAME" is a larger topic -- you coudl be having a por tbased onan older MAME or a newer one, and it matters; older MAMEs (for one particular example) supported native rendering to lower bit-depth displays (say, 16bit or even 8bit) but newer MAMEs just support higher depths -- simplify the code. But it means on lower powered devices that a more recent MAME port will have more game support, but even Pacman may run slow.


You can break down many different sub topics like this, but suffice to say .. 'theres more to it', even if you know your way around the user-side settings, theres a hell of a lot more under the hood stuff too.


jeff

The version in Mame4all that I used had the option to switch between 8 and 16bit colour depths but that made little difference when I selected the appropriate depth for the games.


Switching from GL to software rendering caused a massive slow down, I was getting around half the frame rate.


I've downloaded the latest version of TigerArcade and will give that a go.


I'm still wanting to go with the Pandora, not having to worry about battery life is a massive bonus. If I played MAME on my way to work and all through lunch I'm sure my phone would be dead before I finished work.

I know you have played with options... But I would like to know your findings...


You keep disabled touch controls animations... Do You realize difference between enabling or disabling it ?


Enabling needs a lot of android resources.... Isn't it?


Also .. Are you enabling smooth filtering... This is the most slowdown if you are using sw rendering...


Your options are... Use sw but always disabling smoothing... Smoothing is really slower in sw rendering... And remember to not enable touch animations...


Don't compare gl with smoothing with sw with smoothing.... Compare gl with smoothing with sw without smoothing...

 

[Prometheus]

There are 7 inches tegra 2 tablets... with less than one centimeter wide are really portable... But I still prefer the combination of a 10 inch tablet and a 4'7 inch phone like a samsung galaxy prime.... I think it will be my next phone...

Are you on a commission for telephone and tablet vendors or something? Hehe.


That's really not portable to some of us, and how is someone meant to carry that and be sure it won't get damaged?


Not wishing to compare apples to oranges, but a Pandora's much smaller (5.5" x 3.25" x 1") and more rugged than that (and is a clamshell to boot), and I can throw it into a pocket or handbag without worrying about it having or being a big exposed piece of glass that seems to be depended on for functioning.

 

[WizardStan]

There's only one way to solve this: recompile Mame4droid for the Pandora and do a point by point comparison.


And yes, I'm serious. I'd offer to help but I've never been able to get anything GL to compile for the Pandora; my dev chain is really old and should probably be rebuilt.

 

[Seleuco]

There are 7 inches tegra 2 tablets... with less than one centimeter wide are really portable... But I still prefer the combination of a 10 inch tablet and a 4'7 inch phone like a samsung galaxy prime.... I think it will be my next phone...

Are you on a commission for telephone and tablet vendors or something? Hehe.


That's really not portable to some of us, and how is someone meant to carry that and be sure it won't get damaged?


Not wishing to compare apples to oranges, but a Pandora's much smaller (5.5" x 3.25" x 1&quot and more rugged than that (and is a clamshell to boot), and I can throw it into a pocket or handbag without worrying about it having or being a big exposed piece of glass that seems to be depended on for functioning.

Yes really is not the same a pandora than a tablet... I only thinking in which is better a cheap phone + powerful tablet... Maybe a small tablet is a good choice even using as a portable system instead your phone...

 

[Seleuco]

There's only one way to solve this: recompile Mame4droid for the Pandora and do a point by point comparison.
And yes, I'm serious. I'd offer to help but I've never been able to get anything GL to compile for the Pandora; my dev chain is really old and should probably be rebuilt.

Not sense... Mame4droid is mame4all... It is already running on pandora... I only added the android glue...

 

[WizardStan]

Oh, well in that case some serious point-for-point comparisons can be made. I'll see what I can do this weekend.


Thanks for all the work you've put forward, by the way.

 

[Ian J]

Note also that "MAME" is a larger topic -- you coudl be having a por tbased onan older MAME or a newer one, and it matters; older MAMEs (for one particular example) supported native rendering to lower bit-depth displays (say, 16bit or even 8bit) but newer MAMEs just support higher depths -- simplify the code. But it means on lower powered devices that a more recent MAME port will have more game support, but even Pacman may run slow.


You can break down many different sub topics like this, but suffice to say .. 'theres more to it', even if you know your way around the user-side settings, theres a hell of a lot more under the hood stuff too.


jeff

The version in Mame4all that I used had the option to switch between 8 and 16bit colour depths but that made little difference when I selected the appropriate depth for the games.


Switching from GL to software rendering caused a massive slow down, I was getting around half the frame rate.


I've downloaded the latest version of TigerArcade and will give that a go.


I'm still wanting to go with the Pandora, not having to worry about battery life is a massive bonus. If I played MAME on my way to work and all through lunch I'm sure my phone would be dead before I finished work.

I know you have played with options... But I would like to know your findings...


You keep disabled touch controls animations... Do You realize difference between enabling or disabling it ?


Enabling needs a lot of android resources.... Isn't it?


Also .. Are you enabling smooth filtering... This is the most slowdown if you are using sw rendering...


Your options are... Use sw but always disabling smoothing... Smoothing is really slower in sw rendering... And remember to not enable touch animations...


Don't compare gl with smoothing with sw with smoothing.... Compare gl with smoothing with sw without smoothing...

Thanks for the suggestions I have already got those settings enabled/disabled where required.


I understand about filtering and never have it turned on, I prefer to see the chunky pixels.


Disabling the animated controls was the 1st thing I did before even seeing if it made a difference to the speed.


I can live with it, I've tried the latest Tiger Arcade and it runs very nicely but with touch controls nothing is going to compete with the iControlPad or Pandora.


All I wanted was a fix before my Pandora arrived.


Thanks anyway.


Ian

 

[WizardStan]

I apparently do not own any games that will run that also tax either system enough to compare. My phone, tablet, and Pandora all run everything I threw at the respective MAME4All/Droid emulators at 100%. Well, the stuff that did run. Couldn't get a bunch of stuff to run at all, but when it didn't run in one it didn't run in the other, so no problem there, I suppose.


Controls aside (for which the Pandora wins no contest) the only major difference between the two I found was in SmashTV: the Pandora played every sound but it was quite harsh, while MAME4Droid started out playing sounds but suddenly stopped after a few seconds of play.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Tried any CPS1 stuff, Stan?

 

[WizardStan]

Oh hoh, I do have one CPS1 game: Quiz and Dragons. At 600Mhz it runs flawlessly on the Pandora. On my HTC G2 (a Qualcomm processor running at 800Mhz) it runs between 50 and 55 frames per second. Seems there might be a little something to this but the numbers are still close enough that I can't draw any serious conclusions.

 

[skeezix]

Wiz .. didn't I sell you a real Quiz and Dragons CPS1 arcade board? Theres a perfect opportunity for a serious geekout, to video the 3 playing side by side


jeff

 

[Seleuco]

That's nice... Wizardstan..


But today a phone like yours is a medium.low end machine


That's means that with a new phone... Medium - high phone 250$ of this- next year mame4droid should be run near perfect...


I'm using 1 ghz snapdragon machines at work as target platform... Android overhead it should be added to the equation...


What are you testing... Gl enabled, touch animations disabled?


Are you comparing filters enabled.... Linear filtering?


I think that doing a MHz compare pandora should perform better... But not much as your result seems...


The question here it should be?


$/performance compare...


Can I use linear filtering?


Can I activate filter overlays?


Can I pair with a six axis,wimotte,iCade controller?

 

[DaMummy]

my only question is what will you have paid for your phone after two years, and how much will you have paid for the pandora in Two Months

 

[WizardStan]

But today a phone like yours is a medium.low end machine


That's means that with a new phone... Medium - high phone 250$ of this- next year mame4droid should be run near perfect...

What you are suggesting is that people spend $500 on a new phone every year. That's how much this phone cost a year ago, that's how much a new "high end" phone today would cost out of contract, that's likely how much a high end phone next year will cost when this years high end phone is considered obsolete.


The Pandora with it's 3 year old processor performed (questionably) slightly better than a phone from just last year with a superior processor. You say I should need a new phone of today to get similar experience to something is effectively 3 years "outdated". That seems like a very wrong attitude for a developer to have, sorry to say. If I saw someone else running my game on a P3 with better framerates than on my newer quad core machine I would question why that was and try to fix it. A newer, better system should not be outperformed by an old, outdated system running the exact same thing.

What are you testing... Gl enabled, touch animations disabled?

Yes, yes.

Are you comparing filters enabled.... Linear filtering?

Filters off.

I think that doing a MHz compare pandora should perform better... But not much as your result seems...

As I said, the things I threw at the Pandora all ran at 100% and only the one game on my Phone ran ever so slightly slower. This is no way to make a comparison. I'd need to find some games that actually tax the system to do a much more interesting test.

The question here it should be?


$/performance compare...

Then you'd have to look at far more than just MAME4All, you'd have to consider what you actually want it for and the ability to meet all those needs in the best way. Even though my phone has a slide out keyboard, I could not do all the things I do with the Pandora on it nearly as well. My Pandora will win this comparison no question.

Can I use linear filtering?


Can I activate filter overlays?


Can I pair with a six axis,wimotte,iCade controller?

I don't know what filter overlays are, but the rest of it is no problem for either. Everything is basically the exact same between the two, the Pandora just has better controls.

 

[Seleuco]

But today a phone like yours is a medium.low end machine


That's means that with a new phone... Medium - high phone 250$ of this- next year mame4droid should be run near perfect...

What you are suggesting is that people spend $500 on a new phone every year. That's how much this phone cost a year ago, that's how much a new "high end" phone today would cost out of contract, that's likely how much a high end phone next year will cost when this years high end phone is considered obsolete.


The Pandora with it's 3 year old processor performed (questionably) slightly better than a phone from just last year with a superior processor. You say I should need a new phone of today to get similar experience to something is effectively 3 years "outdated". That seems like a very wrong attitude for a developer to have, sorry to say. If I saw someone else running my game on a P3 with better framerates than on my newer quad core machine I would question why that was and try to fix it. A newer, better system should not be outperformed by an old, outdated system running the exact same thing.

What are you testing... Gl enabled, touch animations disabled?

Yes, yes.

Are you comparing filters enabled.... Linear filtering?

Filters off.

I think that doing a MHz compare pandora should perform better... But not much as your result seems...

As I said, the things I threw at the Pandora all ran at 100% and only the one game on my Phone ran ever so slightly slower. This is no way to make a comparison. I'd need to find some games that actually tax the system to do a much more interesting test.

The question here it should be?


$/performance compare...

Then you'd have to look at far more than just MAME4All, you'd have to consider what you actually want it for and the ability to meet all those needs in the best way. Even though my phone has a slide out keyboard, I could not do all the things I do with the Pandora on it nearly as well. My Pandora will win this comparison no question.

Can I use linear filtering?


Can I activate filter overlays?


Can I pair with a six axis,wimotte,iCade controller?

I don't know what filter overlays are, but the rest of it is no problem for either. Everything is basically the exact same between the two, the Pandora just has better controls.

When I say that a medium- high end device this year can run mAme4droid perfect is like current desktop gpus. Hw is always getting better... But at some time you have enough power to do many things... I think that newer phones should be last a lot time, more than the older one generation,, Their gpus are a lot of better, CPUs are really good.... In fact, desktop is going down and mobile is going up... At some time, maybe you don't need a desktop computer... You only need to plug your mobile to power, monitor, device input.... All not wired.. Add cloud. And your done... This is the near future...


I really like to plug my iPhone 4 to my 46 inches tv... And play MaMe with friends using wiimotes... If somebody tell me that I can do this on an iPhone 2g I don't believe it... But With aniPhone 3GS and upper it is a reality... I don't need my desktop to play classics with my friends...


The great advantage of mobile phones over pandora is that they are reaching their user needed hw limit really fast... At some time you will say This is more powerful than my desktop console... their renewal cycle es is only one year... Consoles 10... The definitive phone is near... Do you see nexus prime specs... Really, really good... How it will be next year phone... Maybe good enough for all of us... Pandora... Probably will not change...


Craix is really clever... Now you must invest in controls... This the pandora adventage as you have said...The next year...who knows? Maybe a chinese made the next pandora system. I think it will be a tegra 3 mobile phone running android with a good enought bluetooth wrapper input device...


If I were a hardware engineering ... I will develop a samsung galaxy s2 cover with pandora controls and with an added battery... Less of 70$ please... And I will get the better mobile platform currently... Is this icp? Maybe

 

[Prometheus]

All not wired.. Add cloud. And your done... This is the near future...

It's really not, I would say. There's a reason that the last time there was a "cloud" with a different name, things evolved away from it and to more secure, reliable, self-contained usage. The same will happen this time, and frankly most people do not trust strangers with their data - and rightly so!

The great advantage of mobile phones over pandora is that they are reaching their user needed hw limit really fast... At some time you will say This is more powerful than my desktop console... their renewal cycle es is only one year... Consoles 10... The definitive phone is near... Do you see nexus prime specs... Really, really good... How it will be next year phone... Maybe good enough for all of us... Pandora... Probably will not change...

It doesn't need to change, though. It's already good enough for tons of people right here - without having to buy a new device for $500 every six months to a year.


People really don't care about specs in the real world - they care about what a device can do for them.


When a user has to adapt their life to a new technology (such as by being told that they should be paying $500 every six months to a year to replace perfectly-working, perfectly serviceable hardware and simply throw it away), there is a problem. This is why the most successful technologies tend to adapt to the user's life, NOT the other way around, and the successful technologies usually go against the diktats of organisations interested in pushing "More specifications!".

And I will get the better mobile platform currently... Is this icp? Maybe

Alright, enough of this "better mobile platform than the Pandora" stuff, please, as if there's one be-all-and-end-all for portable computing (yes, computing - I can't write my novel on a telephone). You've kept doing it since the first page, and I'm going to say now that I don't want to see it causing any flame-wars. I'm quite sure that you're not trying to troll, but I can guarantee that people will see it that way (unfortunately we've had huge numbers of trolls over time).