Arcade Emulation (focused on M.A.M.E.)

[sareks]

Hi, I wanted to share my experiences for Arcade Emulation so far.


I have a Pandora 1GHz Edition. Feel free to respond, so we can help ppl that don't know much about it yet. I was using the MAME0.138 romset.


1) FBA - don't know if it supports save / load states


2) MAME106 / SDL MAME - says "oops" after load of roms, don't know if it supports save / load states, doesn't seem to work at all


3) MAME Ex3 - seems promising but hangs on a 100 % rom search even if roms are put in the right directory, don't know if it supports save / load states, doesn't seem to work at all


4) MAME4all beta- don't know if it supports save / load states, some roms don't work


5) PanMame - seems to have the save / load state option but says unsupported save states warnings and doesn't load state


Hope this helps newbies (like me), would appreciate supporting comments. Thanks


PS: If there are more Arcade Emulators, please add them to this topi

 

[PowerGod]

also gngeo uses mame roms

 

[mamemaniac]

Hi, I wanted to share my experiences for Arcade Emulation so far.


I have a Pandora 1GHz Edition. Feel free to respond, so we can help ppl that don't know much about it yet. I was using the MAME0.138 romset.


1) FBA - don't know if it supports save / load states


2) MAME106 / SDL MAME - says "oops" after load of roms, don't know if it supports save / load states, doesn't seem to work at all


3) MAME Ex3 - seems promising but hangs on a 100 % rom search even if roms are put in the right directory, don't know if it supports save / load states, doesn't seem to work at all


4) MAME4all beta- don't know if it supports save / load states, some roms don't work


5) PanMame - seems to have the save / load state option but says unsupported save states warnings and doesn't load state


Hope this helps newbies (like me), would appreciate supporting comments. Thanks


PS: If there are more Arcade Emulators, please add them to this topi

Your best choiches for Arcade emulation on the Pandora are Final Burn Alpha (the only with CPS3 support), Mame4all (best Mame for old romset like 0.37b05) and PanMame (use it with a 106 romset). Mame 106 is nowadays outdated while Streak's Mame EX v3 it's notoriously slow altough it provide great compatibility (you can even run Sega System 32 games on it but at very slow speed). Hopefully some dev will relese in a near future an optimized Mame version (a PanMame with ASM cores would be indeed great).


Savestates question: i rarely use it with Arcade games but i tried once to save and load a game in Panmame and it worked without any problem, dont know for FBA and Mame4all but it should be written in Yoshi Fact Sheet so i suggest you read it.

 

[sareks]

also gngeo uses mame roms

Can't get it to run, it keeps telling me "no roms" even though I put it in the right directory. Does it support save / load states?

 

[Kumaki]

also gngeo uses mame roms

Can't get it to run, it keeps telling me "no roms" even though I put it in the right directory. Does it support save / load states?

In order to make GnGeo work, you need to have the neogeo.zip rom located in your roms folder along with your roms. Do you have that rom?

 

[yoshi41dragon]

Here a list of working GnGeo games...





It also includes the .dat file to generate your ROM set with clrmamepro...





GnGeo supports save states in the emulator menu (SPACE), but I never used it.


And as already mentioned, you need the Neo Geo BIOS files (neogeo.zip in roms directory)...

Spoiler

000-lo.lo

asia-s3.rom

neodebug.rom

sfix.sfx

sm1.sm1

sp-e.sp1

sp-j2.rom

sp-s.sp1

sp-s2.sp1

sp1.jipan.1024

uni-bios.22

usa_2slt.bin

vs-bios.rom

 

[sareks]

thanks for the help guys, but even though I did all you recommended. gngeo_0.8.5 always quits the emulator and goes back to minimenu after i selected a rom. i even have the neogeo-zip rom in the roms directory like you said. frustrating...

 

[yoshi41dragon]

Try GnGeo 0.8.4 instead, version 0.8.5 does not work with older firmware releases...





Setup the directories according to the fact sheets on page 7...


http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,466


And most important, download the .dat file and check your zipped ROMs (filename + CRC).


Here some background information about GnGeo ROMs...


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/62951-wiz-gngeo-dat-file/

 

[Kumaki]

thanks for the help guys, but even though I did all you recommended. gngeo_0.8.5 always quits the emulator and goes back to minimenu after i selected a rom. i even have the neogeo-zip rom in the roms directory like you said. frustrating...

If you do not have the correct version of roms, they will not work. In the same way PanMAME won't accept 37b5 roms as MAME4ALL will...you need the right version of Neo-Geo Roms. Use Clrmamepro. The .dat file was provided to you above.

 

[sareks]

Hi, thanks for all the replies. I downloaded the latest versions of M.A.M.E. emulators and made a list of working / non-working features that are important for playing games.

Please add your comments and ideas if you have any that are helpful. If you like, you can also add if CHEATS are available as I didn't find that out yet. Thanks in advance.

1) PanMAME:

- Save / Load states (SHIFT - save, CAPSLOCK - load, you need to pick a save / load slot #) - seems to work (didn't try in all games though)

- Full Stretch Screen - seems to work with some games

2) MAME EX:

- Save / Load states - that one doesn't seem to work - any ideas ???

- Full Stretch Screen - (Press E or R for configuration)

3) MAME4all beta:

- Save / Load states - that one doesn't seem to work - any ideas ???

- Full Stretch Screen - (Choose STRETCH in menu)

4) MAME 106:

- Save / Load states - that one doesn't seem to work - any ideas ???

- Full Stretch Screen - yes

- How do you get the menu (by pressing what key) ?

5) Final Burn Alpha / FBA:

- no idea, since it doesn't work at all, no game roms appear in my list ?!

Hope this helps

 

[mcobit]

In Panmame fullscreen stretch works for all games. Set Aspect to no in the video menu, sace for this or for all games, exit and restart the game.

 

[NearTao]

You are likely hitting issues because you're mixing MAME Set versions with alternate MAME emulators.

You're best off doing the research to find out what set works with which emulator.

 

[PowerGod]

Here the ROM-SET version required for every emulator:

(I'm not sure if this list is updated but it still works for me)

MAME - 0.106
PanMAME - 0.106
MAME4ALL - 037b5
MAME-EX - 0.110

FBA - you can find the DAT attached in the post HERE

(Neo-Geo roms will have problems by default, you should change some manual options, for example "Windjammers" needs both the C Z80 core and Force M68K selected)

GnGeo - 0.130

 

[sareks]

Hi, thanks for the replies so far. I will look into that.

While trying out the emulator simply called "MAME" (I believe it's cosam 106), I didn't find out what button brings up the ingame menu (if there is one),

I also have problems with the keymaps, it seems that the Y, B, X, A buttons on the pandora are not assigned like in the other emulators or am I missing something?

I also tried to find the save / load state feature although so far no success. Any ideas?

 

[Asmo]

Keys are assigned within Mame itself - in PanMame for example, with a game running, call up the Mame options by pressing Fn+Shift (Tab) - you can change the controls for each game to suit you.

 

[mcobit]

PanMAME is also 0.106 .

 

[sareks]

0.106 doesn't seem to be available anywhere...

the only emulator that works with savestates for me is PANMAME,

the other ones either have no button (known function) for saving or tell you they do even though they don't...

this is what I found out so far

regarding fba capex, how do you call up the ingame menu / save state function?

 

[PowerGod]

maybe you should read this for a better understanding of how mame romsets works

How to convert roms for mame 106

(there are other guides around with different methods, but this is the first I found)

 

[Klumpen]

Apparently, one guy who contributed CPS1/2 code took the liberty to sell a license of FBA to Capcom for their crappy console:

Wasn't all Final Burn and Final Burn Alpha code supposed to be non-commercial?
This is a big blow for FOSS, who'd want to contribute if nobody knows whether some big anti-FOSS company will profit from it at some point?

 

[JDTAY]

I know I'm having the wrong reaction here, but

I've just always wondered why FOSS has to have all the same legal BS as commercial software.

I mean, I guess if Capcom is anti-FOSS, it does make sense to be upset.