Mame 106 Any Thoughts?

[Alpha2]

I noticed via Twitter that MAME106 was posted on the store recently, Guessing it's an early port. Just wondering what people's impressions were. (ie. Controls, graphics, compatibility, quirks...etc)

 

[x68000]

Just trying it now...............................Testing Giga Wing & Gradius 3

 

[cosam]

I noticed via Twitter that MAME106 was posted on the store recently, Guessing it's an early port.

"Early" being the operative word. IIRC the build is from some time last year, just something that was floating around on the web which I packaged to try it out. Things have undoubtedly moved on since then, so it's in no way representative of what's achievable on the Pandora. Please keep this in mind when evaluating it.

That said, it seems to run pretty well. Yes, there are sound issues (some buzzing now and then) and some games may be missing a sprite or two, but everything I've tried has at least been playable.

 

[bce23w]

Possibly useful: MAWS can show you all the games rated as playable for a given version, if you select it from the "cumulative changes", and (very important to avoid crushed dreams) set "driver status" to "good".

If you sort it by year of release, descending, then you can get a good idea of what might be pushing the limits. (I think?)

Edit: Also, set "resource type" to "parents," so you don't have to look at fifty clones of Fruit Flinger or whatever.

 

[x68000]

Tried a few games, Gradius 1, Gradius 2 and have a guess?.........................Gradius 3, all too slow at the moment with no graphical glitches, but sound problems. This was all at 500 Mhz.

At 850Mhz things are looking much much better. Sound issues are gone - these little speakers are tons better than anything inside a ds or psp. Runs full speed most of the time with the odd drop, but nothing too serious.

Btw, MAME looks fantastic running on the Pandora. Very impressive 1st Release!

PS. Gigawing does not load .........Yet

 

[x68000]

Any requests?

 

[Prometheus]

May I?

I'm curious as to how well Mappy plays - it's quite old, but it's a vertical title, so I'd love to know how viewable it is, if that's ok.

 

[kaprikawn]

Any requests?

I'm a fan of scrolling beat em ups myself so would love to know about those (Final Fight, The Simpsons, X-Men etc.). If you're taking requests though, TMNT is top of my list please. If that works I'm happy.

 

[torpor]

Crazy Climber (1 & 2) .. put those nubs to work!

 

[x68000]

I'll take some pics as i go here

keep em comin!

 

[x68000]

I Think the MAME emu has just totally screwed up my memory card!!! Every file is just a jumble of obscure characters - totally corrupt.

Reformatted card and starting again!

 

[Trip]

The original Star Wars please x68

 

[x68000]

will do as soon as i get it fooking working again :blink:

Was hapilly playing gradius 1,2 and 3 and since then NOTHING!

Click on MAME on the desktop, brings up a file select screen, choose the correct one and it just goes back to the desktop!

 

[Mjlink]

From what I've played so far, so good.

1943 works well, a lil slow at 500MHz, does this game have a Dive button? couldn't get the plane to dive after configuring buttons.
Arkanoid w/ Nub, a little slow, with DPAd its easier.
Asteroids, a lil slow @500MHz, makes some funny noises
Berzerck, nice response time from the Dpad makes this appealing to play for once
Carnival, fun like the old days
Centipede (crazy cool with Nub),
Crazy Kong, Dig Dug, Ladybug, all work pretty well. I've been playing the older games at 500MHz.
Commando, would be better on 2X scale, a little too tight on this display IMO
Double Dragon, bumped speed to 750MHz, too slow, not overclocking higher than that ATM

The buttons have to be configured everytime you go into a game, as I've not found a way to save the settings. It would be cool if the Nub could be a joystick instead of the DPad, but the nub's only worked on Centipede so far that I've found. With this in mind, I went through and was playing games you didn't need to configure any buttons for because buttons weren't needed, like Ladybug.

If the MAME (2x Scale) worked that is included, it would be much nicer to take advantage of the screen size plus should have a nicer feel control wise because everything won't be so small & tight.

If the buttons could be configured and saved for the Pandora would be a suggestion for someone looking to improve this release. MAMA 2X Scale would also be nice, hi-score saving, & save states if possible. OK, got that Santa Claus?

Peace & cookies,

Link

PS I'll add more to the list above later today with feedback.

 

[Trip]

will do as soon as i get it fooking working again :blink:

No probs, you posted while I was typing.

Hope you get it working again. If you have a lot of trouble, you can always try formatting the card with an ext2 or ext3 filesystem instead of using FAT.

 

[x68000]

Turns out that it won't let you put the roms in a subdirectory for now. They have to be at the root of the SD!

Also noticed that the emulator doesn't like you taking out the SD card whilst it is running. Doing so results in having to reboot the Pandora.

Back to work then!

 

[cosam]

I Think the MAME emu has just totally screwed up my memory card!!! Every file is just a jumble of obscure characters - totally corrupt.

I've had that, but I'm not sure it was MAME-related. It appears to happen occasionally when you try to access an SD card after it's been ejected and replaced. Probably some kind of stale reference somewhere. Nothing was actually corrupted in my case, it just looked odd in the file selector.

Click on MAME on the desktop, brings up a file select screen, choose the correct one and it just goes back to the desktop!

The script which fires up MAME doesn't do any error checking at the moment. If it fails, it just exits back to the GUI. Check you have to correct ROM version and that MAME can fathom a valid screen mode for what you're asking. The pnd_run files in /tmp should give you a clue as to what's going wrong.

Turns out that it won't let you put the roms in a subdirectory for now. They have to be at the root of the SD!

I've had no problems running ROMs from subdirectories.

Also noticed that the emulator doesn't like you taking out the SD card whilst it is running. Doing so results in having to reboot the Pandora.

I think a lot of programs will (quite rightly) object to that, unless they're entirely memory-resident and never need to read/write anything on SD.

 

[x68000]

Strangely, could only get Crazy Climber 2 to work out of all of the above. The rest just make MAME exit and the regular desktop reappears.

Unlike Link, i managed to get the 2x scale mode working

Crazy Climber 2 works fine at 500Mhz

Gradius III plays very well at 850Mhz - Nothing else matters now! Cheers SteveM!

One for Trooper Works fine at 600Mhz

Super Off Road - Fine at 600Mhz

 

[Mjlink]

I didn't have to go as far as taking the battery out, but one time, when I was at band camp, I pulled out the SD card while playing a game and I had to do a Pandora+Power SlideRight Reset. No corruption that i've noticed.

Peace & Pandora,

Link

 

[Mjlink]

Strangely, could only get Crazy Climber 2 to work out of all of the above. The rest just make MAME exit and the regular desktop reappears.

Unlike Link, i managed to get the 2x scale mode working

How?

Do tell.

PLEASE
andora2ut4:

Link