Mame & Mr. Do

[CraigJ]

I've been hovering on the fringes of buying a GP2X for some time now, the main thing that's stopped me is I'm a bit of a technophobe and it all sounds pretty complicated in getting emulation setup and working, and I don't really want to pay £125 for a doorstop.

However, what is dragging me towards purchase is Mr Do. I'm a Mr Do freak. I've an arcade machine in me garage and I love it to bits...but I want to play it on the move, and Universal seem not to be interested in porting it to PSP or DS...I had it running on my 1.5 PSP under their version of MAME then I foolishly upgraded its firmware to play GTA so...the GP2X and MAME. I've seen a few threads mentioning that some games run slowly or are not fully compatible, so my two questions are:-

1 - How easy specifically is it to get MAME running on the GP2X?

2 - Has anyone actually played Mr Do under MAME on the GP2X and how does it compare to the proper game - i.e. is it in landscape/portrait, speed wise, sound wise?

Thanks,
Craig.

 

[gaterooze]

MAME's a breeze, as long as you can find/convert the romsets.

And Mr. Do runs perfectly. You can choose any orientation you want, vertical or horizontal.

Here's a couple of (admittedly cruddy) pix of it running vertically to whet your appetite:

 

[slaanesh]

1 - How easy specifically is it to get MAME running on the GP2X?

2 - Has anyone actually played Mr Do under MAME on the GP2X and how does it compare to the proper game - i.e. is it in landscape/portrait, speed wise, sound wise?

I'm a bit of a Mr Do fan myself. I love playing it on the GP2X and the GP32. To be honest, I find the control a bit tighter on the GP32 and find it actually plays a little better. But this is personal preference and the GP2X plays really well too. I'd like to hear what other GP32 and GP2X owners have to say on this?

Getting it running is pretty straight forward and if you get stuck there's always people willing to help on these forums.

 

[Loon]

1 - How easy specifically is it to get MAME running on the GP2X?

2 - Has anyone actually played Mr Do under MAME on the GP2X and how does it compare to the proper game - i.e. is it in landscape/portrait, speed wise, sound wise?

1) If you can download then unzip a file and then copy the unzipped contents to a directory on an SD card, then you can install MAME. it's that easy

2) Mr Do plays perfectly on the GP2X, using version 2 GP2X Firmware & Mame GP2X 2.4, set the audio & video clock to 100% & select accurate and on for the sound (these options are given before a selected rom is launched).

 

[DBH]

Quick question. Can the MAMEGP2X play any MAME game that isnt listed in the .DAT file? Because I want to try and get Ciscoheat working, I followed the guide to converting ROMs to .34 or whatever version it is that MAME GP2X supports but it doesnt rebuild the ROMs no matter what I do is that because its not listed in the .DAT file?

 

[bbodin]

I had it running on my 1.5 PSP under their version of MAME then I foolishly upgraded its firmware to play GTA so...the GP2X and MAME

I think there's a couple of ways to play emulation once you've upgraded your firmware (including some GTA game save exploit). None of which is easier than using the gp2x, but nevertheless.

1) If you can download then unzip a file and then copy the unzipped contents to a directory on an SD card, then you can install MAME. it's that easy

well it's not always that simple. You have to have the right version of the roms, which aren't exactly easy to find for a non-technophobe. Finding the latest mame romsets is easier, but that means you have a different version so you have to use clrmame to redo the romsets which is not exactly easy task (I've been playing with mame for 2 years and still don't fully understand clrmame).

 

[slaanesh]

Quick question. Can the MAMEGP2X play any MAME game that isnt listed in the .DAT file? Because I want to try and get Ciscoheat working, I followed the guide to converting ROMs to .34 or whatever version it is that MAME GP2X supports but it doesnt rebuild the ROMs no matter what I do is that because its not listed in the .DAT file?

No, MAME GP2X will not play a game unless it's supported. The MAME software has special instructions to get each and every game working.

So, adding a game to the ROMS directory will not magically allow it to work.

Check the gameslist.txt file (or something like that) for supported games included in the distribution. There are over 1000.

 

[CraigJ]

Thanks very much to gaterooze, slaanesh and Mr. Loon, it sounds to me like it's gonna be quite straightforward - although this clrmame thing is way over my head: how on earth do I know which version of the rom I already have?

Think a GP2x is gonna get itself ordered real soon...

 

[Bloodsack]

The best thing to do is find the whole mame 0.34 romset. I'm doing that right now