Mame Outdated?
- Thread starter Tetsuro
- Start date
joyrider
Active Member
because your asking stupid questions, that probably have been answered in the readme which you didn't read or in other topics around here so you didn't bother to search.
joyrider said:
Are you referring to this?
13. TO BE IMPROVED
------------------
- Use second GP2X processor.
- Future HH development kit without Linux?.
- Improve sound.
- Improve speed.
- Update romsets to actual MAME ones, or update MAME version to actual one.
- Add support to more games.
It seems outdated from that.
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joyrider
Active Member
nah not really,
i'll explain...
You see the reason an old (/ outdated) version is used is because simply put well the devices (gp2x,wiz, ...) is not powerfull enough to handle newer games... It might also be because the older mame versions used a diffrent implementation that wasn't as demanding (for the machine, so cpu, ram usuage etc) as the current (/latest) version of mame. So that's probably the main reason why an older version of mame was choosen and not the latest since it would be overkill anyway
another reason is that *they* may have ported the gp2x version and based themselved on that version to not reinvent the wheel and progress on that, a new version might pop up someday, since well the pandora (and perhaps even wiz and canoo) can probably handle more (/newer) games then the gp2x could. Time will tell
i'll explain...
You see the reason an old (/ outdated) version is used is because simply put well the devices (gp2x,wiz, ...) is not powerfull enough to handle newer games... It might also be because the older mame versions used a diffrent implementation that wasn't as demanding (for the machine, so cpu, ram usuage etc) as the current (/latest) version of mame. So that's probably the main reason why an older version of mame was choosen and not the latest since it would be overkill anyway
another reason is that *they* may have ported the gp2x version and based themselved on that version to not reinvent the wheel and progress on that, a new version might pop up someday, since well the pandora (and perhaps even wiz and canoo) can probably handle more (/newer) games then the gp2x could. Time will tell
joyrider said:
Let's hope for the better, anyway a port is not like write everything from scratch so I would have liked a better support from GPH. The fact is that they do not sell it 'for emulation', they sell it for a generic 'arcade games' (that one would eventually buy from them). They pretend that people pay the same PSP's price with similar features and a bunch of korean games. It's not so costly hiring a programmer for porting and optimizing emulators, a lot of people are interested in those, they leave everything to the community. It's a pity because the console seems good.
As you see there is no need to insult people.
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klikklak
Oh neat, it's a ... field.
Emulators are legally dubious so they can't really hire emulator developers. It's a good first step that they're selling arcade games though. Sort of, they're drm free aren't they though?
klikklak said:
Emulators are legal for what I know, romset aren't. From their FAQ:
GP2x Wiz supports following emulators:
MAME, PS1, CPS1, CPS2, MSX, Atari, Famicom, PCengine, Vectrex, Final Burn, Dos Box, Game Boy, Neo Geo, Wonderswan, Super Famicom, Onscripter, Mega Drive, Master System, ZX Spectrum, etc. (Some emulators might not run well due to compatibility issue.)
CAANOO will support these emulators soon.
So it's implicit that their consoles must support them, it would be clever to do that job the best possible since it wouldn't be a costly development, at least not like developing a single full 3d game.
I'm not against selling arcades, even if they aren't exactly Golden Axe or the likes, but for supporting the emulation scene better.
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Tetsuro said:
I am sorry but you do not have a clue of what you are talking about. Developing an emulator for commercial use is not just legal. It's a very shady grey area. Also it is very costly as writing an emulator takes a huge lot knowledge and lots of reverse engineering. Most emulators are being developed by retro gaming enthusiasts over a long period of time with enourmous effort invested. It's not comparable to writing a "3d game" which is actually a lot simpler than writing and understanding machine code.
Gph do not make emulators, they make portable media players. It is not their responsibility to port over the programs from the wiz which is mostly user created content.
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joyrider
Active Member
It actually depends on the country where you live in and their laws. you see in certain countries reverse engineering is not illegal, while in other it is. Emulators can't be made without reverse engineering the original hardware (unless all documentation of the system has been provided). So that's one of the reasons why it's a grey area and generally a bad idea to make commercial emulators since you could get burned.
Another way why it's grey, although this is debatable, is that even though no roms are supplied with it, you generate a way with emulator to make it possible to play illegally acquired roms (games).
I compare this to for example, modchips or something (although it's not really the same, but the same logic can be applied). Modchips are usually sold with the intention to play homebrew on a console / handheld, but they also potentially allow to let illegally acquired backups / games to be played. And you also have the problem of reverse engineering again for the making of the modchip itselve.
It really is a grey area, yet in the asian countries, there aren't many laws around this or they just are ignored. You'd know if you ever visited such a country, you'll find bootleg arcade games all over the place, not to mention pirated copies they sell there among other things.
I think such things should require some global law, cause it only creates confusions
Another way why it's grey, although this is debatable, is that even though no roms are supplied with it, you generate a way with emulator to make it possible to play illegally acquired roms (games).
I compare this to for example, modchips or something (although it's not really the same, but the same logic can be applied). Modchips are usually sold with the intention to play homebrew on a console / handheld, but they also potentially allow to let illegally acquired backups / games to be played. And you also have the problem of reverse engineering again for the making of the modchip itselve.
It really is a grey area, yet in the asian countries, there aren't many laws around this or they just are ignored. You'd know if you ever visited such a country, you'll find bootleg arcade games all over the place, not to mention pirated copies they sell there among other things.
I think such things should require some global law, cause it only creates confusions
xnopasaranx said:
The CNN says it's legal: Link
There are lots of emulators written 'just for fun', and you pretend to say that people spend 'six numbers' dollars of their work just for fun? Hah!
And there is nothing to write from the ground-up, just to port emulators and optimize.
Yes GPH could choose to not support the emulation scene but they WRITE on their site that their machines is COMPATIBLE WITH THEM, so they must support them or just leave a blank page on that. There are a lot of people that buys their machines just for that and selling high numbers not only make the business possible but could attract developers. So it's a win-win, if you want to sell you must make your console attractive to customers in every way possible. Dingoo sell for what? Don't tell me for running MP3s... I think it's for the emulators (much of them seems to be developed by internal Dingoo developers as it is written on Wikipedia). All of that IMO.
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joyrider
Active Member
The CNN says it's legal: Link
that document is really outdated June 2, 1998 so not really applicable!
Btw, based on your arguement above, a lot could be made "legal" that is illegal, it's advertising so of course they put it on their site, you don't have to take everything litteraly. Besides with the same reasoning you could say modchips are legal (and they probably are in certain countries, read my previous post about this), while in most countries they are not. Same thing could be applied to 100 products.
that document is really outdated June 2, 1998 so not really applicable!
Btw, based on your arguement above, a lot could be made "legal" that is illegal, it's advertising so of course they put it on their site, you don't have to take everything litteraly. Besides with the same reasoning you could say modchips are legal (and they probably are in certain countries, read my previous post about this), while in most countries they are not. Same thing could be applied to 100 products.
Emulation itself is perfectly legal, distributing an emulator with required software (bios/rom/...) might not be, because the ROMS itself are copyrighted.
Another possible issue you might encounter are software patents if you (the developer/producer) are located in a country or selling in a country that allows software patents.
There are numerous commercial emulators, for instance VirtualBox and Amiga Forever (a version of UAE that came legally licensed Amiga ROMS)
Another possible issue you might encounter are software patents if you (the developer/producer) are located in a country or selling in a country that allows software patents.
There are numerous commercial emulators, for instance VirtualBox and Amiga Forever (a version of UAE that came legally licensed Amiga ROMS)
Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
Tetsuro said:
Can you port emulators and optimize them?
Yeah, neither can GPH.
Dingoo didn't write the emulators, they're ports (and in most cases violating a source license). Although they probably at least did more work porting them than GPH has.
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joyrider
Active Member
Btw about dingoo makers using (/stealing) gpl'ed source code there was a topic on this recently on dingoonity...
http://boards.dingoonity.org/other-game-systems/discussion-about-gba-emulator-on-dingoo-being-stolen-from-gpsp-by-exophase/
here's some proof i dug up for the snes emulator, yet certain people still refused to believe it was true, it's an intresting topic to read though...
http://boards.dingoonity.org/other-game-systems/discussion-about-gba-emulator-on-dingoo-being-stolen-from-gpsp-by-exophase/msg12505/#msg12505
http://boards.dingoonity.org/other-game-systems/discussion-about-gba-emulator-on-dingoo-being-stolen-from-gpsp-by-exophase/
here's some proof i dug up for the snes emulator, yet certain people still refused to believe it was true, it's an intresting topic to read though...
http://boards.dingoonity.org/other-game-systems/discussion-about-gba-emulator-on-dingoo-being-stolen-from-gpsp-by-exophase/msg12505/#msg12505
Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
joyrider said:
Yeah, I remember that thread.
In the end I suppose no one really cares, because they're pretty straight ports that don't seem to do much. Releasing the source probably wouldn't have hurt them.. and they did say they would (well, craigix said they told him they would anyway)
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skeezix
Internal Development
klikklak said:
I _hate_ this myth, and that peop;le spread it.
<rant>
Emulation is, and always has been fully legal; it is rom piracy that is illegal (and note that note all rom copying is piracy; many are freeware, public domain, blessed by the original authors, or depend in your countries local laws, etc.) But the act of emulation itself has never once, _anywhere_ been illegal.
Some specific emulations have gotten into trouble due to including source system bios (ie: piracy of the bios rom), or run afoul of patent issues (general legal bullshit.) But the act of simulating in software another system i not ever once illegal; consider .. Java VM is an emulator of a nonexistant machine; developers have been using system emualtors for decades; Infocom text adventures are a VM .. an emualtor for a non existant machine spec, sold since what, 1980?
So lets just get it out again -- rom piracy is illegal, emulation is fine. IS it so hard to understand?
</rantoff>
<rant 2>
Making commercial emus is also fuly legit; how could it differ to non-commercial ones? (Take it from me, I have developed and marketed and sold comercial emus!)
As always its the ROMS (and BIOS, which is just another 'rom', since people misuse the term 'rom).
Nintendo and the boys would love for you to think its all illegal, but it is not. (Consider all the emulators sold on the market today, from Wii Virtual Consle, to Atari game packs, o Atari games on XBox in theor retro arcade thing, to all those Sega Godlen Axe's on iphone and xbla, ro the great grandaddy, Williams Arcade Colection from 15 years ago...)
</rant 2>
jeff
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Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
There are Java chips!
You know.
Kinda. Sorta. Partially.
They're not very popular. :c (not counting all those ARMs with the traditional Jazelle that I imagine doesn't get used an awful lot)
Someone should do an Infocom chip. I bet someone has done an Infocom chip. Google isn't turning up anything but I bet I'm just not looking hard enough. We should do an Infocom chip, skeezix.
You know.
Kinda. Sorta. Partially.
They're not very popular. :c (not counting all those ARMs with the traditional Jazelle that I imagine doesn't get used an awful lot)
Someone should do an Infocom chip. I bet someone has done an Infocom chip. Google isn't turning up anything but I bet I'm just not looking hard enough. We should do an Infocom chip, skeezix.
torpor
hack hack hack, the little machines fight back
There are plenty of legal ROM's for most of the main system emulators .. I think it would be quite feasible to bundle a lot of emulators on an SD card and include Totally Free ROMS to use them with ..
klikklak
Oh neat, it's a ... field.
Right, sorry about that. I did say legally dubious instead of outright illegal, but I was wrong in any case. I really did think that a commercial venture that would openly promote emulators would run in to legal trouble with nintendo etc. Then it's just a matter of skill, like exophase said.
skeezix
Internal Development
klikklak said:
Its a common myth, so no worries; I just wonder where it all stard and why its so prevalent
I have sold emus of nintendo stuff (to USians even, where its pretty hostile.) No problems ..just have to be very careful in how you do it, so as to not cross any patents, not include any original code (ie: I worried about stuff like colour PROMs and such too, gotta generate tat stuff instead of reading the ROM chip and including it!), and watch for any goofy alg';s they may come after..
Heck, we even did a presentation of some of my work to Namco and such; they knew it wasn't a problem
jeff
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