Beta Mame4All Beta

[cosam]

Fantastic improvement. I'm about to hit the hay so I've only tried one game (NBA Jam). The sound was still a little choppy but 90% good. It also crashed at one point but I didn't see it happen - I was looking elsewhere and it was at the desktop when I looked back.

I suspect you hit the buffer overrun I mentioned above. Avoiding the crash is easy enough (should be fixed in next version) but there's work to be done to find out why this happens.

 

[DaveC]

One other thing I noticed.

Why was the clock speed setting per game removed? Doing it with that separate utility is not convenient and is a hassle, not a good alternative, especially when using minimenu. One big reason is that you have to know what you are going to play before you start. If I want to play R-type I may need to overclock to 750 MHz. But then if I want to just play Pac Man afterwards it is silly to be frying the CPU and draining battery when I could run that at 500 MHz. So then I would need to exit, change speed with the utility, go back load MAME, then select the game, then finally run it. It is a poor solution.

Could a clock speed setting per game be added back as the amount of overclock can vary greatly depending on the game? Thanks.

 

[cosam]

Why was the clock speed setting per game removed?
...
Could a clock speed setting per game be added back as the amount of overclock can vary greatly depending on the game? Thanks.

It was removed because it was GP32X-specific and didn't actually do anything on the Pandora. It'll be back as soon as I figure out the best way to set the frequency from within the app (script, libpnd, something else). There's stuff like warning dialogs to worry about (i.e. whether these get displayed right and have focus when MAME4ALL's busy with the frame buffer).

What do folk want in terms of range and resolution? Is 500-900MHz enough? Lower? Higher? Given the wide range of clock speeds, I'm thinking of adjusting the resolution depending on how far up the scale you go. So instead of say, steps of 10MHz throughout, steps of maybe 25 from 500-700, steps of 10 from 700-800 and maybe down to steps of 5 when over 800.

 

[EvilDragon]

Wooot
Very nice

Can I put it onto the File Archive as well?

 

[antheus123]

Every game i try loads to title screen then exits to desktop
romset worked fine with your earlier betas, any ideas what i have done wrong?
Thanks for your work on this man

 

[DaveC]

What do folk want in terms of range and resolution? Is 500-900MHz enough? Lower? Higher? Given the wide range of clock speeds, I'm thinking of adjusting the resolution depending on how far up the scale you go. So instead of say, steps of 10MHz throughout, steps of maybe 25 from 500-700, steps of 10 from 700-800 and maybe down to steps of 5 when over 800.

As you go higher though and you do steps of less like 5 you are getting less and less of an effect compared to the higher number. It doesn't seem worth it. K.I.S.S. I think. I would just do steps of 25 and be done with it. If you can't do that extra 25 MHz at the upper limit of your clock ability is it going to really make much difference? Probably unnoticeable.

 

[cosam]

Can I put it onto the File Archive as well?

I'll go one better than that: New beta release is on the archive and AppStore.

• Bugfix: Prevent sound buffer overrun from causing a crash (feedback appreciated!).
• Video mode "Fit" added. Selects largest integer scale which fits screen without clipping.
• Video rotation has its own menu item.
• Video FIR filter can be disabled. Default setting is "auto" which should use nearest neighbour for integer scales and the default filter for the rest.
• Documentation in the PND.

Archive: http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi?0,0,0,0,73,200
AppStore: http://apps.open-pandora.org/cgi-bin/viewapp.pl?/Emulator/mame4all-beta4.inf

That last link has a PayPal button for those of you desperate to donate ;-)

Every game i try loads to title screen then exits to desktop
romset worked fine with your earlier betas, any ideas what i have done wrong?
Thanks for your work on this man

Strange... Try the new release and if it still doesn't work, try removing the "mame4all" directory under appdata.

 

[Pinballwzd]

Every game i try loads to title screen then exits to desktop
romset worked fine with your earlier betas, any ideas what i have done wrong?
Thanks for your work on this man
[/quote]
Strange... Try the new release and if it still doesn't work, try removing the "mame4all" directory under appdata.
[/quote]

This happened to me also.. It was because I had removed and reinserted my SD card. Try to go into the mame4all directory, go to directory options and click show hidden files. Delete the one file that is in the main mame4all directory, exit and reload mame4all. It should with then.. well did for me.

David...

 

[Mjlink]

Just played Rush N Attack and the speed is fast/slow/fast/slow. Tried messing with different setting, but no avail.

Anyone having issues elsewhere?

Peace & Pandora,

Link

Edit: Green Beret same thing

 

[DaveC]

• Bugfix: Prevent sound buffer overrun from causing a crash (feedback appreciated!).
• Video mode "Fit" added. Selects largest integer scale which fits screen without clipping.
• Video rotation has its own menu item.
• Video FIR filter can be disabled. Default setting is "auto" which should use nearest neighbour for integer scales and the default filter for the rest.
• Documentation in the PND.

Cool release, the autofilter is genius, why the hell didn't I think of it.

Now maybe a look at making vector games run at 640x480 native res could be done? Asteroids now is micro. Also remember some of those will be vertical like Tempest etc.

Also the sound is a massive improvement but still has niggles. Load up Q*bert, there is this popping sound going on. Plus some games like Donkey Kong have various pops and clicks, Ms Pacman pops most noticeable in intermission music etc.

Thanks for the great updates

 

[jonlad1]

Thanks for the great updates

You know you're doing well when you get kudos from DaveC

 

[cosam]

Just played Rush N Attack and the speed is fast/slow/fast/slow. Tried messing with different setting, but no avail.

Frame skip set to auto, maybe? That doesn't work yet. Otherwise try different video sync options (V-sync should be best, double buffering should work OK too).

Now maybe a look at making vector games run at 640x480 native res could be done? Asteroids now is micro. Also remember some of those will be vertical like Tempest etc.

I meant to look at that last night too but forgot about it. I did dig out Asteroids though - I see what you mean by tiny! Shouldn't be a hard thing to fix.

 

[klamath]

Great work SteveM, this is coming along very nicely. Any chance the key to exit the emulator can be changed, pressing L-trigger, R-trigger and Start is a bit awkward, maybe Escape ??

 

[Michoko]

Thank you very much for your amazing work SteveM!! Every release is a major step forward! B)

 

[Loon]

Many thanks for the updates SteveM, this is coming along really nicely.

Particularly like the 'fit' scaling mode, or should that be called the DaveC mode? Seems to work really well with Vsync too, almost no screen tearing for me.

My guess is that this is still not using the full power of the Pandora as the Wiz version of Mame4all, run on Pandora via Ginge, appears to be slightly smoother / faster with more demanding roms such as Varth. This is based on perception rather than scientific testing though.

Overall though the progress you have made with this in such a short time is awesome. The Pandora is the ultimate hand held mame machine.

 

[antheus123]

Works fine with latest release no more crashes
Sound isn't quite there yet but still awesome, splatterhouse runs good at fs2 with no overclock.
Best mame experience on a handheld for me so far.

Any chance of adding horizontal scanlines??

glad i got a pandora now

 

[CapcomSuicide]

I use "Ghouls n Ghosts" as my reference game, as the scrolling is very jerky very quickly if MAME isn't 100%.

At 700Mhz the games seems as smooth as I have seen on a handheld. (0 frame skip, Vsync on Normal, Sound 44K)

This is a great improvement, and once you have the nuts and bolts done, the icing on the cake would be some kind of fancy front end that leverages the GPU for a 3D transition effect. (Like your PC work, which is awesome.)

I will be using the Paypal button to buy you some beers!

Thanks

C_S

 

[cosam]

My guess is that this is still not using the full power of the Pandora as the Wiz version of Mame4all, run on Pandora via Ginge, appears to be slightly smoother / faster with more demanding roms such as Varth. This is based on perception rather than scientific testing though.

Yeah, I think there's some issue with timing/video syncing which makes things slower than they should be and stops things like auto frame-skip from working. I have an idea where to look but still need to figure out how it's meant to work.

Great work SteveM, this is coming along very nicely. Any chance the key to exit the emulator can be changed, pressing L-trigger, R-trigger and Start is a bit awkward, maybe Escape ??

I second that or Pandora button

We have the keys at our disposal to revert to the regular MAME controls, so I'll probably just do that.

Works fine with latest release no more crashes
...
Any chance of adding horizontal scanlines??

Thanks for the feedback on the crashes. Scanlines could be done in software, but then we'd need software scaling too which would require coding and come with a performance hit. It's possible that a FIR filter could be used to do scanlines, but I've no idea how one would go about that.

 

[Jumpman]

Yeah SteveM, mapping to our current keys seems the way to go. I would love to map "P" for pause, and being able to just use the Mame menu for this would be stellar. So many of the Pandora's current emu's are just GP2X ports, and they had to function without a number pad or full keyboard.

Having a full qwerty, and being able to use esc. and the like, is really what seperates the Pandora from every other handheld gaming device on the market. Thanks again for your work SteveM, I'm gonna send a donation within a few days, keep the updates coming and thanks for providing the donation link. Mame is now my most used Pandora program, great fun playing the classics with excellent controls!

I did take a quick look around for that CPS2/Finalburn source code, but I'm not really versed on what actual version would be needed for Pandora use, so maybe Ed or someone else can send you in the right direction if your interested in porting those over. I don't believe anyone is currently working on either one, and I'm sure the source is available for both.

Chris

 

[Jumpman]

On a side note, none of my NeoGeo games seem to run thru Mame. Once I select the game, and try and start it, it kicks me out to the desk top.

Do I need to set a specific option in the menu, or is this a known problem?

Chris