Status Of Mame And Hu6280?

[ralp99]

it's been a little while, i was wondering if there's any news on when to expect new (and in the latter's, case, first) releases of these two emulators for the old workhorse GP32?

i know, nag=bad, but it's midweek and a busy time at the office so i thought i'd just get something going to get my brain worked up about, don't mind me. thanks guys!!!

 

[DaveC]

Comming soon...

 

[sam fisher]

Vobbo only needs to code a rom selector for the GP32 version...

 

[cozmic]

Ok that would be nice for the holidays

 

[slaanesh]

it's been a little while, i was wondering if there's any news on when to expect new (and in the latter's, case, first) releases of these two emulators for the old workhorse GP32?

I know, I've been a bit slack on MAME GP32. Sorry guys. I've been playing around with getting better sound quality happening. I've been recompiling different parts of the code using -O1 and -O3.
Basically when the CPU modules are compiled with -O1 the crackling sound problem seems to disappear.
This is a good thing, but means that the CPU emulation isn't as fast as it could be. Bottom line is that it will run slightly slower. But the sound is clearer!

I'm also considering not bothering with the FAST version as it's not really compatible enough for my liking. Does anyone use the FAST version? :huh:
That would mean dropping support for DrZ80 only. The Cyclone core stays as it's compatible++

I've got basic sample support happening - been playing Zaxxon and Astroblaster and Asteroids and Gorf and Space Invaders and Zektor (and all the others with samples).
It's not too bad - I guess I could release a beta of this if you guys want to try it out. It's still not perfect and some samples won't get played due to restrictions of the GP32 version of MAME (mainly being only 8 channels of sound mixed/played).

The reason I've been holding back is that I've been comparing it to PalmMAME and the sound seems so much clearer. MAME 0.36 has a wonderful built in mixer which seems like it does some pretty good quality mixing. I've been considering snaffling this code and back-porting into MAME GP32 - but I believe it's going to be somewhat slower. I'll give it a crack though I think.

So that's where it's at. I haven't forgotten - it's still coming.

 

[DaveC]

I've got basic sample support happening - been playing Zaxxon and Astroblaster and Asteroids and Gorf and Space Invaders and Zektor (and all the others with samples).
It's not too bad - I guess I could release a beta of this if you guys want to try it out. It's still not perfect and some samples won't get played due to restrictions of the GP32 version of MAME (mainly being only 8 channels of sound mixed/played).

That sounds cool. Would the GP2X maybe be able to do all of the samples or is it limited to 8 channels like the GP32 version? Probably the same I would guess. I have been jonesing for sound on all of those games like Zaxxon and DonkeyKong etc. Your work sounds promising though. I am assuming that your GP32 work can be useful in the GP2X as the code is similar, isn't it?

 

[slaanesh]

That sounds cool. Would the GP2X maybe be able to do all of the samples or is it limited to 8 channels like the GP32 version? Probably the same I would guess. I have been jonesing for sound on all of those games like Zaxxon and DonkeyKong etc. Your work sounds promising though. I am assuming that your GP32 work can be useful in the GP2X as the code is similar, isn't it?

The GP2X version uses between 8-16 channels - depending on the game - so it's quite a bit more capable.
Yes, this work should be able to be used in the GP2X version.
Donkey Kong gets a few extra sounds now. I think when he moves and jumps and possibly a few others.

 

[DaveC]

That sounds cool. Would the GP2X maybe be able to do all of the samples or is it limited to 8 channels like the GP32 version? Probably the same I would guess. I have been jonesing for sound on all of those games like Zaxxon and DonkeyKong etc. Your work sounds promising though. I am assuming that your GP32 work can be useful in the GP2X as the code is similar, isn't it?

The GP2X version uses between 8-16 channels - depending on the game - so it's quite a bit more capable.
Yes, this work should be able to be used in the GP2X version.
Donkey Kong gets a few extra sounds now. I think when he moves and jumps and possibly a few others.

The old MAME GP32/GP2X Dk was missing the running, jumping, climbing, the boom boom boom sound in the beginning when Kong jumps and knocks down the girders, when he beats his chest, snickers, ok there was alot missing I am sure I am forgetting something.

I know the game very well as I played the hell out of it when I was younger. I will know if it is all there when I test it.

I have a GP32 BLU too so I could try that one before the GP2X one I suppose.

I use the non Drz80 version too if that means anything.

 

[ralp99]

great news thanks for the updates!!

as far as mame is concerned - it's great to hear that work is being done on the sound engine - though like most around here, I have to say I'd prefer speed and increased compatibility over better sound overall. I am sure getting all this running/optimized/etc is no easy feat, and definitely appreciate the time being put into all of it.

While I have your ear slaneesh, I do have one request - the game Slap Fight is my current addiction, I can sit down to play mame without putting in a good 20 minutes of this addictive little shooting game. (I was pretty excited ot see that it was supported, actually!) Only problem is, you have to play it in TATE mode (screen rotated) so that you can see the power-up options at the very bottom of the screen, they get cropped out in the normal display. TATE is fine, I like playing games in thata mode - but in games like this, you need two buttons (one to fire, which is covered already, and one to select which option to power-up). Currently I have to play this game, when in TATE mode (yes - I love capitalizing it every time) by holding my left thumb on the joystick and right thumb to control the A+B buttons on top to cover shooting/power-up selection. Playing this way makes it awkward to hold and the GP32 ends up being angled strangely, and it's hard to feel controlled properly (especially for such a relatively intense game). So, in spite of my long-winded explanaiton - for these TATE'd games, could the second button be mapped to the left shoulder button? It'd be a helluva lot easier to control.

thanks again!

 

[slaanesh]

...for these TATE'd games, could the second button be mapped to the left shoulder button? It'd be a helluva lot easier to control.

Hmmm, I thought you could map the buttons to what you wanted.
When you have the game highlight on your selection screem, hit SELECT+START and choose the shoulder button as your secondary fire button for that game. That's sort of a work around.

Or if you already know of this, do you mean that when in rotated mode, the second fire button should ALWAYS be mapped to the shoulder button?

More speed would be nice in MAME - but I think we're approaching the maximum capability with MAME on the GP32 - short of more ASM cpu cores.

A 6809 core and a really compatible Z80 core would make many games fly.

Last time I was playing with DrZ80, it didn't actually seem that much faster than the regular 'C' Z80 core - but I'll have to check that again.

In terms of hacks, I don't think we're going to see a magic "Squidge MMU hack" for the GP32 - which is a pity

So, without getting too much more speed I've decided to get some nice sound happening - so that at least the classics play as well as they possibly can.

That's sort of the catch-22 with GP32 MAME - games that are slow are usually too slow to have sound running. The best speed up for them is to run them without sound. Games that work well with sound suffer a bit from having only average quailty sound.

 

[ralp99]

oh damn i feel like a dummy, i didn't know there was an option to change controls in there.. i am usually pretty good about that stuff!! yeah if so then i don't care if you bother to change the code for TATE mode, I can just do that myself. Great news for me though, I am happy about it!

As for the MAME speed, yeah I am perfectly happy with the speed of the games that I play on there now. So I guess then that leaves compatibility (and like you said, speed with sound). But then that's always the case for any emulator on any platform, in general, really..

thanks again for enlightening me!

 

[darkman]

I'm also considering not bothering with the FAST version as it's not really compatible enough for my liking. Does anyone use the FAST version? :huh:

I use the fast version for some games. Is there any way of putting it in as an option in the menu before starting a game? It could be one of those options right along with (for example) old core, new core? :huh:

 

[slaanesh]

I'm also considering not bothering with the FAST version as it's not really compatible enough for my liking. Does anyone use the FAST version? :huh:

I use the fast version for some games. Is there any way of putting it in as an option in the menu before starting a game? It could be one of those options right along with (for example) old core, new core? :huh:

Well there are a number of problems:

1). The CPU cores are fairly BIG. Having two Z80 cores would probably fit for most games however it's not the way MAME works. It would be alot simpler to pre-code each game with either ASM Z80 or C Z80. That's basically what is done now. And that's why there are two version.

2). As an alternative, games which are known to work with ASM Z80 could be compiled as such. That way it would just use the right core straight away. The thing is, I don't really have a definitive list of which games run well with ASM core and which don't.

3). If anyone wants to do some speed tests that would be great. If anyone wants to do some compatibility tests, that would also be great.

 

[DaveC]

Maybe a front end that references a data file? If the game is known to work with the ASM Z80 then it would just load that version, if not it would load the C version fxe/GPE.

 

[slaanesh]

Maybe a front end that references a data file? If the game is known to work with the ASM Z80 then it would just load that version, if not it would load the C version fxe/GPE.

That would do the trick.

On another note, I've made some good progress now with the sound. I believe it's playing with a lot more clarity than before.

The samples are sounding pretty good as long as it's frameskip 0.

Just need to get some sort of throttling happening when the emulator is running with frameskip.

 

[DisgruntleElf]

Is there any possiblity of an addition of a brightness/contrast option for GP32MAME for owners like myself with no backlight? I know Franxis said it was a no go for the GP2XMAME but perhaps that bug doesn't apply to the GP32. I really hope your successful to port PalmMAME's Vilmos/fangorn sound core to the GP32MAME for the next release. Thanks so much for staying with the GP32.

 

[slaanesh]

Is there any possiblity of an addition of a brightness/contrast option for GP32MAME for owners like myself with no backlight? I know Franxis said it was a no go for the GP2XMAME but perhaps that bug doesn't apply to the GP32. I really hope your successful to port PalmMAME's Vilmos/fangorn sound core to the GP32MAME for the next release. Thanks so much for staying with the GP32.

I'll have to check out what's involved with Gamma correction - it might be possible but its not something I've coded before.
The sound core used by PalmMAME is just using the mixer from MAME 0.36 with the Operating System Dependant sound code for the Palm. Having said that, it's alot easier on the Palm - for example sample support just "worked" without any extra effort required.
If I'm going to do this, I won't do so until the following release after the "sample support" release.
The mixer in MAME 0.36 is probably slower - but is of high quality. PalmMAME on my Zodiac sounds glorious.