> "MAME is a documentation project. Playability of the games is a happy side-effect > that frequently occurs, but it's not guaranteed." > > I think I understand the intent in this remark, yet I disagree about the middle part. > Playbility is ultimately critical.
MAME has the most important role, that of preservation. Fortunately, it also allows for a convenient unified platform for playing most arcade games. However, for those games whose MAME documentation/emulation is still in progress and not feasible for most to play in their PC's, the other emulators fill the gap nicely.
When people blast MAME for "not catering to playability", they should take a step back and recognize how flexible MAME is in terms of output options, command line, etc. It also happens to be very cab-friendly .
> I'd rather have an <1fps on high end cpu mostly accurate driver than an hacked for > 60fps on x ghz cpu one.
it's not. Seattle and Vegas has been very well emulated for years, but only 64bit OS + dual core CPU allowed to play the games in those drivers (still not both at full speed). however, if there were around only Pentium 4, the quality of emulation would not decrease only because games run at 1FPS...
> > Playbility is ultimately critical. > > it's not. Seattle and Vegas has been very well emulated for years, but only 64bit OS > + dual core CPU allowed to play the games in those drivers (still not both at full > speed). however, if there were around only Pentium 4, the quality of emulation would > not decrease only because games run at 1FPS...
Well, that's true, but I had the idea that part of the documenting process is being able to document how the game "plays", for which you need to be able to emulate at full speed. Am I wrong?
> I had the idea that part of the documenting process is being able to document how the game "plays", for which you need to be able to emulate at full speed. Am I wrong?
NOPE ! MAME first purpose is to document/emulate the hardware on which the games run, and this has nothing to do with speed ...
Now, in some drivers I've worked on, you might find some infos about the games native assembly code, telling you some ingame bugs, hidden/debug features, differences between clones, and such useful things ... And for something like this, you sometimes don't even need to see the game (who spoke about old H*ze WIP drivers ? ), a DASM file might be enough ...
> > > Playbility is ultimately critical. > > > > it's not. Seattle and Vegas has been very well emulated for years, but only 64bit > OS > > + dual core CPU allowed to play the games in those drivers (still not both at full > > speed). however, if there were around only Pentium 4, the quality of emulation > would > > not decrease only because games run at 1FPS... > > Well, that's true, but I had the idea that part of the documenting process is being > able to document how the game "plays", for which you need to be able to emulate at > full speed. Am I wrong?
But not necessarily TODAY! MAME is documenting everything as accurately as possible for prosperity and presumably the future generations living in a world where every arcade game released up to now has bit-rotted to oblivion that this is ultimately being done for, will have machines with the minerals, the balls and the GHz to do it!
> But not necessarily TODAY! > MAME is documenting everything as accurately as possible for prosperity and > presumably the future generations living in a world where every arcade game released > up to now has bit-rotted to oblivion that this is ultimately being done for, will > have machines with the minerals, the balls and the GHz to do it!
It's a good point, but don't forget there are lots of games today that don't exist anymore (or that there are very few copies of them), so this applies to us today too.
> It's a good point, but don't forget there are lots of games today that don't exist > anymore (or that there are very few copies of them), so this applies to us today too.
no. the fact we have only a few copies of some games only means that it is *very* important to document accurately how the hardware works in those games, not to make the emulated programs run fullspeed on any current computer. of course, if both results can be obtained we are happier, but if we have to choose one of the two, then accuracy only would be taken into consideration.
If it was just about preservation, why do you need MAME at all...?
All you would need is a central online repositry of ROM dumps stored in zip form..and someone with a hard physical media backup in the real world.
Mame's original intent was to play the games, but in the intervening years, some of the devs evolved/hijacked it's intent and came out with this 'preservation' line to try and protect themselves from the legal aspects of dumping copyrighted material onto the internet..
And for the most part it has worked, most companies, seem to leave MAME alone, in recognition of the preservation aspect...
I'm going to leave now, as i fully expect (the usual hostile response) from some of the few Dev's who cant take any form of critiscism...or qustioning their motives.
> If it was just about preservation, why do you need MAME at all...? > > All you would need is a central online repositry of ROM dumps stored in zip form..and > someone with a hard physical media backup in the real world. >
wrong. it's all about describing accurately the hardware to help people fixing their broken pcb. everything else is copyright infringement
> Mame's original intent was to play the games, but in the intervening years, some of > the devs evolved/hijacked it's intent and came out with this 'preservation' line to > try and protect themselves from the legal aspects of dumping copyrighted material > onto the internet..
please, read Nicola Salmoria's thesis.
also, you might notice that most of the mame dev do not dump anything and only write the code to emulate CPUs and other components.
> I'm going to leave now, as i fully expect (the usual hostile response) from some of > the few Dev's who cant take any form of critiscism...or qustioning their motives.
you're not questioning their motives. you are saying that they are liars and that their motivation is what you think it is and not what they say it is. if this is what you call discussion, then you have bigger problems...
> All you would need is a central online repositry of ROM dumps stored in zip form..and > someone with a hard physical media backup in the real world.
Those existed prior to MAME (or any other arcade emulation). They tended to be unreliable though - generally they were hosted on university accounts or AOL or GeoCities and thus prone to disappearing overnight. The advent of emulation caused a lot of people to set up more reliable repositories on dedicated servers.
> Mame's original intent was to play the games, but in the intervening years, some of > the devs evolved/hijacked it's intent
That would come as a surprise to Nicola.
> And for the most part it has worked, most companies, seem to leave MAME alone, in > recognition of the preservation aspect...
I'm not actually convinced that's why companies leave us alone, but as with many things about MAME there's no real scientific data (and it would be difficult at best to get anything conclusive without a time machine). So everyone has their own pet theories about why things happen the way they do in terms of MAME's popularity and general lack of harassment by companies.
> I'm going to leave now, as i fully expect (the usual hostile response) from some of > the few Dev's who cant take any form of critiscism...or qustioning their motives.
Quote: it's not. Seattle and Vegas has been very well emulated for years, but only 64bit OS > + dual core CPU allowed to play the games in those drivers (still not both at full > speed). however, if there were around only Pentium 4, the quality of emulation would > not decrease only because games run at 1FPS...
I have pictures 'archived' on my computer. If not one ever looks at them, do they exist?
Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.
> > All you would need is a central online repositry of ROM dumps stored in zip > form..and > > someone with a hard physical media backup in the real world. > > Those existed prior to MAME (or any other arcade emulation). They tended to be > unreliable though - generally they were hosted on university accounts or AOL or > GeoCities and thus prone to disappearing overnight. The advent of emulation caused a > lot of people to set up more reliable repositories on dedicated servers. > > > Mame's original intent was to play the games, but in the intervening years, some of > > the devs evolved/hijacked it's intent > > That would come as a surprise to Nicola. >
Yeah I think Nicola's original motivation was more like 'just to see if he could' - the intellectual challenge of getting Pac-Man working on a PC in and of itself rather than some burning desire to play Pac-Man - right?
> Yeah I think Nicola's original motivation was more like 'just to see if he could' - > the intellectual challenge of getting Pac-Man working on a PC in and of itself rather > than some burning desire to play Pac-Man - right?
It was more that there were a bunch of single-game emulators at the time and he wanted to try and create a general framework to emulate and study the innards of games. 0.01 wasn't especially generic, but it got better fairly quickly
> > Yeah I think Nicola's original motivation was more like 'just to see if he could' - > > the intellectual challenge of getting Pac-Man working on a PC in and of itself > rather > > than some burning desire to play Pac-Man - right? > > It was more that there were a bunch of single-game emulators at the time and he > wanted to try and create a general framework to emulate and study the innards of > games. 0.01 wasn't especially generic, but it got better fairly quickly
I thought the first arcade emulator was commercial emulator written on the MAC for a some Williams games, I know it was release before I got a PC in 1995. Dasarcade was the first PC arcade emulator or was there some single game emulators on the PC before that, it been 15 years or so. Didn't Nicola have a pacman emulator was before MAME? If so I would have been surprised that MAME 0.01 was generic. I thought Nicola was the first to release the source code which I think it helped in it's 13 years its been around. All I do know is Nicola's MAME 0.01 was slower that others, since it barely run (or did it?) Pacman at full speed on my P75. I think Dasarcade ran Pacman at full speed on my P75, I know the assembly emulators would run it at full speed.
> Didn't Nicola have a pacman emulator was before MAME?
Yes, Multi-Pac. More:
> If so I would have been surprised that MAME 0.01 was generic.
It was the first iteration of the 'generic' arcade emulator in the sense that it was the earliest one to open-source that idea. DASarcade predated it, from what I remember (and I could be wrong), but it wasn't until it became Sparcade that it was controlled-source.
> All I do know is Nicola's MAME 0.01 was slower that others, since it > barely run (or did it?) Pacman at full speed on my P75. I think Dasarcade ran Pacman > at full speed on my P75, I know the assembly emulators would run it at full speed.
My recollection is that Multi-Pac ran at full speed on my 486 DX/4 - as did MAME on my P100. Could be wrong, but that's what comes to mind.
>I thought the first arcade emulator was commercial emulator written on the MAC for a > some Williams games, I know it was release before I got a PC in 1995.
I believe the Williams games package was done by Digital Eclipse. (maybe a different company name before Digital Eclipse?).....but as you mention it was Williams games only and was for Mac computers back then in 1995. I was disappointed that a PC/Windows version was not made at the time. That was the first real, retro-arcade emulator game package I recall seeing at computer stores like CompUSA in mid 1990s (MS arcade game ports don't count imo.)
Around 1998, Digital Eclipse did release Atari and Midway arcade gamepacks. I bought Windows versions in 1998 and 1999. I played Marble Madness and when reaching level 4, I knew that a medly/tune was missing from Digital Eclipse Atari package. Being a hardcore MM fan in 1980s and rarely getting to level 5, that tune was memorable.
The thing I remember is visiting Digital Eclipse's web site and reading a huge list of Atari arcade games from 1970s/80s and the various list of reasons for each Atari game and why Digital Eclipse would not emulate such Atari games. The reasons were something along lines of:
---- a. expensive licensing fees required (ie: Star Wars ) or b. unable to find information or c. wouldn't make money or be worthwhile ---
When discovering arcade emulation back around April/May 2000, it was a dream come true just to see or play Gremlin's Frogs or Carnival back then. This was a year before pouring in own money and cluttering up a room or two with manuals, schematics and loads of Wild Gunman flyers.
Props to the worldwide emulation contributions over the years for filling in the missing gaps of 1970s and 1980s games. Just need a couple of the non-cpu video games to be emulated. :-)
> So everyone has their own pet > theories about why things happen the way they do in terms of MAME's popularity and > general lack of harassment by companies.
There's always the "we're doing their work for them for free, and they wouldn't even really want to do it in the first place" pet theory.
Didn't they release some GBA arcade compliations that were MAME-based as well? > > There's always the "we're doing their work for them for free, and they wouldn't > even > > really want to do it in the first place" pet theory. > > Yeah - given Konami released several *dozen* PS2 retrodiscs in Japan that were all > MAME-based, and that's just the tip of the iceberg there
> Oh, really? If I wanted to get information on these discs, what would I be looking > for? Even the name of just one of them would be helpful here.
The series is called "Oretachi Game Center Zoku" apparently, and they were published by "Hamster" on behalf of Konami. Each one came with a game disc, a soundtrack audio CD, and a video DVD with superplays and other extras. I have the Haunted Castle one, of course.
Aha, the Hamster ones. THOSE I had heard about, I just wasn't aware Konami had released those-- I was more under the impression Hamster had published those.
I've also heard the emulation quality is somewhat sketchy and the discs are pretty barebones, but I've not tried any personally.
How's Haunted Castle working out for you, outside the BS difficulty the arcade game always had? (I love Castlevania, but HC is ridiculous..)
> How's Haunted Castle working out for you, outside the BS difficulty the arcade game > always had? (I love Castlevania, but HC is ridiculous..)
It works fairly well, although the BS difficulty is in full effect. I've heard there's some slowdown on the later levels, but damned if I can get that far without cheat.dat
> > How's Haunted Castle working out for you, outside the BS difficulty the arcade game > > always had? (I love Castlevania, but HC is ridiculous..) > > It works fairly well, although the BS difficulty is in full effect. I've heard > there's some slowdown on the later levels, but damned if I can get that far without > cheat.dat
If my memories aren't gone away totally, I was able to finish Haunted Castle with one credit at the arcades. Not in MAME, though, even if the clone seems a little bit easier than the parent one.
> > "MAME is a documentation project. Playability of the games is a happy side-effect > > that frequently occurs, but it's not guaranteed." > > > > I think I understand the intent in this remark, yet I disagree about the middle > part. > > Playbility is ultimately critical. > > > "Playability" doesn't hold up in court. > > S
Agreed, but it is the driving force in the project. Nobody is really keen about games that do not work, except for the developers, whom regard it as a challenge. The 3rd parties who make a living out of the project depend on the developer to enable the said game to be playable.
The original comment was practical for the time. Playability is irrelevant, as it is taken for granted now.
This is off topic but slightly related to the post:
Is there an end to the project? If it is a project there has to be a start and end date. Is there a preservation cut off date like 2000? Arcades today are pretty much dead.
Will the project branch into the MESS domain once everything is captured?
---- "It's quite possible CPS-3 will never be emulated when you take into account that very few systems were made, there were widespread reliability problems, and looking at the thing the wrong way kills it permanently."
- R. Belmont ---
Opportunity is there for other funny quotes that can easily replace the tired, out-of-date CPS-3 quote imo.
Yeah, the original quote is outdated, but there are certainly some relevant and accurate bits worth keeping. I'm actually nervous about ever picking up a CPS-3 board for my collection, considering-- CPS-2 is bad enough that I'd probably want to order a dead board and have it Phoenixed just to get it done and over with, and I don't think CPS-3 has anything like that yet.
Why not just let him revise it to match the new reality of the situation? Something like this would work:
"It was quite possible CPS-3 would have never been emulated when you took into account that very few systems were made, there were widespread reliability issues, and looking at a CPS-3 board the wrong way kills it permanently."
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), a DASM file might be enough ...
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