|
Jumping back in
#320114 - 01/10/14 07:42 PM
|
|
|
Hi everyone, after a few months (years) following emulation from afar (I used to be a world-class lurker, then the mame.net / retrogames died, or withered), I had to take a look at current developments...
Cool Riders emulated ! GTI Club works ! Supermodel is out !! Some of the "unmentionable" games have been fixed...
The visibility of the project and number of active "people" (devs, commenters) are dwindling; in some cases, it helps the peace of mind of the project : gone are the hordes of CPS whiners, of clueless people who demand better performance and so on.
Most of the time though, obscurity and elitism still run through the "community". MAME is detached from the whole open-source movement and its staples (visibility on tech sites, "standard" bug reporting and support)... the big move in that direction was the git repository, which is awesome, and the licence shitstorm (jury still out ?)
Other obvious problem with the mentality is the DRAMA ! Oh my god, it's worse than the finalburn or Razoola fun back then. The tight moderation of the forum here probably discouraged some who don't have an alternative (remembering the Gridle era), and it's NOT always a good thing. The cliques and individual personalities of the "survivors" are only crystallizing more as time passes, centrifuging less-political people out.
Most of the hardcore here were already around when my obsession started, back in the late 90's... I'm 31 now which means I've spent the majority of my life following the "scene", but in 2014 I still see those outbursts of bullshit between (I guess) middle-aged men ! Passionate about their hobby I guess... but I miss some of the superstar devs, some of whom I'm sure would have contributed more if not for a slightly asphyxiating atmosphere around those parts.
That's my pointless rant for 2014; happy new year to all !
P.S : I missed more or less completely the Dr. Decapitator "era", and I understand he used his relative visibility (when working with byuu ?) to sell his operation and retire in the Caribbean; around the same time was this guy at zeptobars.ru demonstrating a similar process... has MAME a good lead for this, or is it :
- too good to be true (not many chips would actually benefit)
- great while it lasted (but too expensive / dangerous / impractical for rare parts)
- got what we want out of this particular technique ?
Thanks to everyone still in love with emulation ! Rock on !
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: -Mitaine-]
#320123 - 01/10/14 09:22 PM
|
|
|
> The cliques and individual personalities of the
> "survivors" are only crystallizing more as time passes, centrifuging less-political
> people out.
>
> Most of the hardcore here were already around when my obsession started, back in the
> late 90's... I'm 31 now which means I've spent the majority of my life following the
> "scene", but in 2014 I still see those outbursts of bullshit between (I guess)
> middle-aged men ! Passionate about their hobby I guess... but I miss some of the
> superstar devs, some of whom I'm sure would have contributed more if not for a
> slightly asphyxiating atmosphere around those parts.
Why are people so completely convinced that it's "drama" that's driven away a bunch of the early devs? Most of them are in their mid-late 30's or even into their 40's at this point, if not older. It's great when you still have enough youth and enough free time to spend all of your spare time working on an emulator in between going to university or working your day job, but most of these guys have wives, kids, houses, and lives now. Working on an emulator is a massive time-sink, and I think people are looking for conspiracies where there aren't any. Work on an emulator or work on your family, which would you go with? 
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#320127 - 01/10/14 09:59 PM
|
|
|
There isn't much drama either. Nothing like the old Davey stuff. Haze posts about everything that irritates him but he's usually the only person bothered by it. That isn't real drama.
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8601
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#320130 - 01/10/14 10:24 PM
|
|
|
>Why are people so completely convinced that it's "drama" that's driven away a bunch of
>the early devs?
iirc the only case I recall was with Zsolt V. in either 2007 or 2008 when the issue was with incorporating the old deprecat.h as a way of indicating MAME source driver files is in need of being updated. There were gripes with that and Zsolt left. Maybe Zsolt was about to leave anyway and the complaints about deprecat.h made it an easier decision to retire/leave and move on to other interests.
--
-include "deprecat.h"
deprecat.h, 1 + 1 to go ...
--
It's too bad he left because he was one of the few at the time getting many of the 1970s era games working and also working with Derrick Renaud regarding discrete audio emulation.
Other than that, everything else is correct.
btw: I am looking forward to any future progress with Quiz Show now that one hurdle has been cleared.
btw: http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html#QuizShow
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8601
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: Smitdogg]
#320132 - 01/10/14 10:33 PM
|
|
|
>There isn't much drama either.
CPS-2, CPS-3, Sega (FD1089 and FD1094) emulation in MAME and SuperModel and Nebula Model2 has managed to clear out most of the kidz from the room.
>Nothing like the old Davey stuff.
Bonus points for anyone recalling the infamous Sept. 2000 thread on old MAME.net forums when PacDude called out Gridle regarding adult images on old MAME Wip posts. That thread was far superior compared to the 2001 "Davey stuff" and Razoola because it lasted for about two to three weeks with name calling between various posters even after the thread was already old. LOL I regret not archiving that thread. It was best one ever imo.
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: Smitdogg]
#320134 - 01/10/14 10:36 PM
|
|
|
> There isn't much drama either. Nothing like the old Davey stuff. Haze posts about
> everything that irritates him but he's usually the only person bothered by it. That
> isn't real drama.
That's the sad truth of the matter, too. Most of this "drama" is completely manufactured. Death, taxes and Haze moaning about everything are the three constants in life. At this point all you can really do is laugh at it, because I can't think of any other devs who really viciously get at each others' throats like Haze did with other people. Now that he's not on-list, people more or less just keep cranking away.
The only other drama-bombers that I can think of would be the fact that RB and smf tend to get into arguments from time to time, but that's just what happens when you get a bunch of passionate people all working on the same project. A day later, everyone gets over it and goes back to work.
On a personal level, I'm perhaps one of the few people in the emulation community who has seen plenty of instances of what happens when Real Life Syndrome creeps in on an emulator developer, so I don't really blame anyone for wanting to blame drama on the departure of emulator devs. It's just that that's not the case.
From when I worked at EA Tiburon, I remember Icer "Sardu" Addis had a very senior engineer position and more or less worked on the core technology for the company's next-gen games. Don't think he has time to work on Nesticle, Genecyst and Callus anymore. I remember meeting Mike Balfour, who also worked there. Dude's got a wife, kids and a house in Orlando, I seem to recall - more than enough to keep his schedule full without going back to MAME. When I was at Vicarious Visions, I met Matt Conte (Nofrendo, Nosefart). He was more or less in the equivalent of Icer, but at VV. Dude's brilliant, but definitely a bit of a bro-coder, so by the time I met him he was more concerned with flashy cars and the gym. Me, if I could afford a sports car, I probably wouldn't be working on MAME either.
This ended up being a lot more rambly than I set out to make it, but yeah. Real life: The great emulator killer.
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8601
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: -Mitaine-]
#320139 - 01/10/14 11:27 PM
|
|
|
>The visibility of the project and number of active "people" (devs, commenters) are
>dwindling; in some cases, it helps the peace of mind of the project : gone are the
>hordes of CPS whiners
Getting those emulated properly helped clear out some of the crowd.
>Most of the time though, obscurity and elitism still run through the "community".
>The tight moderation of the forum here probably discouraged some who don't have an
>alternative (remembering the Gridle era), and it's NOT always a good thing. The cliques
>and individual personalities of the "survivors" are only crystallizing more as time
>passes, centrifuging less-political people out.
If Gridle didn't have time to moderate old MAME.net forum, there were a fair number posts from troublemakers sneaking in and posting stuff they shouldn't have been. KC and Roc had good hands from twisty to keep many of those same posters from causing problems on MW. The main issue these days is how to keep out sophisticated spam bots from polluting entire forums which has been a problem on lots of other web sites forums. So there is still a need for tight moderation.
>but I miss some of the superstar devs, some of whom I'm sure would have contributed
>more if not for a slightly asphyxiating atmosphere around those parts.
Moogly is correct. The main issue is time versus how much one is able to achieve emulation goals. Most don't have the time that they used to and for those that reached a goal of achievement, they have luxury to move on to other interests if they choose to.
I am crossing fingers that couriersud's work will continue and DICE will keep doing updates for non-cpu games.
|
|
|
| DMala |
|
Sleep is overrated
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/09/05
|
|
Posts: 3989
|
|
Loc: Waltham, MA
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: gregf]
#320144 - 01/10/14 11:52 PM
|
|
|
> I am crossing fingers that couriersud's work will continue and DICE will keep doing
> updates for non-cpu games.
Someone ought to stake out his house to scare off any potential girlfriends or other distractions.  
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8601
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: DMala]
#320146 - 01/11/14 12:08 AM
|
|
|
>> I am crossing fingers that couriersud's work will continue and DICE will keep doing
>> updates for non-cpu games.
>Someone ought to stake out his house to scare off any potential girlfriends or other distractions.
Too late.  *kidding*
"Better thank my family for the understanding".
It's more or less of "keep any fanboyz", actually old farts for this matter regarding the old games, off front yard lawn.
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: DMala]
#320152 - 01/11/14 02:28 AM
|
|
|
> > I am crossing fingers that couriersud's work will continue and DICE will keep doing
> > updates for non-cpu games.
>
> Someone ought to stake out his house to scare off any potential girlfriends or other
> distractions.
Well, he actually does have a life, but it hasn't stopped him coming back. (His extended absence was due to health, family and work giving him little to no spare time.)
|
|
|
|
Thanks, very interesting !
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#320153 - 01/11/14 03:40 AM
|
|
|
I think I just came back at a point where there was a big mess (pun unintended but I'm keeping it !) and extrapolated too much.
Licencing and the "UME" stuff still looked pretty bad and yes, some devs are more emo (or more "corporate"), while the majority stays focused on the code - and of course, real life vs. allocation of free time is the biggest factor in anyone's involvement.
Still, some of the dumping stuff always seems to come at the unfortunate intersection of money and ego. The different project leaders have also had recognizable influence on the general orientation over the years, even though there's been a (mostly) coherent vision and mandate of MAME, of emulation ethics / ideals.
I've never been anything but an observer, but I think the image, team dynamics and politics of a project matter, in software like in anything else. I'm wondering how today, one of the biggest, most complex and advanced pieces of open source out there can be so (relatively) obscure when in the same 20 or so years consumer technology got so mainstream...
|
|
|
Stiletto |
|
They're always after me Lucky ROMS!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 03/07/04
|
|
Posts: 6472
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: -Mitaine-]
#320154 - 01/11/14 03:54 AM
|
|
|
> Hi everyone, after a few months (years) following emulation from afar (I used to be a
> world-class lurker, then the mame.net / retrogames died, or withered), I had to take
> a look at current developments...
I remember this name for some reason. Welcome! 
- Stiletto
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: Stiletto]
#320191 - 01/11/14 04:50 PM
|
|
|
Thanks ! You remember because that's what you DO  you're the person who researches, knows, remembers and cross-references !
Many moons ago, curiosity made me ask about the behind-the-scenes stories of MAME : how the hell did some of the ROMs / technical info etc find their way to the devs... where did those piles of (then) unemulated and/or obscure systems data stay around from the pre-internet era to the proper people !
It created in part the tear gas dumping team meme, and you had even half-started a project that would narrate some of these stories, as the wise owl of the MAME world. I was enthusiastic !
The recent interviews related to sega's 3DS arcade ports prove these questions are still relevant, since official, internal teams have trouble finding original machines to sample even with access to the archives (drool) and business trips to the biggest arcades of Japan (drool again)... yet the MAME connections still dig up insanely rare and fragile stuff pretty regularly. Blows my mind !
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: -Mitaine-]
#320211 - 01/11/14 10:03 PM
|
|
|
Drama? I thought the best drama was when Dave Foley tried to copyright the MAME name for his own bastardization (despite him saying it was for the good of the scene to keep other a-holes from copyrighting it and using it).
And then later he is found guilty of fraud and is probably going to see prison time.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19708486
Karma is one tough bitch because shitty things happen to shitty people.
-Mc
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#320349 - 01/13/14 06:41 PM
|
|
|
Don't forget that Nicola got his Ph.D, has a full time job, and writes quite prolifically at a blog which reviews and analyzes iOS puzzle games.
Aaron has a young child *and* is a Windows kernel coder at a time when Windows is being updated on a yearly basis. Neither of those are conducive to free time; the sum total of his contributions last year all happened on a laptop to, from, and at CAX.
|
|
|
|
Re: Jumping back in
[Re: R. Belmont]
#320354 - 01/13/14 09:24 PM
|
|
|
> Don't forget that Nicola got his Ph.D, has a full time job, and writes quite
> prolifically at a blog which reviews and analyzes iOS puzzle games.
>
> Aaron has a young child *and* is a Windows kernel coder at a time when Windows is
> being updated on a yearly basis. Neither of those are conducive to free time; the sum
> total of his contributions last year all happened on a laptop to, from, and at CAX.
This as well, but I was limiting my experiences to people I've met and interacted with first-hand on the job.
|
|
|
Index 
Threaded 
Jumping back in
Reply
[Re: 
*kidding*
you're the person who researches, knows, remembers and cross-references !
