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PPC builds of MAME?
#253788 - 05/05/11 03:24 PM
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Slashdot is running a story this morning about a hacker that released a way to get linux running on a PS3 with full access to all hardware. That includes the GPU (yes, I know mame doesn't use it) and it's 8 core cell processor. The catch is that the processor is PPC, not x86. So, is it possible to compile the source to run on a PPC processor? I imagine that the cell processor would run some higher end games very smoothly.
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: JoeyJoeJo]
#253789 - 05/05/11 03:33 PM
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> Slashdot is running a story this morning about a hacker that released a way to get
> linux running on a PS3 with full access to all hardware. That includes the GPU (yes,
> I know mame doesn't use it) and it's 8 core cell processor. The catch is that the
> processor is PPC, not x86. So, is it possible to compile the source to run on a PPC
> processor? I imagine that the cell processor would run some higher end games very
> smoothly.
PS3 was a build target when Yellow Dog installation was still possible, and Mac PPC is still supported. So it's just a matter to move the source to the PS3 and to compile it and it should work out of the box, with no changes to the source.
However, I'm not sure if the architecture will be detected automatically (probably not) or if you have to slightly edit the makefile (probably yes)
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: etabeta]
#253790 - 05/05/11 03:36 PM
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That's a much better response than I was expecting. Editing the makefile doesn't sound like it would be very hard at all.
Does anyone know how the Cell processor performs compared to modern x86 processors? Could the Cell potentially out perform an Intel i7?
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: JoeyJoeJo]
#253791 - 05/05/11 03:39 PM
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There is a port of SDLMAME for the Wii (Homebrew installed), which is a PPC architecture, so I would imagine SDLMAME would work there as well.
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: JoeyJoeJo]
#253794 - 05/05/11 04:18 PM
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> That's a much better response than I was expecting. Editing the makefile doesn't
> sound like it would be very hard at all.
>
> Does anyone know how the Cell processor performs compared to modern x86 processors?
> Could the Cell potentially out perform an Intel i7?
I don't think you have to edit the makefile at all - just "make -j2 BIGENDIAN=1"
Be aware that it won't perform very well at all for MAME - Cell has no out-of-order capability, so it needs hand-optimised code to get best results.
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#253797 - 05/05/11 06:19 PM
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SDLMAME is not anymore separated by MAME, since 0.137... so you simply need to get the MAME source and if you compile it on a non-Windows OS you get automatically the SDL component compiled 
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: etabeta]
#253799 - 05/05/11 06:26 PM
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> SDLMAME is not anymore separated by MAME, since 0.137... so you simply need to get
> the MAME source and if you compile it on a non-Windows OS you get automatically the
> SDL component compiled
Oops! now I remember reading about that last year.
Thanks for clarifying.
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#253800 - 05/05/11 06:29 PM
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MAME is the most portable piece of software ever.
I got it to run on my car GPS and now I'm working on running it on my treadmill so I can play an exercise as the same time...
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| R. Belmont |
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: Vas Crabb]
#253801 - 05/05/11 06:37 PM
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> I don't think you have to edit the makefile at all - just "make -j2 BIGENDIAN=1"
Actually if it's stock Linux the uname detect should pick up the BIGENDIAN=1 automatically.
> Be aware that it won't perform very well at all for MAME - Cell has no out-of-order
> capability, so it needs hand-optimised code to get best results.
This times a million. On official PS3 Linux (which, for the benefit of the OP, was a fully supported SDLMAME target) performance was similar to that of an Atom netbook, which is to say pretty poor. And that was with a 1:1 sized window, so OpenGL will not help.
Note also that MAME/MESS are lousy with endian assumptions so a lot of drivers will simply not work when compiled for PPC, and there's no PPC backend for the DRC so Killer Instinct will run seconds per frame.
Edited by R. Belmont (05/05/11 06:44 PM)
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#253802 - 05/05/11 06:58 PM
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> MAME is the most portable piece of software ever.
> I got it to run on my car GPS and now I'm working on running it on my treadmill so I
> can play an exercise as the same time...
MAME may be portable but it's far from the most portable ever. Especially given that some drivers don't work on some systems as was pointed out earlier in the thread.
The Linux kernel is pretty portable and it is much harder to port. Then again there are tens of thousands (maybe exaggerating a bit) of Linux devs ...
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#253804 - 05/05/11 07:35 PM
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What OS does your treadmill run? And how did you gain access to it?
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: JoeyJoeJo]
#253806 - 05/05/11 08:20 PM
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> What OS does your treadmill run? And how did you gain access to it?
It's Weslo proprietary.
I'm considering just moving on to the coffee maker, though, but my wife won't have any of it.
I'm just joking about running MAME on those devices. 
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| AWJ |
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#253807 - 05/05/11 08:35 PM
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> Note also that MAME/MESS are lousy with endian assumptions so a lot of drivers will
> simply not work when compiled for PPC, and there's no PPC backend for the DRC so
> Killer Instinct will run seconds per frame.
On that note, please report any drivers that are broken on PPC hosts either at Testers or the SDLMAME forum. I've gotten fairly good lately at spotting and fixing endian issues despite not actually having access to a big-endian system.
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: "The Manuel"]
#253810 - 05/05/11 09:23 PM
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I kind of wish you weren't joking. Maybe playing pac-man while I run would actually motivate me to exercise!
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Re: PPC builds of MAME?
[Re: JoeyJoeJo]
#253811 - 05/05/11 09:28 PM
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> I kind of wish you weren't joking. Maybe playing pac-man while I run would actually
> motivate me to exercise!
Ha, ha! Indeed.
Motivation is indeed the hard part.
What I do is watch TV while running or working out.
I couldn't do it without it.
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