| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Posts: 9716
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Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
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One-button ClrMAME
#381572 - 03/16/19 01:43 PM
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What Smitt wants and couldn't quite cough out is that CM should read your mame.ini and use that to find everything.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: R. Belmont]
#381573 - 03/16/19 02:11 PM
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> What Smitt wants and couldn't quite cough out is that CM should read your mame.ini
> and use that to find everything.
Yeah, pretty much.
Just import everything, including Softlists, automatically put things in the required subfolders.
Basically the only options people should need are the ones that matter to the sites
non-merged, split, merged
uncompressed, zip, 7z, 7z-solid
If everything else is one-click if pointed at a complete / valid MAME install it would be a lot easier.
The whole profile handling, optional softlist importing etc. is confusing to most people, so just hiding all of that and having it 'just work' would work wonders. People have asked about / requested such a mode for years, so I'm not even sure what is controversial about it.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Haze]
#381577 - 03/16/19 03:16 PM
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> If everything else is one-click if pointed at a complete / valid MAME install it
> would be a lot easier.
>
> The whole profile handling, optional softlist importing etc. is confusing to most
> people, so just hiding all of that and having it 'just work' would work wonders.
> People have asked about / requested such a mode for years, so I'm not even sure what
> is controversial about it.
How many times and for how many years have people been asking about / requesting UI features to make MAME more approachable to the average user?
ClrMAME is Roman's project that he works on solo, and he is the ultimate arbiter of what he spends his development time on.
I personally would love it if ClrMAME had such a feature, but I want you to understand what a huge proverbial glass house you're throwing rocks inside by taking the standpoint that you are. You're doing exactly what we MAME devs rail against when users do it to us.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: R. Belmont]
#381578 - 03/16/19 04:48 PM
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Settings->Import there is your mame.ini import.
Yes, there is room for improvement and I know Smith's point...but hey...I'm actually pretty sick and bored about updating 20 year old code...and don't have time for a clean new start
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Haze]
#381579 - 03/16/19 04:49 PM
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See my RB reply...sure I had lots of ideas of making it a 1-click-go solution...but I simply don't have the time to do it.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Reged: 09/21/03
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Posts: 9716
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Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#381581 - 03/16/19 06:22 PM
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> How many times and for how many years have people been asking about / requesting UI
> features to make MAME more approachable to the average user?
Except we actually took those steps, at a great cost in technical debt (and to Vas's sanity), by merging MEWUI.
And now users have no useful, actionable feedback that I've seen beyond "I don't like it".
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: R. Belmont]
#381582 - 03/16/19 06:35 PM
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> > How many times and for how many years have people been asking about / requesting UI
> > features to make MAME more approachable to the average user?
>
> Except we actually took those steps, at a great cost in technical debt (and to Vas's
> sanity), by merging MEWUI.
>
> And now users have no useful, actionable feedback that I've seen beyond "I don't like
> it".
Also I've often argued in favour of more 'one step' solutions in MAME when it comes to operation of some of the more complex systems, be it preconfigured / preinstalled machines (as you'd get off the shelf) or some scripting ability to handle to more annoying cases (installs, games requiring frequent disk swaps etc.
I'm not anti-usability, or anti-feature, and if anything MAME will one day benefit from ClrMAME like features such as profiles etc. especially when it comes to emulated PC type machines.
An 'easy mode' is a feature, as long as there is also a version of the application that offers full functionality, or a switch to put it back in 'full' mode. MAME and ClrMAME are very different programs too, a lot of the 'requests' for MAME are ones that would be actively harmful to the emulation or preservation and so I'm more likely to be against (fudging refresh rates by default and the like)
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Haze]
#381586 - 03/16/19 08:45 PM
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In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on some systems.
In order to play “Super Gran Safari” I had to look at the driver source for the init sequence, but even knowing it, it isn’t easy to enter it an make it work (I ended up calling Roberto Fresca for some help... just for starting a game!).
There are some more games that need weird init sequences for creating the default nvram. I highly doubt the PCBs were sold to operators without the nvram already initialized.
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| B2K24 |
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MAME @ 15 kHz Sony Trinitron CRT user
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Reged: 10/25/10
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Posts: 2663
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: R. Belmont]
#381598 - 03/17/19 10:17 AM
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Why depend on ClrMAME to do what a MAME tool could accomplish?
We use CHDMAN for our CHDs anyway.
Give us ROMMAN and be done with it.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: B2K24]
#381605 - 03/17/19 05:27 PM
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> Why depend on ClrMAME to do what a MAME tool could accomplish?
>
> We use CHDMAN for our CHDs anyway.
>
> Give us ROMMAN and be done with it.
That's exactly what I was thinking myself. MAME already handles compression algorithms, it knows where to look for missing files, it "romidents" orphan dumps. The one click solution shouldn't be an external tool but within MAME itself. Drag a file/folder to MAME (accept CLI parameters to be only files and directories) and prompt user for a rebuild based on INI options. There it is your one click solution.
Of course as a mere user I don't know how hard that would be to implement on a multiplatform emulator like this.
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| Foxhack |
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Furry guy
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Reged: 01/30/04
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Loc: Spicy Canada
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: ClawGrip]
#381616 - 03/18/19 12:06 AM
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> In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on some
> systems.
I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Foxhack]
#381617 - 03/18/19 12:16 AM
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> > In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on some
> > systems.
>
> I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
Some do, not all.
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| Foxhack |
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Furry guy
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Reged: 01/30/04
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Posts: 2409
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Loc: Spicy Canada
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#381622 - 03/18/19 03:11 AM
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> > > In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on some
> > > systems.
> >
> > I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
>
> Some do, not all.
Aha, so this is a suggestion to make that this something normal for games that need that going forward?
Or uh, something, I can't English today.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Foxhack]
#381623 - 03/18/19 03:37 AM
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> > > > In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on
> some
> > > > systems.
> > >
> > > I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
> >
> > Some do, not all.
>
> Aha, so this is a suggestion to make that this something normal for games that need
> that going forward?
>
> Or uh, something, I can't English today.
I interpret it as a suggestion to revisit systems that were previously added before this became the norm. Which is an idea I completely endorse.
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Roman]
#381626 - 03/18/19 01:11 PM
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> Settings->Import there is your mame.ini import.
>
> Yes, there is room for improvement and I know Smith's point...but hey...I'm actually
> pretty sick and bored about updating 20 year old code...and don't have time for a
> clean new start
Years ago, I suggested you several times to release the code, so other people could contribute...
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#381627 - 03/18/19 01:36 PM
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> > > In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on some
> > > systems.
> >
> > I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
>
> Some do, not all.
I strongly think that machines should have their own default NVRAM since they were sold in a working state, specially for the most complex ones that need strange sequences or external programs to initialize the NVRAM.
I'm currently working in an ancient system with a preliminary I2C bus handling the NVRAM. This particular system has critical settings inside the NVRAM, and without them is IMPOSSIBLE to boot the system. There is no way to initialize the NVRAM. All is made from factory.
So, I support the fact to construct default NVRAMs, *AND* doucument in a detailed way how is the process to initialize it, if possible.
Robbie.
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-- Risen from my grave --
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Re: One-button ClrMAME
[Re: Roberto Fresca]
#381628 - 03/18/19 02:32 PM
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> > > > In terms of usability, including a default NVRAM would be a good feature on
> some
> > > > systems.
> > >
> > > I'm sorry, I thought some games already included a default NVRam file?
> >
> > Some do, not all.
>
> I strongly think that machines should have their own default NVRAM since they were
> sold in a working state, specially for the most complex ones that need strange
> sequences or external programs to initialize the NVRAM.
>
> I'm currently working in an ancient system with a preliminary I2C bus handling the
> NVRAM. This particular system has critical settings inside the NVRAM, and without
> them is IMPOSSIBLE to boot the system. There is no way to initialize the NVRAM. All
> is made from factory.
>
> So, I support the fact to construct default NVRAMs, *AND* doucument in a detailed way
> how is the process to initialize it, if possible.
>
>
> Robbie.
I tend to initialize them with defaults for 4 reasons
1) It significantly cuts down on repeated support questions here (when was the last time you saw somebody complaining that Konami games won't boot - it used to be asked 2/3 times a week)
2) it makes regression testing much more effective (a game that just gets stuck on an init? screen is generally not as likely to catch genuine regressions in a 'clean state' test as one that actually boots)
3) it isn't always even clear that you need to init them, some games will seemingly run 'fine' with uninitialized nvram, only to fail badly at the end of the game when it tries to add your score to an uninitialized score list and can't.
4) as you say, sometimes they contain factory defaulted data that the games never write in the first place, sometimes even for security or region encoding purposes. (In some cases there are secret codes to change those, but they were never documented, so clearly meant for factory use only, and would have shipped preconfigured)
but yes, the init sequences need documenting too because they are important if somebody is having an issue with their hardware.
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