MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: A new shader for those who want to use their entire screen space

> > Unfortunately we do still need a lot more EMULATION devs, people building stuff
> > around the emulation is all fine and good, but the actual emulation needs improving
> > too otherwise we'll get to the 'polishing a turd' stage as other overtake us.
>
> A lot of what the DU is dumping these days would be an ideal starter project for new
> emulation devs, but it generally gets claimed and added immediately by you. Perhaps
> new dumps should be put up for grabs for 48 hours or so on the FTP first so the
> less-experienced guys could have a crack? I can see it being time-sensitive in some
> cases where we'd want a veteran to grab it, but a lot of stuff doesn't fit that
> category.

I'm not entirely sure it would help.

The skillsets we need for the things that aren't being done are different, otherwise I'd be doing them. For example, the Fruit Machines really need somebody good with documentation to go through the CPU manuals implementing every last little detail of the SoCs that are on there.

Likewise progress on something like PGM2 requires an improved ARM core before looking for avenues to do trojans, however even with PGM1 stuff that could potentially be trojanned nobody is touching it, or even collecting the data; I've left it hoping somebody would, but it's been what? 2 years now, I should probably collect all the data needed to do an accurate simulation on Puzzle Star even if I don't figure out a way to get the internal rom.

Really old hardware where reading schematics is needed isn't my thing either, but the most recent case where that happened was that Italian 'Fast Invaders game', where ANY was throwing a ton of questions at me I simply didn't know how to answer yet nobody else seemed to help either.

There's also very little cross-over between 3D hardware and the older stuff, which again is why I don't touch it.

There are times when I have left drivers (just put the initial rom loading in and done little more) and they've also just been left, not picked up by anybody, so I've ended up going back to them months (or sometimes years) later to finish them off.

I've noticed that if dumps don't get processed in a timely manner then the dumpers lose interest too, so processing them, and giving them results works out for the best.

There are other dumps I've not checked myself, and ended up coming back to later and thinking 'wtf, who added this so badly' for example that Wonder Boy bootleg I just fixed the loading of in system1.cpp, there was a comment about it having a bigger program than the other sets when infact the gfx roms were being loaded into the program region and the actual program and graphics were 100% identical to the parent set, just split across different sized roms...

Further case in point, there was that 'SMS Super Game' thing, I left it a few weeks before picking it up (it had been suggested maybe it was something for Robbie so I didn't initially look) within that space of the the board got sold and not a single person had pointed out there was an undumped MASK rom on there, now it doesn't look like we're going to get a dump of it, and last time it sold in working condition it sold for a price we really wouldn't want to pay..

Incidentally this is why as much as I'd like to quit and leave this all behind some days, I can't, because the moment I take my foot off the pedal things start getting done badly, or not getting done at all.