Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

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tomwhite2004
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by tomwhite2004 »

tnc wrote:Hello. I was wondering why you guys aren't playing windowed when vsync is off. It prevents tearing in my case. Am I missing something?
In Windows 10 anything but exclusive full screen has enforced triple buffered vsync applied.
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Shepardus
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Shepardus »

SynthRicardo wrote:Sorry for making an account just for this (been lurking this place for many years since these are my favorite games, but I don't feel welcome at forums; however, after posting this in many places, I still haven't gotten an answer.)

I've been playing Sengoku Blade and noticed some big graphical glitches on one of the first four random stages (the one with lots of clouds). The game in general has them, but they're particularly noticeable there. These glitches are present in the latest MAME 0.198 and 0.197, yet they aren't in the 0.196 build.
Picture of the issue: https://imgur.com/a/ejxuOvQ
Is there a way to fix this without having to use the previous build? I have the custom stuff posted here (thank you for that, I was about to post here for the custom autofire after people not helping me elsewhere stuff but then I found that post) so it'd be a shame to lose those features.
Alternatively, how can I add custom buttons and autofire myself? I'd be grateful if the one that made that for MAME 0.197 did it for 0.196, if it isn't an issue (I don't think it'd be hard to apply that to another MAME version once previously done, but I could be wrong), but if that isn't possible I'd still want that feature. However, I've noticed that your changes mess up the input menu for Neo Geo games a bit; not a big deal, just saying.
I can compile another build for 0.196, but I also included the diff so if you have the setup you can apply the patch on top of the source code and build it yourself. I've noticed the issue with Neo Geo, but never really looked into why it happens. The diff I based mine off of includes some code specific for Neo Geo but as far as I could tell it didn't do anything. I could very well be wrong about that though.
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SynthRicardo
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by SynthRicardo »

Edited.
Last edited by SynthRicardo on Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tnc
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by tnc »

tomwhite2004 wrote:In Windows 10 anything but exclusive full screen has enforced triple buffered vsync applied.
Isn't there any way to disable it?

edit: Or let me guess, if I were to disable it it would tear in windowed too, right?
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Immryr
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Immryr »

mame noob problem. i'm trying to play soukyugurentai on the mame build shepardus made and i'm getting an error saying i'm missing the file epr-19854.ic8 however i can't find a version of the bios which contains that file anywhere. what do?
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Goompaolo9500 »

Immryr wrote:mame noob problem. i'm trying to play soukyugurentai on the mame build shepardus made and i'm getting an error saying i'm missing the file epr-19854.ic8 however i can't find a version of the bios which contains that file anywhere. what do?
Something to do with the SEGA ST-V Bios.
At this rate, I won’t be interested into shmups anymore. I am no longer going to be active in this forum from now on. I am more interested into Kemono Friends, rhythm games, D4DJ, Puzzle Games, Hololive, and Pretty Cure.

Farewell.
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Immryr
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Immryr »

Goompaolo9500 wrote:
Immryr wrote:mame noob problem. i'm trying to play soukyugurentai on the mame build shepardus made and i'm getting an error saying i'm missing the file epr-19854.ic8 however i can't find a version of the bios which contains that file anywhere. what do?
Something to do with the SEGA ST-V Bios.
Yes, I know it's something to do with the stv bios. As I said, the stv bios I have, and every other one I can find online doesn't seem to have the file which it says I'm missing.
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by spmbx »

Just google for epr-19854.ic8 and you’ll get a link to an st-v bios that has it.
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Immryr
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Immryr »

yeah, i tried that and didn't seem to find one. i have since found a stv bios that works though.
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CMoon
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by CMoon »

Like the OP, trying to get back into shmups, and finding most of my old roms don't work. I'm not a mame expert, but mostly just want to get Batsugun up and running (hmmm, maybe better just dusting off my saturn???) but getting a missing file error (tp030_u19_ga116v8b_15.bin). Assumed I was just missing a file, but the more I search, the more it seems like I'm going down a rabbit hole. Help!
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by WelshMegalodon »

arbee37 wrote:People for some reason have a mass mental block about it, but the best way to find ROMs for a MAME version is in fact to Google "MAME 0.whatever ROMs".
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Xyga
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Xyga »

To his credit these days it's not like you can find the latest roms anywhere just carelessly googling and cherry picking like we still could a few years ago. Plus there's those many annoying bios and device files that are vital to almost all games and receiving updates more and more frequently; if you don't keep up in just a few build versions apart you may see hundreds of games getting stuck with the 'missing files' message.
So in a way it's become a 'legitimate' complaint. :mrgreen:
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CMoon
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by CMoon »

Actually both your posts are useful. I was googling the bios name and a few other tricks, but since rom sites often don't list the files, was turning into a huge waste of time. Very frustrating coming back to mame after years and finding so many of my files don't work. Anyway, lucked out with batsugun. Thanks!
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BrianC
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by BrianC »

Even emulating something like Q*Bert in Mame isn't so simple anymore. The voice synthesis is now emulated rather than sampled and it's still a work in progress.
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CMoon
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by CMoon »

OK, so right now it seems like I want to collect different versions of Mame for different games. I'm wondering if anyone has a working link to shmupmame? The original page for it has nothing but dead links, and my googlefu isn't producing anything else. Surprisingly a lot of a shmups seem to work fine in the newer versions of mame with lots of tweaking in the menus.
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Keade
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Keade »

CMoon wrote:OK, so right now it seems like I want to collect different versions of Mame for different games.
You should just pick the latest release, which is the best overall.

Also if you think something is broken that worked before (it's not very frequent, but a real possibility), generally you can get detailed information at MAME Testers https://mametesters.org/main_page.php
Q*Bert is kind of an exception. Samples are a gross hack, so if/when the devs can remove them, they do, even if it means the end result is imperfect - consider it a blessing in disguise.
Hacks are also why Pong got removed completely for some time, to eventually be emulated and re-added (working more accurately than before).
CMoon wrote:(...) Surprisingly a lot of a shmups seem to work fine in the newer versions of mame with lots of tweaking in the menus.
:?:
What tweaking are you talking about ?
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CMoon
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by CMoon »

Keade wrote:
CMoon wrote:(...) Surprisingly a lot of a shmups seem to work fine in the newer versions of mame with lots of tweaking in the menus.
:?:
What tweaking are you talking about ?
Well I immediately found a lot of the games were running at really inconsistent speeds (both too fast and too slow) until I allowed it to auto skip frames, and also there are some graphics sync options that would slow the whole the whole game down. This is on a pretty powerful PC, so wasn't expecting any issues, but it seems like newer versions of mame have a LOT more options (or at least I never messed with the options on the older versions.) Also had to tweak the autofire which I thought wasn't even in the newer versions of mame, but found it buried in a menu anyway.

And now the real crisis...discovering that I am even worse at Shmups than I remember :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Keade
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Keade »

What version of MAME are you running ? (official binaries from https://www.mamedev.org/ ?)

MAME default configuration runs at the proper speed, always, except if you computer can't keep up. In this case you can gain a little performance (not much) by increasing the frameskip. Auto will do that automagically for you. Since you mentionned you have a powerful PC, it means it should be able to run most games that work (especially shmups) at full speed.

Some games will seem slow (like Metal Slug) or too fast (Cave CV1000 games). These are emulation issues that either are normal (Metal Slug slows down on MSV) or unfixable (CV1000), and not related to MAME configuration.

Hope that helps :)
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CMoon
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by CMoon »

Keade wrote:What version of MAME are you running ?
0.197
I know there are newer versions, but now that I have a lot of things up and running I'm afraid to change!
MAME default configuration runs at the proper speed, always, except if you computer can't keep up. In this case you can gain a little performance (not much) by increasing the frameskip. Auto will do that automagically for you. Since you mentionned you have a powerful PC, it means it should be able to run most games that work (especially shmups) at full speed.
I'm sure that it was probably something I had wrong in the settings. At first games like Batsugun would be very choppy and bullets would be WAY TOO FAST (look, I know I'm over the hill now, but c'mon!) Turning on HLSL, GLSL and Bilinear Filtering, while turning off synch refresh and wait vertical sync makes the games run pretty well.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks!
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Keade
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Keade »

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/co ... e-all.html

syncrefresh will ignore the game's intended speed and sync to your monitor refresh rate. If you have got a 120Hz monitor, a typical will run at approximately twice the normal speed.
You generally want it off ;)
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by bcass »

Apologies for the bump, but I'm having some issues with GroovyMAME (0.183). I have it loading games, but it won't respond to any keyboard inputs, not menus, nothing. To get it to work, I had to put the mame.ini file from my standard mame version (latest) into the GroovyMAME folder. Anyone know what might be wrong?
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Firehawke »

I'd check the OSD Input Options section of your MAME.INI file per https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/co ... .html#id17

Here's how I have mine set up on Windows 10, with some brief explanation of why:

Code: Select all

#
# OSD INPUT OPTIONS
#
keyboardprovider          dinput
mouseprovider             auto
lightgunprovider          auto
joystickprovider          winhybrid
If you have a touchscreen and no keyboard looked up, you'll find that the default raw input read mechanisms won't work with the on-screen keyboard. It also doesn't work with other devices that fake being a keyboard (e.g. Stream Deck, which is what I use for MAME controls like reset, menu, etc.), and the best way around that is to change the keyboardprovider to DirectInput.

The same applies for mouse; if you want to use a touchscreen for mouse, you'll need to switch to a different provider. Since I don't have a touchscreen, I've left mine on auto.

I don't have a light gun, so I've left that alone.

Joystick I definitely suggest changing to Winhybrid. The default mode is DirectInput, but most PC-compatible arcade sticks are going to be XInput-compatible and you'll hit problems with LT/RT using them with DI. You could switch entirely to XInput, but WinHybrid is the better choice as it allows both types to be connected at once.

This section of the INI is the part most likely to give you problems with input; if you'd replaced the INI and the problems disappeared, then this is definitely where you should look first.
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bcass
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by bcass »

Thanks, I managed to semi-solve the issue, which was due to me having multiple keyboards attached to my PC. One other issue I am having though is that the "Overclock CPU" setting is not being saved.
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Firehawke »

That's purposeful. Those settings change behaviors that users may forget they've set and send in invalid bug reports as a result. Any settings in the smaller "On-Screen Display" menu are not saved between sessions.
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Groovymame saves CPU overclock settings, actually. But 0183 version is way too old for that (and for many improvements), I believe.
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Re: Getting Back Into Shmups - Mame Version?

Post by bcass »

Firehawke wrote:That's purposeful. Those settings change behaviors that users may forget they've set and send in invalid bug reports as a result. Any settings in the smaller "On-Screen Display" menu are not saved between sessions.
The Blitter Delay setting saves between sessions, per game. It's saved in each game's ini file.
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