Battle Garegga Emulation Assistance

[Yeppermint]

Hello! First post here since I haven't really been able to find a good answer for this anywhere else.
I've been running shmupmame 5.4 for most non-raizing games since they don't seem to be available there so
instead I've opted to using the previous version of shmupmame (4.2) which seems to be working fine.

I'm fairly new to mame emulation and it's been a bit of a rabbit hole finding up-to-date info on best practices.
So, I was wondering if that was the way to go or if I should be running it on the current regular version of mame instead
with the lag reduction settings and vsync turned on since I've heard that's also a good way to play most shmups.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for any assistance in advance!

[KAI]

Welcome to the forum.

Ahhh, the eternal question, how to play Greg.

IMO you should use the latest MAME build, or Arcade64, and just keep updating it with each new release, so you can have best emulation possible for that and many other hardwares running shmups, and also built-in autofire and low latency.

The problem with the old Shmupmame is that uses a romset for Garegga that has been updated a couple of times since then. Shmupmame 4.2 is based on mame 0.148, and that build was released 13 years ago, some old game dumps and drivers on it are considered almost obsolete at this point.

Or in case you want to play Garegga the best way possible, I would recommend using something like MAME 0.240, that is one of the last versions supporting the gadget overlay that makes the experience a million times better (they changed how the Layout files work on the latest releases and its broken now).




Also, it depends on your monitor, but its always better to turn the vsync off to reduce the input latency.

[Yeppermint]

Welcome to the forum.

Ahhh, the eternal question, how to play Greg.

IMO you should use the latest MAME build, or Arcade64, and just keep updating it with each new release, so you can have best emulation possible for that and many other hardwares running shmups, and also built-in autofire and low latency.

The problem with the old Shmupmame is that uses a romset for Garegga that has been updated a couple of times since then. Shmupmame 4.2 is based on mame 0.148, and that build was released 13 years ago, some old game dumps and drivers on it are considered almost obsolete at this point.

Or in case you want to play Garegga the best way possible, I would recommend using something like MAME 0.240, that is one of the last versions supporting the gadget overlay that makes the experience a million times better (they changed how the Layout files work on the latest releases and its broken now).




Also, it depends on your monitor, but its always better to turn the vsync off to reduce the input latency.

Thanks a bunch for the info and quick reply! In terms of using the current build of shmupmame, are there any advantages to it for other games that its romset has included? Or should I just be running most things on the latest build of regular mame if possible?

[KAI]

Use both if you can, the de-lagged games on shmupmame run like a charm, and in my case, I stopped using the regular mame builds for those games and systems supported by it.

According to the readme file included, this should be the stuff worth playing on it, and the rest is just untouched/vanilla emulation that you can find in modern mainline mame releases.

Spoiler

SHMUPMAME 5.4 (MAME 0.175)

*Shmupmame 5 "exclusives"
• CV1k via single buffering
• Sega STV via single buffering
• Sony ZN via single buffering
• Taito G-net via single buffering
• Gradius IV via single buffering

*New de-lag methods in shmupmame 5
• Cave 68000 via input injection (Dodonpachi, Esprade, Dangun feveron, Mazinger Z, Air gallet, Guwange (buffer delete)))
• Jaleco Mega System 32 via input injection (P47 Aces, Game Tengoku, Gratia)
• Gradius II via sprite buffer delete

*De-lagged drivers ported from shmupmame 4.2 (removed hacks with visual side effects)
• Psikyo 1st gen both injection and sprite buffer delete
• Psikyo 2nd gen via sprite buffer delete
• Namco System 1 both injection and sprite buffer delete
• Some NMK 16 shmups via sprite buffer delete (Thunder Dragon 2, Rapid Hero, Macross 2, Strahl, US AAF Mustang, Black Heart, Acrobat mission, task force harrier)
• Mars matrix via sprite buffer delete
• Cps2 via sprite buffer delete (*not Great Mahou/dimahou and 19XX due to visual artifacts)
• Cps1 via sprite buffer delete (*varth/3wonders/mercs are untouched since it results in visual artifacts)
• Jaleco megasys1 via sprite buffer delete (Plus alpha untouched but responsive)
• Boogie wings via sprite buffer delete (unique hardware/driver)
______________________________________________________________________________________

*Included vanilla responsive drivers (2 frames lag or less)
• PGM
• Konami systems (Parodius series, Gradius I/III, Twinbee series, Salamander series, Thunder cross 1/2, Xexex, Trigon)
• Toaplan systems
• Taito F3
• Taito F2
• Seibu Systems
• Sega System 16A/B
• Neogeo shmups (some)
• Omega Fighters & Cyvern (might need injection)
• Irem System
• Darius 1 & 2
• 1942 & 1943 & 1943 kai
• Some classics
• Sammy Seta Visco hardware
• Nostradamus

*Drivers/games unfortunately not included:
• Most of Raizing's 68000 games (Mahou is included as it is responsive)
• Dragon Saber
• Daioh

[Firehawke]

There is one other option, but doing it legally is incredibly difficult:

Shadps4 supports the M2 version of Battle Garegga and it plays fine. The difficulty comes down to dumping a copy of your legal data; you need to be on the latest PS4 or PS5 firmware to download the content, but then you need a jailbreak to actually get it dumped. That gives you a very short window to extract your purchased material whenever a new exploit is found.

Due to the way PS4 packages work, going pirate wouldn't be much easier; shmups are typically not popular enough for pirates to spread that kind of content so you'd almost always miss out on DLC and updates at the very least, and often the game itself isn't available at all. This means the legal way is your only real option, and as noted above it's infrequently available as an option.