MAME/Emulators versions

[7711]

Hello,
has someone made a list of all different arcade emulators (mainly MAME), detailling the working games and specificities of each ?
I know I must have had at least 8 different versions of MAME, some of them worked with Ketsui or DoJ, none with Ibara for exemple.
I think a chart to help clearing this mess would be good, does it exist ?

[IseeThings]

Assuming you're on a decent spec machine..

for 99% of use, just grab the latest UME binaries from my page
http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/2013/06/1 ... -released/
those are based on the latest official code with no further changes. They also include the entire MESS component so you can run some console stuff in the very same emulator as an added bonus. (nes recca etc.)

for Ibara, find the old Slowpoke version of MAME, although I doubt anybody here will provide a link.

Avoid MAMEUI / MAME32 based builds, the interface is falling apart, just find a proper frontend like QMC2 instead.

If you want netplay etc. then MameHub is the current recommended solution
http://www.mamehub.info/

Builds with highscore support hacked in are best avoided (it can cause bugs / malfunctions) Shmupmame is also best avoided IMHO (because I hate the visual artefacts it creates far more than any lag they're hacking out, opinion of others may vary.) You can find lots of builds with various other shady hacks applied, but again I wouldn't bother, many cause more undisclosed trouble than they're worth even if they appear to be better on the surface (things like framerate change hacks for smoother scrolling are a LOT more dangerous than they're ever advertised as because you're messing with the internal game logic)

There are of course going to be some drivers which are regressed at any point in time, although actual long term casualties are quite low.

[KAI]

Slowpoke MAME V2 (CV1000/PGM/etc)
Shmupmame (PGM/etc/Lagless)
Blackoak's MAME is also a good option for lagless play.
That's all you need.

[Mortificator]

There used to be a site called MAWS where drivers and individual games could be looked up and their emulation status tracked. Unfortunately, MAWS was put down after spraining its pinky.

You can check the Whatsnew on mamedev to see what emulation changes have been made to a given core version. Like Isee said, compatibility usually doesn't backslide in the long term, though there are exceptions. (CV1000B, Konami GX I think...)

I'm currently nestled in MAME Plus 145u4 myself.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

If you set up mameui with all the art packs and dat files you essentially have maws on your hard drive only it's faster and you get added bonuses like high res flyers and a folder full of manuals in pdf.

[cools]

I like groovymame. Not so much for the resolution switching stuff but for the scrolling and sound sync bits. It's the only version I've ever had smooth scrolling in TNZS with, even when I've messed with all the sync settings in stock MAME.

[casualcoder]

What's the difference between slowpoke mame and caveui? I know caveui will play roms like ibara and probably all of the other ones found in slowpoke. Are there any lag fixes in slowpoke?

[AntiFritz]

What's the difference between slowpoke mame and caveui? I know caveui will play roms like ibara and probably all of the other ones found in slowpoke. Are there any lag fixes in slowpoke?

It allows you to set the blittler delay. Also other hacks to make the games run faster I think.

[casualcoder]

What's the difference between slowpoke mame and caveui? I know caveui will play roms like ibara and probably all of the other ones found in slowpoke. Are there any lag fixes in slowpoke?

It allows you to set the blittler delay. Also other hacks to make the games run faster I think.

Ah. So, slowpoke does a better job emulating slowdown than caveui? I actually don't care to run the x360 ports because I own them but there are a few I can't play anywhere like ibara, mushi 1, and such. Is switching to slowpoke for these few really worth the hasslehoff?

[Nasirosuchus]

What's the difference between slowpoke mame and caveui? I know caveui will play roms like ibara and probably all of the other ones found in slowpoke. Are there any lag fixes in slowpoke?

It allows you to set the blittler delay. Also other hacks to make the games run faster I think.

Ah. So, slowpoke does a better job emulating slowdown than caveui? I actually don't care to run the x360 ports because I own them but there are a few I can't play anywhere like ibara, mushi 1, and such. Is switching to slowpoke for these few really worth the hasslehoff?

It does a pretty good job of emulating the slowdown.

It's not perfect, but the slowdown in the ports isn't perfect, either.

[oboewan42]

ShmupMAME is nice, but there are a few instances where you might want to have a MAME/UME (or preferably MAMEPlus) .190 binary because of fixes that were made since the last version of ShmupMAME came out.

Two that I can think of off the top of my head: Night Raid is now playable (albeit with no music) and Rapid Hero's music has been fixed.

[Domino]

Two that I can think of off the top of my head: Night Raid is now playable (albeit with no music) and Rapid Hero's music has been fixed.

Now that's big news for me. I hope with Rapid Hero's music being fixed the MAME team can work on fixing the other NMK/UPL games with messed up sound (Gunnail, Strahl, USAAF Mustang, etc).

[Master O]

There used to be a site called MAWS where drivers and individual games could be looked up and their emulation status tracked. Unfortunately, MAWS was put down after spraining its pinky.

There is a replacement, but it is in Italian:

http://www.progettoemma.net/

Once there, click on "Ricerca Rapida" (Quick Search), then under "Titolo Gioco" (Game Name), put the name of the game you're looking for. Once you find the entry for the game you want, under the screenshot for the game, you will see an Italian flag and a British Flag.

Click the British Flag to get the game description page in English.

[IseeThings]

Two that I can think of off the top of my head: Night Raid is now playable (albeit with no music) and Rapid Hero's music has been fixed.

Now that's big news for me. I hope with Rapid Hero's music being fixed the MAME team can work on fixing the other NMK/UPL games with messed up sound (Gunnail, Strahl, USAAF Mustang, etc).

The internal ROM of the sound CPU isn't dumped for the other NMK games. Rapid Hero is special in that it uses the same family of CPU, but for some inexplicable reason has an entirely external program.

It's a miracle they have any sound at all, luckily all the music data is stored in the external data ROM so we don't have to resort to gross sample hacks, but it's still a massive piece of HLE code and wherever you have HLE code you have room for wrong interpretation.

The correct way to improve it will be to find a way to dump the internal rom, either by decapping it (although partly due to a lack of funding that's fallen apart) or finding some way to get it to reveal it's own internal data by playing it back as sound or something.

Also note, Arcadia will be the parent of Rapid Hero in the next version, it was dumped in the last week or so and is the version that actually shows the NMK copyright, rather than the Media Shoji one, so maybe it's time to start calling it Arcadia instead of Rapid Hero as I guess this is the original...

vs

although honestly, the Rapid Hero name has the (tm) symbol, and flashes the name up during the attract sequence, Arcadia does not, but holds the original NMK copyright.. so uh...

[Domino]

NMK info.

Tons of good info here. Where you find info regarding Arcadia?

I'm still hoping the day that the rest of the NMK/UPL titles will be fully emulated with perfect sound and such.

[IseeThings]

the information is just from MAME, the set was added 11 days ago as you can see from the SVN
http://git.redump.net/mame/commit/?id=f ... 5cedefeb68

these changes will officially be in 0.149u1

[7711]

Thanks for the replies, I'm going to purchase a new (quite big) desktop PC so I'll take the time to try all these versions as well as what Muchi Spork said about MAMEui.
Until now I played on a pretty weak pc with no problems but I often hear people talking about needing good config for MAME. When would that rule apply, is it when emulating recent games, or if you use filters ??

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

The only time you need a complicated config is for hlsl to make a new monitor simulate an old one. There's a thread of configs on the hardware board. You are much better off getting a graphics card with S-Video out though and have that go to a crt tv for your mame stuff.

[casualcoder]

I'm playing on my aging 2.1ghz C2D desktop recently "upgraded" 8800gs video card and I'm running all mame games at only a 65% performance hit with hlsl filters added. As far as mame is concerned, I'd be very surprised to have any troubles with any game (mind you I do remember cotton didn't run correctly a while back but those games are rare).

In other words, you will be driving a ferrari in the suburbs with your new rig.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I think I read his message wrong. I thought he was talking about ini/cfg files, not the actual pc hardware configuration.

[7711]

You are much better off getting a graphics card with S-Video out though and have that go to a crt tv for your mame stuff.

I'm not that much into crt's and all that stuff, what I really want is for my games to run at a correct speed, everything else I'll let someone from the hardware board fiddle with
Well I know that with my previous pc emulated games where running fine, but I tought maybe I was missing something (:

In other words, you will be driving a ferrari in the suburbs with your new rig.

Great ! I can't wait to finally try Ibara