How good are console ports vs PCB and MAME?

[jepjepjep]

This thread has gotten really lame and off-topic.

Since so many people play the 360 ports, I guess I should just give it a try.

Apparently no one is knowledgeable about native arcade resolutions and how they might affect what I'm trying to do. I assume the 360 ports will scale to 640x480, which is not native for most PCBs. This will cause pixel degradation. But it may look ok if there is no smoothing.

1. None of the 360 ports will look like the PCB when hooked up to your arcade monitor. The 360 can't output 240p content, only interlaced. Your best option is a hi-res monitor (31 kHz). Others have had good results with UVC and medium res (24 kHz). Maybe there's a scaler out there that can produce 240p from 480p?

2. Native resolutions of SH3 are low res, but most of the ports are best optimized for 640x480. Most of the Cave games are redrawn/upscaled the assets to 480p but not all and some have only redrawn the foreground objects (Espgaluda II, Futari?) with low-res backgrounds so you get a mixture. Some are low-res graphics that show up blocky at 480p (Ketsui, MMP/Pink Sweets), DOJ is low-res with a nasty smoothing filter (the worst). I think SDOJ is 480p backgrounds too (the best).

3. Sound for the most part is much better in the ports than any any of the PCBs, substantially better when it comes to SH3 games.

4. Input lag on the ports is not a big deal. SDOJ seems to be the only one that people notice/complain about.

5. Gameplay/slowdown is close enough to not be a concern unless you get to WR level of skill.

Bottom line is the ports are great. Metal Slug Anthology is garbage, not even comparable to any of the Cave ports. PCBs are a luxury and if you have an arcade cab, PCB can't be topped, but they're exponentially more expensive.

[Nasirosuchus]

Never said it made you better. A lot of games are poorly emulated, and so much stuff doesn't exist in emulation. That's your main benefit right there. I dunno, unless you didn't grow up when arcades were around, then I guess ignorance is bliss. I definitely understand cost, but I don't understand why one wouldn't benefit in enjoyment playing the game how it was meant to be played and designed, rather than a "ghetto setup."

To play those games in the way you're suggesting is also the most expensive. Nearly everything of note is playable via ports or emulation. In the case of ports, that's why there were released in the first place.

[drauch]

Never said it made you better. A lot of games are poorly emulated, and so much stuff doesn't exist in emulation. That's your main benefit right there. I dunno, unless you didn't grow up when arcades were around, then I guess ignorance is bliss. I definitely understand cost, but I don't understand why one wouldn't benefit in enjoyment playing the game how it was meant to be played and designed, rather than a "ghetto setup."

To play those games in the way you're suggesting is also the most expensive. Nearly everything of note is playable via ports or emulation. In the case of ports, that's why there were released in the first place.

[Bananamatic]

SH3 MAME has had slowdown since Metallic's build over two years ago. It's not perfect but the emulation in the ports isn't perfect, either. Many of the games are also playable via PS2 emulation although you'd need a somewhat more powerful computer.

That being said, the ports are probably the best way to play the game as they don't cost hundreds of dollars and you don't have to tinker with blitter delay settings.

Did sh3 emulation get rid of the awful input lag?
Also, is the ps2 emu lagless these days? I remember playing Mushi on both pcsx2 and mame and both games were pretty much unplayable with all the input lag.

My 2c now; emulation will beat the console ports. Actually if it's just about the looks it already does since anyone can use a 15KHz emulation setup (soft15khz, groovymame) and have the games displayed to-the-pixel on a crt display.

The DFK/SDOJ ports will be beaten only once they get a BGM swap option in. Which will never happen

[Casey120]

Never said it made you better. A lot of games are poorly emulated, and so much stuff doesn't exist in emulation. That's your main benefit right there. I dunno, unless you didn't grow up when arcades were around, then I guess ignorance is bliss. I definitely understand cost, but I don't understand why one wouldn't benefit in enjoyment playing the game how it was meant to be played and designed, rather than a "ghetto setup."

To play those games in the way you're suggesting is also the most expensive. Nearly everything of note is playable via ports or emulation. In the case of ports, that's why there were released in the first place.

Depends on your intention to keep the game .
If you just want to play buy the PCB, play the hell out of it and sell it for the same price you bought it a year later .
Buy five new games for the PS4 for € 300,- now and get a tenner a piece back next year .

[Nasirosuchus]

Did sh3 emulation get rid of the awful input lag?
Also, is the ps2 emu lagless these days? I remember playing Mushi on both pcsx2 and mame and both games were pretty much unplayable with all the input lag.

I can't speak for everyone but I've been using SH3 MAME from the beginning. I've been able to 1cc both Death Smiles and Mushi Futari and I'm on the cusp of a 1cc of Mushihime-sama. I haven't been inhibited by input lag or a lack of slowdown. When I die, I can honestly say that it's my fault. There's still the issue of having to mess with the bitter settings but it hasn't bothered me. Other experiences may vary, though.

[moh]

Hell, I don't even have to wear pants!

The authentic arcade experience.

[Neorebel]

I can't believe this is a real question. Ports will vary greatly depending on the title and hardware you're playing them on. Having the original PCB in a arcade cabinet or playing it with a supergun and arcade joystick is the best. MAME is good for casual play, trying out a game.

If someone is thinking of making an arcade cab for playing a console or MAME in it, please just get the original hardware instead. You can perfect your skills at that one game.

[E-Type]

I can't believe this is a real question ... If someone is thinking of making an arcade cab for playing a console or MAME in it, please just get the original hardware instead. You can perfect your skills at that one game.

So what happens now... I give you my PayPal and you send me the money for PCBs?

Seriously though, we all would like to do as you suggest. Since some of us are not rich, and it's fun to have many games to choose from, some of us try to find a "compromise" between game integrity and a decent arcade experience. For the record, I own several arcade cabs with real PCBs. Shmups are the only ridiculously priced PCBs for some reason.

I appreciate the few replies that gave me the tech info I was looking for.

[drauch]

No one said it was a cheap hobby, so ya'll can stop complaining about it. Your compromise is this: do you want the full experience, knowing fully well you are playing the game the way it was meant to be played, or do you want to rely on emulation and ports, which may or may not be of dubious quality? It only matters to yourself, really, and I guess whatever scoreboards you are participating in.

[Casey120]

So what happens now... I give you my PayPal and you send me the money for PCBs?

Seriously though, we all would like to do as you suggest. Since some of us are not rich, and it's fun to have many games to choose from, some of us try to find a "compromise" between game integrity and a decent arcade experience. For the record, I own several arcade cabs with real PCBs. Shmups are the only ridiculously priced PCBs for some reason.

Again, that's bullshit especially when you already own cabs .
You buy the game, play it until you had your fill and sell it for the same price and you had that real arcade experience, no need to be rich .


If you want a stash of minty full kits with Black Label, CAVE shop versions and the latest SDOJ for keeps then yeh , you do need a shit load of cash but that's a whole other discussion .

[E-Type]

Jesus. Forums are fun. Well, I got the info I wanted. Eventually.

[Mortificator]

playing the game the way it was meant to be played

Supergun or emulator, no one's playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

[IseeThings]

3. Sound for the most part is much better in the ports than any any of the PCBs, substantially better when it comes to SH3 games.

yep, this point is very important..

the sound on the SH3 boards is so low-grade it's almost not worth owning them for that reason alone (and of course emulation is no better because it's still playing the same horrific quality audio) The ports sound a lot better.

the fact is the ports are running on vastly superior hardware, and can take advantage of that, the SH3 board was a budget board, and you can tell.. regardless of what the purists here will say

[drauch]

playing the game the way it was meant to be played

Supergun or emulator, no one's playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

Fun fact: you can buy an arcade cabinet!

[Mortificator]

And an arcade! No one said it was a cheap hobby.

[drauch]

Maybe you're in the wrong one, then?

[Mortificator]

It's still easier on my bank account than my music hobby; naturally, I only listen the way it was meant to be heard, on actual instruments. I think my local bands are tired of me calling them every time I want to hear "Love Theme from The Bodyguard" (approx. 5 times daily).

[drauch]

Clever. A sound argument.

[jonny5]

Clever. A sound argument.

You are on a roll lately buddy!!

[Chromecha]

About the 360's ports; accuracy in terms of pure gameplay timings and mechanics is what you should care about as a priority.
This article to illustrate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120808053 ... com/?p=800
It doesn't cover all titles but that's all we've got. Or you can read the strategy forum, there's tons of precious information disseminated in it.

This is a really great find. Hopefully we'll see some updates to this list in the future, including the patched NA version of Deathsmiles.

[Xyga]

About the 360's ports; accuracy in terms of pure gameplay timings and mechanics is what you should care about as a priority.
This article to illustrate: https://web.archive.org/web/20120808053 ... com/?p=800
It doesn't cover all titles but that's all we've got. Or you can read the strategy forum, there's tons of precious information disseminated in it.

This is a really great find. Hopefully we'll see some updates to this list in the future, including the patched NA version of Deathsmiles.

Posted by someone in a recent thread, this of course was never updated after cave-stg went down.
Several experienced players here could probably help to complete it, but it's a big job.

[Some-Mist]

as someone relatively new to PCB buying, the decision was a build up over time.

I got back into STGs with Ikaruga on gamecube. super hooked.. worked my way to a 1CC normal mode after months of play and still had the shmup itch. moved on to cave shooters and enjoyed the 360 ports. got myself a few arcade sticks, and really enjoyed the challenge of 1 credit clearing 'em as if I were playing it in a cabinet. a couple years later I snagged the 360 port of Ikaruga... and the tight run that I had on the GC version didn't hold up. that's when I first noticed the differences between ports and their accuracy.

even after that I still didn't want to get into the PCB game because it was way out of my price range. I'd try to play cave games in MAME, but I noticed that the quality was trash and I really didn't get that authentic feel that I get with the 360 ports.Then I went to the Chicago shmups meet last year, and I got to play games that weren't ported. dimahoo hooked me in right away, and I was surprised when I looked up the price. It was the higher 200s instead of 500. I knew the getting a supergun setup would be expensive, but I didn't think some boards would be in that price range. what really helped make the decision is that CAVE Hori's are among my favorite, and I could never enjoy Progear on MAME. I was able to play it at the meet and I spent the majority of my time on that board. I also noticed that dodonpachi felt like a completely different game than the psn classics port.

playing on an actual arcade cabinet with the actual hardware feels unmatched. it's a feeling of authenticity (playing the game the company puts out instead of a ported/emulated version) which goes hand in hand with accuracy. call that elitism if you want, but it's just what I now prefer.

If you use MAME it will be insanely difficult to match the feel of a cave game. depends on if you care about accuracy (proper speed, slow down, etc..), because you can probably tweak it look exactly like the arcade version aesthetically... If it were me and I didn't want to invest in the boards, the incredible cave 360 ports would do the job. I don't think it's worth the effort for a MAME cab unless you're gonna use it to play other games/genres.

[Xyga]

If you use MAME it will be insanely difficult to match the feel of a cave game. depends on if you care about accuracy (proper speed, slow down, etc..), because you can probably tweak it look exactly like the arcade version aesthetically...

'Insanely difficult' is greatly exaggerated, you can get results extremely close to the real thing to the point it is very difficult to see any difference, at least with the previous generations of Cave hardwares and CPS2.
What's difficult is when you want to have perfectly matching refresh rates without using v-sync or buffering, this requires avanced knowledge on how to set up Mame with particular OS and hardware requirements.

Otherwise even with a standard windows and something like soft15khz or groovymame+crt_emudriver you get the same picture at the same resolution, same sound, same in-game speed etc + 1 or 2 frames of input lag depending on the game's drivers and builds you're using.

Many people seem to understimate Mame and emulation in general, but there are several very accurate emulators around, one just needs to know how to use those to their best. One problem is that non-standard use features are poorly documented, or just accessible via an .ini file or such.
Mame is far from being the most difficult to set up properly, preparing a 15khz setup demands a bit of work but it's not like one needs to have engineer skills to do it. Building a VGA->SCART cable is a a bit of a hassle if you don't like soldering, but it's not hell.

What I know for sure for having experienced this many times, is that most users don't know much about setting up Mame, and neither actually did try 15khz emulation nor compare directly to actual pcbs.
People who really did all agree it's f* impressive and they could hardly notice any differences.

I understand that some may have difficulties accepting this reality, once at a shmupmeet we were doing a side-by-side comparison with two NACs... I've seen grumpy faces and negative reactions from owners of expensive pcbs.

[Some-Mist]

If you use MAME it will be insanely difficult to match the feel of a cave game. depends on if you care about accuracy (proper speed, slow down, etc..), because you can probably tweak it look exactly like the arcade version aesthetically...

'Insanely difficult' is greatly exaggerated, you can get results extremely close to the real thing to the point it is very difficult to see any difference, at least with the previous generations of Cave hardwares and CPS2.
What's difficult is when you want to have perfectly matching refresh rates without using v-sync or buffering, this requires avanced knowledge on how to set up Mame with particular OS and hardware requirements.

Otherwise even with a standard windows and something like soft15khz or groovymame+crt_emudriver you get the same picture at the same resolution, same sound, same in-game speed etc + 1 or 2 frames of input lag depending on the game's drivers and builds you're using.

I guess it's greatly exaggerated depending on who you are. I couldn't imagine trying to configure some titles like ibara, daioujou, futari etc.. I would honestly rather take the console port than even deal with it.

even with the older titles like with ESP Ra.De., I wouldn't even know where to start in terms to trying to match your MAME config to the PCB - especially when you don't have the actual arcade hardware to even compare with. This might be a question that deserves it's own thread, but how do you compare to ensure it's arcade perfect without the arcade board? Trying to configure the speed alone was a nightmare for me, but it could be mostly inexperience.

[Crafty+Mech]

There are a lot of affordable pcbs if you look beyond the Cave titles, especially with the older shooters. That said I like the Cave games, and enjoy the 360 ports. I also don't mind Mame for really hard to get (or super $) stuff that was never ported. The best of all three worlds offers up a lot of Shmup variety, my dream setup would be two Candy cabs with a 15k & 31k monitor side by side. PCBs in one cab, Mame/360 in the other. Shmuper bliss!

[Chromecha]

as someone relatively new to PCB buying, the decision was a build up over time.

I got back into STGs with Ikaruga on gamecube. super hooked.. worked my way to a 1CC normal mode after months of play and still had the shmup itch. moved on to cave shooters and enjoyed the 360 ports. got myself a few arcade sticks, and really enjoyed the challenge of 1 credit clearing 'em as if I were playing it in a cabinet. a couple years later I snagged the 360 port of Ikaruga... and the tight run that I had on the GC version didn't hold up. that's when I first noticed the differences between ports and their accuracy.

The deal with Ikaruga on 360 is Treasure's decision to change up the bullet patterns, for some reason. Had the normal arcade patterns been used, this would have been almost on par with the arcade version, save for the removal of the intro with Shinra walking to the Ikaruga. Oh well, at least the GameCube and Dreamcast ports are arcade accurate, especially the latter, given Ikaruga is a Sega Naomi game.

Does anyone know if they changed any bullet patterns in the 360 port of Radiant Silvergun?

[Xyga]

@Some-Mist:
As I mentioned Mame is no good for the CV1000 hardware yet so I don't include those.

But for almost each and every other arcade hardware that's properly emulated by Mame - including all pre-CV1000 Cave games - it's quite easy, there's nothing much to do as long as you just enable either a method of v-sync (not through the settings though, there's a trick) or buffering, no hardware stretching, and no filtering.
With these settings Mame sends out the original resolution and the game's speed is correct as well, slowdowns are identical too.
ESP Ra.De. was precisely one of the games we've compared with the actual pcb.

Comparison is simple just with the eyes already anyone can compare, same display resolution to-the-pixel, you can take a magnifier if you wish, it will be hard to tell which is the 'fake'.
Regarding the overall speed/pace it's easy, just launch the emulator side and pause it, then launch the pcb and undo the pause at the right moment to begin a run or simply watch the attract mode cycle.
If after several minutes the two side are still sychnonized then it's okay. This works great, although after a while the two may not be 100% synced anymore, a little percentage of error may happen, but nothing that could affect any human or change the difficulty of the game even after a 30 or 40 minutes run.

The only thing that some people may notice again is the input lag, but on DDP, which we tested too and has only about 1 frame of lag on Mame because of the sync/buffer, that's unnoticeable.
It was different with Garegga, where at least three people could notice was more important on the emulator side.

My point is that whith the confirmed 'working'/no issues Mame drivers/hardwares, the results are very faithful to the original and that can be verified by anyone who's ready to go through the trouble of installing 15khz setup.
People who only have experienced Mame with wrong settings and only on their computer screen can't tell what this multi-emulator is capable of.
It's definitely not perfect, but that's no shitty unaccurate emulation, anyone who's been following development for many years know mamedev's 'policy' (hate it or love it).

[Some-Mist]

so then it's merely following the list titles that run well in MAME while limiting yourself from the titles that don't. that's partly why I bought the Ibara PCB. I really enjoy yagawa and his bat trilogy, and I felt limited to playing the PCB if I really wanted to play the version other players were clearing/competing in. Also - please note that I didn't say configuring the game in MAME is impossible. I know it's definitely possible but in my personal experience it's still pretty difficult. Hell, the only way you were able to compare the MAME version of ESP Ra.De. was by using an arcade board. Surely if the TCs intentions are to configure an arcade accurate port using MAME without PCBs.

If you have a method/configuration guide of setting these games up, it might be worth posting or suggesting the guide to the TC. I'm not sure anyone here has provided him with any sources of information like that, and I wouldn't mind seeing it too (especially for when I want to try out games before buying). I will be right out in the open when I say that I'm very inexperienced with MAME. I know what it's possible of, but I'm basing my claims off of personal experience.

It's definitely not perfect, but that's no shitty unaccurate emulation, anyone who's been following development for many years know mamedev's 'policy' (hate it or love it).

and well... I guess that's what it comes down to and what I meant by the "authentic" feel and playing what the company put out compared to what you or another company has configured (port/mame).

[Xyga]

so then it's merely following the list titles that run well in MAME while limiting yourself from the titles that don't. that's partly why I bought the Ibara PCB.

That's it exactly. Basically for Cave games emaulation to its current status is okay up to ESPgaluda.
A game like DDP is emulated something like 99% identical to real hardware, when the PGM titles are probably around 90% but mostly due to sound issues and not speed/timings.
After that you're indeed better off playing the ports or pcbs.

I don't know if a configuration guide would be useful but to begin would it be a configuration guide for a basic pc use or 15khz use ?
There are basic settings in Mame that work for any emulated hardware (no need to try per-game settings) I have described those briefly but of course I could develop if you wish.

There's no need to own pcbs to compare and configure Mame properly, believe it or not Mame is accurate - at least the confirmed drivers are - because they were developed to be so, that is everything Mame is about: accuracy of hardware emulation.

However, accurately emulating hardware doesn't mean accurate rendering, and that's the biggest criticism you'll read about Mame.
The reason is it's limited by pc hardware and OS (fixed refresh rate and resolution) which is why most people tend to believe Mame's emulation is crap, not to add (again sorry) most don't know how to use proper default settings because those are badly documented, or at least not in the most user-friendly manner.

This, is the whole reason why assistive softwares, builds, custom cables and peripherals, as well as entire forums are dedicated to mamecabs and 15khz emulation.
Sometimes I think Mame shouldn't have been developed as a simple pc software - which it is not well suited to be in its current state - but as an OS.