Shmupmame 4.2: Lagless Mars Matrix, Strikers 1945, Galaga 88

[zaphod]

Okay.

The issue here is that an "accurate" mame emulation that lags "just as much as real hardware" can often end up lagging more than actual hardware on practice, because a PC emulator setup has many more possible sources of lag.

By removing the lag from the emulation, we even things back up, and make up for the existence of lcd lag, upscaler lag, usb converted lag, etc.

[Shogun]

Sorry if this has been brought up before but I couldn't find much on it. Does anyone else notice some screen tearing in 3.0b in the top left hand corner? It is occuring in horizontal games like R-type 2 and R-type Leo and to a lesser extent Darius Gaiden. I just wanted to know if this is something on my end or if this is just a side effect of keeping things lagless.

[magicaldrop]

Has anyone been able to compile the latest version on a Mac? The directories in the shmupmame source don't seem to match with the mame ones. I'm confused :<

[AWJ]

FWIW, one of the biggest reasons for shmuppers to use MAME 0.99 (and for shmup-focused builds to be based on that version) is going to go away in 0.141u2.

[emphatic]

Has anyone been able to compile the latest version on a Mac? The directories in the shmupmame source don't seem to match with the mame ones. I'm confused :<

It's based on MAME 0.99, so are you using the 0.99 source?

[Drachenherz]

FWIW, one of the biggest reasons for shmuppers to use MAME 0.99 (and for shmup-focused builds to be based on that version) is going to go away in 0.141u2.

Are savestates and hiscores going to work again?

[angrycoder]

Anyone know where we can find the mameplus 99 source that this build is based on? I haven't had any luck tracking it down and I would like to try and figure out what is causing the crash the myself and others have been experiencing.

nimitz, Any chance you could bundle up your source and build scripts and post the full zip? If you want other people to help with the project, it might be a good idea to setup a github or google code project.

[Shogun]

FWIW, one of the biggest reasons for shmuppers to use MAME 0.99 (and for shmup-focused builds to be based on that version) is going to go away in 0.141u2.

Could you expand on this I tried reading around and ended up finding a thread of hating on shmupmame over at the mame forums.

[_Rrru]

First off, I'd like to say how happy I am at how active the development on shmupmame is.

However, with the update to 3.0, I am having trouble loading Ketsui. During the ROM check, it says I am missing b04701w064.u1 even though that file is in the correct directory. Has anyone else had this problem? I would appreciate any guidance, I would like to use the newest version instead of rolling back if at all possible.

[AWJ]

FWIW, one of the biggest reasons for shmuppers to use MAME 0.99 (and for shmup-focused builds to be based on that version) is going to go away in 0.141u2.

Could you expand on this I tried reading around and ended up finding a thread of hating on shmupmame over at the mame forums.

I added full savestate support to cave.c--the driver that runs the Cave games from Donpachi to Guwange, as well as Air Gallet and Hotdog Storm and a bunch of non-shooter games (yay, Sailor Moon!). "Full savestate support" means that autosave/autoload (the modern, developer-endorsed method of saving high scores) works, and ClientServerMAME netplay should work too if anyone cares. It took less than an hour of work, including testing--much less time and effort than backporting drivers and sound cores from modern MAME to 0.99.

I might as well ask this here: are there any other shooters besides the Cave games for which it was possible to save states on 0.99 but not on newer versions? (i.e. the "pending anonymous timers" message) I asked on MAMEWorld for people to list drivers that have the anonymous timer problem, but so far I've only gotten some Sega games (which I've also fixed) and after that a bunch of obscure 1970s and early-1980s titles.

[Shogun]

I might as well ask this here: are there any other shooters besides the Cave games for which it was possible to save states on 0.99 but not on newer versions? (i.e. the "pending anonymous timers" message) I asked on MAMEWorld for people to list drivers that have the anonymous timer problem, but so far I've only gotten some Sega games (which I've also fixed) and after that a bunch of obscure 1970s and early-1980s titles.

Thanks for the explanation. As far as save states I haven't gotten an actual error messages but while playing R-type Leo my save states will randomly crash shmupmame 2.2. They will work for a period of time or until I close the program and when I try to load a save state mame just crashes to the desktop. The only way to get around it is to create new save states. I am only using save states in a few games and I haven't been using anything other than 2.2 of shmupmame so I can't provide much more info than that.

[BPzeBanshee]

First off, I'd like to say how happy I am at how active the development on shmupmame is.

However, with the update to 3.0, I am having trouble loading Ketsui. During the ROM check, it says I am missing b04701w064.u1 even though that file is in the correct directory. Has anyone else had this problem? I would appreciate any guidance, I would like to use the newest version instead of rolling back if at all possible.

The ROM names got changed, and I could've sworn I've already mentioned this at least once on the thread. Must've been dwarfed by all the shitpiling in the previous page(s).

Try and Google up the ROM name listings and then if that fails PM me, I'll check my ROM names since they work in 3.0.

[PsikyoFan]

First off, I'd like to say how happy I am at how active the development on shmupmame is.

However, with the update to 3.0, I am having trouble loading Ketsui. During the ROM check, it says I am missing b04701w064.u1 even though that file is in the correct directory. Has anyone else had this problem? I would appreciate any guidance, I would like to use the newest version instead of rolling back if at all possible.

The ROM names got changed, and I could've sworn I've already mentioned this at least once on the thread. Must've been dwarfed by all the shitpiling in the previous page(s).

Try and Google up the ROM name listings and then if that fails PM me, I'll check my ROM names since they work in 3.0.

MAME loads by CRC32, not by rom name. You can name an incorrect rom with the right name and it will work, but warn. If you have an incorrect file, with an incorrect name then you're SOL.
Basically, the OP probably has one of the earlier bad dumps, and by the sounds of it - so do you too.

[linko9]

I added full savestate support to cave.c--the driver that runs the Cave games from Donpachi to Guwange, as well as Air Gallet and Hotdog Storm and a bunch of non-shooter games (yay, Sailor Moon!). "Full savestate support" means that autosave/autoload (the modern, developer-endorsed method of saving high scores) works, and ClientServerMAME netplay should work too if anyone cares. It took less than an hour of work, including testing--much less time and effort than backporting drivers and sound cores from modern MAME to 0.99.

I might as well ask this here: are there any other shooters besides the Cave games for which it was possible to save states on 0.99 but not on newer versions? (i.e. the "pending anonymous timers" message) I asked on MAMEWorld for people to list drivers that have the anonymous timer problem, but so far I've only gotten some Sega games (which I've also fixed) and after that a bunch of obscure 1970s and early-1980s titles.

Thanks, that's awesome, man. I really hate having to use multiple versions of MAME, so getting rid of the need to use older versions for savestate practice is a godsend.

[BPzeBanshee]

First off, I'd like to say how happy I am at how active the development on shmupmame is.

However, with the update to 3.0, I am having trouble loading Ketsui. During the ROM check, it says I am missing b04701w064.u1 even though that file is in the correct directory. Has anyone else had this problem? I would appreciate any guidance, I would like to use the newest version instead of rolling back if at all possible.

The ROM names got changed, and I could've sworn I've already mentioned this at least once on the thread. Must've been dwarfed by all the shitpiling in the previous page(s).

Try and Google up the ROM name listings and then if that fails PM me, I'll check my ROM names since they work in 3.0.

MAME loads by CRC32, not by rom name. You can name an incorrect rom with the right name and it will work, but warn. If you have an incorrect file, with an incorrect name then you're SOL.
Basically, the OP probably has one of the earlier bad dumps, and by the sounds of it - so do you too.

That's odd, because I got such an error during the pre-official MAME test releases and out the ROMs I had at the time, not all of them worked with the later versions. It went by name at the time, I renamed them and it all worked. :/ Maybe my memory's playing tricks on me.

[TVG]

Actually, looking back, I'm surprised there was so few comments on this:

If you somehow made a game like, say, galaga 88 (very laggy) have absolutely no input lag, unlike the PCB, and you were able to say, do a world record run on it, you think people will view your record as legit? This is hypothetical for now, but say someone magically found a way to remove more than 1 frame of lag, you see nothing wrong with having a huge advantage over people playing on actual hardware with a hacked driver? Then where do the hacks stop? Why stop at input lag, why not change shipspeed, bullet visibility in garegga, etc?

We aren't quite there now so I am talking in hypothetical terms. As I said the current 1 frame of lag removed I don't think it's that huge of an advantage and frankly it does not matter for most of us including me, however when you start getting into world record territory, the question ought to be asked.

I find the concept of submitting marp records done on hacked builds a little disturbing.

[moozooh]

Btw, I find it rather ironic that GareMAME, a hacked Japanese-made build of MAME that former Garegga WR holder KET can be seen playing on at least once a week on Ustream, has flown under the radar for so long. For me, that guy is more of an authority than the entire MARP. MARP records are taken way more seriously than they should be. They're just replays, many of them done with outdated or otherwise problematic MAME builds that are barely better than "hacked" for any given purpose.

[AWJ]

What changes does GareMAME have over the baseline version it's based on, anyway? I can't find a source download on its homepage.

[austere]

I've been trying to get answers on that one for almost a year but the best I've received was "more accurate timing when pulling off secrets". I think you'll agree that is a bit dubious. At this point I'm guessing it's superstition and the fact that there's no source code published (against the MAME license...) anywhere I can find, says a lot.

[TVG]

Btw, I find it rather ironic that GareMAME, a hacked Japanese-made build of MAME that former Garegga WR holder KET can be seen playing on at least once a week on Ustream, has flown under the radar for so long. For me, that guy is more of an authority than the entire MARP. MARP records are taken way more seriously than they should be. They're just replays, many of them done with outdated or otherwise problematic MAME builds that are barely better than "hacked" for any given purpose.

To be honest, MARP is most definitely what it could have been, or what I tought it would become when I used it like...7 years ago or something (god fucking dammit, time flies).

Just yesterday I was curious about tiger heli records and the ones at marp do not seem high at all, for example. Then I went and checked the replays for donpachi, a game notorious for the lack of good avaliable superplays. The high scores and replays posted are still the same as 7 years ago more or less. Same with most other games I checked. Maybe it's better for other games, I don't know. You'd think most games would be counterstopped by now.

But other than arcadia what do we have? Twin galaxies? lol

[moozooh]

Well, it's hard to expect otherwise with a niche genre that has been on decline for like a decade. :(

Then again, online leaderboards and NicoNico have been doing a pretty good job recently; most of the recently made replays find their way there somehow. This is mostly for unemulated stuff, mind you. For emulated, there's a very high chance you're SOL if you don't find it here. If you're just looking for scores, though, Plasmo has an up-to-date list here.

[nimitz]

Removing input lag has nothing to do with ship speed or other game changing hacks. Yes, it does make the game "easier" (more enjoyable) but does not alter the rules of the game in any way.

Galaga 88 is a good example, I don't know how laggy the actual pcb is, but I'm betting it's at the upper limit of "playable", if I could bring down the emulated lag to 3 frames (instead of 5 in vanilla mame) it would probably be at the same level as playing it on pcb, which would be barely playable.

And yes there are ways to do this (reduce even Galaga 88 to 1 frame, without background desync or adverse effects), but it involves a lot of time and effort, something I doubt anyone cares enough to do.

[captpain]

Removing input lag has nothing to do with ship speed or other game changing hacks. Yes, it does make the game "easier" (more enjoyable) but does not alter the rules of the game in any way.

Be prepared for people to argue that it does change the rules of the game, because of the tiny pedantic "philosophical" worries of removing a silly, arbitrary player handicap.

[TVG]

Removing input lag has nothing to do with ship speed or other game changing hacks. Yes, it does make the game "easier" (more enjoyable) but does not alter the rules of the game in any way.

Galaga 88 is a good example, I don't know how laggy the actual pcb is, but I'm betting it's at the upper limit of "playable", if I could bring down the emulated lag to 3 frames (instead of 5 in vanilla mame) it would probably be at the same level as playing it on pcb, which would be barely playable.

And yes there are ways to do this (reduce even Galaga 88 to 1 frame, without background desync or adverse effects), but it involves a lot of time and effort, something I doubt anyone cares enough to do.

I tried to get opinions on the lag on actual hardware however since it would require quite some material (the cab plus the proper recording devices) I don't think we will have a definite opinion soon. Yes I willingly chose galaga 88 as an example.

You are most definitely right, removing that huge lag is an improvement and actually makes the game better, but in the hypothetical situation I posted (which requires quite a few factors we don't have yet, the knowledge of the real pcb lag, more than 1 frame removed, etc) having much less lag than the actual hadware and the people that did the records on that, I do not think the scores can be fairly compared. Again, does not really matter for most people and is important if we're actually getting into huge scores, not mediocre shit like me and 95% of this board does.

So far we have one person claiming mame emulates the lag properly just like on the original hardware, and another, who seems to know new zealand story a lot, claiming mame felt more laggy compared to the PCB.

I'd really like for people to not get defensive as I'm not trying to start a shitstorm. I understand it's a touchy subject as people have put a lot of work into these things, both yourself and the mame devs.

[ebarrett]

Hey, let's wipe out every athletics world record estabilished while wearing shoes, which as we all know have been enhancing performance for decades, and have everyone compete naked in the next Olympics just like the greeks did back then, for legitimacy purposes.

edit: then there's the banned swimswits to put a hole in my attempt at making fun of TVG. oh dear!

[Clessx]

While 2.2 and first 3.0 ran very well with good performance on my pc , 3.0b runs about like %60\70 performance compared to previous versions , and the sound in pgm games skips horribly . Wonder what it can be...anyone experienced similar thing ?

[BPzeBanshee]

While 2.2 and first 3.0 ran very well with good performance on my pc , 3.0b runs about like %60\70 performance compared to previous versions , and the sound in pgm games skips horribly . Wonder what it can be...anyone experienced similar thing ?

Are you using precisely the same settings in 3.0b as 3.0?

I notice that the Cave PGM games have run worse for me from Shmupmame's versions compared to the original unofficial MAME builds that first added support for the games but I'm fairly certain that's the 'emulation improvements' at work there so really its my own hardware fault. If I were you, just to make sure this isn't anything to do with your computer, run some games that you know run at a certain speed (not MAME stuff) and check their FPS display if they have one to see if they're slowing down at all.
There are some settings within MAME versions that can also do stuff to performance as well, so that could also be the culprit.

[gavin19]

There are some settings within MAME versions that can also do stuff to performance as well, so that could also be the culprit.

I think a general guide on which settings can improve/degrade performance would be helpful. There is always the wiki page which covers most, but not all the settings. Like 'RDTSC timing', 'Switch resolutions to fit game', whether to use Direct Draw, Direct3D etc etc. Tweaking these settings could help those having performance issues.

[PsikyoFan]

So far we have one person claiming mame emulates the lag properly just like on the original hardware, and another, who seems to know new zealand story a lot, claiming mame felt more laggy compared to the PCB.

These statements are not contradictory.

[TVG]

Hey, let's wipe out every athletics world record estabilished while wearing shoes, which as we all know have been enhancing performance for decades, and have everyone compete naked in the next Olympics just like the greeks did back then, for legitimacy purposes.

edit: then there's the banned swimswits to put a hole in my attempt at making fun of TVG. oh dear!

Thanks for setting a new standart for bad analogies in this topic. It comes down to: I don't like the idea of emulation making playing on the actual games obsolete. I'm sure a few people share that view. Hell, PRACTICING on the actual games is pretty much obsolete since savestate practice is a thousand times superior method. I'm fine with that, not with the next step.

Anyway, to change the subject a bit:
A few pages ago I asked how to set custom autofire buttons for games like blazing star etc, which have and need a charge shot. Well duh. If you have a SE, TE or other sticks with autofire, just set the fire 1 button to two buttons (ex: "player button 1: joy 1 or joy 4" in mame) and activate the autofire with the "joy 4" button only. You now have acess to the charge shot without shortening the lifetime of your buttons. I'm sure most people tought about it already but since I use my stick for fighting games mostly I tend to forget there's an autofire function at all.