MAME shmups improvements/fixes ideas

[nimitz]

Just to avoid confusion, this list is meant to keep a log of what there is to work on, I am not saying any of these will be fixed anytime soon(years).



I'm looking for ideas to improve shmups in mame, anything at all, no matter how big or small it is
Also, those don't need to portray the actual hardware perfectly, it can only improve on the game, be creative.

I'm not saying these will be implemented anytime soon, but it will help me and other devs have a list of things to do and help set priorities.

Code: Select all

things on the list(random order):

-Add Raiden II and Raiden DX to mame
-Fix the taito F3 effects for Rayforce
-Improve the STV emulation (soukyugurentai comes to mind)
-Add bgm (music) support for Taito PSX based hardware (G-Net, FX-1)
-Improve the nmk16 sound driver


things that have now been fixed  one way or another:

-Fix the backgrounds in Cyvern (stage 4 and 5)
-Remove lag from Batrider and Bakraid
-Fix Fire Barrel (playable in shmupmame now, still not prefect)
-Improve the nmk16 video driver (thanks to trap15)
-Add support for Heavy Unit

[Fudoh]

slightly OT, likely not in your power and probably been asked a hundred times before, but what's the problem with the Toaplan sound emulation ?

Other than that complete PGM emulation would be quite nice of course. Demon Front and DDP2 ftw!

[BIL]

Rayforce: did the stage 3 miniboss' laser glitch ever get fixed (its vertical green lasers audibly fire, but nothing happens)? That might be one to look at.

[mjclark]

Only small, but skipping the initial Raiden Fighters update countdown would be great.

[BulletMagnet]

If memory serves Fire Barrel still needs fixing.

[Sandlegs]

i am also one for Toaplan sound. They would be much more enjoyable without silence.

[Zeron]

i am also one for Toaplan sound. They would be much more enjoyable without silence.

I would kill to be able to play Dogyuun and Batsugun with sound.

[Dave_K.]

Save states in Bakraid.

[Dave_K.]

Display a visible rank bar indiciator in all yagawa shmups in mame.

[dieKatze88]

Fix transparency display in Konami GX so Gokujyou Parodius, Sexy Parodius, Twinbee Yahoo and Salamander 2 display properly on all stages.

Fix audio on Konami GX so the full audio range of the hardware is actually forwarded to the sound output device.

[Mortificator]

Display a visible rank bar indiciator in all yagawa shmups in mame.

You can do that in Garegga, at least, with the cheat collection.

[nimitz]

First off, there is an intermediary fix for Toaplan sound that works seamlessly.
It involves getting Thunder MAME 32+ (the 2nd one in that page, don't get UI it's broken)

Then you need to get sound samples for the said games, unfortunately bloodflowers wont have any samples link in the forum here, but I can probably tell you that a recent thread at the MAMEWorld forums has those samples posted.

Rayforce: did the stage 3 miniboss' laser glitch ever get fixed (its vertical green lasers audibly fire, but nothing happens)? That might be one to look at.

I'm pretty sure that's been fixed a while ago, might have to check to be sure.

If memory serves Fire Barrel still needs fixing.

Can you be more specific?

Only small, but skipping the initial Raiden Fighters update countdown would be great.

Once you have the nvram files built, you don't need to do it again. You can even transfer those files to other installations of MAME (even other version)

Save states in Bakraid.

Don't they work in mame 0.99?

Fix transparency display in Konami GX so Gokujyou Parodius, Sexy Parodius, Twinbee Yahoo and Salamander 2 display properly on all stages.

Fix audio on Konami GX so the full audio range of the hardware is actually forwarded to the sound output device.

I'll check the transparency issue, do you know if the bug is on mametesters?

Can you be more specific about the audio range?

[BulletMagnet]

Can you be more specific?

I haven't spent a huge amount of time on it myself, but I know that the graphics were pretty messed up: apparently it's still more or less playable, but glitchy throughout. I forget if there are sound issues as well, but booting up the game for a few minutes should make everything pretty clear on that front.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, I think there are still some issues with the background layers on some stages in Cyvern as well.

[linko9]

First off, there is an intermediary fix for Toaplan sound that works seamlessly.
It involves getting Thunder MAME 32+ (the 2nd one in that page, don't get UI it's broken)

Then you need to get sound samples for the said games, unfortunately bloodflowers wont have any samples link in the forum here, but I can probably tell you that a recent thread at the MAMEWorld forums has those samples posted.

This sounds awesome, would it be permissible to post a link to said thread, or to a google search that would get us to that thread? I've been searching but no luck... I've always wanted to play dogyuun with sound, as I love the soundtrack.

[Fudoh]

Simply go on the Mameworld board and enter "toaplan" in their search engine. One of the most recent hits. Can't miss it.

[MathU]

-Fixing the taito F3 effects for Darius Gaiden

I haven't played Darius Gaiden outside MAME in a long time. What do these look like?

Rayforce: did the stage 3 miniboss' laser glitch ever get fixed (its vertical green lasers audibly fire, but nothing happens)? That might be one to look at.

I'm pretty sure that's been fixed a while ago, might have to check to be sure.

Unless this was in a very recent build of MAME, this still hasn't been fixed, sadly.

[croikle]

Save states in Bakraid.

These have been fixed in some recent-ish version (around 128 IIRC).

[Ed Oscuro]

A little more seriously than last time, nimitz, I know you won't care but some of these hacks you're offering to look into will likely be contrary to the MAME license. That hasn't stopped anybody before (i.e. Kaillera MAME) but just so y'know.

slightly OT, likely not in your power and probably been asked a hundred times before, but what's the problem with the Toaplan sound emulation ?

Though this has been discussed multiple times, strangely enough I'm not finding a 100% comprehensive discussion of it online. However, The Guru put out a propagandistic PSA about decapping that gives the general idea what's going on:

http://www.emuchrist.org/emulmao/2k9/04 ... g_project/

Basically - I don't see any reason why they couldn't hack together working sound for Fire Shark and few people would know the difference (perhaps nobody outside the MAME team). However this would be inventing the inner workings of arcade games, instead of emulating it - which is explicitly contrary to MAME's designed purpose (and they legally are constrained from doing such things anyway). It would be at best a hack; at worst it would be wasted effort that wouldn't give sound anyway.

But anyhow, what has to happen is the data hidden on the MCU of Fire Shark and other protected games has to be revealed for proper emulation in MAME. That will allow the sound CPUs to run properly.

Incidentally, Raiden 2 has had some progress in the first update of the 139 cycle, 139u1:

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raiden2.c: Add missing "VOICE2" sample rom to Raiden 2 sets where it
was missing.  Corrected rom names for MASK roms soldered to the PCB.
[Brian Troha]

[TrevHead (TVR)]

All the things previously mentioned sound great especially Raiden 2, DDP2, Batrider and Bakraid, but imo i would rather see a rom that is almost playable fully fixed to a finished state with all game breaking bugs removed then a totally unplayable rom improved to an almost playable state (eg with no sound, wonky palette or bad lag)

Obvoiusly i realise that many of these roms can take allot of work to get right with small improvements made over time but I would rather play one fully playable rom then have 100 buggy roms

[nimitz]

A little more seriously than last time, nimitz, I know you won't care but some of these hacks you're offering to look into will likely be contrary to the MAME license. That hasn't stopped anybody before (i.e. Kaillera MAME) but just so y'know.

Huh?
http://mamedev.org/legal.html

No problems whatsoever there.

[rolins]

First off, there is an intermediary fix for Toaplan sound that works seamlessly.
It involves getting Thunder MAME 32+ (the 2nd one in that page, don't get UI it's broken)

Then you need to get sound samples for the said games, unfortunately bloodflowers wont have any samples link in the forum here, but I can probably tell you that a recent thread at the MAMEWorld forums has those samples posted.

Thanks for this info. Having played the Dogyuun pcb myself, the samples sounds almost perfect in through ThunderMame32+. Same goes for Batsugun and Fire Shark.

Hey nimitz, is it possible to add support for these Toaplan samples in mamep99 lagless?

[Ed Oscuro]

A little more seriously than last time, nimitz, I know you won't care but some of these hacks you're offering to look into will likely be contrary to the MAME license. That hasn't stopped anybody before (i.e. Kaillera MAME) but just so y'know.

Huh?
http://mamedev.org/legal.html

No problems whatsoever there.

Yeah you can disregard that nonsense; was getting my wired crossed re: MAMEdev priorities as opposed to legalities. Whoops!

[Ixmucane2]

Only small, but skipping the initial Raiden Fighters update countdown would be great.

It will NEVER be hacked for your convenience: MAME is about accurate emulation.

However, MameUI has keyboard commands to run the emulation at full speed and skip frames, which can be used to compress the wait to very few seconds; then automatic state saving ensures that next time you load the game you don't have to wait.

[Ixmucane2]

Incidentally, Raiden 2 has had some progress in the first update of the 139 cycle, 139u1:

Code: Select all

raiden2.c: Add missing "VOICE2" sample rom to Raiden 2 sets where it
was missing.  Corrected rom names for MASK roms soldered to the PCB.
[Brian Troha]

I'm afraid this cleanup doesn't qualify as progress against the game encryption. However, some developer attention is better than nothing.

[emphatic]

If possible, visible hitbox for Progear please.

[mjclark]

Only small, but skipping the initial Raiden Fighters update countdown would be great.

It will NEVER be hacked for your convenience: MAME is about accurate emulation.

However, MameUI has keyboard commands to run the emulation at full speed and skip frames, which can be used to compress the wait to very few seconds; then automatic state saving ensures that next time you load the game you don't have to wait.

Fair enough: I guess accurate emulation requires the update to be present, although frame skipping doesn't seem to speed up the countdown in any way.Outside the brief of MAME project of course, but could the appropriate nvram files be available for download or are they time and system specific?
999,998,997 etc. etc. etc.

[Mortificator]

The nvram files should work across different versions of the emulator. They could be put up for download, but it's only like a six minute wait the first time you start a Raiden Fighters game (and then never again for the rest of your life).

[mjclark]

The nvram files should work across different versions of the emulator. They could be put up for download, but it's only like a six minute wait the first time you start a Raiden Fighters game (and then never again for the rest of your life).

Six minutes can be a long time when there's lasers to bend and medals to collect, but point taken

[Ed Oscuro]

although frame skipping doesn't seem to speed up the countdown in any way.

Disabling the 100% speed limiter (should be F10) will make the update process somewhat faster on a computer that can run that section of the emulation fullspeed. It's noticeable on a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, for instance. (Note that some games really crawl on the BIOS check sequence, especially if it's complicated, but are much less CPU-intensive in the actual game). I've tried playing around with the frame skipping (skipping the maximum number of frames ought to make things even faster, but I'm not 100% clear on how it works - possibly the speed limiter skips all frames as part of what it does).

[Zeron]

Might be a bit off topic but how are TITAN VIDEO SYSTEM and NAOMI game overall on MAME these days?