Best vertical shmups that run well on Raspberry Pi?

[Xyga]

@bananablockhead: no the problem is you.

@BrianC: if you're making a CRT setup yes, but you can use it on any Windows PC /w a flat panel, although of course the benefits in this case are only in the lag department.

[Bananamatic]

I find it weird how people don't feel any lag in the ports and then they go and claim groovymame is much better when the difference isn't even noticeable
my favourite was EOJ claiming the sdoj port is perfectly fine and then refusing to play in mame because of the nonexistent lag

arcade fanboy bias, nothing more
shmupmame is perfectly fine

[Xyga]

you're actually getting worse

[BareKnuckleRoo]

hey, when I can still use the same commands to delete files, enter a directory, make a directory, find a file, run a file, as I did back in 1988 when I first used DOS, it's still DOS to me

except it's not DOS though (even if it still uses the same syntax for basic commands) and it certainly isn't an emulator

initial testing via command line and of course manually editing all the config files a couple hundred times

jesus no wonder you hate MAME, why are you torturing yourself like this doing everything via command line and making manual edits when you could just use a much quicker graphical interface, hurry the hell up and get a copy of something like MAMEPlus already

or I think if you want the absolute latest version of MAME you can get the same interface with MAMEUI? dunno, I like the autofire options in MAMEPlus though

also ShmupMAME is great too and uses the same GUI as MAMEPlus, nice and easy to work with, not quite as cutting edge but for shmups it's optimized for it's great and easy to setup

the problem is it sounds like you're just using an obtuse as hell version

[WelshMegalodon]

No offense, but you're asking why I'm using a Fightstick with real arcade hardware, while you mention you're using a "cheap-ass Logitech F310" (which isn't anything close to real arcade hardware), all the while saying how horrible MAME is when played on the RP3 because it isn't an "accurate" enough of an experience... do you see the contradiction there or is it just me?

I guess what I meant by that was "why are you spending money on an arcade stick and not decent hardware?". Or possibly "why did you spend money on an arcade stick when a good player won't be much worse on a pad, while an old version of MAME will give you broken sound effects in Metal Slug no matter what?"

And assuming you already have a decent PC, the latest MAME costs nothing. A good Hori or Qanba stick, on the other hand, can set you back upwards of $120, with a Hori VLX being closer to $300. I don't do enough gaming these days to justify buying an arcade stick when I can already play most games with a pad (though I am considering buying a flight stick for the handful of games requiring analog control).

Everything is verified with Clrmamepro as a 100% complete set, and with everything in the correct directory so it can be found (especially if it has a CHD or whatnot), should mean I have everything required (if a game is said to run - which in my case, as I mentioned above, many are sadly listed as non-working or whatnot so there's no help there sadly).

You better not be one of those people downloading gigabytes of games they'll never have the slightest interest in playing, because that's a complete waste of time. Unless you're really into Dancing Eyes and Doki Doki Idol Star Seeker.

(oh, and P.S. I tried to google what 'Progetto EMMA' was...and get sent to their website, which is in Italian, with a broken "English" language button...again, something made just a little bit more difficult in my search to get MAME running correctly!

That's all on you. All you really need out of Progetto EMMA is the search function on the left, and the English language button works just fine for me in the latest Chrome and Firefox.

BUT, if you want to drop some more cash on a proper Windows PC (or take the risk on a ~10 year old used Windows computer for the same money as the RP3), and possibly have to do a LOT more setup, more troubleshooting, more reading and learning and trial and error, they you CAN get better emulation performance off a system like that (which is why I moved from a RP3 to a Windows PC myself...it's just a shame I still can't get the PC running like I want it to...still going to try...just be forewarned).

Tell me exactly what games you couldn't get running on your MAME PC and there's a 90% chance I can either get it running for you or give you a detailed explanation of why I can't.

Just to get a 4-player setup running with common USB controllers (which may get unplugged from time to time), through the built-in UI like you said and you're in for a world of hurt and scouring the web and watching YouTube videos trying to figure things out, like why your controller maybe won't work after you unplug it and plug it in again. Just to program one single controller is a bitch - there's literally something like 200 different buttons arcade games use on this big huge list (thankfully you'll hopefully just be dealing with simple ones at first like: up down left right start add coin exit and buttons #1-6 or 1-8)....then you'll wonder why after you just programmed the controller that up/down enter/exit doesn't work on your USB controller when you're in the mame UI/front-end anymore....oh, that's because you have to program those buttons a second time, through a second totally separate menu so your controller is able to control the actual navigation system in mame as well (as in when you're not even playing a game)....

Usually I just modify the per-game input and remember to plug in my controller before I start MAME. At worst I'm only required to set directions and 3-4 buttons for each player, or directions and six buttons for Capcom fighters. If you're going to be playing a game often enough it's no big deal configuring even 4-player controls for it once. And yes, MAME doesn't support hotplugging. It's never bothered me, but if it bothers you, I'll give you that one.

had to do all my initial testing via command line and of course manually editing all the config files a couple hundred times

The only time I've used the command line for MAME is to generate the config file (which I really only messed with once to configure HLSL) and run the occasional ROM that will load up via command line but not the GUI. So I can't speak for your use case.

[OmegaFlareX]

A couple of folks are recommending GroovyMAME but afaik it is meant for CRTs, is fairly complex to setup, and requires/highly recommends an ATI video card.

Do you know why this is? Nvidia's drivers have been spotty in quality the past couple years or so, but comparable models between brands perform similarly enough that preferring one over the other is usually just fanboyism. Full disclaimer - I'm an Nvidia fanboy.

People recommending MamePlus... I thought that fork was discontinued years ago? Version 0.168 or something around there was the latest one. I've been using Arcade64 since UIFX died and it's pretty decent. Shit autofire options, though (which are now standard in MAME over the excellent MPlus or Shmupmame ones because...?)

OP I have an old full-ATX PC built in 2009 I no longer use and want to get rid of. It handled everything in MAME fine except CV1K (although I hear that performance has since improved) and some STV stuff (but not all, Souky/Shienryu ran fine). Model2/3, SH4 stuff was a no-go, Zn hardware was ok. If you're in the mid-Atlantic east coast US and are willing to drive to central VA to pick it up, you can have it (not shipping it, weighs a ton). e: you're in LA, nevermind.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, sadly MAMEPlus hasn't seen an update since 0.168 - it's still generally my go-to for emulation when not using ShmupMAME just cause I like the custom button options and autofire settings. The main MAME build as far as I know has autofire tucked away under "cheats" and the setup for it is clunky and not good...? but maybe I missed them last time I ran the official build of MAME, if they're now incorporated into the main build, then great, just pop a GUI on there and away you go.

Do you know why [GroovyMAME requires an ATI card]?

Don't quote me on this, but GroovyMAME is designed to vsync and handle wacky and unusual refresh rates that were used in arcade games and I think their implementation requires ATI cards because ATI must allow tinkering/control over the display better than NVidia cards for this sort of thing.

[OmegaFlareX]

The main MAME build as far as I know has autofire tucked away under "cheats" and the setup for it is clunky and not good...? but maybe I missed them last time I ran the official build of MAME, if they're now incorporated into the main build, then great, just pop a GUI on there and away you go.

They are built-in now with a tab-menu section under cheats, yes. Problem is they used MAMEUIFX's code which was rather basic (and reports the highest rate incorrectly as the game's refresh rate, 60hz autofire lol). No custom buttons or anything.

[Shepardus]

I use a custom build where I ported MAMEPlus's autofire and custom buttons options to stock MAME. I've been meaning to clean it up and add extra customization for the autofire rates (like different autofire rates per button), which of course I never got around to doing, but I could distribute the patch and/or binary builds if there's interest.

[Dochartaigh]

I guess what I meant by that was "why are you spending money on an arcade stick and not decent hardware?". Or possibly "why did you spend money on an arcade stick when a good player won't be much worse on a pad, while an old version of MAME will give you broken sound effects in Metal Slug no matter what?"

And assuming you already have a decent PC, the latest MAME costs nothing. A good Hori or Qanba stick, on the other hand, can set you back upwards of $120, with a Hori VLX being closer to $300. I don't do enough gaming these days to justify buying an arcade stick when I can already play most games with a pad (though I am considering buying a flight stick for the handful of games requiring analog control).

Craigslist and eBay my friend. There's a dozen used (of the type which uses real arcade hardware) up right now on eBay for around $60 including shipping. Got the majority of mine off CL for ~$40/each (maybe $50). Amazon has the cheaper (all new) Mayflash for $35 (nicer model is $60), Mad Catz Alpha or SF V model for under $50. Qanba people seem to like is $62.

Tell me exactly what games you couldn't get running on your MAME PC and there's a 90% chance I can either get it running for you or give you a detailed explanation of why I can't.

..............................

Usually I just modify the per-game input and remember to plug in my controller before I start MAME. At worst I'm only required to set directions and 3-4 buttons for each player, or directions and six buttons for Capcom fighters. If you're going to be playing a game often enough it's no big deal configuring even 4-player controls for it once. And yes, MAME doesn't support hotplugging. It's never bothered me, but if it bothers you, I'll give you that one.

It's honestly not the games - when the MAME team marks them as non-working nothing can be done. My biggest problem (after getting CRT Emudriver/GroovyMAME initially configured) is the controller problem. My last hope is mapdevice if I can get it working. Having to remap frequently just throws the fun of game night off every time something doesn't work. I also simply can't live without hot swapping. I use these fightsticks on my 3x RP3 setups (both CRT and HDMI versions), use two of them on my Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS2. Even occasionally use them on my Xbox 360 or PS3/4. -- not to mention how my endgame is to be able to emulate all systems on my PC with their real controllers (which I already have USB adapters for NES, SNES, Genesis, and PS1/PS2 so far).

[cave hermit]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I actually happen to be working on a barcade MAME build myself, and I'd like some CPU recommendations:

Got a mame 0.161 romset and Attract Mode configured nicely with video snaps and all (I have it configured to resemble the menus on one of those Pandora's Box JAMMA multicades), I just need to get my hands on a spare PC with enough CPU power to run CV1K fine (or at least enough to run everything else in 0.161 fine).

Would I be wrong to assume that a Core i5 made in the last few years would be enough?

[Shepardus]

Would I be wrong to assume that a Core i5 made in the last few years would be enough?

Depends on the clock speed of the CPU.

shmupmame is perfectly fine

Just use stock MAME so you can use input lag as a scapegoat for your mistakes.

[donluca]

Doesn't groovymame need a certain type of monitor and graphics card to work correctly?

It does, it is aimed at CRT users and needs an ATI/AMD card to work properly. Some are better than others due to low clock pixel restraints.
I think bananamatic just fired it up on his windows machine on an LCD monitor and noticed no differences from shmupmame, which is correct since he's not taking advantage of any of the improvements in GroovyMAME. I think he didn't even bother to turn on framedelay to lower the lag.

[Xyga]

Again just D3D9ex is making it more effective than ShmupMAME, but that's about 1 frame apart, most people wouldn't notice, but in a long chain where lag piles up (game driver + type of video sync + display) it matters quite a bit.
VS. a regular build though the difference might be obvious to much more people since it's about 2 frames.
Then fine-adjusting frame_delay manually as I've explained is also doable with LCDs though with much less amplitude and benefit less than on a CRT setup of course.

EDIT: and again for use on a LCD you don't need an AMD card with crt_emudriver. Just a windows machine and a card that supports D3D.

[cools]

If you're talking about MAME on a Windows PC, if you know the special command line to run a certain rom a certain way, you can go into Window's MS-DOS emulator (type "CMD" in the Start > Run window) then type "cd mame" and enter to enter the mame directory you setup, then type that code out to run the mame64 executable which then launches the game you specified with any specific options you entered and can get MAME up and running without too much trouble... (and yes, I'm making this sound a bit more difficult because it's not easy to many people who grew up with iPhones and never touched DOS and maybe never even programmed anything in their lives). Oh, and I forgot, you can't even do the above without knowing to run the "mame64 -cc" command to setup the initial config files beforehand. Oh, also forgot you have to manually edit (in a text editor) those config files to choose if you're going to run direct draw or direct 3d or whatever, along with whatever else you need to do to make it work correctly.

Just to get a 4-player setup running with common USB controllers (which may get unplugged from time to time), through the built-in UI like you said and you're in for a world of hurt and scouring the web and watching YouTube videos trying to figure things out, like why your controller maybe won't work after you unplug it and plug it in again. Just to program one single controller is a bitch - there's literally something like 200 different buttons arcade games use on this big huge list (thankfully you'll hopefully just be dealing with simple ones at first like: up down left right start add coin exit and buttons #1-6 or 1-8)....then you'll wonder why after you just programmed the controller that up/down enter/exit doesn't work on your USB controller when you're in the mame UI/front-end anymore....oh, that's because you have to program those buttons a second time, through a second totally separate menu so your controller is able to control the actual navigation system in mame as well (as in when you're not even playing a game).... You'll have to excuse me if I just totally screwed up some of the above specifics as it's been at least 4 months since I did this the last time (and that was the first time), but all my memory tells me is it's not as easy as it sounds (especially when I wanted to run things on a CRT and not a LCD/flatscreen...just the "initial" installation directions for GroovyMAME on Calamity's forum is 18 pages/6,524 words long! That's not even talking about the other completely separate tutorial i have to do first to setup the CRT Emudriver/video-card drivers you need in order to use GroovyMAME on a 15khz monitor in the first place...).

Sorry, yes I don't use MAME on a Raspberry Pi - the Pi is solely for general 8/16-bit console emulation using whatever is on there already.

Modern MAME requires no commandline control at all just to get emulation working. Admittedly the separation of UI controls vs in-game controls is a touch obtuse (though it does make 100% sense, and it's also how 99% of other emulators work - RetroPie simply hides it all).

The way control configurations are lost if a device isn't present on launch I agree is irritating. There's a trick to avoid it (set up controls, exit mame, make default.cfg read-only), and I'm sure there's a "proper" way to do it although with any of the USB controllers I've got the button configuration by default is close to usable except coin + start.

My biggest problem (after getting CRT Emudriver/GroovyMAME initially configured) is the controller problem. My last hope is mapdevice if I can get it working. Having to remap frequently just throws the fun of game night off every time something doesn't work. I also simply can't live without hot swapping. I use these fightsticks on my 3x RP3 setups (both CRT and HDMI versions), use two of them on my Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS2. Even occasionally use them on my Xbox 360 or PS3/4. -- not to mention how my endgame is to be able to emulate all systems on my PC with their real controllers (which I already have USB adapters for NES, SNES, Genesis, and PS1/PS2 so far).

Aha. I *think* what you are aiming for is achievable but it's way beyond what most people tend to do with MAME, and it's not an area I've experimented with.

I know there is something you can buy that has many varied original controller ports > USB but the name escapes me. It's designed specifically to assist with this kind of scenario.

Persevere with it. I've been using MAME for about 20 years, and have easily beaten my head against it's configurations for literally weeks, maybe months of time total over that timespan doing different things. The end result nowadays (using CRT_Emudriver/GroovyMAME) is all but indistinguishable from the real thing (depending on the quality of the game driver).

[cools]

I just need to get my hands on a spare PC with enough CPU power to run CV1K fine (or at least enough to run everything else in 0.161 fine).

CV1K runs terribly in 161, it had some big speed bumps in a recent release (192 I think) and it's now decent on pre-Core CPUs. Get the fastest i5 you can afford and you'll be fine.

[Calamity]

@Dochartaigh, I'm sorry you had such a bad time setting up MAME/GroovyMAME, I feel your pain, no worries. I think you were the guy complaining about command line use in our forum. Well, yes, it has to be like that. The download package for recent versions already contains all config files so it's now a bit easier for new users. Criticism about bad or terrible documentation is understandable. Complaints about having to edit a text file are not, sorry.

I remember how confusing everything seemed to me when I started with the hobby back in 2007. You can't simply get your head around everything in a couple of weeks: roms, frontends, connectors, kHzs, etc.

The problem nowadays is that people jump into GM without knowing a crap about things. GM is for advanced users that are willing to experiment, it's not for everyone. When we first launched GM, the general comment was "wow! this just works!" "magic!", etc., because users back then were experienced with previous existing methods and more or less knew how to work around problems and how much easier GM made things.

If the Pi provides a shortcut for people that won't bother learning or simply don't feel it's worth the extra effort of building a dedicated PC, it's perfectly fine. But please understand that even if you have methods now to output native resolutions with the Pi, that is *not* essentially the way GM does it. The Pi video hardware is infinitely more restricted as compared to a PC video card that can output virtually any pixelclock you ask for. GM outputs custom video timings calculated on the fly. You can get somewhat decent results by using a limited modeline library as the Pi presumably does but that's going a decade back in the state of the art.

And that's just about the video issue. Regarding cpu power, etc., other folks already explained the concerning limitations.

[Xyga]

Thing is, even without getting into the original purpose of GM+Emudriver (15khz) there's benefit in using GM on your average Windows PC and very little to learn for that, only a few settings to edit.

Yet since GM has been around I've come across what's easily a majority of people who aren't aware of that fact and keep believing ShmupMAME is THE low lag build, it is much more popular than GM (and no need to mention RA)

I love your build, what you and the contributors have done (and keep doing! frame_slice sounds exciting) is basically the best MAME build period. It's not just an obscure, esoteric build reserved for really savvy users, it's really too bad the basic yet very beneficial aspect of GM is hidden behind all that.

[Calamity]

Thanks Xyga,

Well, ideally those general purpose enhancements should be in baseline, and eventually will be if I ever have the time and skills to do it in a proper way.

In the meantime, someone might replace the whole Emudriver thing with something better, that'd be a good thing for all us. What's sad is that it might probably be replaced with something worse, that's my concern.

[Dochartaigh]

@Dochartaigh, I'm sorry you had such a bad time setting up MAME/GroovyMAME, I feel your pain, no worries. I think you were the guy complaining about command line use in our forum. Well, yes, it has to be like that. The download package for recent versions already contains all config files so it's now a bit easier for new users. Criticism about bad or terrible documentation is understandable. Complaints about having to edit a text file are not, sorry.

Hi Calamity, that would be an excellent memory you have there since I haven't been on your forum in 6 months (since I took my little hiatus in regards to MAME and I just went through my 33 posts there quickly to double check, but no, unless I missed something it wasn't me who was complaining about having to use the command line (been using that on Windows and Linux and other systems for decades now...it's just I normally know which commands to use, and with me being so new to MAME and still learning everything, that can certainly and understandably be frustrating -- but none of that is your fault in the least, I think that's just how MAME works straight from the mamedev team!).

The majority of my post on your forum were about how to get a LCD/1080p monitor to work in conjunction with a 15khz CRT monitor (using CRT Emudriver) if you remember. That actually worked out very well in the end I'm proud to say (very tough journey to figure it out, and I honestly couldn't recreate the steps I did again without some more trial and error, but in the end I got it working and that made me very happy!). I did post a bunch of screenshots to get some help with the errors I was getting when I was initially installing CRT Emudriver – which I finally got to work all those months ago (thanks for your help there).


Anyway, while you're moonlighting on this forum there was one thing myself and a couple other users (one being Philexile who's on this forum as well) asked about on your forum in the "Monitor presets" topic: can CRT Emudriver and GroovyMAME work on the popular Sony BVM and PVM multiformat monitors? Those do 15.7/31/33/47kHz I believe. Seems like Phil and myself (and all the other multiformat monitor users) can't use any modes except 15khz which is a shame considering these monitors can do so much more (and I can only speak for myself here, but I only have extremely basic knowledge of what modelines are, so to write my own code/settings for those higher resolutions may very well brick my monitor – so any help with this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

Aha. I *think* what you are aiming for is achievable but it's way beyond what most people tend to do with MAME, and it's not an area I've experimented with.

I know there is something you can buy that has many varied original controller ports > USB but the name escapes me. It's designed specifically to assist with this kind of scenario.

Persevere with it. I've been using MAME for about 20 years, and have easily beaten my head against it's configurations for literally weeks, maybe months of time total over that timespan doing different things. The end result nowadays (using CRT_Emudriver/GroovyMAME) is all but indistinguishable from the real thing (depending on the quality of the game driver).

That's a great tip about making the config read only! I will definitely try that once I get everything up and running how I want it – thanks.

I think another person mentioned that if you make sure to plug them in before you start MAME (I assume the same exact controller in the same exact USB port?) that might help too so I'll try that as well and see if it does the trick - I have no problem labeling my fightsticks and USB ports so the same ones are used every time.

[Xyga]

Thanks Xyga,

Well, ideally those general purpose enhancements should be in baseline, and eventually will be if I ever have the time and skills to do it in a proper way.

In the meantime, someone might replace the whole Emudriver thing with something better, that'd be a good thing for all us. What's sad is that it might probably be replaced with something worse, that's my concern.

Without looking that far away yet, I believe a post on BYOAC with a little explanation for people who are not looking into the 15Khz purpose of GM and just want to play with lower lag on their Windows PC + LCD, would clear the confusion for tons of people.
- why use GM with D3D9EX vs. ShmupMAME and RA
- how to set it up for your basic pc+lcd use

That's be a very short article, no need to go into the details that are MAME-specific, just tell people what D3D9EX does and the few settings to look at like the type of monitor, the video to set, etc
People don't even know the terms and what the values do, only the advanced users do but they're way past the basics so they understandably don't care/discuss these much.

I mean for people who come to make full use of GM+Emudriver and follow development closely it's fine, they won't mention these things because they're way past that and rather discuss topics of advanced settings and development of new features.
And for those who come to learn the whole thing from scratch there's even extremely detailed tutorials like the one on (iirc) aussiearcade (I know the 'official' one but the aussie's much better and clearer, sorry)
But for the layman who just wants the benefit of MAME with lower lag on his pc+lcd it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, the forums and tutorials have like 100 times more information than what they need, and sometimes not the basic infos at all because most users who post are either advanced already or don't assume anyone would use GM just for that.
The few infos the layman needs are scattered all over and are sometimes very difficult to find, for instance just learning that you must write 'lcd' for monitor type in the mame.ini, I've learned that after quite a bit of time and trouble/errors, thanks to its mention in a post I've found completely randomly.
Same for setting the video, there's been a couple of changes over time and if you miss the post your're up for trouble until you find that before you had to write 'd3d9ex', then just 'd3d' and it's supposed to trigger 9ex despite it not being specified, then I read recently that leaving on 'auto' should select 9ex by default, yet I experienced errors in the past because nope leaving on 'auto' just wouldn't do it.

There it's an example of how just two yet necessary basic settings for the lcd user aren't clear to the majority and why ShmupMAME and RA are massively more popular, and people will even call GM bullshit, and I find that very sad. :/
It's one thing mamedev don't understand, if they want to counter builds that misuse MAME they absolutely need to make what the average user wants easily accessible. It's an absurd situation because legit MAME (+GM) already has most of what ShmupMAME and RA make their butter on, and done right contrary to those.
Yet instead of making these facts and features/benefits obvious and accessible, they actually make things more and more difficult to understand and use...and shout on users.
But users are not wrong, we can't blame them for wanting things that honour the games like fancy shaders that aren't too esoteric to master, low lag, configurable autofire, they want their games list to be easily sortable and readable, again all things that are in principle possible with legit MAME but defintitely not here easily configurable by default and require much more research and thinking to do, a lot of trial and error and frustration, and it's clearly on purpose by the will of mamedev; can't select only arcade games in the list, must activate cheats to get autofire settings that are rather limited by the original emulated hardware, must have a PhD in HLSL management to get the desired crt look (that though I wouldn't blame the author for its not on purpose but a matter of time iirc)

MAME was much more user friendly and enjoyable in the past, I don't know what went wrong, all I've said is the reason why things like ShmupMAME, and in particular RA, exist and are so popular, they profit from mamedev's excessive stubbornness and rigidity, but mamedev are deaf-blind to reality and curse users, they're increasingly in a closed-off mentality where they see the users as enemies, it's a real shame.

The reason for that rant is that I don't believe you handing what makes GM to baseline MAME in the future will necessarily make thing any easier nor better for the users who want to enjoy GM's improvements.
It could, and could not just as well, it's what I said; say we're in the future and you carry your code to baseline;
-either what's needed to activate low lag output is well and clearly explained and made accessible in the settings, easy to set up if some settings apply, by anyone and without battling the whole software, configuration files, documentation and angry mamedevs,
-either it's a complete hairpulling limited obtuse pseudo-hidden feature, and it will remain in obscurity and ShmupMAME / RA will remain the user's to-go builds for low lag.

[Kraq]

What I love about GM in particular is how piss-easy it is to setup on Linux - that is, no setup is needed at all, no CRT Emudriver, no nothing: xrandr (a screen configuration tool already bundled with every Linux distro) handles everything.

Honestly, you just download it, set the 'monitor' option in mame.ini and it's ready. The possibility to tweak frame_delay using driver-specific ini files is a nice bonus for those who care.

If that much of manual setup seems unfeasible, look into GroovyArcade or perhaps Lakka.

However, isn't RetroArch ill-suited for arcade games in general, because of non-standard refresh rates those games use? I haven't tried the new 15khz output option.

[Xyga]

Setting up GM for Windows + LCD is also piss easy, easier even because you can have the benefit of already significantly lower lag without even bothering with frame_delay, yet the very basic settings and the benefits escape tons of people, who naturally turn to ShmupMAME and RA.
(sorry for the redundance but if my previous post was TL;DR this summarizes it)

[OmegaFlareX]

I use a custom build where I ported MAMEPlus's autofire and custom buttons options to stock MAME. I've been meaning to clean it up and add extra customization for the autofire rates (like different autofire rates per button), which of course I never got around to doing, but I could distribute the patch and/or binary builds if there's interest.

Shmupmame has that (different autofire rates per button), it's the best autofire of any mame fork. Was that you who added that code? I forget.

[cave hermit]

However, isn't RetroArch ill-suited for arcade games in general, because of non-standard refresh rates those games use? I haven't tried the new 15khz output option.

Yeah, I'm not sure if there's an option to fix it, but Retroarch forces MAME to run games at 60hz, so stuff like Dodonpachi and Battle Garegga sound slightly off.

[Kraq]

Even worse, games like TGM 2 (61.68 Hz) run with actual slowdown.

Touhou community, for instance, does allow up to 5% slowdown, but it's still something to be aware of.

[Xyga]

Unless you own an adaptive sync compatible display and card (gsync or freesync), all emulators one way or the other do either sync to monitor's refresh which is usually 60Hz with little deviations (game is therefeore a bit accelerated, or slowed down in fewer cases), or buffers (preserves the speed at the cost of smoothness)

IIRC retroarch in its 'original' low lag configuration offers the possibility to check the monitor's refresh for eventual deviations then lock to it with advertised low lag cost.
GM when 'autosync' is active does both depending on the original hardware's refresh, for those that don't deviate more than 2Hz it forces sync, granting smooth scrollings at little game speed difference. And when it's a game that's over 2Hz off it switches to a triplebuffer though with less frames than the 'traditional' (iirc 2 instead of 3) but of course it's a bit choppy.
You can change that behaviour if you don't care about a greater acceleration you can expand the range of systems covered by the forced sync using the sync_refresh_tolerance setting in the mame.ini (like me set it to 2.5 for instance)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in any case none do any magic tricks on a LCD without special hardware.

[Bananamatic]

for instance just learning that you must write 'lcd' for monitor type in the mame.ini, I've learned that after quite a bit of time and trouble/errors, thanks to its mention in a post I've found completely randomly.

Same for setting the video, there's been a couple of changes over time and if you miss the post your're up for trouble until you find that before you had to write 'd3d9ex', then just 'd3d' and it's supposed to trigger 9ex despite it not being specified, then I read recently that leaving on 'auto' should select 9ex by default, yet I experienced errors in the past because nope leaving on 'auto' just wouldn't do it.

did both, played around with the frame delay, feels the same as shmupmame
maybe there is a very small difference if you test it side by side and focus REALLY hard, but if you feel like it doesn't affect your gameplay at all or can't even feel the difference, it's irrelevant
for shmups lag only matters if it feels like the ship can't do what you can in other games on the same setup

[Xyga]

dude whatever suits you

[Calamity]

@Xyga, I take notice of your comments and will try in the future to make it easier for LCD users to access GM's basic functionality. When you're focused on a certain target user it's easy to loose perspective and I wouldn't have thougth GM was any more difficult to figure out than baseline MAME or even other random emulator... hell, I challenge anyone to figure out Daphne in a day

I wouldn't say Shmupmame is more popular these days than GroovyMAME, aside of this forum. 0.148 is just too old.

RA is a completely different thing, it's orders of magnitude more popular than GM. It's a totalitarian, populist project. And like all populisms it appeals to people's low passions -basically lazyness and stinginess-. RA will likely wipe out the whole scene in a few years, and we can do nothing to revert that process.

if you feel like it doesn't affect your gameplay at all or can't even feel the difference, it's irrelevant
for shmups lag only matters if it feels like the ship can't do what you can in other games on the same setup

No mate, it's not irrelevant.

That feelings-based stuff is just the reason why no dev took you guys seriously until we (GM) started doing real latency measurements. It's actually the opposite: if I can prove that emulation has exactly the same measured latency as real hardware, then what you feel is irrelevant. And that has been our goal. One single frame of latency is relevant, even if you don't feel it, it certainly affects your scores.