Best vertical shmups that run well on Raspberry Pi?

[Bananamatic]

sure, that's why the chinese dude got a world record in DOJBL on fucking gotvg with billion frames of lag
shmupmame vs groovy isn't even a 1 frame difference (and at low lag the 1 extra frame isn't even noticeable), if the ship does what you want it to do then it has no real impact on your gameplay
it's only an issue once the game feels like you're sliding on shit, you won't magically get higher scores if you remove one frame of lag from a game that has barely any in the first place

[Xyga]

@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.

Oh sure it's really nothing much to explain but it's that little bit that makes a difference for the layman who can't see why he would bother with GM.
For the latter who don't get the advantages and qualities of it over the alternatives, the direct access to lower lag arcade emulation are definitely ShmupMAME and RA, regardless of what's wrong with those that is completely ignored anyway.

It is what I meant for MAME in general, it's a problem of communication and accessibility, and vista I would add. From what I see mamedev's attitude and policy is as damaging as RA's opportunism.

If they could open their eyes they'd see they have everything in their hands to make RA's popularity crumble - at least as far as arcades emulation is concerned, but that would still be a massive blow to the whole RA thing.
They could make some important concessions for making MAME more convivial and friendly, concede some things users beg for and only find in alternate builds for instance, all without desacrating what's most important to MAME which is at the very least the emulation accuracy it's aiming at.
And as these changes progress at the same time they absolutely have to show proof, explain and explain comparatively in broad daylight and universal language, why people better be using legit MAME (+GM additions which I believe are absolutely crucial to mame's future)
I they do that they can only win, but it's a campaign, they'll have to switch from being introverted viewing things almost exclusively from the developer's and contributor's perspective, and dedicate more of their forces to making users happy a very top priority.

What I've seen these past years is an increasingly harsh and closed-off attitude against anything that would make users more comfortable with and understanding of MAME. Frankly now when I think of MAME it feels more and more like it aims to be a pro software for other pros in the trade, developed by a gang of austere edgy engineers with a civil servant mentality if it was possible to make it any more unwelcoming. That and just raging against RA is an actively losing strategy in front of the masses of users who just want to play and enjoy using the best emulator for that, and they're not wrong.

shmupmame vs groovy isn't even a 1 frame difference

This is where you're wrong.

[Shepardus]

One single frame of latency is relevant, even if you don't feel it, it certainly affects your scores.

If anything, input lag is more likely to affect your feeling than your scores. What actually matters for scoring in pretty much any shmup is having a consistent setup that you get used to, i.e. someone who always practices on a setup with half a second of lag is probably going to do better on that than a setup with no lag. I can certainly agree that the input lag feels like crap in something like Guardian Force but to blame it for your mistakes and unpreparedness is just superstition and scapegoating.

[8 1/2]

Well, the build is complete... and it's complete trash. I knew going in that newer games would not run properly, but I can't even play older arcade titles from the early 80's or even Atari or NES games without crippling lag. Is that normal? I had read many reports that RetroPi ran older games at full speed, but my experience is that these games are clearly stuttering as they skip frames, with input lag so severe the games are just unplayable. All I wanted was a retro machine, and a chance to practice old arcade games.

[Dochartaigh]

Well, the build is complete... and it's complete trash. I knew going in that newer games would not run properly, but I can't even play older arcade titles from the early 80's or even Atari or NES games without crippling lag. Is that normal? I had read many reports that RetroPi ran older games at full speed, but my experience is that these games are clearly stuttering as they skip frames, with input lag so severe the games are just unplayable. All I wanted was a retro machine, and a chance to practice old arcade games.

No, especially for older games it's not normal whatsoever. You messed up something somewhere. Reformat the SD card and reinstall the RetroPie image or whatever you're using. Make sure your version of MAME matches the recommended (i.e. not experimental) emulators it's running. On Retropie that's mame2003 and MAME 0.78, and for fbalpha it's v0.2.97.42 (might be .43 now).

You can also edit /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg, and add the following line to the bottom (then reboot) and it'll show you what the FPS is:
fps_show = "true"

60 FPS is full speed for most games. Even on the $5 super-underpowered Raspberry Pi Zero (which can struggle with simple NES games unless you set the correct emulator) I would get maybe 54 FPS on the more demanding games. Simple games like you mentioned from the 80's, Atari, and NES run like they should framerate-wise.

Lag from things like USB controllers, and whatever method you used to go to your monitor is another thing (but you specifically mentioned it skipping and stuttering on the framerate which isn't normal). They test it at ~5 frames of lag, probably a little less if you're going straight to a CRT instead of a flatscreen via HDMI like their tests.

[8 1/2]

One thing is that I'm running this on a vertical monitor. Would that impact the quality of run speed?

[Dochartaigh]

One thing is that I'm running this on a vertical monitor. Would that impact the quality of run speed?

No, it should be the same native signal as every other 4:3 horizontal game uses - it's just the monitor which is turned on it's side. Should actually be faster since RetroPie (I assume) usually --when played on a LCD/flatscreen-- has to use computer resources to flip the image for people who can't rotate their screen (so it's pillarboxed on the left and right).

Start over the RetroPie process from a formatted SD card forward. And I forget, are you using a CRT or a LCD/flatscreen in your cab? If you're running it on a CRT like I am you might want to get everything setup over HDMI first on your regular TV, and then see how that does before moving it over to the monitor in your cab.