Author Topic: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote  (Read 18754 times)

slaanesh (OP)

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    • Slaanesh Dev
MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« on: January 23, 2014, 11:19:41 pm »
I've compiled up and optimized a version of MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote.

Is anyone interested? I've removed all 16-bit games as they run a bit slow and it's not worth it but most 8-bit games are compiled in and many work very well - certainly playable - and very good if you don't mind no sound.

It's a pity this little handheld isn't a little faster (max 336Mhz) - it would be a favourite of mine if it just had the speed of the A320 (mine does 456Mhz).

Orion4874

  • Posts: 229
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2014, 08:56:17 pm »
I've been wanting one of these units for a while but can't seem to come across any for sale. I read a while back that an updated version was being worked on but I'm assuming that project died. If you or anyone knows were to acquire a BN let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Could you upload this somewhere, if or when I do finally get one I'll definitely want to put MAME on it?

MightyJAK

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Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2014, 03:21:42 pm »
I've been wanting one of these units for a while but can't seem to come across any for sale.

Have you tried here (India) or here (Europe)?
My machines:
GBC,GBA,GBA SP,NDS,NGPC,Panasonic FZ-10 3DO,NES,Sega Nomad,Sega CDX w/Power Base Converter,PS1,PS2,PS3,Saturn,Dreamcast,PC (Win 98, XP, 7),Dingoo A320,Dingoo A330,Gemei A330,LetCool N350JP,PAP-GAMETA,GCW-Zero SE,Kyocera Rise,2DS,GP2X-F100,GPD G7,JXD 100,JXD A1000,JXD A3300,JXD F3000,JXD V5000,JXD S7300B,Hyperkin SupaBoy

Currently playing: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call (2DS)

slaanesh (OP)

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    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2014, 03:43:32 am »
I've been working on the GCW-Zero version of MAME. Actually several versions, one of them being MAME 0.37b16.
I've ported this version to the Nanonote as well - in fact it should work on any "Open Dingux" style hardware as it's being written fairly generically.

The Nanonote isn't a very fast machine, the jz4720 only clocks to 336Mhz (or is it 240Mhz, specirfications seem to vary) - whatever it is, it's not fast.
As a result, the Nanonote build only has 8-bit games in it as larger more complex games with faster Mhz CPUs aren't worth emulating.
It still supports around ~1700 ROMs and a lot of fun to use as MAME was designed to be used with a keyboard so everything works really nicely! All those extra keys are great!

Will be released with the GCW-Zero version which is getting both MAME 0.37b16 and MAME 0.84 ;-)

eltehero

  • Posts: 338
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2015, 08:57:58 pm »
I've been working on the GCW-Zero version of MAME. Actually several versions, one of them being MAME 0.37b16.
I've ported this version to the Nanonote as well - in fact it should work on any "Open Dingux" style hardware as it's being written fairly generically.

The Nanonote isn't a very fast machine, the jz4720 only clocks to 336Mhz (or is it 240Mhz, specirfications seem to vary) - whatever it is, it's not fast.
As a result, the Nanonote build only has 8-bit games in it as larger more complex games with faster Mhz CPUs aren't worth emulating.
It still supports around ~1700 ROMs and a lot of fun to use as MAME was designed to be used with a keyboard so everything works really nicely! All those extra keys are great!

Will be released with the GCW-Zero version which is getting both MAME 0.37b16 and MAME 0.84 ;-)

Hi Slaanesh, I am quite interested in the ben nanonote for emulation. Do the 8-bit arcade games run at full speed with sound?

It doesn't look suitable for arcade gaming as it doesn't have a dpad and buttons, just wondering how arcade games play on these units. There doesn't seem to be much information about emulation.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2015, 05:47:01 am by van denhawk »

slaanesh (OP)

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Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2015, 08:43:28 am »
Some games run really quite well, though nothing too advanced of course.
I've got an updated build of this but no one seemed interested.

I've actually got quite a few projects on the Nanonote, not just MAME.

Atari ST emulator
DosBox
Mame
Temper (PC Engine)

The Nanonote is a bit slower than the Dingoo A320 but the little keyboard is a boon for some types of games, especially computer emulation where a keyboard is best. ie Dos Box and Atari ST.


slaanesh (OP)

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Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote (+ MAME4ALL)
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2015, 10:52:40 pm »
I've ported my latest version of MAME4ALL to Ben Nanonote which actually runs much better than 0.37b16.

It runs like a champ! Very happy with it.

I've also ported MAME4ALL to the Sharp Zaurus - though I'm not very satisfied with it. My Zaurus is a CL-860... thought I've got a CL-1000 coming.

Considering this neat little unit has an Xscale PXA250 400Mhz ARM w/ 64MB RAM it's really quite slow; about the same speed as my GP32 version of MAME4ALL (running at around 133Mhz). What gives? I'm using Cacko 1.23, BVVM SDL though gcc is still 2.95.3.

So I'm guessing there were some big improvements with GCC?

The GP2X version is compiled with GCC 4.1.1 and seems to generate much better code?
The Nanonote version is compile with GCC 4.7.1 and generates good code too.

Is there a more recent toolchain for Zaurus with static SDL libraries?

slaanesh (OP)

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    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2015, 10:12:54 pm »
So BVDD is only for PXA270 cpus... ie. C1000, C3000, C3100 models not 700-860 models. So it does exactly nothing unless you have one of those.

I've got MAME4ALL running on both units now with the following setups:

Sharp Zaurus SL-860
libsdl 1.2.5-slzaurus20041025-j

Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000
bvdd 0.4.0-1
libsdl 1.2.5-bvdd-07-2

MAME4ALL runs ... well, okay... but not really great. I was expecting them to be faster than the GP2X but they're not, both are slower.

The SL-860 version seems to be faster than the C1000 - I believe that's thanks to the W100 video.
The C1000, despite using bvdd framebuffer driver, is somewhat slower.

It's all a bit disappointing.

On the bright side, is the screen, both are gorgeous, really sharp, vivid displays. Superb given how old they are. Must have been super-awesome 10 years ago when these machines were current.

I'm also getting a SL-5600 just for giggles which is on it's way for Russia.

Anyone else have Sharp Zaurus developing experience?

deeice

  • Posts: 1
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2015, 04:18:28 pm »
Hey, this is interesting.  For quite a while now I've been thinking about building some version of mame4all for the zipit z2.  The zipit's a 312MHz PXA270 so those Zaurus builds would be an ideal starting point.  Are the zaurus sources available somewhere? 

Sorry about going a bit off topic, but since the openwrt-zipit github is forked from the nanonote it's not actually all that far off...

slaanesh (OP)

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    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME 0.37b16 for Ben Nanonote
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2015, 03:50:50 am »
Not at all! I've also got a Zipit Z2 coming so intend on porting MAME4ALL to that as well.

I've got 3x Zaurus; SL-B500, SL-C860 and SL-3000.

Since my last post I installed pdaxrom on the C1000 Whig provides a much better OS and MAME4ALL performs much better but still not as great as I was hoping. This is mainly due to gcc3.4 vs 2.95 from the official and cacko distros.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2015, 03:52:41 am by slaanesh »

 

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