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Author Topic: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released  (Read 49291 times)

wy_scorpio

  • Posts: 368
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #60 on: July 09, 2013, 04:16:07 pm »
can add  'set roms path' function in next release?thus we can put roms anywhere... :)thx


MAME already handles this via it's command line. In fact MAME IS a CLI emulator. There is no gui. All it's commands are type in, even to this day. The frontends you see (for the A320 and any other computer that MAME runs on) are all extensions.
The fronted launcher for MAME on the A320 is built in. It's also an extension. It generates all these options and effectively runs MAME with these options as parameters.
All the options have a default value, most of them are fine. The rompath is one of these, it's set to "roms" relative to the MAME executable.
It's a relative path so you can really install MAME anywhere. ie. on the SD card if you want.
It should work fine, though I haven't tried this. I always run it from internal storage.

I guess what you want is an absolute path defined by yourself.

Logically speaking, the rompath is a "global" variable consistent for all games. You can define multiple rompaths within MAME. However, the MAME4ALL frontend has no mechanism to define global variables such as this.

A good solution to this problem would take a bit of time and my motivation for adding this kind of soltuion is low I'm afraid. I'd rather be coding game driver improvements and optimizations as that is what I enjoy doing.

So I'll have to think about it, and perhaps add something quick and hacky :-/

thx reply :)
hope this function can be added before long...

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #61 on: July 14, 2013, 03:57:10 am »
Hmmm, has anyone been able to get the simpsons game(s) working? It's pretty much my fave game of all time, was reallllly looking forward to it on the dingoo, but i can't ever get past the 'unable to start..' message :(

Edit:
I'm more than happy to make a nice chunk of a donation if the simpsons game(s) get support, that's for sure! I can't be the only one who dropped a lot of quarters on that game growing up, i'd totally toss a big pile of quarters to the dev if it means i can play it again on my dingoo (ideally native dingoo)

Edit 2:
Also, tmnt turtles in time is no workie :(
« Last Edit: July 14, 2013, 12:06:21 pm by Dexidus »

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #62 on: July 24, 2013, 12:35:04 pm »
Update - i am able to play simpsons with mame4all on open dingux (after trying with a new sd card), but not with the native mame4all. Weird but at least i can play it now!

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #63 on: July 25, 2013, 01:52:18 am »
The reason is that Dingoo Native can only address 16MB of RAM.
Open Dingux gets close to 27MB of RAM.

Simpsons would probably need about 20MB of RAM to run.

There is a work around for Dingoo Native. Compressed graphic ROM storage - this would benefit many games and may make it in release v1.3.

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #64 on: July 25, 2013, 02:11:44 am »
Ah, makes sense! Thanks for the info man!

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #65 on: July 26, 2013, 07:10:53 am »
I've got some good news. I've decided to add graphics compression into the next release and it's looking very promising.
I've got Simpsons working though with still a few graphic glitches. But it's look very good and very fast! Full speed! The graphics compression cuts graphics usage in half. This mean that many games which were previously "too big" will now work.

Once I get rid of the remaining graphics glitches I'll look at adding some "big graphics" games. Should be interesting.

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #66 on: July 26, 2013, 10:50:23 am »
Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Looking forward to the next release!!!

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #67 on: August 02, 2013, 08:06:59 am »
Well some good news and bad news.

What do you want first?

Good news!
The first "compressed gfx" games are now fully working. I've tried Konami Vendetta and Aliens and they work great!

Bad news!
Simpsons *still* needs a little more memory and I've been collecting spare memory *everywhere*. We'll get there, but it might be that Simpsons will needs it's own executable - effectively a one game emulator. :)

Why isn't Simpons working? It's only *slightly* larger than Vendetta but that difference is stopping it from starting up.
It's really annoying. I said I had Simpons running previously but in finding the reason for the glitches I also found a bug in one of the new memory allocation algorithms, unfortunately it was mis-calculating on the low side. :(

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #68 on: August 02, 2013, 10:52:47 am »
Aww, boo urns! Good luck man!

eltehero

  • Posts: 338
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #69 on: August 04, 2013, 12:21:30 am »
Slaanesh, how does Empire City 1931 run, if at all? I remember asking about this game when the you were developing  mame for the GPH platforms a few years ago, and this game didn't work.


slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #70 on: August 08, 2013, 01:19:57 am »
Slaanesh, how does Empire City 1931 run, if at all? I remember asking about this game when the you were developing  mame for the GPH platforms a few years ago, and this game didn't work.

Hi, well actually Empire City doesn't run.... on v1.1.... BUT will run on v1.2

I've made some really big changes to v1.2.

Just got Simpsons working! I've done some investigations on the the Dingoo A320 Native memory arrangement.
I've found some RAM :-)

Looks like there is 6MB allocated for static and 16MB for variable memory allocation for a total of 22MB.

Hooray! Previously MAME was only using the 16MB of variable via malloc(). The static 6MB is used for the program but often the program is less than 3MB in size, I can allocate anywhere between 2-4MB of extra RAM here and use it for graphics and large tilemaps, etc. Great success!

This latest discovery in conjunction with the new compressed graphics system means we've suddenly got... a lot more memory to play with and a lot of bigger games will now work!

Including Simpsons!

I've just been playing Simpsons and it's great, full speed with sound and plays at  full 60fps at 420Mhz. Great game too!

Empire city will certainly benefit from these latest discoveries and should be working with the next release too as well as a heap of other larger games...

Most likely "Hook" and "In the Hunt" will also work. I'll see if I can also add sound to these.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2013, 01:23:33 am by slaanesh »

Dexidus

  • Posts: 958
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #71 on: August 08, 2013, 02:09:20 am »
O.m.g. You're amazing man, simply amazing!

the_wub

  • Posts: 45
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #72 on: August 08, 2013, 09:30:29 am »
This is amazing news!  It sounds like Power Drift will fit in memory easily now?

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #73 on: August 12, 2013, 02:09:16 am »
Empire City now working.

Had to change some things around, the video driver was really expecting to use a lot of memory.
I went back to an older version of the video driver which was much more memory efficient and other wise functionally equivalent. As a result, it's running full speed now, nice game too.
I remember playing this on my Atari ST - though back then I didn't realize it was a port of an arcade game!

Losk

  • Posts: 102
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #74 on: August 12, 2013, 02:14:46 pm »
Very cool, Slaanesh!! :) Looking very much forward to v1.2!

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #75 on: August 15, 2013, 02:39:41 am »
Hook and "In the Hunt" now working too. Currently without sound, but I will update the driver to gain sound.
Once this is done I think I'll call it and release MAME4ALL v1.2 for Dingoo Native.

After this I will concentrate on an A380 version of MAME4ALL.

slaanesh (OP)

  • Posts: 569
    • Slaanesh Dev
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #76 on: August 20, 2013, 07:00:44 am »
Okay, all except Superior Soldier of the m92.c games are working with sound.
That means:

Hook, In the Hunt, R-Type Leo, Undercover Cops, etc all working. Hook is nicely playable, some of the others are a bit slow - but they are all very playable and enjoyable.

That's pretty much it now for this version. Expect a release soon-ish.  :)

Losk

  • Posts: 102
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #77 on: August 20, 2013, 03:58:27 pm »
Great!!!  :)

wy_scorpio

  • Posts: 368
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #78 on: August 24, 2013, 02:20:00 am »
why not port this emu to OD? OD have swap ,so Insufficient memory can be solved :)
expect have two versions... ,one for native ,one for OD

samir

  • Posts: 344
Re: MAME4ALL v1.1 Dingoo Native released
« Reply #79 on: August 24, 2013, 01:36:26 pm »
why not port this emu to OD? OD have swap ,so Insufficient memory can be solved :)
expect have two versions... ,one for native ,one for OD

+1
hey slaanesh,van you fix the problem with cygwin.dll for the graphics converter in games like mortal kombat?

 

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