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Warnarchy
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First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question
#258994 - 07/04/11 06:48 PM


Hey guys, I'm going to make a basic MAME cabinet so I can have fun at home, nothing big, and I just got a PC for free. Pentium 3 551 MHZ with 512MB RAM and a 25Gb Disc.

Is this enough for playing games like Street Fighter, Metal Slug and Mortal Kombat?

Also: What's a good low-requirement Frontend? And what MAME version should I use with this PC?

Thanks

Edited by Warnarchy (07/04/11 06:50 PM)



redk9258
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Warnarchy]
#258996 - 07/04/11 07:38 PM


I think you will be in for a big disappointment with that PC. Buy a Core2Duo. If you are going to go through the trouble of building a cabinet, don't skimp on the PC.



Warnarchy
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: redk9258]
#258997 - 07/04/11 07:50 PM


The problem is I can't afford a Core2Duo atm, and I'm getting the Pentium 3 for free. At most I could spend around €50 on a Pentium 4 with 3.4GHz but that's about it.



Pernod
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Warnarchy]
#258999 - 07/04/11 08:16 PM


> Hey guys, I'm going to make a basic MAME cabinet so I can have fun at home, nothing
> big, and I just got a PC for free. Pentium 3 551 MHZ with 512MB RAM and a 25Gb Disc.
>
> Is this enough for playing games like Street Fighter, Metal Slug and Mortal Kombat?
>
> Also: What's a good low-requirement Frontend? And what MAME version should I use with
> this PC?
>
> Thanks

Sorry to say this but that PC is over 10 years old and worthless. If you have to use this then use a 10 year old version of MAME, try 0.36. The HDD is not even large enough to hold a full current romset.



Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Warnarchy]
#259000 - 07/04/11 08:50 PM


> The problem is I can't afford a Core2Duo atm, and I'm getting the Pentium 3 for free.
> At most I could spend around €50 on a Pentium 4 with 3.4GHz but that's about it.

I'd say keep it for historic purposes, but that's just me, then again I'm wierd like that. Who else keeps hardware from the year they were born in

Edited by Naoki (07/04/11 08:52 PM)



----
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Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Pernod]
#259001 - 07/04/11 08:54 PM


Who would need a full romset anyway? Not only is it obviously illegal for the most part, it wastes space with games that are crap, that you never heard of and clones. The only sane reason is for P2P torrenting maybe, but if it's for pursonal use, someone give me a good reason why anyone should hold a full romset.



----
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By gods I've found it!



CrapBoardSoftware
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Warnarchy]
#259010 - 07/04/11 10:15 PM


> Hey guys, I'm going to make a basic MAME cabinet so I can have fun at home, nothing
> big, and I just got a PC for free. Pentium 3 551 MHZ with 512MB RAM and a 25Gb Disc.

If you can afford picking up in Germany, i could have something better for you:

Athlon XP 2000 + 2GB DDR + 256MB Radeon 9600 XT, plus at least one or two 320GB HDD. It's free. Deal? It's only electronic waste now.



B2K24
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259012 - 07/04/11 10:18 PM


> someone give me a good reason why anyone should hold a full romset.

Because games are then forgotten or disappear.

Tragedy can strike to anyone HDD falure, natural disaster, etc.

The idea is to preserve everything, because as each days passes more and more hardware fails or disappears, due to any number of circumstances.

People disappear or move on as well.

You can no longer take for granted that you or anyone can dump any game at any given time.



DMala
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259024 - 07/05/11 12:21 AM


> Who else keeps hardware from the year they were born in

I dunno, I think it'd be pretty neat to have an Apple II now.



redk9258
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: B2K24]
#259025 - 07/05/11 12:33 AM


> > someone give me a good reason why anyone should hold a full romset.
>
> Because games are then forgotten or disappear.
>
> Tragedy can strike to anyone HDD falure, natural disaster, etc.
>
> The idea is to preserve everything, because as each days passes more and more
> hardware fails or disappears, due to any number of circumstances.
>
> People disappear or move on as well.
>
> You can no longer take for granted that you or anyone can dump any game at any given
> time.

I'm pretty sure the games that are in MAME are very well backed up many times over. There are probably more Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. zipped ROM files than there ever were real PCBs. LOL



Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: redk9258]
#259031 - 07/05/11 03:05 AM


Exactly, thus I find it the biggest waste of space other than linux isos.



----
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By gods I've found it!



Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: DMala]
#259032 - 07/05/11 03:07 AM


> > Who else keeps hardware from the year they were born in
>
> I dunno, I think it'd be pretty neat to have an Apple II now.

I think it's pretty neat to have an original 486. Now if f*cking DOOM would boot on it then my day would be complete



----
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By gods I've found it!



TheGuru
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259047 - 07/05/11 11:21 AM


> Who would need a full romset anyway? Not only is it obviously illegal for the most
> part, it wastes space with games that are crap, that you never heard of and clones.
> The only sane reason is for P2P torrenting maybe, but if it's for pursonal use,
> someone give me a good reason why anyone should hold a full romset.

someone could have a full romset for the same reason a dog licks his balls.... because he can.



Heihachi_73
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Warnarchy]
#259049 - 07/05/11 11:32 AM


> The problem is I can't afford a Core2Duo atm, and I'm getting the Pentium 3 for free.
> At most I could spend around €50 on a Pentium 4 with 3.4GHz but that's about it.

I'm sure you can find a better PC than something in the triple figure megahertz range from circa 1998. I found a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 in the hard rubbish two years ago (roadside hard waste collection, where people dump unwanted fridges, washing machines, lawn mowers etc. for the council to dispose of/recycle), and all that was wrong with it was a blown power supply. The same PC has been working perfectly ever since.

For the record though, Mortal Kombat 1 doesn't even run at full speed on my 2.8GHz Celeron, let alone a PC with an earlier generation of processor which is also less than a quarter of the clock speed.



Heihachi_73
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I smellz a PokéROM! [nt] new [Re: B2K24]
#259050 - 07/05/11 11:39 AM





Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: TheGuru]
#259052 - 07/05/11 12:02 PM


Still, massively pointless



----
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Pernod
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259054 - 07/05/11 12:51 PM


> Still, massively pointless

Agreed, it was a comment to illustrate how little you can get on a 25GB drive these days, nothing more!!



R. Belmont
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: redk9258]
#259069 - 07/05/11 04:22 PM


> I'm pretty sure the games that are in MAME are very well backed up many times over.
> There are probably more Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. zipped ROM files than there ever
> were real PCBs. LOL

Yes, but that's only because there are "PokeROMs" out there. If everyone only had the ROMs they actually play, less-popular games *would* get lost. I would specifically bet it would be impossible to get mahjong ROMs, for instance, and alien_mame would be quite upset.

(Also, arguing against this with B2K24 of all people is especially meta-hilarious - Robbbert knows why, and I'll bet a few others do as well).



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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259075 - 07/05/11 05:31 PM


I have a 486 SLC sitting here holding my door open.

Seriously though just get .84 which will run great on that freebie. Anything recent will need a faster rig to chew through all the bloat.

You can google Coinops2 for an alternative for your cab.



AeroCityMayor
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259078 - 07/05/11 05:42 PM



> Yes, but that's only because there are "PokeROMs" out there. If everyone only had the
> ROMs they actually play, less-popular games *would* get lost. I would specifically
> bet it would be impossible to get mahjong ROMs, for instance, and alien_mame would be
> quite upset.
>

Quite!




Coherance of posts inversely proportional to Foster's consumption!!!




Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Pernod]
#259124 - 07/06/11 02:06 AM


> > Still, massively pointless
>
> Agreed, it was a comment to illustrate how little you can get on a 25GB drive these
> days, nothing more!!

But still usefull. If I could get my hands on a >2GB disk I'd be a happy guy.



----
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By gods I've found it!



Heihachi_73
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Naoki]
#259152 - 07/06/11 06:18 AM


Easy solution, USB memory stick. If your Pentium board lacks USB ports, pick up a PCI USB card. Of course, most 1990s systems can't boot from USB though, and it will be totally useless under Windows 95 (although anyone in their right mind would use 98SE on old systems, if they choose to stick with Windows).



mogli
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Free, huh? WOW. Someone should've paid you to take that away from them.... new [Re: Warnarchy]
#259158 - 07/06/11 06:30 AM


Not that it's a bad machine. But, especially as you want to play fighters and stuff, seriously inadequate.



Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.

The Culture




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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Heihachi_73]
#259197 - 07/06/11 09:10 PM


Actually Windows 98SE isn't such a bad idea, but in all honesty for that size of processor another choice would be Puppy Arcade 10. That can be booted from USB and can run in RAM. The only let down is the SDL Mame inside. OK for classics, I suppose.

Also another suggestion is to go to plop.at

Great for USB booting for machines that natively boot USB and provision to boot USB/ISO/VHD from DOS.



R. Belmont
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: ]
#259198 - 07/06/11 09:21 PM


> The only let down is the SDL Mame inside. OK for classics, I suppose.

Ok, now I *know* you're trolling. MG told me months ago, I should've listened.



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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259199 - 07/06/11 09:24 PM


Don't believe me try it yourself in Puppy Arcade 10 on a P3 or similar platform.

Works fine on a modern PC but a legacy PC it just crawls.



Naoki
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: Heihachi_73]
#259200 - 07/06/11 10:10 PM


> Easy solution, USB memory stick. If your Pentium board lacks USB ports, pick up a PCI
> USB card. Of course, most 1990s systems can't boot from USB though, and it will be
> totally useless under Windows 95 (although anyone in their right mind would use 98SE
> on old systems, if they choose to stick with Windows).

I mean for a 486 which seems to have issues whem using anything bigger than a 2GB disk. Using a 40GB ads DOS and other things, but Wolf3D crashes and shows errors. DOOM and others don't even load properly.



R. Belmont
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Re: First MAME Cabinet - Need answer to a question new [Re: ]
#259204 - 07/06/11 11:09 PM


> Don't believe me try it yourself in Puppy Arcade 10 on a P3 or similar platform.
>
> Works fine on a modern PC but a legacy PC it just crawls.

Of course. But you said that was specifically the fault of it being SDLMAME, which isn't true.



Anonymous
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Tredding on toes again new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259208 - 07/06/11 11:39 PM


I think SDLMame needs to have the right environment for it to work properly, but running Puppy Arcade 10's other emulators is hit and miss.

It is not a criticism just a fact on that given OS and platform. And it has been the same on previous outings.

BTW I think you read too much into my posts. Chill out. You and an another person I cannot mention here must have me on some keyword bot.... Like rubbing a lamp.

I'll reword it so:

Puppy Linux running on a legacy system is great for mundane tasks not emulation, but it should be explored as an alternative to Windows 98SE. But do not get your hopes up.



Bryan Ischo
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259288 - 07/07/11 07:58 PM



> BTW I think you read too much into my posts. Chill out. You and an another person I
> cannot mention here must have me on some keyword bot.... Like rubbing a lamp.

It's because you use inflammatory terms like 'let down' and 'bloat' which are insulting to developers even if you don't realize it. Although I think that you do intend a little bit of insult which is why you choose those terms. But it's hard to suss intentions via text so I could be wrong about that.



Anonymous
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259311 - 07/07/11 11:52 PM


> > BTW I think you read too much into my posts. Chill out. You and an another person I
> > cannot mention here must have me on some keyword bot.... Like rubbing a lamp.
>
> It's because you use inflammatory terms like 'let down' and 'bloat' which are
> insulting to developers even if you don't realize it. Although I think that you do
> intend a little bit of insult which is why you choose those terms. But it's hard to
> suss intentions via text so I could be wrong about that.

I use let down and bloat in the same sentence with regard to what Microsoft releases. Because I am a user of their code/product and I have a right to make a comment as a paid consumer. That type of thinking shouldn't extend towards free software.

I was reading an article in Games Magazine [108] regarding the cost of games and the availability of free software, and how the consumers of the free software evaluate with sharp criticism. The same being towards full price software. I found the article addressed the situation correctly. [Its a good read.]

If you acquire a free piece if software and do not like it, you are entitled to a full refund. There is nothing stopping you making a valid and genuine comment about the same said software. So much time and effort goes into maintaining each release.

The developer can either go cry in a corner, ignore the comment, or make a change in the code to address the problem. Microsoft doesn't get upset, they just do a better job or ignore the comments.

A classic example is Vista. Nearly everyone complained (myself included) about the OS and its performance. Now we have Windows 7. Does that extend to a user who gets that OS free like a MSDNAA? Damn right it does.

Developers are starting to listen to the general public, as the public contributes to the development as testers of software.

As far as I am concerned Mame was good enough at .84 for legacy and .116 for my current build. I'm grateful for that. If software runs slow for no reason, does one remain mute?



Bryan Ischo
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259313 - 07/08/11 12:41 AM


> I use let down and bloat in the same sentence with regard to what Microsoft releases.
> Because I am a user of their code/product and I have a right to make a comment as a
> paid consumer. That type of thinking shouldn't extend towards free software.

I think what you're saying here is that you were talking about Microsoft software when you used those terms? Let me quote you:

> The only let down is the SDL Mame inside.

This is an insulting way to categorize SDL Mame. It's not a huge insult, of course, but it's also not a very nice way to describe someone else's hard work.

> Seriously though just get .84 which will run great on that freebie. Anything recent
> will need a faster rig to chew through all the bloat.

Here you are clearly referring to post-.84 MAME as bloated. That's also insulting to the developers who worked on improving mame post-.84. You probably already know that 'bloat' is a term thrown around alot on these forums when talking about newer releases of MAME and its connotations are now so inflammatory that the use of the term is unwise.

> I was reading an article in Games Magazine [108] regarding the cost of games and the
> availability of free software, and how the consumers of the free software evaluate
> with sharp criticism. The same being towards full price software. I found the article
> addressed the situation correctly. [Its a good read.]

Criticizing is not the same thing as insulting. When you toss around inflammatory wording it is more insult than criticism.

> If you acquire a free piece if software and do not like it, you are entitled to a
> full refund. There is nothing stopping you making a valid and genuine comment about
> the same said software. So much time and effort goes into maintaining each release.
>
> The developer can either go cry in a corner, ignore the comment, or make a change in
> the code to address the problem. Microsoft doesn't get upset, they just do a better
> job or ignore the comments.

Well this is an aside but I know of no company who can produce so little with so many resources as Microsoft. With the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been thrown their way over the years for their products they should really be light years ahead of where they are now. I expect that most of that money went to buying multimillion dollar homes around the Puget Sound instead of into the software though.

And there is a crucial difference between Microsoft software and MAME: Microsoft software you pay for with your dollars. MAME you pay for with your respect so be sure to pay generously.

> A classic example is Vista. Nearly everyone complained (myself included) about the OS
> and its performance. Now we have Windows 7. Does that extend to a user who gets that
> OS free like a MSDNAA? Damn right it does.

I don't quite understand your point entirely but I think you're trying to use this paragraph as some supporting claim for justifying criticism of free software. But the thing is, nobody claimed that you can't criticize free software. It's about being respectful in your criticism when you are communicating directly with people who have given you something for free.

> Developers are starting to listen to the general public, as the public contributes to
> the development as testers of software.
>
> As far as I am concerned Mame was good enough at .84 for legacy and .116 for my
> current build. I'm grateful for that. If software runs slow for no reason, does one
> remain mute?

Nobody said you had to remain mute.

You expressed surprise that you have gotten responses from MAME devs to your comments, implying that they are targeting you specifically. I am just telling you that the reason that you are getting these responses is because of the way you insult (intentionally or not) their efforts. Now that you know that, you can change your approach or not, it's up to you; but don't act surprised anymore.

Edited by Bryan Ischo (07/08/11 12:48 AM)



Anonymous
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259318 - 07/08/11 01:24 AM


>
Quote:


> I use let down and bloat in the same sentence with regard to what Microsoft
> releases.
> > Because I am a user of their code/product and I have a right to make a comment as a
> > paid consumer. That type of thinking shouldn't extend towards free software.
>
> I think what you're saying here is that you were talking about Microsoft software
> when you used those terms? Let me quote you:
>
> > The only let down is the SDL Mame inside.
>
> This is an insulting way to categorize SDL Mame. It's not a huge insult, of course,
> but it's also not a very nice way to describe someone else's hard work.



>
No SDL Mame in Puppy 10 is slow on Legacy PCs. I think Mr. Belmont agrees with me on this.

>

Quote:


> Seriously though just get .84 which will run great on that freebie. Anything recent
> > will need a faster rig to chew through all the bloat.
>
> Here you are clearly referring to post-.84 MAME as bloated. That's also insulting to
> the developers who worked on improving mame post-.84. You probably already know that
> 'bloat' is a term thrown around a lot on these forums when talking about newer
> releases of MAME and its connotations are now so inflammatory that the use of the
> term is unwise.



>

I use .84 as an example of a release that works very well on Legacy PCs. Note the full stop and the wording..."Anything recent will need a faster rig to chew through the bloat". .84 is not recent. Release .139+ makes my modern system run like Zeno's Achilles


>

Quote:


> I was reading an article in Games Magazine [108] regarding the cost of games and
> the
> > availability of free software, and how the consumers of the free software evaluate
> > with sharp criticism. The same being towards full price software. I found the
> article
> > addressed the situation correctly. [Its a good read.]
>
> Criticizing is not the same thing as insulting. When you toss around inflammatory
> wording it is more insult than criticism.




Read the magazine article.
>
>

Quote:


> If you acquire a free piece if software and do not like it, you are entitled to a
> > full refund. There is nothing stopping you making a valid and genuine comment about
> > the same said software. So much time and effort goes into maintaining each release.
> >
> > The developer can either go cry in a corner, ignore the comment, or make a change
> in
> > the code to address the problem. Microsoft doesn't get upset, they just do a better
> > job or ignore the comments.
>
> Well this is an aside but I know of no company who can produce so little with so many
> resources as Microsoft. With the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been
> thrown their way over the years for their products they should really be light years
> ahead of where they are now. I expect that most of that money went to buying
> multimillion dollar homes around the Puget Sound instead of into the software though.
>
> And there is a crucial difference between Microsoft software and MAME: Microsoft
> software you pay for with your dollars. MAME you pay for with your respect so be sure
> to pay generously.




Please reference your argument. Alone, those paragraphs have no merit.
>
>

Quote:


> A classic example is Vista. Nearly everyone complained (myself included) about the
> OS
> > and its performance. Now we have Windows 7. Does that extend to a user who gets
> that
> > OS free like a MSDNAA? Damn right it does.
>
> I don't quite understand your point entirely but I think you're trying to use this
> sentence as some supporting claim for justifying criticism of free software. But the
> thing is, nobody claimed that you can't criticize free software. It's about being
> respectful in your criticism when you are communicating directly with people who have
> given you something for free.




Read the magazine article
>
>

Quote:


> Developers are starting to listen to the general public, as the public contributes
> to
> > the development as testers of software.
> >
> > As far as I am concerned Mame was good enough at .84 for legacy and .116 for my
> > current build. I'm grateful for that. If software runs slow for no reason, does one
> > remain mute?
>
> Nobody said you had to remain mute.



>

So my post is justified. Thanks.

>

Quote:


You expressed surprise that you have gotten responses from MAME devs to your
> comments, implying that they are targeting you specifically. I am just telling you
> that the reason that you are getting these responses is because of the way you insult
> (intentionally or not) their efforts. Now that you know that, you can change your
> approach or not, it's up to you; but don't act surprised anymore.




My comments are for the people who read this message board. If the Mame Dev wants to respond, it is the wish of that person.
Insulting their efforts? Really? Have a look on Waybackmachine.org for 2002-2005. Plenty of fodder to chew on there. Surprised? Nothing surprises me anymore.



Bryan Ischo
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Posts: 358
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259322 - 07/08/11 02:12 AM


> No SDL Mame in Puppy 10 is slow on Legacy PCs. I think Mr. Belmont agrees with me on
> this.

Then using the term 'let down' is the insulting part. I read it as an insinuation that everything about that setup would work great except for the 'let down' that is SDL mame. Perhaps a sentence about how SDL mame is known to run slowly on that particular configuration would have been both more informative and less inflaming.


> I use .84 as an example of a release that works very well on Legacy PCs. Note the
> full stop and the wording..."Anything recent will need a faster rig to chew through
> the bloat". .84 is not recent. Release .139+ makes my modern system run like Zeno's
> Achilles

I use .84 because you used it. Who cares what version of MAME is being compared against; you're specifically saying that recent MAME is slow due to bloat. I'm just saying that this is an inflammatory way to describe recent MAME. If it wasn't intended to be inflammatory, then why did you use such an inflammatory term? 'Bloat' is an ugly word with ugly connotations, especially in the world of software, even more so on these forums where the criticism of MAME being bloated is thrown around by end users all of the time (unjustifiably so, by the way).

> Read the magazine article.

Can you just summarize for me? Because I don't really want to read a magazine article to understand your point as I think I understand it already.

> > Nobody said you had to remain mute.
> >
>
> So my post is justified. Thanks.

This is not the conclusion you should draw. Although I don't know exactly which post you are referring to, and since many things were said, it's not possible for a single statement to justify everything anyway. I guess you can say you were justified because your presumption that someone wants you to be mute turned out to be a false presumption, but that's a little weird. It's kind of like an argument that would go like this:

A: "The moon is made of cheese."
B: "No it isn't."
A: "I'm allowed to say whatever I want."
B: "I never said you weren't allowed to say what you want, just that the moon isn't made of cheese."
A: "So I guess I was justified in saying the moon is made of cheese."

In this argument, what is being justified? That person A is allowed to say whatever they want? But that was never in question. What was in question is whether or not the moon is made of cheese. And nothing about B's responses justifies A's assertion that the moon is made of cheese.

> My comments are for the people who read this message board. If the Mame Dev wants to
> respond, it is the wish of that person.
> Insulting their efforts? Really? Have a look on Waybackmachine.org for 2002-2005.
> Plenty of fodder to chew on there. Surprised? Nothing surprises me anymore.

Well like I said maybe I misunderstood your intentions, and if so I am sorry. But please don't use the term 'bloat' anymore and please, if you are going to make criticisms of MAME, provide some more details; these one liners don't look like criticism because they don't contain any backing evidence, they just look like insults to me because of that. Anyway it's not such a big deal in any case, I just noticed that you thought the MAME devs were jumping on you a little and I thought I knew why and could explain it to you.

Obviously only they could speak about their intentions, I can only assume; but I hope nobody else wades into this as there is little point to this discussion as I am sure you would agree.

Edited by Bryan Ischo (07/08/11 02:14 AM)



StilettoAdministrator
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259325 - 07/08/11 03:25 AM


Just thought I'd add the magazine article in question as an exercise for the readers at home.
http://www.gamestm.co.uk/features/the-pr...pp-store-world/



- Stiletto



Heihachi_73
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259344 - 07/08/11 09:34 AM


When I was offline for nearly a year back in early 2005 after moving house, I had MAME 0.89 running on my 1.2GHz Celeron (P3). When I finally went back online, MAME 0.103 was out. I updated to that and it worked fine, aside from some missing ROMs which were obviously changed during such a long break from the internet.

It's just the same old 'use this MAME, it's faster/better than the new one' that has been around since 1998. Using an outdated version of MAME is only worth doing so if the drivers have not changed significantly. By doing so, that means Bubble Bobble will be glitchy, Donkey Kong will have incorrect sound, games that have been promoted to working since then, and any interesting games added since 2004 will simply not even be there. I would avoid DirectDraw mode too, unless you really enjoy playing Street Fighter squashed and letterboxed in 800x600 mode, or Galaga with horizontal scanlines...

Coincidently, MAME 0.84 turned seven this week (July 2).



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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Stiletto]
#259358 - 07/08/11 04:27 PM


Thank you kind sir.



R. Belmont
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259360 - 07/08/11 04:40 PM


> > No SDL Mame in Puppy 10 is slow on Legacy PCs. I think Mr. Belmont agrees with me
> on
> > this.
>
> Then using the term 'let down' is the insulting part. I read it as an insinuation
> that everything about that setup would work great except for the 'let down' that is
> SDL mame. Perhaps a sentence about how SDL mame is known to run slowly on that
> particular configuration would have been both more informative and less inflaming.

This is precisely what annoyed me. It sounded like everything about Puppy Arcade was copacetic except that the MAME included should not have been SDLMAME. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to run pSX or Desmume on a P3-500 either, just skimming the list of what's included.

(Incidentally, GroovyArcade is better for 15 kHz arcade monitors - it runs everything in MAME at true native resolution. But of course it's also got that damned let-down SDLMAME so again you have to use decent hardware).



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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259361 - 07/08/11 04:45 PM


Software bloat is a term used to describe the tendency of newer computer programs to have a larger installation footprint, or have many unnecessary features that are not used by end users, or just generally use more system resources than necessary, while offering little or no benefit to its users. - wikipedia

I think the above paragraph describes just about any software project the size of Mame. As the Project evolves I am certain that technology will drive Mame to be a much smaller foot print. - Bizimonki


Quote:


Well like I said maybe I misunderstood your intentions, and if so I am sorry




I accept your apology Bryan. Thank you for offering it.

I will reword my term for Bloat to Wirth's law in future, to avoid any misunderstanding.



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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259362 - 07/08/11 05:12 PM


> > > No SDL Mame in Puppy 10 is slow on Legacy PCs. I think Mr. Belmont agrees with me
> > on
> > > this.
> >
> > Then using the term 'let down' is the insulting part. I read it as an insinuation
> > that everything about that setup would work great except for the 'let down' that is
> > SDL mame. Perhaps a sentence about how SDL mame is known to run slowly on that
> > particular configuration would have been both more informative and less inflaming.
>
> This is precisely what annoyed me. It sounded like everything about Puppy Arcade was
> copacetic except that the MAME included should not have been SDLMAME. I'm pretty sure
> I wouldn't want to run pSX or Desmume on a P3-500 either, just skimming the list of
> what's included.
>
> (Incidentally, GroovyArcade is better for 15 kHz arcade monitors - it runs everything
> in MAME at true native resolution. But of course it's also got that damned let-down
> SDLMAME so again you have to use decent hardware).

One moment please Mr. Belmont. Have you dusted off a P3-500 and played a few Linux-ePSX games? You'd be surprised, but not impressed. I'm sure you will find a way to make SDLMame better for the next Puppy Arcade. Maybe a switch to make SDLMame run faster on legacy hardware?



R. Belmont
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259369 - 07/08/11 06:29 PM


> One moment please Mr. Belmont. Have you dusted off a P3-500 and played a few
> Linux-ePSX games? You'd be surprised, but not impressed.

Not really. ePSXe is the PSX version of ZSNES or NeoRageX - a shambling pile of per-game hacks that bears only a tangential relationship to how the hardware actually worked, but everyone uses it because it's what their friends have. (Sort of like Windows, actually).

> I'm sure you will find a way
> to make SDLMame better for the next Puppy Arcade. Maybe a switch to make SDLMame run
> faster on legacy hardware?

Oh, good, we've crossed from thinly-veiled trolling to thinly-veiled condescension.

(SDL)MAME runs a majority of the games people care about (CPS1/CPS2/NeoGeo + the "golden oldies") quite well on pretty much anything over 1 GHz if you have hardware OpenGL and/or multiple cores. Given by the end of the year you won't be able to buy a phone that doesn't meet those specs let alone a computer, it's not worth my while to go chasing waterfalls.



Bryan Ischo
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259377 - 07/08/11 07:25 PM


> Software bloat is a term used to describe the tendency of newer computer programs to
> have a larger installation footprint, or have many unnecessary features that are not
> used by end users, or just generally use more system resources than necessary, while
> offering little or no benefit to its users. - wikipedia

I've added some emphasis to the above quote. I think that 'than necessary' is purely subjective, and the reasons for software to grow larger are often not obvious to end users. Often the benefit of this 'bloat' is to developers, not end users. It is inevitable that more lines of code, more sophisticated architectures, more descriptive interfaces, among other things that make developing a software project easier, leads to larger and more resource-hungry software. The end user should realize that without this 'bloat', development would likely slow down or maybe even grind to a halt. Also, the end user should realize that the extra hardware resources available to end users each year makes up to a large degree for this bloat (even ecliping the bloat in most cases). So all that's happening is that developers are spending some of the new hardware resources given to us each year on code features that assist development. This does mean that when you try to take the same software back a few years to hardware for which these extra resources were not available, you get poor performance.

You probably already know that one of the major goals (in fact the officially stated major goal, although my personal belief is that this is half-true, half-smokescreen) of MAME is to document hardware. Better code, with more readable and maintainable interfaces and implementation, in more modern languages using more modern language features, is directly in line with this goal. True it leads to 'bloat' in the eyes of the person whose only goal is to get the best performance possible; but keep in mind that without good code, games would run at 0 fps because they just wouldn't work when the code base collapsed under its own weight and became unmaintainable.

This is not to say that MAME could not be made more efficient while at the same time being even more well written and maintainable; every software project could always improve on both fronts. But MAME already has better than necessary performance on hardware that is extremely cheap to acquire today for most games, and certainly for the vast majority of games that the vast majority of people care the most about; and I don't really see performance as being a major issue, especially given that the games for which performance is worst (3d games with multiple CPUs to emulate), the 'bloat' of MAME only adds a very small performance penalty relative to the cost of emulating the hardware. And if you want to know how hard it is to improve the performance, consider that I spent about 3 weeks of intense effort trying to improve the software polygon rendering in MAME and even though I've got some pretty mad skillz (if I do say so myself ) I could not improve it one iota, abandoning the effort and accepting that the polygon rendering code in poly.c is already better than I could ever make it.

> I think the above paragraph describes just about any software project the size of
> Mame. As the Project evolves I am certain that technology will drive Mame to be a
> much smaller foot print. - Bizimonki

Don't be so sure. Like I just said, there is little benefit to a smaller footprint outside of supporting old hardware as the size and performance of MAME is very good on even extremely cheap modern hardware. I don't see why any developer would spend their time optimizing something that doesn't need optimization (except in the opinion of a minority of end users).

Also can I suggest that people who want to improve MAME's efficiency learn to program? It's not that hard; computers are an integral part of our modern world and programming is a valuable skill that anyone can acquire with some effort, and then you can invest whatever effort you think is worthwhile into improving MAME in any way that you see fit (subject to MAME project lead approval, of course!).



R. Belmont
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259383 - 07/08/11 07:50 PM


Size as a proxy for run-time frame rate simply doesn't work. You can make a tiny build of MAME containing only the portions used for Donkey Kong or whatever, and it will run at exactly the same frame rate as the full-size real deal. Algorithms trump implementation details, and size is very much an implementation detail.



Bryan Ischo
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259386 - 07/08/11 08:13 PM


> Size as a proxy for run-time frame rate simply doesn't work. You can make a tiny
> build of MAME containing only the portions used for Donkey Kong or whatever, and it
> will run at exactly the same frame rate as the full-size real deal. Algorithms trump
> implementation details, and size is very much an implementation detail.

I think that when the word 'bloat' is used to often doesn't imply just an increase in size (as in size on disk or size in memory). I think it often means the 'bloat' of slower code that comes from advanced language features like virtual methods, multiple layers of interface, descriptive instead of optimized data structures, etc. That stuff does impact performance and I think it's what most people are concerned with when they talk about bloat.

I've meantioned this before, but I did some fairly thorough benchmarking of MAME 0.137 and then used the same benchmarking for MAME 0.141u3 and did notice a roughly 8% frame rate decrease across the board. References:

http://www.ischo.com/mamebench
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads...

I attributed this to the C++-ification of core componentry between the releases, but since I didn't do an in-depth analysis, this was only a guess.



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Re: Tredding on someone's big toe. new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259388 - 07/08/11 08:26 PM



Quote:


SDL)MAME runs a majority of the games people care about (CPS1/CPS2/NeoGeo + the "golden oldies") quite well on pretty much anything over 1 GHz if you have hardware OpenGL and/or multiple cores. Given by the end of the year you won't be able to buy a phone that doesn't meet those specs let alone a computer, it's not worth my while to go chasing waterfalls.





I wish that was true Mr. Belmont. With small distros, getting anything graphical to work is fraught with difficulties.

So there is hope for Mame on Android after all. I thought you said something like good luck trying to run SDLMAME on an Android phone. I'll have to try and compile it on my Galaxy S.

If you can link me to sdlmame084.zip on your site archive I can try it out. Unfortunately finding files on your archive seems to be letting me down.


Quote:


Oh, good, we've crossed from thinly-veiled trolling to thinly-veiled condescension.




What a memorable quote. I'll have to add that on Facebook.



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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: Bryan Ischo]
#259389 - 07/08/11 08:37 PM



Quote:


I think that when the word 'bloat' is used to often doesn't imply just an increase in size (as in size on disk or size in memory). I think it often means the 'bloat' of slower code that comes from advanced language features like virtual methods, multiple layers of interface, descriptive instead of optimized data structures, etc. That stuff does impact performance and I think it's what most people are concerned with when they talk about bloat.




References Please Bryan. Let us all know how you got to this conclusion.

If this is true, where are the groups of QA people checking out the code to ensure that the requirements of the project are met? Otherwise unchecked project creep on how many forks?

Wirth's law is quite ironic when you look at large software projects. I imagine Mame getting slower and slower when the accuracy of the project's goal becomes more realized.



R. Belmont
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Re: Tredding on someone's big toe. new [Re: ]
#259393 - 07/08/11 10:17 PM


> I wish that was true Mr. Belmont. With small distros, getting anything graphical to
> work is fraught with difficulties.

Which is why personally I'd be fine if every distro except the Redhat/Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu families went away tomorrow, even if I still have a soft spot for Slackware and their complete and utter lack of package management.

> So there is hope for Mame on Android after all. I thought you said something like
> good luck trying to run SDLMAME on an Android phone. I'll have to try and compile it
> on my Galaxy S.

I said that because 1) Android is not API-compatible with standard Linux (Bionic instead of glibc) so it would be an entirely new port, 2) touch controls blow for traditional games and 3) ARM chips per-clock don't have the performance of even an Atom, let alone a ULV Core 2 or something. The Cortex A15 should even that out a bit in addition to allowing higher clocks, but those aren't shipping for another few months.

> If you can link me to sdlmame084.zip on your site archive I can try it out.
> Unfortunately finding files on your archive seems to be letting me down.

SDLMAME didn't exist prior to 0.107. If you want 0.84, you're looking for XMAME.



Bryan Ischo
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Re: Tredding on toes again new [Re: ]
#259394 - 07/08/11 10:30 PM


> I think that when the word 'bloat' is used to often doesn't imply just an increase in
> size (as in size on disk or size in memory). I think it often means the 'bloat' of
> slower code that comes from advanced language features like virtual methods, multiple
> layers of interface, descriptive instead of optimized data structures, etc. That
> stuff does impact performance and I think it's what most people are concerned with
> when they talk about bloat.
>
> References Please Bryan. Let us all know how you got to this conclusion.

Just from reading lots of comments on these forums and the resulting discussions. Also from inferring people's true feelings based on what they said when it wasn't clear exactly what they meant. I could be totally wrong but I think that there are lots of people that perceive relative performance decreases in MAME as being due to bloat; I think that's a commonly repeated sentiment.

> If this is true, where are the groups of QA people checking out the code to ensure
> that the requirements of the project are met? Otherwise unchecked project creep on
> how many forks?

I'm not sure I understand you here, but keep in mind that there are no paid QA engineers on the project and people almost certainly focus on what they believe is interesting and relevant, and many of those people are more likely focused on bugs than performance. And also, I believe that people who are interested and motivated enough to do QA for the MAME project probably have a better understanding gleaned through the same kinds of discussions as this about the reasons for 'bloat' and don't think of it as a bug that needs QA attention.

> Wirth's law is quite ironic when you look at large software projects. I imagine Mame
> getting slower and slower when the accuracy of the project's goal becomes more
> realized.

Also I think Wirth's law is a crock of shit, excuse my frankness. Software is getting more and more complex all the time because it's doing much much more than it used to. Also like I said, you can develop software faster (or equivalently, with fewer human resources) with more modern tools that do create slower running programs; you can say that the software is getting slower without any benefit but there is a benefit: more rapid development, and more maintainable code.



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Re: Tredding on someone's big toe. new [Re: R. Belmont]
#259398 - 07/09/11 01:02 AM



Quote:


SDLMAME didn't exist prior to 0.107. If you want 0.84, you're looking for XMAME.




I tried looking for versions 108 but all I get is a 404 error.



B2K24
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Re: Tredding on someone's big toe. new [Re: ]
#259405 - 07/09/11 02:32 AM


> I tried looking for versions 108 but all I get is a 404 error.

Have you searched on the appropriate forums?

http://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=8&page=1


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