MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Viva Nonno vs MAME: an analysis of Rave Racer Differences

Hey guys

Well after playing one of my favorite arcade games, Rave Racer, in MAME for a long while and having sworn to never fire up Viva Nonno again, I actually fired up Viva Nonno for the first time in like a year

The good news, is that thanks to UJR and vJoy, I actually got Viva to see all three of my driving instruments(wheel, pedals and shifter) as one controller and it works great! :applaud:

I posted this over at BYOAC forums but I may as well post it here....

Couple of questions and comments regarding Viva Nonno....

Can anyone tell me if Viva Nonno was coded in D3D or OpenGL? If D3D? Which version? I'm tried to get SweetFX working with it last night but no luck. But then....I did some googling and discovered a couple of websites mentioning how Viva Nonno is a "DirectX" based emulator. Then I discovered that it was released sometime in 2002. Putting 2 & 2 together, it appears that the emu is probably running on D3D7 or D3D8. D3D9 was released that same year so there is a chance it's running on that, but I doubt it since common sense would dictate he started working on the emu in 2001 where D3D8 was the defacto API. If someone who's knowledgeable about the emu could answer this I'd be grateful. If it's indeed running in D3D8, I'm wondering why ENB's D3D8>D3D9 converter isn't working and allowing SweetFX to show in Viva Nonno?

It's quite a shame Viva Nonno was discontinued. Don't get me wrong....MAME *IS* my go to emulator for running Rave Racer and Ridge Racer 2, and they run extremely well! However it behooves me to point out a couple small benefits I see in Viva Nonno over MAME after using it again last night:

1)The audio. It is much louder and sounds clearer. The car's engine noise is perfectly balanced unlike in MAME, where not only is the whole game's audio volume extremely low, but the car's engine has the lowest sound between all the other sounds in the game versus the announcers' voice and the music. This really is quite bothersome, because I like to hear the car's sound when driving, and in MAME I have to turn the volume in Windows all the way up and then higher on my Yamaha receiver just to hear a good volume of Rave Racer. I'm sincerely hoping Cab revisits the Namco System 22 driver and addresses this issue.

2)As a byproduct of running in MAME, I must say in all honesty the RR games simply don't look as good as in Viva Nonno. Not counting any application of filters like HLSL or SweetFX...I'm talking simply vanilla MAME vs Viva Nonno. Viva Nonno uses hardware accelerated graphics and as a result, the higher resolution textures and things like Mipmapping and Depth Bias make the game quite good looking and sharp. I swear I'll jump for joy once me or someone else figures out how to get SweetFX working in Viva Nonno! It would be awesome to apply Boulotaur's Arcade CRT effects to the Viva Nonno version of Rave Racer. I bet I could make it look bonkers!

3)Something else I noticed about the two different emulators running Rave Racer...in Viva Nonno, the lighting is quite flat and somewhat drab looking. There doesn't seem to be any dynamic changes to way light casts over the environment. In MAME however, the lighting is different and you will notice how the screen will go from dark to bright particularly when entering and exiting tunnels or passing under bridges.

Maybe one of you can clear this up for me but did the original arcade game exhibit this behavior? Or is the original game's lighting suppose to be flat with a drabby look all throughout the stage? If the lighting is supposed to be dynamic and change from light to dark the way it's depicted in MAME, then MAME gets points for accuracy. However, if Viva Nonno represents the way the actual game is supposed to look in terms of lighting and colors, then I'm hoping Cab will look into this and see what he can do to make the RR games look more authentic.

Don't get it twisted though folks....I'm ***ETERNALLY*** grateful to Cab for what he's done with the Namco Sys22 driver, and I'll send my sister over to have his babies in a heartbeat to show my gratitude for giving us the ability to play these wonderful games in MAME. So please don't take it the wrong way Cab, you most certainly **ARE** the fucking man, and thanks again for your hard working on bringing this driver to MAME!!!!