Home Page Forums Archives MacMAME MacMAME, betas and you

The next MacMAME build has been sitting on my hard drive for far too long, and it looks like my time is going to be short for the next little while. WIth that in mind, I'd like to do a very limited release of the next build, mainly just for members of this forum. I don't want (or need) a lot of feedback, because I don't have the time to deal with it.

Before I post the links, I'd like to lay down some guidelines that I hope you all will respect.

1. Please don't tell your favorite news site or version site that this release is out. I don't want (and can't deal with) the large amount of feedback it's likely to garner in it's current rough state. I don't mind if whoever reads this message grabs a copy, but I would mind very much if everyone started banging on it and then started sending me feedback about how they can't figure out how the new joystick code works. Those docs haven't been written yet, and I've still got some coding clean-up to do as well.

2. Please keep bug reports on this build limited to the Wiki and this thread. If you are running 0.88u4 beta 1 and feel the urge to post your bug somewhere other than these 2 places, don't. I don't want to spend a lot of time hunting down bug reports when the time comes to update MacMAME for final release, because my time will probably be limited then as well.

And before I post the links, here are the things I know are likely to be problematic.

1. The Beatmania games seem to have broken themselves somewhere along the line. I know I fixed this a while back, but I haven't had time to look back on my notes to figure out if it was a MAME core fix that got regressed or a result of some bug in one of the assembly cores.

2. Qix has no sound. This is likely a bug in the assembly cores - I haven't had time to look into it yet.

3. The new joystick code will likely be non-intuitive at first. No longer do you assign buttons/axes in the MacMAME front-end. Now it's all done inside MacMAME when you're running a game and choose either "Inputs (this game)" or "Inputs (general)". Most of you will need to map your joystick to something other than the defaults the first time you run this new MacMAME - such is life.

4. The Xcode project files do not currently build. I haven't had the motivation to fix them up, but when the time comes for a non-beta release, I will do so if no one has already.

With that in mind, you can find the new build here. The source can be found at www.macmame.org/files alongside the older archives for those interested.

Ahh... MacMAME beta releases return. Just like the good ol' days.

(Does this qualify as getting nostalgic for nostalgia?)

Thanks for the update Brad! We'll keep quiet about it. (Any bets as to how long it will take VersionTracker to find it?)

Got that right... Possibly sooner if someone passes the info on to them...

As usual, Brad, my gratitude goes out to you, no question.

Thanks Brad!

Keeping schtum and kudos Brad.

Sneaky, yet excellent! Now if I can just find the time to play... er, I mean test it.

when launching Time Crisis and Alpine Racer, I get an error dialog saying "BRK at PC=0030c2" and MacMAME quits

Cheers Brad.

And thanks for the new joystick code,which with my limited testing seems fine.

Excellent. All of my submitted patches appear to be included, so if anyone notices issues with the OpenGL plugin, shout out.

Things I noticed:
* Source rearrangement is good, Xcode subprojects can also be moved into the subproject folder. Nibs can be moved into the en.lproj folder for eventual localization.

* Gauntlets, Marble Madness etc are busted, they reset after a few seconds. 6502 asm problems?

* PSX is slow, Strider 2 runs at 60% 36fps, compared to 71% 42fps in old Xcode build. Are optimization still throttled down?

* The several-second pause opening games is back. Verification checks are on?

* My initial impression was that the joystick code was completely busted, but after trashing prefs and all .cfg files, and setting up P1 controls for my D-pad, it appears to work just fine. I'm using a PSX controller via liksang adapter, and there does appear to be a calibration issue where if the PSX analog input is turned off, it gets zero for all axes, making all input off center. But turning on the analog input and rotating the sticks through their full ranges sorts it out right away.

* Big problem though, can't use the mouse for analog games (Crossbow etc). If I don't have a joystick attached, I really ought to be able to use the mouse. P1 default controls for mouse/AD/dial/lightgun already have mouse configured, but it doesn't work...?!

Darius (Extra) (Japan) also dies with "Illegal Instruction" on screen during boot. 68k/Z80 asm?

Edit: Darius (Extra), not Darius. Both roms work in Xcode build. Darius (World) works in CW 88u4b1.