> smf wrote: Push f10 to turn off throttling & f11 to display the frame rate.
ah, thanx, F11 did the trick: I am getting 55 FPS with the Peops soft plugin in a typical Tekken fight, and 44 FPS with your internal MAME renderer.
> RB wrote: There's also a -nothrottle switch for benchmarking and I think -showfps to show the FPS on startup.
yup, I've used "-nothrottle" for the above benchmarks, of course, but the "-showfps" switch doesn't work (well, and it isn't listed in the MAME command line help)
> Lilwolf wrote: Anyway, is there anyone hosting a version that can run mame + hardware? Or the diffs for the files.
I am the only one with such a modified MAME right now, but I will send the changes to smf, RB and Lewpy as well (dunno if his Glide renderer will like it, we will see).
Anyway, there is no need for big diff files or anything... just a simple replacement of "vidhrdw/psx.c", and done, zinc renderer plugins will be used. Nothing else in MAME has been changed by me.
Still there is no reason to do a 'public' release of that plugin-supporting file right now... nobody but the above coders has "fixed tekken" hw/accel zinc renderers atm, and since I still didn't have heard a single word from the zinc authors if it's OK to release a Peops Soft gpu with the ZiNc plugin interface, it means: even if 'the public' would have the MAME changes for loading plugins, there would be no public Tekken-playing plugins anyway (pfff... did I make that clear? I've lost the overview some lines ago... next time I will explain it in plain german
)
Ah, back on track, currently there are just three flaws with this "MAME plugin" hack:
a) it only works in window mode, so the zinc renderers cannot run in fullscreen right now (well, maybe the Glide plugin will work in fullscreen... but in that case the user will not see the MAME disclaimers, and he has to enter OK blindly, etc, etc). But prolly I could get around that with a little bit more efford.
b) it only works for the MS Windows version right now. I fear that for a Linux MAME port a lotta more hacking (in different parts of MAME) would be required.
c) the plugin hot keys will not work... but since the plugin keys are only used for enabling/disabling frameskipping, throttling, pause, etc - and all such functions can be found in MAME anyway - I found it more important that the MAME input handler still is working
> Lilwolf wrote: and yes... I know that this will probably cause a bit of a uprising in the mame forums.
yes? why? because a) plugins can be used? Or because b) hw/accel renderering can be used?
well, if it's a) ... personally I have the impression that MAME is really in need of a good plugin system (not that I am hinting that the ZiNc one is good, harharhar). But all that different MAME drivers compiled into one single exe ... oh my... that's screaming for dynamically loadable plugins, imho.
And, well, if it's b) ... I've never understood the 'purist pixel perfect' vs. 'enhanced & fast gfx' flame wars. Some will prefer this, others will prefer that. So what? Some people love good and solid offroad cars, others love the fast sporting type. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and discussions about which type is superior are just a waste of time, imho.
Use/code/support whatever you like better, but let others the freedom to make their own decisions what they should use/code/support.
> smf wrote: I'm hoping that it doesn't get released for various reasons.
Ehehe, well, I could be cruel and simply say: it's fully up to you ... you made the MAME psx stuff, and if you don't like the plugin support, I will not release it. No problem for me, I've done all kind of emulated related stuff in the past which I haven't released (I still remember the funny negative arguments of N64 emu authors after I've mailed them an OGL video plugin which supported various emus - in a time when every team had their own video interface, and most authors feared that a common interface would put their emus in a bad light).
But it's short-sighted, imho... the plugins are there, MAME is open source, and sooner or later somebody will combine them anyway. I needed exactly one hour to do so (and I know a **** about how the MAME architecture works exactly).
