Old Mame stuff

SabreGolly · 08 May 2003, 23:54

Are there any old versions of Mame out there?

The reason why I ask is that I have a (comparitively by modern standards) under powered 'miga (A1200 68020 28MHz) and would like to play REALLY old arcade games on it! We're talking serious retro - Galaxians, Defender, Tempest, Space Invaders etc. All the newer builds are for 68060 and ppc and will contain loads of much more recent titles which will be more processor heavy. I want the basics - nothing after 1984!

I've used mame on a PocketPC - and I know my amiga can emulate NES and ZXSpectrum better than this machine (I mention only as a comparision of processing power), yet there is a version of mame for it which can play these dead old games on.

Any ideas - or am I just dreaming...

fiath · 09 May 2003, 11:19

I have used MAME 0.26 beta 10 (IIRC) on an Amiga 1200 with an 030 50Mhz, and I am afraid to say every game was unplayable, even the really old stuff.

Perhaps newer versions of MAME got faster (probably, but as you say, you would need to compile it yourself, and I guess disable most of the newer drivers) but I think it will still suck speed wise.

The reasons for this is because the Spectrum/NES emus you have tried are probably optimised assembler (or even C) for the Amiga. MAME is very portable, but the generic nature of the design means most of it cannot be effectively optimised for particular machines or emulated hardware, and probably wouldn't be anyway because of the "documentation" nature of the project.

You are better off trying to find dedicated arcade emulators for the miggy. Go ask in comp.sys.amiga.emulations (which (used to be??) emulators that run on the Amiga, not emulations of the Amiga).

SabreGolly · 09 May 2003, 16:56

Oh well... I'll stick to the PD versions. I was hoping for some authentic versions of these games. I think the pocketPC version was based on mame32, but the build only had these older games included, which would run. The pocketPC spectrum emulator was a port of FUSE, and so probably wasn't optimised for the Mips processor as you describe.

I've always wanted to upgrade my amiga, but its obviously difficult these days to find trapdoor accelerators, and any that are available seem to be really expensive.

Never mind...

fiath · 09 May 2003, 17:41

Isn't PocketPC speed anything from 100-500MHz? Even an optimised MAME would probably run the old games. But a 50Mhz machine just didn't cut it.

cv643d · 09 May 2003, 18:07

MAME actually gets slower with each new release or so they say. The goal with the emu is to preserve the games I think so they dont focus on the speed part. Thats a shame because somebody ought to start optimizing the code. For example some late shoot em ups (1998-2000) can get a bit slow with lots of sprites moving round.. , and thats with a Pentium 4 2,4 ghz system.

I tried MAME on 030 also, it was extremely slow. I think loading Bombjack was like a couple of minutes or so... hmm. Ive heard its almost playable on 060 though.

fiath · 09 May 2003, 18:24

Who says?

I am not sure that is right, if you mean because the EXE is bigger. At least on the PC, because it only caches what is run... On miggy it could be different though. But if you mean because the added features slow it down, then that is sensible I guess.

But I disagree (slightly) they do continually looks for speed improvements, though as it is not the main focus.... probably not a huge effort goes into this.

An example though, would be Aaron adding a dynarec core. Not very accurate to the hardware that!

SabreGolly · 10 May 2003, 23:49

Quote:

Originally posted by fiath
Isn't PocketPC speed anything from 100-500MHz? Even an optimised MAME would probably run the old games. But a 50Mhz machine just didn't cut it.

My PocketPc has a 133MHz 'Mips' processor. Pocket PC's use RISC processors, so the clock rating can't be used to compare with CISC processors, such as 680?0 and Pentiums. As I mentioned earlier, I thought it might be possible since I have used spectrum, NES and Gameboy emulators on my Pocket PC, and the speeds at which they run is comparible (in fact, not that favourably) to my 28MHz amiga. One of the main problems with my model (Casio E115) appears to be the display - this eats processing power - a problem the amiga obviously doesn't have.

On this machine is a very near full speed version of mame (albeit emulating early arcade machines), just like the very near full speed emulations of Spectrum, Gameboy, etc. So I thought if my amiga can handle emulating these 8 bit machines, it may be up to emulating the old arcade machines.

I know this is a simplistic view of things.

Quote:

MAME actually gets slower with each new release or so they say.

Yeah, I've heard that too, thats why I wondered if anyone has any really early versions - which are only built for emulating these old machines. On aminet, as new versions of apps are released, the old ones are removed, but I thought perhaps somewhere there might be the sort of versions I was looking for.

As I said - I may be just dreaming

fiath · 11 May 2003, 00:08

Quote:

Originally posted by SabreGolly
My PocketPc has a 133MHz 'Mips' processor. Pocket PC's use RISC processors, so the clock rating can't be used to compare with CISC processors, such as 680?0 and Pentiums. As I mentioned earlier, I thought it might be possible since I have used spectrum, NES and Gameboy emulators on my Pocket PC, and the speeds at which they run is comparible (in fact, not that favourably) to my 28MHz amiga. One of the main problems with my model (Casio E115) appears to be the display - this eats processing power - a problem the amiga obviously doesn't have.

RISC CPU's are perfect for emulation (if used effectively), so I think your right, it must be more to do with the display - I have heard CPU driven displays are a real processing hog. AFAIR the GP32 is the same, and hence why even native games are about the same in capability as the games for the much slower CPU GBA games.

IFW · 11 May 2003, 07:02

Actually display driving is a problem even for your good old miggy... if you only have chipram (or slowram from $c00000, same bus does not matter) and your program code runs from again either chipram or slowram each bitplane displayed by the dma steals some bus bandwidth (they use the same bus through bus arbitration, rom code and real fast ram is on different bus).
Due to the way how the 68k fetches data it is not that bad upto 4 bitplanes (16 colours), but anything from 5 bitplanes is a huge performance hit for the cpu speed. On an AGA machine you can compensate for this with using the 32bit bus properly, but on an a500 it is very noticeable.

Shadowfire · 11 May 2003, 14:45

On an a500/2000 class machine, the bus speed is well matched for the processor.

On anything that's more advanced, you have to be running in 32-bit fast RAM for the CPU to go anywhere near its full speed. Even if you're running a 50mhz 68030, if the processor has to hit chipram or any of the chipset registers, it has to slow down to 7 Mhz.

On top of that, the Amiga uses planar graphics architecture, whereas almost all emulators use "chunky" pixel architecture, which adds another layer of software execution to the emulator.

RokChild · 11 May 2003, 15:51

You could try www.mame.dk I am sure that they have asection for downloading old versions of mame..

cv643d · 11 May 2003, 16:21

there are old versions on mame.net too, just not for amiga.
And yes older versions are faster for some strange reason.

Galahad/FLT · 11 May 2003, 19:50

are faster because they support less chipsets and roms. MAME is designed to get the game running, not necessarily at full speed. Typical lame PC Programmers mentality who can't be arsed to program properly, insisting that you need a faster processor!

MAME would be better if it had seperate 'cores' for the various hardware configurations. A lot of games out there use the same hardware engines. CAPCOMS early stuff like Strider and the like, all use the same hardware. Same with SEGA and their Model 1, 2, 3 boards. MAME is good in a way that it will support every aspect of an arcade, but relies on YOU to actually make it run at a decent speed.

As more and more arcade boards get supported, so it goes that MAME will become slower.

08 May 2003, 23:54	#1
SabreGolly Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Cheshire/UK Age: 52 Posts: 77	Old Mame stuff Are there any old versions of Mame out there? The reason why I ask is that I have a (comparitively by modern standards) under powered 'miga (A1200 68020 28MHz) and would like to play REALLY old arcade games on it! We're talking serious retro - Galaxians, Defender, Tempest, Space Invaders etc. All the newer builds are for 68060 and ppc and will contain loads of much more recent titles which will be more processor heavy. I want the basics - nothing after 1984! I've used mame on a PocketPC - and I know my amiga can emulate NES and ZXSpectrum better than this machine (I mention only as a comparision of processing power), yet there is a version of mame for it which can play these dead old games on. Any ideas - or am I just dreaming...

11 May 2003, 15:51	#11
RokChild The One The ONLY Join Date: May 2003 Location: Virginia USA Age: 60 Posts: 81	Old Versions of MAME You could try www.mame.dk I am sure that they have asection for downloading old versions of mame..

11 May 2003, 16:21	#12
cv643d Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 762	there are old versions on mame.net too, just not for amiga. And yes older versions are faster for some strange reason. Last edited by cv643d; 11 May 2003 at 16:38.

11 May 2003, 19:50	#13
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 50 Posts: 9,012	Old versions are faster because they support less chipsets and roms. MAME is designed to get the game running, not necessarily at full speed. Typical lame PC Programmers mentality who can't be arsed to program properly, insisting that you need a faster processor! MAME would be better if it had seperate 'cores' for the various hardware configurations. A lot of games out there use the same hardware engines. CAPCOMS early stuff like Strider and the like, all use the same hardware. Same with SEGA and their Model 1, 2, 3 boards. MAME is good in a way that it will support every aspect of an arcade, but relies on YOU to actually make it run at a decent speed. As more and more arcade boards get supported, so it goes that MAME will become slower.

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09 May 2003, 11:19	#2
fiath Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: South East / UK Age: 46 Posts: 1,930	I have used MAME 0.26 beta 10 (IIRC) on an Amiga 1200 with an 030 50Mhz, and I am afraid to say every game was unplayable, even the really old stuff. Perhaps newer versions of MAME got faster (probably, but as you say, you would need to compile it yourself, and I guess disable most of the newer drivers) but I think it will still suck speed wise. The reasons for this is because the Spectrum/NES emus you have tried are probably optimised assembler (or even C) for the Amiga. MAME is very portable, but the generic nature of the design means most of it cannot be effectively optimised for particular machines or emulated hardware, and probably wouldn't be anyway because of the "documentation" nature of the project. You are better off trying to find dedicated arcade emulators for the miggy. Go ask in comp.sys.amiga.emulations (which (used to be??) emulators that run on the Amiga, not emulations of the Amiga).

09 May 2003, 16:56	#3
SabreGolly Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Cheshire/UK Age: 52 Posts: 77	Oh well... I'll stick to the PD versions. I was hoping for some authentic versions of these games. I think the pocketPC version was based on mame32, but the build only had these older games included, which would run. The pocketPC spectrum emulator was a port of FUSE, and so probably wasn't optimised for the Mips processor as you describe. I've always wanted to upgrade my amiga, but its obviously difficult these days to find trapdoor accelerators, and any that are available seem to be really expensive. Never mind...

09 May 2003, 17:41	#4
fiath Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: South East / UK Age: 46 Posts: 1,930	Isn't PocketPC speed anything from 100-500MHz? Even an optimised MAME would probably run the old games. But a 50Mhz machine just didn't cut it.

09 May 2003, 18:07	#5
cv643d Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 762	MAME actually gets slower with each new release or so they say. The goal with the emu is to preserve the games I think so they dont focus on the speed part. Thats a shame because somebody ought to start optimizing the code. For example some late shoot em ups (1998-2000) can get a bit slow with lots of sprites moving round.. , and thats with a Pentium 4 2,4 ghz system. I tried MAME on 030 also, it was extremely slow. I think loading Bombjack was like a couple of minutes or so... hmm. Ive heard its almost playable on 060 though.

09 May 2003, 18:24	#6
fiath Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: South East / UK Age: 46 Posts: 1,930	Who says? I am not sure that is right, if you mean because the EXE is bigger. At least on the PC, because it only caches what is run... On miggy it could be different though. But if you mean because the added features slow it down, then that is sensible I guess. But I disagree (slightly) they do continually looks for speed improvements, though as it is not the main focus.... probably not a huge effort goes into this. An example though, would be Aaron adding a dynarec core. Not very accurate to the hardware that!

11 May 2003, 07:02	#9
IFW Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: ... Age: 52 Posts: 1,838	Actually display driving is a problem even for your good old miggy... if you only have chipram (or slowram from $c00000, same bus does not matter) and your program code runs from again either chipram or slowram each bitplane displayed by the dma steals some bus bandwidth (they use the same bus through bus arbitration, rom code and real fast ram is on different bus). Due to the way how the 68k fetches data it is not that bad upto 4 bitplanes (16 colours), but anything from 5 bitplanes is a huge performance hit for the cpu speed. On an AGA machine you can compensate for this with using the 32bit bus properly, but on an a500 it is very noticeable.

11 May 2003, 14:45	#10
Shadowfire Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Connecticut USA Posts: 617	On an a500/2000 class machine, the bus speed is well matched for the processor. On anything that's more advanced, you have to be running in 32-bit fast RAM for the CPU to go anywhere near its full speed. Even if you're running a 50mhz 68030, if the processor has to hit chipram or any of the chipset registers, it has to slow down to 7 Mhz. On top of that, the Amiga uses planar graphics architecture, whereas almost all emulators use "chunky" pixel architecture, which adds another layer of software execution to the emulator.

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