January 11th, 2010
R.Belmont recently made a post about upcoming changes in MAME 0.136u1. The 0.136u1 update of MAME will be a major update for several reasons, not only will it be the first ever version to be compiled as C++ code (although the vast majority of the project is still written in C) it will also be the first version where the cross-platform SDLMame becomes an official target alongside the standard windows compile.
That’s not the only unification that’s going on at the moment however. As followers of this site may have noticed, I’ve always prefered the MAME style ’software lists’ over the open-ended approach taken by MESS with regards to loading software hence the creation of side-projects such as HazeMD and TinyCDI which serve to document both the hardware AND the software released on a platform. Changes are underway in MESS right not to bring that concept to MESS alongside the existing open-ended loading (for homebrew etc.)
This will bring MESS much closer inline with MAME’s level of documentation and policies, properly documenting what software was available for each system. The MAME / MESS database format provides a more comprehensive way to document cartridges than the existing databases which are available, and will allow proper cart dumps, with proper rom naming to be supported just as easily as in MESS. It will also inherit the parent/clone relationship system from MAME, and have fields for Manufacturer, and Year information, just as can be found in MAME.
Hopefully with changes like this MESS can become the ultimate database for Console informaiton, much as MAME has become for Arcade systems. The current databases are limited, and despite their intentions are unable to properly document some details about the cartdiges (such as the actual ROM labels, # of roms, sizes etc.) so assuming MESS can get some traction in this area it is more than capable of becoming a far better reference than those already out there. This is something I’ve wanted to see for a long time because while the existing console ROM formats are great if you just want to play games in any given emulator they fail to actual document things the way MAME does. As the games become older starts to become more of a priority, and isn’t something you can rely on the various rereleases on modern platforms because those are simply about playing the games, so it’s important for other people to document it. There are other advantages to the MESS / MAME database too, for example, the development team make no claims of ownership over the database, once exported from the executable you’re free (and even encouraged) to use / import the information for use in your own emulator, so that things can be consistently and correctly supported.
This should also lead to it being possible to create sites like The fantastic MAWS from the MESS database, and also easier set-name based bugtracking and regression testing as is used on Mametesters. It’s a large undertaking, but as long as people can get behind the idea, and support it then it could be of great benefit to everybody who cares about the history of Computer / Console software, and the emulation of these systems.
This could well be the start of a unified database system for Computers / Consoles, and the first step in the Console emulation scene growing up to be something that’s more than just about ‘playing the games’. Here’s hoping.
Posted by Haze at January 11th, 2010 00:10
Comments
As i told it on MW board several months ago, i totally agree with you…
And i’m waiting for this to start
A few typos in there Haze :P
I feel that emulation is fine with just about ‘playing games” as you put it. NES emulators have gone beyond the machine’s capabilities, perfectly replicating the games’ contents. An emulator should have an option to replicate games’ original environment perfectly, or emulate the game so well that it plays better than on the original system.
Let’s face it, games have very little historical value outside pop-culture phenomena and game coding.
I dislike MAME’s main goal to create a historical “book” of past arcade games rather than emphasizing on games themselves.
If an emulator emulates a system so that the game plays different (better or not) from the original hardware, it’s not doing the right job.
I applaud this decision and although there are multiple challenges for the implementation (as was discussed on the forums) I think it’s better to start implementing now, even if it’s not perfect and keep perfecting it with time.
I’m curious, will this initial effort open the possibility to not programmers to help building these game databases?
I imagine non-programmers could help a lot with the refinement of the databases, correcting year / manufacturer info etc. as the initial databases are likely to be batch conversions from existing ones, with the missing information added later. (there is no other sane way)
and yeah, there are probably typos, I wrote it in a rush ;)
one of the main reasons MAME has survived so long is the ‘historical book’ approach. it’s what the people behind the project want to see, it’s what sets it aside from other projects, and it also puts it on much sounder legal footing than simply screaming ‘come and get some free games here!!’
yes, and now you will have people doing pokerom with the MESS roms sets :D
“yes, and now you will have people doing pokerom with the MESS roms sets”
This is a good thing, personally I feel the internet is the greatest redundant storage network in existance. There is no real reason for data loss now capacity is so cheap.
I have a question.
Any possibility’s in this year the rom call Gals Panic 2 will be fixed soon?
I can´t wait to play that game i will wait and i wish you all can fix the other roms too ;).
I wonder if this “unification” provides some big delay for the next MAME release. Im used to see MAME updates like once in a week, and now 12 days passed and still no update, so I would like to hear approximate date of next MAME release, based on how much stuff you plan to implement in it.
hi haze
maybe i didnt catch the argue very well
in the new mame platform games will not be a original but the maybe forced to work,modified or game remixes or graphic retouch ? thx in advance
@BlackShroud: the next update will be out once the problem due to the new compiler has been fixed. Only Aaron knows when. no new things to implement there.
@bledi: the only change for MAME will be using a new version of the GCC compiler. Also, it will be possible to use SDL in place of direct X. that’s all. the rest of the article was about MESS and the title “Unification” might sound a bit misleading because there is no merging between the two projects
Great ideas! let MAME/MESS be the ultimate emulators
Let’s just hope Reirom didn’t trademark ‘EmuAllSystems’ ;-)
Anyway, don’t expect too many updates here for the next few months, I just bought a PS3, and want to experience some modern games, so until I’m finished with them I’m semi-retired ;-)
New games are nowhere as hardcore as pac-man clones you guys work on from time to time, lol. Anyway I hope the 2D devs will be able to provide quick fix for SS64/SS64_2 1st player palette problem seen on all 5 Drew’s WIP screenshots I reposted here:
http://spirits.kaillera.ru/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10812&start=10
This is probably just a wrong color offset value, since PS2 palettes are all spot-on, so I guess fixing this wont be much of a problem.
My bad, meant P2 palettes
Hyper NeoGeo 64 i wish will bee fixed very soon :D.
Andy already improved the palettes.
Hi David, Once again i found something wrong in a game emulated via mame.
See Bad Dudes vs Dragon ninja (US) and Dragon Ninja (JP) ?
The japan set uses the US sound rom !!! I have just played my japanese Dragon ninja board (all the roms have original stickers!) and the FX differs from US set. For example, when the guy says ‘I’m bad’ in the US version when you kill a level boss, it says in the japanese version ‘Ohhhh!’. And others FX differs too.
I’m currently dumping the sound roms in order to send them to you for correction in mame.
that sounds like a very possible mistake. quite often people who dumped clones only bothered to dump the main program roms, without checking if any other roms were different.
Do you want to correct this and implement my dump ?
I have run it thru mame by tricking the names and it runs to the end :)
In fact as it appears, it seems that even a graphic rom has a different checksum.
Do you want me to upload it ?
yes I’ll look at it and submit it for you.
have you double checked the graphic rom? graphic roms being different is less common, so might indicate that one of the dumps is actually bad.
Here is the synthesis after careful checking :
DRAGON NINJA (C) 1988 DATA EAST CORPORATION (DECO JAPAN)
Note : The Japan and USA set differs on both sound roms and graphic roms.
Here is the deal :
Actual Mame set :
Maincpu :
drgninja.04 CRC(41b8b3f8)
drgninja.01 CRC(e08e6885)
drgninja.06 CRC(2b81faf7)
drgninja.03 CRC(c52c2e9d)
Audiocpu :
drgninja.07 CRC(001d2f51)
Mcu :
i8751 (undumped)
Gfx1 :
drgninja.25 CRC(6791bc20)
drgninja.26 CRC(5d75fc8f)
Gfx2 :
baddudes.18 CRC(05cfc3e5)
baddudes.20 CRC(e11e988f)
baddudes.22 CRC(b893d880)
baddudes.24 CRC(6f226dda)
Gfx3 :
drgninja.30 CRC(2438e67e)
drgninja.28 CRC(5c692ab3)
Gfx4 :
drgninja.15 CRC(5617d67f)
baddudes.16 CRC(17e42633)
drgninja.11 CRC(ba83e8d8)
baddudes.12 CRC(fea2a134)
drgninja.13 CRC(fd91e08e)
baddudes.14 CRC(e83c760a)
baddudes.9 CRC(6901e628)
baddudes.10 CRC(eeee8a1a)
Oki :
baddudes.8 CRC(3c87463e)
My dump of Dragon ninja :
Maincpu :
drgninja.04 CRC(41b8b3f8)
drgninja.01 CRC(e08e6885)
drgninja.06 CRC(2b81faf7)
drgninja.03 CRC(c52c2e9d)
Audiocpu :
drgninja.07 CRC(001d2f51) Same as mame
Mcu :
i8751 (undumped)
Gfx1 :
drgninja.25 CRC(dd557b19) !Different!
drgninja.26 CRC(5d75fc8f)
Gfx2 :
drgninja.18 CRC(05cfc3e5)
drgninja.20 CRC(e11e988f)
drgninja.22 CRC(b893d880)
drgninja.24 CRC(6f226dda)
Gfx3 :
drgninja.30 CRC(2438e67e) !Different!
drgninja.28 CRC(5c692ab3)
Gfx4 :
drgninja.15 CRC(5617d67f)
drgninja.16 CRC(17e42633)
drgninja.11 CRC(ba83e8d8)
drgninja.12 CRC(fea2a134)
drgninja.13 CRC(fd91e08e)
drgninja.14 CRC(e83c760a)
drgninja.09 CRC(601B7B23) !Different!
drgninja.10 CRC(eeee8a1a)
Oki :
drgninja.08 CRC(92F2C916) !Different!
Please find the new proper dragon ninja (japan) dump with refs :
http://www.yousendit.com/download/VGljblFNTkxrUmtLSkE9PQ
The bad dudes US set is good however :)
for
drgninja.30 CRC(2438e67e) !Different!
you write ‘different’, but the actual rom is the same.
the changes in
drgninja.25 CRC(dd557b19) !Different!
are interesting, basically it has the bad dudes logo mostly removed from it and partially replaced by corrupted characters. Also the ‘Left’ arrow in the ascii characters has a bad pixel in it. I don’t know why they would do this, especially not when the other bitplanes of the bad dudes logo still exist in
ROM_LOAD( “baddudes.26″, 0×08000, 0×08000, CRC(9aff67b8) SHA1(18c3972a9f17a48897463f48be0d723ea0cf5aba) )
which you confirmed to be the same on your board. Erasing the logo completely from both roms would have made more sense..
I haven’t looked at the other gfx rom change yet. Sample rom is obviously *very* different.
another example : on the truck on level 2, in the US version you have “DRAGON NINJA” written on it.
The Japan set (mine) has the KIKUCHI CO.LTD written on it instead.
Maybe there is others things changed :D
PS : i got my hands on a Wizard of Fire Data east board :P got it not working (due to a missing rom on the board loool) for 38 euros shipping included. We will see if it’s an alternate set or not ;)
the existing mame set should already have the Kikuchi co change in it, some of the graphic roms are already different.
i’m just wondering why you said one of the roms was different when it’s the same, did you upload the right file?
maybe i was wrong about drgninja.25 you’re right !
I did the comparing with MAWS dec0.src file.
yep i upped the right file ;)
ok, your new dump has been submitted, replacing the existing one. For drgninja.25 / eg25 it will be interesting to see if the existing rom actually came from an original board or not. The changes in your set don’t look accidental, or (aside from the pixel in the left arrow) like they could possibly related to a rom going bad, so it looks like they changed it on purpose for some reason.
I still have no idea why they did this, but given that you have an original DE board with original labels it must be how they shipped it, at least on your board. If you do at any point come across another original DragonNinja board I’d appreciate it if you could check that one too, just to see if it’s got the same rom, or the ‘clean’ one from the current set.
Hi David,
I have tested my board, and came with no glitch at all, i finished the game before dumping it to be sure that it was 100% correct.
The first thing that made me ‘huh? wtf ?’ was the sound part. Then, i compared on my PC with US version, no doubt possible, some changes were done in the sound, and also graphically speaking.
But what you find, i didn’t noticed it. Good to know that you find that. Anyway, i have tried to dump the EG-25 rom at least 3 times to see if everything was fine (no incorrect dump).
BTW, i got today Double dragon US taito set and teenage mutant US 4 players. Will see what set in mame they are :)
No problem, if i can put my hands on a US board, or another japanese board i will tell you ;)
