UME is the complete/combined version of the MAME / MESS project.
MAME / MESS 0.152 have been released, this is the final MAME release of 2013, and as usual I’ve compiled the complete / unlocked UME binaries to host here.
0.152 is based on the 0.152 release found on Mamedev.org (SVN revision 26738) with a small fix for a validity issue applied (checked in as SVN revision 26740)
The changelog since 0.151ex3 (simply a copy/paste of the SVN log) can be read here.
The actual whatsnew files for 0.152 can be read here (MAME-side) and here (MESS-side)
UME 0.152 Windows binaries – 32-bit, 64-bit and all tools
UME 0.152 sources
Points of Interest
This caught me off-guard a bit, I was expecting a release in the 1st of 2nd week of January like last year, so I’ve not been paying too close attention to what’s been going on, I have however quickly scanned the list of changes.
It doesn’t look like there’s been a great deal of measurable emulation progress since the 0.151ex3 release, at least not in terms of end-user experience. There have been a large number of changes, but very few that bring new functionality. If of course you haven’t upgraded to any of the ‘ex’ builds then there is an awful lot to see since 0.151, look at the previous details posted with the ‘ex’ builds here to see some of those!
The most interesting work lately has probably been the improvements to the discrete system emulation which shows a lot of potential and is going to be critical to emulating a number of very early arcade titles, although the only one currently supported, Pong, is arguably in a worse state at the moment than in some prior releases because you can’t actually move the paddles to the bottom of the screen. This makes hitting the ball impossible in some cases thus rendering the game unplayable for the moment. The developer involved is apparently aware of this, but I guess it’s important to convey the message here so people don’t set their immediate hopes too high after seeing the recent change logs which have admittedly been exciting.
Kale’s recent work on Hyper NeoGeo 64 is included, amongst other things this means you can coin up Buriki One and see more of the game than just the attract mode, but the driver is still highly incomplete and completely unoptimized, so it isn’t an experience I can recommend just yet. Maybe 2014 will bring more progress in this driver, the improved 3D pipeline emulation Kale has introduced certainly paves way for some of that.
There’s the odd interesting clone such as the original Semicom release of Wivern Wings; all the previously supported sets were the GameVision licensed version that had been renamed to Wyvern Wings, I’m sure you’ll agree the original title logo looked nicer!
I need to scan the changes in MESS a little more to see if there’s anything worth highlighting there.
Haze, I wonder if you’ve seen the interviews with M2 about the 3D versions of classic Sega games for the 3DS.
The interview about Space Harrier touched on an interesting issue.
M2 had made the PS2 port of Space Harrier based on the original arcade board, but then they received comments that the horizon line was wrong when the player flew to the top of the screen. When they went to make the Wii port, they tested Sega’s warehoused machine, and going into test mode showed that the stick wouldn’t max out. This difference did impact the difficulty of the game, as it was presumably designed with the limited range in mind.
But the story continues. After releasing the Wii version, they again received comments that the horizon line was wrong, and that the PS2 was actually right. They eventually decided that was due to people playing cabinets that had seen heavy use (unlike the warehoused machine they checked for the Wii version), or machines that had had their sticks replaced. For the 3DS port, they eventually just went with letting the player choose which of three movement ranges they wanted, because while the restrictive movement of the Wii port was probably the most technically accurate, there would be people would have experienced (and have memories of) playing machines that allowed a wider range.
I’m not really sure how MAME handles Space Harrier, or how it would even choose to detect or deal with such situations.
I forgot to say that seeing any progress on the Hyper NeoGeo 64 is a positive and a nice Christmas present, at least to me.
MAME typically emulates the full possible range of the sticks, assuming it doesn’t completely break the game (ie crash it), although it would probably make sense if the user was allowed to change those limits to simulate different types of original sticks as they’ve basically analog / mechanical type parts.
Of course, in terms of actual emulation of the video hardware MAME emulates whatever the behavior would have been so any glitches present should occur in MAME.
While I’m sure the M2 team had fun with the 3DS ports (and the stories certainly interesting) I still find 3D a bit gimmicky. I’d love to see games that made full and proper use of such technology but it seems even Nintendo see it as a gimmick rather than something that could be used as part of real game mechanics, hence releasing that version of the system with no 3D support at all! Obviously 3D adaptations of 2D games aren’t going to require the 3D for any meaningful gameplay mechanic, even if it looks pretty.
yes, it’s good to see any progress on the system, the lack of games and apparent flexibility in the way things could be configured make it a pain to emulate due to limited evidence. things like Buriki One seem to point at possible hardware limitations too (I’ve been looking again at the line-ram for the floor and they only populate every other entry, suggesting maybe the hardware couldn’t really handle different line settings for every line even if the ram was present for example, assuming it isn’t just due to a configuration choice that is)
it’s certainly one where it’s going to take multiple people chipping away at it over time if we’re going to see any progress, I know a lot of people expected big things when I got the system booting so many years ago with much of the 2D looking good, but that was just one part of the work needed so I’m glad to see people like Kale picking it up.
I don’t mean for my summaries to come across as too negative when talking about such things, they’re just meant to be an honest reflection of the current state, ie right now despite the impressive progress you’re probably not going to want to play either Pong, or HNG64 in the current build, although if you’re curious to see what progress is being made then they both definitely things to look at. The worst thing to do is get hopes up too high only to have people find out the reality isn’t quite as good as they thought it would be, for some reason trying to be more honest gets interpreted as bashing the devs and the project(s) tho.
The M2 stories certainly seem interesting.
For the 3D versions of Megadrive/Genesis games, their solution was to create system specs for fictional enhanced Megadrive designed for 3D displays, and then to upgrade the games to take advantage of that new fictional system. (Of course they had to update their “Gigadrive”‘s specs as they tackled later games, which had already pushed Megadrive hardware to achieve faked 3D effects.)
3D does have some effect on games like Space Harrier and Galaxy Force II (both remade by M2 for the 3DS) simply because it is easier to judge positions. For games like Sonic and Shinobi III, it is probably just an extra visual touch. It does sound like M2 puts more effort into their 3D remakes than some others, though.
The interviews are certainly entertaining reads, covering various aspects of the work that they’ve done. I’ve more respect for what M2 has been doing with their remakes after reading some of these. These aren’t just quick cash grab jobs. It is also interesting to see the progress that they made between related games like Space Harrier to Galaxy Force 2.
http://blogs.sega.com/category/sega-3d-classics/
Haze,
If I buy a Sunset Riders board, is there anyone that I can send it to to possibly dump the contents of the protection device on it?
I’m sick of Sunset Riders’s glitched out collision detection in MAME.
I don’t think anybody knows exactly what the device is, nevermind how to dump it, if it can even be dumped at all.. (there’s no guarantee it has internal rom, could just be a special custom gate array)
certainly not a task somebody could ‘just do’ with a board.
So after all cavesh3 wasn’t added to source, too bad. I was hoping to seee finally official version :(
it’s still 2013.. I said they’d be added in the new year.
The gladiator NOT WORK MORE!!!
ume151x2 work fine
ume151x3 NOT WORK
ume152 NOT WORK
as use the gladiato (theglad.zip) with UME152???
the cartridge sets now require an internal ROM actually dumped from the cartridge version (overseas instead of Japan) allowing a rom hack to be avoided.
other than that the game works exactly as it did in previous UME builds and ‘thegladpcb’ set will work with the Japan internal ROM dump. (you will need the extra rom with the Japan version music in tho)
Is the prototype game from Australia you mentioned earlier “Power Kick”? or is it yet to be included? There are a ton of games I hope it may be.
Just wondering…
What happens when the only arcade games left to emulate are PC based systems, like Taito Type-X and CV1000D for example?
You have said many times before that you avoid them when possible because such systems are very boring to work on, so will MAME devs, contributers & coders like yourself start to give up on MAME when all older arcade PCB’s have been dumped?
no, that remains a secret for now, possibly for the anniversary builds.
there are always older systems to improve, especially when you include the MESS side of things, but let’s not discount the amount of MAME work there is to do, things people could be doing today even.
I have a feeling more development will end up going on there (MESS side), and hopefully if the developers have any common sense we’ll actually see MAME embrace everything and become what UME is today so that it has a real future.
Also some devs find such platforms interesting, even if they’re never going to appeal to people who want a playable experience. They don’t really appeal to me because they don’t fit my skills at all and I find them frustrating to work with, but not everybody is the same, and it is important to get them done properly, especially with everybody else basically just making native PC bootlegs of them to get them playable instead. I won’t be working on such platforms myself, but others might, the actual PC emulation in MESS has continued to come on leaps and bounds over the last year in terms of compatibility, and that’s what’s important for the time being; once we start to see pentium era drivers running as well as the 486 ones do now I expect dominoes will start to fall and it won’t be long before we’re running a lot of newer stuff (albeit VERY slowly)
Nice christmas present, thanks. How does one run a game with the Arcadia TenPlay BIOS 4.00? First it shows a screen to set machine id and time, then the usual available games listing and then a printer control screen. I haven’t managed to go further there. Is the version 4.00 from the Electrocoin Electrochoice as 3.11 or from something else?
Will ddp daifukkatsu be compatible with next release ??
the game has been released in arcade 6 years ago… please make it compatible with official release…
i also look for saidaioujou some days
the one bios that requires a printer doesn’t appear to work, because the driver doesn’t have any kind of printer hooked up (or whatever switches you need to turn it off)
i’m sure there is code in the MESS amiga driver to handle such things, but those bits weren’t copy+pasted when the arcadia driver was made, it might benefit from some code merging / reduction.
Thanks.
Hi Haze.
With the new 3D pipeline you speak of from Kale, would this have any affect on the iteagle driver (Golden Tee Fore)?
Happy New Year.
no, i’m talking about emulation of the HNG64 3d pipeline, how the fifos / buffers / status flags work on it.
that has nothing to do with 3d in other areas of MAME, and certainly nothing to do with Golden Tree.
Due Arcadia Format news is closed for comments, I use this one. Perhaps the easiest way to access/rip MoonQuake data is connect Action Replay 3 and see/get decoded data from board memory. Of course MoonQuake ROM (init code and CRC’s) must be modified too, due without changes Action Replay 3 will be don’t works.
BTW. Undamaged version of arcadia3.u15 ROM for ar_dart2, is available on the Wanted Team page.