Why does MAME suck so bad?

[Vlcice]

Since frontends came up, I wanted to give a shoutout to the awesome MAME Tunes (http://macapps.web.infoseek.co.jp/mame_tunes/index_en.html) for Mac. It has an iTunes-like interface, which lets you organize games into playlists or search, and has a nice visual way to arrange games.

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/6217/overviewxb.jpg

It works great with SDLMAME. The internal game list is based on MAME's XML export, so you can update the game list when you get a new version of MAME without having to get a new version of MAME Tunes.

[NE146]

NE, where did you get that avatar from? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200587575570 :P

Was that ever any secret? :) Of course it is :p

You the same Z3k3 from IRC?

[z3k3]

Was that ever any secret? :) Of course it is :p

You the same Z3k3 from IRC?

yessir.

[z3k3]

Was that ever any secret? :) Of course it is :p


Yah, I know. Just a chance for me to put in a cheap plug. Surprised there isn't a "For Sale/Auction" forum here. In a week, I'll put up my really nice Custer's Revenge cart/box. I'm just waiting for the crappier condition one to finish up.

[dgdgagdae]

Since frontends came up, I wanted to give a shoutout to the awesome MAME Tunes (http://macapps.web.infoseek.co.jp/mame_tunes/index_en.html) for Mac. It has an iTunes-like interface, which lets you organize games into playlists or search, and has a nice visual way to arrange games.

It works great with SDLMAME. The internal game list is based on MAME's XML export, so you can update the game list when you get a new version of MAME without having to get a new version of MAME Tunes.

Why would anyone deliberately choose to use something that looks like iTunes? For all of Apple's successes, they seriously need to update the look of that program. Writing something to emulate the look and feel of it seems crazy, to me.

[skaar]

Most of the complaints about MAME seem to stem from a lack of effort put forth by users to read, configure, or otherwise put effort into their setup.

What do you want for free?

My MAME setup isn't perfect and we've spent only a few hours going through configuring it... granted we're also trying to get Hyperspin going as well... but it's great when things finally get running the way I want them to. Hooray for victories!

Put some effort in and you'll be rewarded.

[jcalder8]

Most of the complaints about MAME seem to stem from a lack of effort put forth by users to read, configure, or otherwise put effort into their setup.

What do you want for free?

My MAME setup isn't perfect and we've spent only a few hours going through configuring it... granted we're also trying to get Hyperspin going as well... but it's great when things finally get running the way I want them to. Hooray for victories!

Put some effort in and you'll be rewarded.
I spent the last 3 weeks working with hyperspin and I am loving it. I'm no expert but I've had to do a lot of trouble shooting on my own setup. Feel free to drop me a line if you get stuck.

[stalepie]

Why should it take three weeks to get a game running? I never have to spend three weeks to get a game running in Kega Fusion, Gens, NNNesterJ, Ootake, ZSNES, Applewin and other emulators.

People saying I can't complain because it's free want things to stay the same and never improve. So if MAME cost $1 I'd be able to complain all I want? I wouldn't be told that I suck when I say something else sucks?

You're not allowed to say something is bad unless you spent money on it?

For instance, if I visit a city and I see buildings in poor repair I'm not allowed to say, "wow, this place looks like shit" without first living there for a year and paying taxes?

If MAME is improved (made easier to use and more compatible out-of-the-box with more games) then arcade preservation will live on and more people will know about the classics in the future.

[stalepie]

Also I already know about frontends. I've been using MAME for over ten years. I don't think it fixes the underlying issues in the code because it's just a frontend - the graphics on top (the menus, GUI). It does however add to the confusion and hassle a new user experiences when wondering about the best way to set up MAME. Does he choose this frontend? That frontend? This version of MAME? The one released 2 years ago during a certain month so that his romset is compatible with it?

For instance, some ROMs I just downloaded work in mame.exe but don't work in MAMEPPK. Why is this? I thought I had the new editions of both these programs, so I figured MAMEPPK was just a graphical version of the newest mame.

It's very disorganized.

[InsaneDavid]

Why should it take three weeks to get a game running? I never have to spend three weeks to get a game running in Kega Fusion, Gens, NNNesterJ, Ootake, ZSNES, Applewin and other emulators.

This is something I try to explain to people when they say they want to start owning arcade games and it actually also applies to console emulators vs. arcade emulators.

You never have to spend three weeks getting a game you just bought working on your NES, Genesis, Atari 2600, etc.

You can spend upwards of YEARS getting an arcade game you just picked up at auction or off craigslist running properly.

These are arcade games, junior. This is the big leagues. These games are infinitely complex and very poorly documented by their manufacturers. Most arcade games were expected to last for a few months and then be replaced by the next title. These were never intended to be consumer products and because of that you have to actually put some time into them to get entertainment back in return. Instant gratification is something for players, not operators. And if you're getting into arcade games, if you're going to own and maintain arcade games, then you're an operator! If you want to get heavy into MAME and have it do all the things you want it to do, exactly in the fashion you want it to perform, then guess what - you're an operator in almost the same sense.

But once you get everything set up right and take the time to understand why you have to do things certain ways, you'll find it way more rewarding and way more enjoyable than loading up a ROM of Super Mario World to play for 15 minutes before getting bored and moving onto the next game in the list.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Also I already know about frontends. I've been using MAME for over ten years. I don't think it fixes the underlying issues in the code because it's just a frontend - the graphics on top (the menus, GUI). It does however add to the confusion and hassle a new user experiences when wondering about the best way to set up MAME. Does he choose this frontend? That frontend? This version of MAME? The one released 2 years ago during a certain month so that his romset is compatible with it?

For instance, some ROMs I just downloaded work in mame.exe but don't work in MAMEPPK. Why is this? I thought I had the new editions of both these programs, so I figured MAMEPPK was just a graphical version of the newest mame.

It's very disorganized.

There ARE no underlying issues in the emulator's code. You can see what's broken and what isn't at http://www.mametesters.org/ . All your issues seem to be caused by incorrect romsets, which they have no obligation to keep supporting.

And I'm saying this again, BLAME THE ROM SITES for not posting any updated romsets and insist on using sets from versions that would run fine on six year old machines.

If you want a frontend, and you want it built in, get MAMEUI. End of problem.

[stalepie]

This is something I try to explain to people when they say they want to start owning arcade games and it actually also applies to console emulators vs. arcade emulators.

You never have to spend three weeks getting a game you just bought working on your NES, Genesis, Atari 2600, etc.

You can spend upwards of YEARS getting an arcade game you just picked up at auction or off craigslist running properly.

These are arcade games, junior. This is the big leagues. These games are infinitely complex and very poorly documented by their manufacturers. Most arcade games were expected to last for a few months and then be replaced by the next title. These were never intended to be consumer products and because of that you have to actually put some time into them to get entertainment back in return. Instant gratification is something for players, not operators. And if you're getting into arcade games, if you're going to own and maintain arcade games, then you're an operator! If you want to get heavy into MAME and have it do all the things you want it to do, exactly in the fashion you want it to perform, then guess what - you're an operator in almost the same sense.

But once you get everything set up right and take the time to understand why you have to do things certain ways, you'll find it way more rewarding and way more enjoyable than loading up a ROM of Super Mario World to play for 15 minutes before getting bored and moving onto the next game in the list.

So you don't want MAME to be easier to use.

[stalepie]

And why deride console games? I don't get that. They used much the same hardware as the arcade.

"junior"... this place is so insulting.

[Kitsune Sniper]

So you don't want MAME to be easier to use.

Yeah, we should go back to the early days when there weren't any rom checkers, rom CRC databases, and frontends. Uh huh.

Edit: Console games are included in a separate fork of the project called MESS. There's some console-based games on MAME at the moment but they're not working properly.

And I'm trying to not be sarcastic here. But failing at it, obviously.

[stalepie]

There ARE no underlying issues in the emulator's code.


yeah there is. That's why they improve it. Are you saying MAME hasn't improved since its early releases? Are you saying it is now in perfect form and they do not need to release any more updates ?

[stalepie]

Yeah, we should go back to the early days when there weren't any rom checkers, rom CRC databases, and frontends. Uh huh.

If people hadn't of complained there probably wouldn't be.

Why is everybody so insulting here? I haven't insulted anybody?

Some of my first posts people started making fun of my screenname.

[stalepie]

You guys are a bunch of schmucks.

[Kitsune Sniper]

So what are these underlying issues? The fact that it can't run certain games, or the fact that your roms don't work because they aren't meant for the version of the emulator you're using?

We keep replying to you, trying to explain things, and you aren't listening.

[buzz_n64]

Console Emulator- Emulates one system, and multiple games.
MAME emulator- Emulates multiple systems and multiple games.

MAME is complex because what it has to do is complex, just man up and go through the setup process, after you're done, have some fun, or complain on some forums. Take your pick.

[InsaneDavid]

Edit: Console games are included in a separate fork of the project called MESS. There's some console-based games on MAME at the moment but they're not working properly.

MESS is a good point to be made. I use MESS to take screen shots of Tomy Tutor games for one of my columns at Retrogaming Times Monthly, as it's one of the few emulation platforms that run them. I've BARELY configured MESS and have encountered problems getting things to run but I've been able to work them out eventually. If I was going to be using it all the time then I'd spend more time on setting it up, but I'll probably only run the Tomy Tutor fork for like two hours total ever, so it's not worth it to me.

In that way it's just like the MAME discussion here, where you have to spend some time getting things configured if you're going to use the program on a regular basis.

stalepie - you aren't that dude that's been on a personal crusade to attempt to bring down MAME on a bunch of other forums, are you?

[Icarus Moonsight]

You guys are a bunch of schmucks.

:roll:

@echo ON

I seriously do not understand how this thread came to be. MAME has given me orgasms!

[stalepie]

In that way it's just like the MAME discussion here, where you have to spend some time getting things configured if you're going to use the program on a regular basis.

stalepie - you aren't that dude that's been on a personal crusade to attempt to bring down MAME on a bunch of other forums, are you?

No, I've used stalepie since AOL 2.5, although I think I saw someone on a forum in the Netherlands using it once.

Arcade gaming should be easy to do for the player - for instance, "back in the day," in an arcade, a player simply walked up the machine, put a quarter in and pressed start. That is how most games worked. Kids played. You did not need to "man up" or "join the big leagues" or something in order to play the game.

Someone above took 3 weeks working on getting a game running in MAME. That is my answer to Kitsune regarding where I see problems with MAME.


Edit: Well, I've used other names besides this, but I think this is the first time I've bashed MAME. I actually don't hate it that bad. I think it must be an extremely hard product to produce, emulating all those old games.

My real name is Matt Dickinson.

I guess MAME is fine and I won't complain about it anymore, as I said earlier in the thread when I started to back out. I don't know. Don't care that much.

[Lady Jaye]

The biggest issue, like others have mentioned, is the use of outdated romsets on the wrong version of MAME. That's really the one thing I really really miss from the old mame.dk site: it listed properly which version of a given ROM was for which version of MAME. Maybe there is another site that does a similar job of listing those ROMs like mame.dk did (I sure hope so), but seems like it isn't the case.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Okay, he asked if you were that particular person because there's this weirdo that keeps going to several classic gaming and emulation forums to bash MAME for some obscure reasons nobody understands. For what it's worth, I don't believe you're that guy.

jcalder8 was talking about setting up the Hyperspin frontend to work like he wanted. I imagine he meant that he set it up to run ALL his emulators, which would take a long time for someone who isn't busy all day. He probably didn't spend three full weeks working on that. ;)

MAME isn't meant to be easy to use. That's because in theory, it's not meant to be used for playing games. At least that's what some of the devs used to say a while back.

Chill, dude.

Edit: Lady Jaye, the best way to do that these days is to get a program like CLRMame, use that to scan and fix your romsets, and it'll save you some time. These days there's torrents released whenever MAME is updated so you can just pick the ones you need to download. Downloading roms from websites isn't really worth the hassle anymore because of lazy webmasters who refuse to post the newer romsets, and instead leave ancient ones up that won't work with later versions of the emulator.

[InsaneDavid]

Downloading roms from websites isn't really worth the hassle anymore because of lazy webmasters who refuse to post the newer romsets, and instead leave ancient ones up that won't work with later versions of the emulator.

That does come in handy every now and then though when you're looking for an ancient romdump to run on an early version of MAME, like the stuff used on the GP2X. LOL

[Ace]

You know what I don't like about MAME? 1 word: ACCURACY. I emulate a lot of side-scrolling and vertically-scrolling Shoot-em-Ups in MAME(and some 3D rail shooters), and I've compared MAME to the original arcade boards and realized I'm not getting the proper experience with MAME. With the games I emulate, it's so horribly off it makes me sick. Konami games are the most affected, and I will list some of them:

-Gradius/Nemesis: In the newest releases of MAME, the colors are WAY too bright, and in all releases, the volume balance between the different sound chips is wrong, the music plays too fast and generally sounds WAY off compared to the original board.
-Salamander/Life Force: Volume balance is, again, quite a bit off, the Stereo sound is reversed, the music plays WAY too slowly and any sound produced by the emulated VLM5030 is almost completely wrong
-Gradius II/Vulcan Venture: Volume balance problems, music is too slow, START screen seems to disappear too soon, emulated uPD7759 seems off
-Gradius IV: Severe performance issues, music is too slow
-Salamander 2: NUMEROUS graphcial errors, recent versions of MAME have major speed issues with this game, sound effects are missing extra echo/reverb effects
-Super Contra: Incorrect volume balance, music is considerably slower than on the original board
-TwinBee: MAJOR volume balance issues, missing sound filters

Other problem games:

-After Burner II: Emulated YM2151 produces incorrect notes
-1942: Sounds off
-Arkanoid: Has issues since the AY-3-8910/YM2149 core was updated
-Thunder Force AC: Flaws with the emulated uPD7759 and YM3438, noticeable volume balance issues, music is a bit too fast
-Raiden and Zero Wing: Emulated YM3812 leaves a bit to be desired

I've actually reported many of the issues with the Konami games listed to MAME Testers, and what have they done about them? ZERO! Absolutely nothing. So the hell with that, for use on a modern Windows XP/Vista/7 computer, I compiled my own modified version of MAMEUI v0.138u1 and will not upgrade to any newer versions of MAME until the MAME team improves on the games I like which are far from perfect.

Along with that, I've got an older computer running MAME for MS-DOS v0.36 and v0.57, both versions which I use exclusively for games using a Yamaha YM3812 for sound. If you recall, versions of MAME prior to v0.60 can make use of Yamaha YM3812s and Yamaha YMF262s on older ISA sound cards(the early SoundBlaster sound cards come to mind) for 100% authentic sound off those games. With that in mind, I set up the computer with a SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 sound card(contains a YMF262, which is backwards-compatible with the YM3812) and have set up both versions of MAME to use the YMF262 on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 rather than MAME's emulated YM3812/YMF262 depending on the game. And I will never upgrade any version of MAME until the MAME team straightens things out with the problem games I listed.

[Kitsune Sniper]

You know what I don't like about MAME? 1 word: ACCURACY. I emulate a lot of side-scrolling and vertically-scrolling Shoot-em-Ups in MAME(and some 3D rail shooters), and I've compared MAME to the original arcade boards and realized I'm not getting the proper experience with MAME. With the games I emulate, it's so horribly off it makes me sick. Konami games are the most affected, and I will list some of them:

-Gradius/Nemesis: In the newest releases of MAME, the colors are WAY too bright, and in all releases, the volume balance between the different sound chips is wrong, the music plays too fast and generally sounds WAY off compared to the original board.
-Salamander/Life Force: Volume balance is, again, quite a bit off, the Stereo sound is reversed, the music plays WAY too slowly and any sound produced by the emulated VLM5030 is almost completely wrong
-Gradius II/Vulcan Venture: Volume balance problems, music is too slow, START screen seems to disappear too soon, emulated uPD7759 seems off
-Gradius IV: Severe performance issues, music is too slow
-Salamander 2: NUMEROUS graphcial errors, recent versions of MAME have major speed issues with this game, sound effects are missing extra echo/reverb effects
-Super Contra: Incorrect volume balance, music is considerably slower than on the original board
-TwinBee: MAJOR volume balance issues, missing sound filters

Other problem games:

-After Burner II: Emulated YM2151 produces incorrect notes
-1942: Sounds off
-Arkanoid: Has issues since the AY-3-8910/YM2149 core was updated
-Thunder Force AC: Flaws with the emulated uPD7759 and YM3438, noticeable volume balance issues, music is a bit too fast
-Raiden and Zero Wing: Emulated YM3812 leaves a bit to be desired

I've actually reported many of the issues with the Konami games listed to MAME Testers, and what have they done about them? ZERO! Absolutely nothing. So the hell with that, for use on a modern Windows XP/Vista/7 computer, I compiled my own modified version of MAMEUI v0.138u1 and will not upgrade to any newer versions of MAME until the MAME team improves on the games I like which are far from perfect.

Along with that, I've got an older computer running MAME for MS-DOS v0.36 and v0.57, both versions which I use exclusively for games using a Yamaha YM3812 for sound. If you recall, versions of MAME prior to v0.60 can make use of Yamaha YM3812s and Yamaha YMF262s on older ISA sound cards(the early SoundBlaster sound cards come to mind) for 100% authentic sound off those games. With that in mind, I set up the computer with a SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 sound card(contains a YMF262, which is backwards-compatible with the YM3812) and have set up both versions of MAME to use the YMF262 on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 rather than MAME's emulated YM3812/YMF262 depending on the game. And I will never upgrade any version of MAME until the MAME team straightens things out with the problem games I listed.... So wait.

You've compiled your own version of MAME, even hacked it to use external hardware, and yet you don't submit the needed patches to fix those problems?

Ah. Aah. I think I just had a small stroke. I'm gonna go lie down.

[skaar]

The three weeks thing is just because of a lack of time - we could probably figure it out in a few hours... but since this is all just a temp machine for fun distraction keeps getting in the way.

"Oooh I wanna play Elevator Action 2 again!"

That plus we're using a customized mini-xp and X-Arcade and just generally doing weird stuff.

On my home machine with just plain MAME it took me about 5 minutes, and most of that was moving roms around and changing an INI or two :P

[Ace]

... So wait.

You've compiled your own version of MAME, even hacked it to use external hardware, and yet you don't submit the needed patches to fix those problems?

Ah. Aah. I think I just had a small stroke. I'm gonna go lie down.

I didn't hack MAME to use external hardware in any way. Read this carefully:


If you recall, versions of MAME prior to v0.60 can make use of Yamaha YM3812s and Yamaha YMF262s on older ISA sound cards(the early SoundBlaster sound cards come to mind) for 100% authentic sound off those games.

Those versions of MAME WERE ALREADY DEVELOPED for use with old sound cards containing Yamaha YMF262s and YM3812s. I did not modify MAME v0.138u1 to work with those sound cards. Here's what I've done for some of the games with problems:

-Gradius/Nemesis: Emulated Z80 runs at a lower frequency, emulated K005289 was modified to output sound at a higher pitch than the twin emulated AY-3-8910s, adjusted the volume balance to match the original arcade board, several parameters in the emulated AY-3-8910 were changed
-Salamander/Life Force: My version of MAMEUI works with 3 different Yamaha YM2151 cores. Salamander and Life Force make use of one of the cloned and modified YM2151 cores to speed up the music, the emulated VLM5030 has had some parameters altered(but I can't figure out how to make the emulated VLM5030 sound just like the real chip), volume balance was adjusted to match the original arcade board
-Gradius II/Vulcan Venture: This uses the second cloned YM2151 core as with the cloned core used in Salamander, the music is too fast. Volume balance was once again adjusted in accordance to the original arcade board and some heavy low-pass filtering was added to the emulated uPD7759
-Super Contra: Uses the same cloned YM2151 core as Salamander, volume balance adjusted according to the original board
-TwinBee: Volume balance adjusted according to the original board(filters are still missing, however)
-1942: Sounds much closer to the original arcade board with the modified parameters in the emulated AY-3-8910
-Thunder Force AC: Volume balance adjusted according to the original board

I would release the fixes, but since these are all hack-ish in nature, this is something the MAME team seems to frown upon. I don't know how any of the chips work. Most of my fixes all came together thanks to experimentation and dumb luck.

What's the MAME team's policy on modified versions of MAME? If I could release my modified version of MAME, I would.

[Kitsune Sniper]

You can. Just release the source, and it's cool. They frown upon closed source versions of the emulator.

Also, have you tried -asking- MAMEDev if they would consider including your fixes? Who knows, maybe they'd at least take a look and offer pointers, or incorporate your fixes.

Edit: And of course, those are Konami games, their devs were always high on crack so emulation will be imperfect until someone fully reverse engineers their chips and stuff.

[Cobra SA]

Why does MAME suck so bad?

because you're one of them spoiled brats taking everything for granted ?

[JSoup]

because you're one of them spoiled brats taking everything for granted ?

What a wonderful, insightful, post from a long time user. Truly a work of art and worthy of bumping this old topic.

I guess I should give this MAME thing another shot. I fully admit that I assumed, at the time, that it was an issue with the emulator and not an issue with me. All the other emulators I had been using (and keep in mind that I had -just- started experimenting with emulators) were drag and drop affairs.

[mattmayatt]

I downloaded mameuifx 0.152, this is easy to use and gives you the option to play split screen games such as Outrunners in full screen 1 player.
I then downloaded the full mame 0.152 romset (35gb) all the ROMs played with no problems.
Also found a lovely piece of software from emumovies that scanned all my ROMs and found the snap shots and artwork and then put them in the correct folders automatically.
I use Maximus Arcade frontend as its easy to set up and looks very nice on the eye.
You can launch loads of other emulators from Maximus Arcade.

[iPadCary]

I respectfully disagree with the OP.
I've been using iMAME on my iPad [now] Air for a couple of years now,
before Apple spitcanned it, with precisely ZERO problems.

OK, so having to use iExplorer to get the ROMs in it,
as opposed to easy-as-cake ["2010" reference! lol] iTunes File Sharing,
is a unwanted extra step, but it only has to be done one time & then it's smooth sailing!

[Neb6]

Holy smokes man! MAME is dead easy to set up and run.

Here's what I'd recommend (for playing games prior to 1994):

On the PC:
- MAME32 v.035 on Windows XP

On the Mac:
- MacMAME on OS9.x (time to fire up that old PPC Mac)

And if you want REALLY easy to use, try MAMEoX on a modded XBOX.


If I were to ask for just one thing in MAME, it would be a super-precise speed trottle for fine-tuning the game speed, per game).

Other than that, I think MAME is awesome and regard it is a GIFT that should be appreciated. We're luck it even exists at all.