MAME 32 Question for computer know it alls

Factual Questions
1

For those who don’t know MAME is a
kind of “emulator” for old computer
games - basically it makes a given game
program think that it is still in the
original arcade machine, I’m talking about
the original Pac-man, Burger time, Tron Etc.
A band of computer gurus have graciously
embarked on a program of converting all
the original old arcade programs to a format
in which you can play the old classics
on a P.C. with out need of a quarter,
allowing you to play DIG-DUG or whatever
'till your fingers bleed -
yes it is a copyright violation unless
you actually OWN the original game machine
as well - and I do not wish dance on the
head of a legal pin here.
That being said on to my question.

The computer I was testing some games on
is a pentium II, 266mhz with 256 megs of
ram and 2 megs for video. it was built in 1998.

Some of the games that were written as late as 1988
behave as if the machine is not powerful enough to run
them. (jerky scrolling, echo sound etc.). How can this be?
given the computer technology in 1988, (if I recall, a 286
with 2 megs of ram and a 30 meg hard drive was one hod rod
machine), one would think the Pentium II with all that ram
would have more than enough horsepower to run ANYTHING
written in 1988. I must stress that not ALL the games have this
problem - mostly just the ones written after 1985. Also on a
Pentium III 800mhz with 128 megs of ram all the games written
up till 1994-95 run just fine, so it is (to me) a horse power
issue. Sooooo were the game boards in 1988 more powerful
than that pentium II, if so how could this be?

Thanx - Janx.

2

Actually, not all emulated games are illegal to own as ROMS even if you don’t have the original games. You can own them as ROMS if they are no longer made and/or supported. Most of the Atari 2600 games come to mind.

Anyway, it sounds like your problem isn’t with not having the power to run the games. It sounds like you got some corrupted files when downloading them. This is a very common problem with the emulators. Also, most of the time when you go looking for alternative downloads you will come back with the same one you had originally.

3

I agree some of those roms can be hokey. I had a P1 200mmx and had no problems running mame games, so I don’t think its a power issue.

4

Some of it might be corrupted files, some of it might be the computer’s relative lack of horsepower. Or…

Mame32 is actually composed of a large number of video game emulators bundled into a larger package. Some of these are in more of a beta state than others. Just keep downloading the newer versions as they roll out–maybe somebody has worked on the code a bit since then to improve performance.

5

The reason (apart from possible flakiness with a particular game, due to some particular feature of that game machine) is that MAME is a CPU emulator. That means that it reads the machine language stored in the ROM images, and translates each instruction (in real time) from whatever the game’s original CPU machine language was into your processor’s language. This is in general not very efficient. Different CPUs have different enough machine languages that a straightforward translation like this probably uses quite a few emulator CPU instructions to simulate each of the instructions in the original CPU.

Also, remember that game machines often had special-purpose hardware (for example, graphics or sound hardware) in addition to the main CPU, which is even more inefficient to emulate on a general-purpose machine than another CPU.

6

This is not true, and has never been true. It isn’t legal to copy movies if they aren’t being sold or played, it isn’t legal to copy books if they aren’t being published or printed, and it isn’t legal to copy games, including ROMs, if they haven’t been explicitly released in the public domain.

7

Originally posted by: dorkusmalorkusmafia

Um…dorkusmalorkusmafia I don’t really mean to pee in the punch bowl
or anything but you might want to take a look at this interview with
one of the guys who actually started the whole deal.

http://online.securityfocus.com/news/57

“This is the dark secret of the MAME scene. The code burned into
all those ROMs years ago is still owned by Nintendo, Atari,
Williams, Sega, and the other surviving video game makers.
At a time when copyright holders are increasingly litigious
in dealing with the web, there’s concern that the same
tactics used by the recording and motion
picture industries might someday be brought to bear on the
gamers.”

So watch out, the fun police could come a knockin’ any minute now!

**

I thought about this, but on the machine where I download the
games they test just fine, copy them, move them to the older
machine (either by removable media OR network) and some of them
don’t run properly.
*Originally posted by:*slortar

**

Thanx Slortar, while I always like “the latest version” of
whatever application I’m using lately - this gives me a far
better idea of what is going on with the MAME toy itself,
GOOD INFO!

Originally posted by: Omphaloskeptic

**

OK! Now we are talking real “meat and potatoes” how stuff works
information - This tells me what I couldn’t find on the MAME site.
Now here is the “ignorance curing” part - let’s confirm that
I understand you.

It make sense that the earlier the game the better it runs on
the older machine. If I follow you, as technology advanced the
game boards became more advanced as well, heavier graphics,
richer more complex sounds etc. thus a Pentium II has to
translate all the commands from 1 or more (originally dedicated)
CPUs at one time so the game “Kacks” because the P.II is
suffering from information overload. Memory is not the problem,
processing power IS, that’s why the Pentium III runs the games
with no problems, it has a heck of a lot more processing power.
Am I right?

So the sad fact is that some of the cooler toys just won’t
run on the older machine <sniff, sniff, whaaah>, or is there a way
anyone can think of to tweak the machine or the CFG file
on a given game so that it plays the way God intended?
would updating my BIOS help? I don’t think this thread is
dead yet but thanks all for the very useful information.

8

bump!

9

Yes, you’re correct. However, I believe you have another problem that won’t be alleviated by a faster CPU - you only have 2MB video RAM. Some of the drivers for some game engines rely a lot on the video RAM, and less RAM = fewer frames per second drawn = less than smooth game action.

I would not have anything less than a video card with 4 MB (If you can still find one). Ideally, I would go ahead and get a GeForce II MX (again if you can find one) - it would be light-years ahead of your current setup, and you’d find that you can run a LOT of games you might have had some issues with. There are PCI versions of that card out there with 32MB - that’s the one I would get.

critter42

10

I think the problem lies more with the fact your using mame, an emulator geard for compatability over speed. Try a different emulator with optimizations for the games you want to play (theres heaps at Systems Emulated on Windows - Zophar's Domain)
also, are you running mame in windows? on my laptop, a 233, until I installed windows XP I could play all my snes games at full speed, didn’t really test my old mame games much. Oh, and make sure you have mmx optimization enabled - could help.

on the legal subject, games will fall into the public doman… after about 90 odd years, and by then, we’ll probably need emulators to run the emulators :slight_smile: