[choccyhobnob]

Sorry if I put this in the wrong forum area, there doesn’t appear to be anywhere specifically for ports or work on them here.

[choccyhobnob]

Hi!
Current builds of MAME are not too hard to compile for Pi2, but as my post shows they are pretty unusable. Older builds do not build as cleanly as the new ones do, it was only recently that SDLMAME was incorporated into the main MAME source, prior to that there was a patch for each version, I’ve had no luck getting a clean build for v.111 (the earliest version the patches exist for).

I’m not sure v0139 is going to be usable, v106 (a-la AdvanceMAME) does not even run at full speed for most roms (even space invaders has a frameskip of 1 on an overclocked pi2) I suppose if the author of this build has put in some ARM specific optimizations it may run a bit faster; we should try to build it and see if it is.

[choccyhobnob]

I Edited /etc/emulationstation and replaced the code with this..

#!/bin/bash

es_bin="/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"

if [[ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "emulationstation should not be run as root. If you used 'sudo emulationstation' please run without sudo."
    exit 1
fi

if [[ -n "$(pidof X)" ]]; then
    echo "X is running. Please shut down X in order to mitigate problems with loosing keyboard input. For example, logout from LXDE."
    exit 1
fi

key=""

x=0

echo "Waiting up to 60 seconds for Joypad 1"
while [ "$x" -lt 60 -a ! -e /dev/input/js0 ]; do
   x=$((x+1))
   sleep 1
done
if [ -e /dev/input/js0 ]
then
   x=0
   echo "Joypad 1 Enabled :) Waiting up to 10 seconds for Joypad 2"
   while [ "$x" -lt 10 -a ! -e /dev/input/js1 ]; do
      x=$((x+1))
      sleep 1
   done
   if [ -e /dev/input/js1 ]
   then
       echo "Joypad 2 Enabled! Starting Emulationstation"
       $es_bin "$@"
   else
       echo "Joypad 2 not found"
       $es_bin "$@"
   fi
else
   echo "Joypad 1 not found within time limit; Aborting!"
fi

This makes retropie pause for up to 60 seconds for me to turn on my controller. If I don’t do it, it quits back to the bash prompt (if I don’t turn on a controller I probably don’t want to play games, I want to work on the config), if I do turn on a controller it waits up to a further 10 seconds for me to turn on a second controller, whether I turn a second controller on or not it will then start ES.

If I have finished playing with configs and just want to go into ES now, I can just type ‘exit’ and ES runs.

This could be improved to do something similar for 4 controllers and even make the “Turn on controller now” message a bit clearer. It comes up after the splash screen closes but isn’t clear from 10 feet away

[choccyhobnob]

on Retropie3 try running advancemame from the command line and seeing if you get any error message

/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/1.2/bin/advmame romname

the romsets for 0.94 and 1.2 are different though, so I’d guess that’s your problem

one is made 0.94 roms the other is made 0.106 roms

if you search you usual disreputable software supplier website there is normally a seeded 0.106 available which is mostly right.

[choccyhobnob]

hmm!

[choccyhobnob]

It works ok for me with snes controllers plugged in but not with PS3 controllers. Oh well it was worth a try!

I enabled 28 axis and 34 buttons so I think we can say its not a lack of inputs that is keeping it from working!

[choccyhobnob]

OK Well it compiled and I’ve tested that it at least works with my setup. Keep your old version just in case you need to revert for some reason.

Edit: Removed link to non-working name build

Let me know if it works :)

[choccyhobnob]

Thanks. I’ve increased the number of allowed buttons from 22 to 34, that should be enough. I checked the max axis and its set to 28, so that enough for the PS3 as well. It’s compiling on my Pi now, I’ll let you know if it compiles ok

[choccyhobnob]

Do you have a link to the version of came that you used with the extra button support?

[choccyhobnob]

The name.cfg file is symlinked to /opt/retropie/configs/mame4all/ to keep it all consistent, don’t overwrite the symlink or the default command line won’t pick up the correct config file.

I don’t know how many buttons that version of mame supports, it fixed my PS3 controller issue with the number of axis but I’m not using some screwy usb hub thing that makes 2 controllers look like a single one. Have you considered that your problem may be a hardware one?

[choccyhobnob]

My first guess is that you have the rom zipped, try unzipping it

I’m on 3.0 one of us should be able to help you out.

[choccyhobnob]

pull up the main menu in emulationstation and select configure input and it will start the configure controller process.

[choccyhobnob]

yes

[choccyhobnob]

@shakkill yes it does work. Press F4 to get to a command line, then press space (or any other key) to stay there or it will boot back to ES.

@momaw27 yes that does happen some times, I’ve not been able to stop that from happening and I’ve even completely rewritten my ES command script! just live with it, its just a little slow.

[choccyhobnob]

For point 2.
It’s a memory issue with emulation station. It’s not the number of roms you have, its the number of systems. This came up a while ago and the ES skin author reduced the size of the background images from 1080p to 720p to free up a little more memory but it’s still an issue if you have a lot of systems emulated.

[choccyhobnob]

The mame4all binary only allows 6 axis for each controller, the PS3 sixaxis controller actually has 23 axis so it doesn’t work.

A workaround was found that fixed this by just removing the bit of code that checks for the axis and recompiling. Later the author of mame4all updated the source to allow up to 23 axis but compiling the latest version of the code didn’t work for me, maybe squid typod or something.

There is a precompiled version here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TfYq5Awz_jWExLS2RpMHhnalE/view?usp=sharing that I put in /opt/retropie/emulators/mame4all/ and it works for me (this is retropie 3)

[choccyhobnob]

There is a patched copy of mame here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TfYq5Awz_jWExLS2RpMHhnalE/view?usp=sharing that works for me with 2 PS3 controllers.

Squid (mame4all author) says that the latest version of the mame source is fixed for this issue but I recompiled and it still didn’t work for me, the binary at the above link does.

Put the binary in /opt/retropie/emulators/mame4all/

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