Excellent answer, thanks! (read on)

Subject:

Comments:
: Excellent answer, thanks! The main reason for not contacting the MAME Dev Team is mainly that I don’t want to bug them with FAQ:s or anything. So I thought that I would suck as much information as I could out of this board first . My main concern is to make MAME as “Arcade Control Friendly” as possible (playing MAME as another computer based game is of no concern to me). My most wanted list is as good support as possible for arcade video modes, optical and analogue controls. E.g. if a original game supported two trackballs and if it is technical possible then should that code be included in official MAME i.m.o. : I do understand the situation Nicola must be in. I thought that he didn’t want to incorporate for instance the OptiMAME code because it involved changes in the Allegro library or something like that. I do understand if he want to keep the portability as high as possible and don’t want to make changes to standard libraries used for core functions like user I/O. : One nice solution would be to make official MAME modular. Using different dynamically linked libraries for sub-systems like video and I/O. It would then be possible to use the official MAME core for emulation with any sub-system add-ons. It would also be a better stately for the dev. team. Official MAME could be distributed with basic sub systems (Allegro based) and the dev team could concentrate on the emulator core. Other dev teams could concentrate on development of the basic sub-systems and sub-systems for special needs like the use of arcade monitors and arcade controls. : I know several commercial compilers where it is possible to make and use dynamically linked libraries in a DOS environment but I don’t know if it is possible with DJGPP? Do any one on this board know if it is possible? I might contact Andrea Mazzoleni about it if he is on the regular MAME Dev Team and if he got the time to discuss matters like this. : / EmuMannen : : : Yes, I agree - it would be wonderful if all these special features were adopted into the official release versions. It's not impossible either, but would involve a decent amount of extra work. Here are some reasons why Nicola probably won't add them, but I'm only guessing: : : 1) Time factor - he's already falling behind just adding all the new drivers and code refinements! : : 2) Work factor - aside from extra time, it's extra work. : : 3) The newbie factor - normal MAME already generates tons of newbie confusion and emails. Imagine if all that advanced stuff was added! : : 4) Maybe Nicola and other devs just don't feel those extra features are necessary. Of course, Andrea Mazzoleni is on MAMEdev and he makes Advance MAME so... :) : : Anyway, Andrea seems to love making Advance MAME get better and better, so feel free to email him a suggestion. I think the optimame code in particular would be wonderful to add. : : -P- : : www.retrogames.com : : : I am a free time freeware programmer to so I know to appreciate other peoples free development work. MAME is one of the most impressive freeware projects on the net and I have such a good time playing with it. I would therefor like to thank all MAME contributors from the bottom of my hart and I would also like to point out that I know that I am not entitled to demand any thing from the developers. : : : I just find one thing annoying and that is that all brilliant add-ons like the support for optical devices in OptiMAME, video enhancements in Advance MAME and NeoGeo optimisation in KbMAME (just to mention a few) seldom or never gets incorporated in the standard version of MAME? How come? : : : I never find a single version of MAME that has all the options I need and I am always afraid that one of these special versions is going to be discontinued! This is becoming quite annoying… So I would like to know if any one knows if the authors try to get their extensions added to regular MAME or if the MAME Dev. team refuse such offers or if there is another reason why the situation is as it is? : : : / EmuMannen – Quite frustrated : : : : Now up to v0.37 Beta 4. And it now has all the <b>VsyncMAME</b> drivers and more! =) : : : : You can get the files at <a href="http://www.retrogames.com">Retrogames</a> or <a href="http://www.advancemame.arcadeheaven.com">the Advance MAME homepage</a> right now! : : : : More good stuff coming in future versions too! : : : : -P- : : : : www.retrogames.com

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: