Link to video
Here is my next completed run with the Bizhawk Mame Core, Super Contra for the arcade set to "Very Difficult"
Two things that need to be addressed due to what I noticed while making this
Constant Crashing
This emulator loves to crash, especially when making a TAS with the mame core. Most crashes were usually caused by running parts of the tas which have not been saved, so save states are most likely the problem, however I also encountered this issue when holding the rewind button (The one that moves you back a frame). This is a problem I've encountered with multiple projects on the mame core.
Framerate?
When considering just the framerate of the music (not the gameplay), it gets interesting. For one reason or another, the framerate of the music is slightly slower in this version of mame compared to the latest. Ive tested this on earlier mame cores, such as mame 0.139, and it appears that it also has the same ting happen with the music. But this core is different from earlier mame cores that I have seen, due to the fact that when making the tas for the original contra on bizhawk, I have seen that earlier versions of mame cant run the game well, but Bizhawk did. is there something that I'm missing, or is something a little off?
I will upload the .bk2 file for the TAS in a bit on my profile, but this may be some information to look at in the meantime.
ps: I've also improved my Contra TAS if you want to take a look.
The Super Contra movie managed to sync on my end. Nice TAS!
This seems to imply the thunderx.cpp driver is sync friendly, which is used for Super Contra, Thunder Cross, and Gang Busters according to the MAME source code.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Analog input is not supported yet.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
At least, with this, this should get me started on making MAME TASes but more comfortable.
Small question: What MAME core version is this currently using?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Ahh, alright, thanks for letting me know.
I figured it was a version lower than 0.239 because in that version, that's where they started to adjust the tempo of the musics for some Konami games and as for 0.245 they fixed Polygonet Commanders and Poly-Net Warriors since both uses the plygonet source.
Also, i think as far i had with some tests, the neogeo games are the most unstable for now, they can easily freeze the emulator with only a few savestates.
Hello! I see that MAMEhawk isn't on the list of emulators for arcade submissions. That means we can't submit arcade TASs made with MAMEhawk, right?
If that's the case, is there some (hopefully easy?) way to convert TAStudio projects into one of the accepted formats (LTM, MAR, FBM)? (Please forgive me if these are stupid questions.)
p.s. An enormous thank you to feos. I LOVE being able to use TAStudio with arcade games.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
We can't.
No easy way. But you may try reproducing your tastudio inputs in libTAS+MAME (thankfully libTAS also has input editor).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
CasualPokePlayer ported MAME as a Waterbox core!!!
See the first post for link and info.
Audio and crashes should be fixed now.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I've tried to make it work, with no luck
I didn't know what was the file I needed to download, so I tried with "package_devbuild_windows" and "build_asms_release", when I load a ROM (Street Fighter 3rd Strike, sfiii3n) I get an error window:
"A core accepted the rom, but threw an exception while loading it:
System.Exception:
sfiii-simm1.0 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm1.1 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm1.2 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm1.3 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm2.0 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm2.1 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm2.2 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)
sfiii-simm2.3 NOT FOUND (tried in sfiii3n and sfiii3)..."
and the list keeps going.
that exact same rom works on bizhawk 2.8 by adding a file to the dlls folder
sfiiin3n requires a chd file alongside the zip. Please properly follow these directions in the OP.
Also, I suspect the first rom file you handed it was incorrect. The rom you want to load must be first. If you have some base rom that needs to go second in the multidisk bundler.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
The files listed in the post should already be in the ROM. You'll likely have to find one formatted specifically for MAME. Get that Google goin'.
The CHD thing is a separate issue, though it is still an issue: Seems like bundling the ROM with the CHD file won't quite work by itself. It loads up the CPS3 menu which expects the game to be written to memory, a process it says will take 70 minutes:
There are no-CD versions of Third Strike that work fine without the CHD. Assuming that using the CHD always leads to the above outcome (I am absolutely not ruling out user error, because I am an idiot and no one should ever rule out that I personally am doing something wrong), a no-CD ROM might be the only actual option.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
sfiii3 was the game I tried CHD support on. I did install it in both hawk and actual MAME, and after installation, both emulators save nvram that's meant to store installed content. But while MAME ran it fine after emu reboot, after hawk restarting hawk I got initial message screen and then just black screen that wouldn't go away.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
What mame version is this based on? 0.249?
EDIT: Nevermind, just noticed it's 0.231 according to some posts above. I'm guessing it wasn't updated yet.
I'll test some games and then report.
EDIT2: Ok, so I tested and several CAVE games aren't working:
Akai Katana = doesn't load
Dodonpachi Daioujou = doesn't load
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu = crashes at frame 68
Deathsmiles = crashes at frame 57
Espgaluda = doesn't load
Espgaluda 2 = doesn't load
Guwange = doesn't load
Ibara = crashes at frame 528
Ketsui = doesn't load
Mushihimesama = crashes at frame 35
Mushihimesama Futari = crashes at frame 56
Pink Sweets = crash at frame 56
For all games that don't load, I get an error like this:
I have a problem with the svc chaos rom, every time I want to enter an input in the buttons all the lines are completely filled,(the old release (2.8) works fine), maybe NEO-GEO is not 100% compatible
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
This is specifically a TAStudio bug, it's not inherent to this dev build and it's been in at least a couple release versions. I'd have reported it by now if I could figure out how to reproduce it reliably but it seems to just happen at random when creating new tasproj files. Closing and re-opening TAStudio fixes it for me, but it might be worth trying to figure out what exactly causes it so the bug can be squashed forever.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
That's odd, that seems to imply no rom hashes are present? I'll do some investigation later.
Not sure what the crashes in game are from, probably MAME doing some unimplemented syscall.
I myself am getting a problem:
A core accepted the rom, but threw an exception while loading it:
System.DivideByZeroException: Attempted to divide by zero.
at BizHawk.Emulation.Cores.Arcades.MAME.MAME.UpdateAspect()
at BizHawk.Emulation.Cores.Arcades.MAME.MAME.StartMAME(List`1 roms)
at BizHawk.Emulation.Cores.Arcades.MAME.MAME..ctor(CoreLoadParameters`2 lp)
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at BizHawk.Emulation.Cores.CoreInventory.Core.Create(ICoreInventoryParameters cip)
at BizHawk.Client.Common.RomLoader.MakeCoreFromCoreInventory(CoreInventoryParameters cip, String forcedCoreName)
I am not sure what to do, this impacts all the games I'd want to play.
DJ Incendration
Believe in Michael Girard and every speedrunner and TASer!