Curious how well the new Pi 3 (I think there’s a new “B” revision out?) can handle accurate MAME emulation, namely CPS1/2 and Neo Geo shiz. Anyone running this?
Check out the Retro Pi developments
I’m aware of RetroPie and have perused their forums. I was just wondering if anyone here can vouch for its emulation accuracy for CPS and Neo Geo.
Well for Neo Geo on the Rasp Pi GnGeo which is really close to neoRage x in terms of performance and accuracy.
PiMame like its PC counter part is really hit or miss and does not accurately do CPS2 or Neo geo
PiFBA - Arcade (based on Final Burn Alpha) is a better alternative but its not 100% accurate (nothing really is)
True. I thought the general consensus though lately that MAME (at least ran on decent x86 hardware) is perfectly fine emulation for CPS and Neo Geo. I’m probably going to take a bullet and just get the new RasPi and try some shiz out.
I own a MVS main board and I compared MVS games I own to the roms running on Mame.
Mame might run fine with no performance issues but its hell not accurate. Accuracy and performance is two different things.
Certain games are supposed to take a performance hit in certain areas, like Metal Slug gets laggy when there too many enemies on screen on real hardware.
If you want a more accurate Neo geo Emu for windows go with neoRage x instead of mame.
And its sad, many of the PC ports of Neo Geo games run better on Mame than on the official PC release.
And if you dive into the PC game folder you find the rom you can just use in MAME.
MAME is still broken for CPS emulation. They say that memory wait states are not emulated, so as Darksakul said, some games run too slow or too fast.
Super Street fighter 2 turbo is unplayable; it’s way too fast. Downclocking the CPU to 74% makes “Turbo 1” perform similarly to the real board, but turbo 3 is then too slow. The T1/T2/T3 speed steps are not correct.
CPS1 SF2 Hyper fighting is unplayable. Way too fast. The mame fix build sets the CPU speed at 8 MHz which is not perfect but is playable.
The only emulator which runs Hyper Fighting at arcade perfect speed is Callus. Nothing else. An emulator from 1998. And windows has to be in 16 bit color…
Mame is only good for Gauntlet and Gauntlet II. Do the 2,147,483,647 point trick to stop food starvation (2 to the 31st power -1 = highest 32 bit signed number value), set the CPU emulation overclock (enable cheats) to 200%, and HAVE AT THEE. Monsters keep respawning until the entire map is filled…(I first tested this in Neill Corlett’s Multi-gauntlet emulator in like 1997)…fun fun and hard! The default CPU speed had a limiter where if too many sprites were on the screen, spawning stopped until things were cleared up.
What MAME is really good for is convenience.
It is many different systems covered under one program.
There is enough covered under MAME where particular boards that have very unique construction are covered under the emulator.
Unique boards that only cover one very specific game and would not have a dedicated emulator to cover otherwise.
MAME is great for the older stuff like Gauntlet, Defender and such where a low level systems emulation* will not be too taxing to system resources.
And to games that otherwise would never have its own emulation as the hardware only covers one game.
Arcade systems with a set hardware that can accommodate multiple hardware like the Neo Geo MVS/AES, CPS 1/2/3, Sega AM, Sega TITAN, Taito X, Nintendo VS System, Nintendo Player Choice 10, Sega Naomi, Sammy, Atomiswave and ect are better handled by dedicated emulation. The Arcade systems if you have the arcade board you can easily consolize with a decent selection of games do better with a dedicated emulation instead of MAME.
The worst emulator I ever used was MESS, which is the home console little brother to MAME, trying to apply MAME’s core engine to home consoles.
What really works well if you want to cover alot of different systems is to find and get a good frontender. A good frontender acts as a graphical menu for multiple emulators and roms.
Note:This just covers software emulation and not hardware solutions such as clone hardware or FPGA hardware.
Low level emulation is where you actually try to simulate/emulate the actual systems hardware on the systems hardware logical level. This would include any co-processors or mapper chips that would be part of the game cart but not the game rom. This kind of emulation, while done is software is very systems intensive, and the more co-processors you add the worst the system requirements become.
Example the low level system emulator for the Super Nintendo, BSNES can be just as demanding (if not more so) to your PC than Crysis set to ultra high graphical settings.
The upside is you create a emulator that is very accurate (or as close as possible) to the original systems hardware you are trying to mimic. BSNES can put new high end gaming rigs on their knees just to accurately emulate a SNES game. BSNES is actually so demanding that the creator of the emulator made a separate emulator called higan that sacrifices some accuracy for a balance of accuracy and systems performance.
High level emulation is where you are just trying to provide the interface for the roms without trying to mimic the actual system.
This often results in specific fixes or settings for particular roms, which is a “band-aid” approach to emulation.
High level emulators will often focus on the 20 or so most popular roms and fixes are specific to that rom rather than the the emulator as a whole.
This leads to very inaccurate emulation with more obscure roms having poor support or being ignored inertly.
I’m aware of the difference between low and high level emulation. I was just under the impression that CPS1/CPS2 and Neo Geo had been completely ironed out more or less. I originally was just content with using Final Burn Alpha but I was told recently (maybe erroneously?) that MAME was a lot more accurate these days.
MAME is more accurate than it was in the past, but its far from an accurate emulation when it comes to CPS1/CPS2 and Neo Geo
What MAME does the best is 70s and 80s Arcade games.
Wondering how the Rasberry Pi 3 runs 2D arcade stuff in general.
So for instance, MAME. Not worried about CPS2/3 since that’s FBA, I’m wondering for later Cave games, for SH2 based 2D arcade stuff, like say Sega Titan, Sega System 32 (Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder). How about KI 1 and 2? Would it run Sega Model 2 or is that asking too much? Basically I’m just seeing what the limits are for this thing. Within reason; I don’t expect it to run, say, Sega Model 3 or Naomi and up.
I’ve got Cave shmups on my OG Xbox and that run good, I really like Ketsui
One thing I would point out regarding investing money in an emulation setup is that are you going to actually play it or just make it for the sake of it
I had my Xbox lying around so I never actually bought it for MAME, and although I did use it regularly for a couple years, I now only game in my living room on the big screen and so anything I liked on MAME I actually bought for PS3, Ketsui cost me ¥6800 around $65 from the Japanese psn store, but I actually play it regularly, whereas I never touched it on the og Xbox because of going in another room and connecting it up
The point is get something you will definitely use not just collect dust
Oh I plan on using this bro. I have the Cave Shooting Collection on 360, I’m simply trying to see the limits of Mame and a Pi 3, that’s all I can think of, Cave’s 2D hardware from like the early/mid 2000’s, as the last oldschool 2D hardware and it was pretty powerful, what runs Mushihimesama Futari and such. I’m wondering how that emulates, because if that emulates then I know everything prior to that will be 100%.
If you wanna know what this Pi 3 project is. I’m taking a Sega Genesis USB Hub, and making a “Genesis Mini”, and sticking a Pi 3 in there. It’s almost too perfect as it has 4 USB inserts, and enough space to fit. Something that fits in your pocket that you can whip out anywhere and be ready to play some 4-player beatumups, any fighting game, I mean, to me that’s just the coolest thing to me perfect for parties or any situation. Oh so you have an NES Mini bro? Check this out lol.
Based on my research Pi 3 is more powerful than my laptop lol. It can -almost- run Naomi/DC stuff (not quite but the fact it even runs is impressive to me), PSP emulation seems good, that blows my mind, so this is well beyond modding an Xbox, the Future is Now! Haha.
My Raspberry Pi 3 with Retropie runs a lot of MAME stuff well.
All the classic Konami, Sega, and Capcom Arcade stuff run nicely.
You say a lot, what are the limits? What doesn’t run well? How about say, Sega Model 2 games (examples: Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, House of the Dead),Sega System 32 (Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder), Titan (which is Saturn based thus requires quite a bit, examples: Radiant Silvergun, Decathalete) PS1 based: Tekken 1-2, Namco System 22 (Tekken 3, Soul Calibur). What about Killer Instinct 2? What about Taito SH2 based stuff like RayForce, Darius Gaiden, SH3 Cave stuff like Mushihimesama Futari? Alot of this won’t run on a modded Xbox for example.
Also I’m only doing this if the emulation is full speed. I can’t tolerate frameskips, screen tearing etc.
My Pi3b runs everything in FBA-Libretro on this list perfectly fine. Take a look… You might be surprised.
To remove guess work on compatibility you’ll need to think bigger…
I see a cheap PC, some decent emulators and LaunchBox in your future 
Cave is re-releasing a bunch of their shmups on Steam too.
These are older builds of mame, 2003 and 2010. Runs a ton of stuff great but, not model 1/2/3 arcade games or recent stuff in the 2000s. The PSOne emulator works fantastic and i have a ton of those shooters on it.
Totally worth it. Retropie is easy as hell to install and effectively turns the Raspberry Pi 3 into a full-fledged game console, and you never have to touch a mouse or keyboard past the initial set-up. Everything can be controlled through gamepad. Like a PC, it seems to work with nearly every USB controller fine. Although it says a 64GB Micro SD card is the limit, i’ve used a 128GB Micro SD on mine from the beginning and never had problems. Built-In WiFi lets you connect to your comp wirelessly and upload stuff using FTP programs like Filezilla, which is pretty awesome (Although you can always use the USB drive method for fast loading of large files).
Got a sweetass case for mine too. The Zebra Case:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81HGhi7uZVL.SX355.jpg
MAME is a terrible, out dated emulator.
My Favorite Emulator
Lakka
So far, playing with
[list]
[] emulation station
[] retro pi
[] retroarch
[] …
[/list]
i have found in my research, the most scalable, modable, maintainable has been lakka.tv
you can download all the cores you want through their online updater
[list]
[] Capcom CPS-1
[] Capcom CPS-2
[*] Capcom CPS-3
[/list]
the Pi3, even Zero do a pretty good job
