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[ressurectionx]

Hi BritneysPAIRS,

So.... we finally meet

I wasn't actually fully prepaired to bring this to you yet, so that's why you haven't heard from me.  I signed up on the other forum that you do post on a lot, but I haven't posted anything yet there.   I've read quite a few of your posts, so I know why you don't come around here much and I know that you're willing to work on something if a majority of the leg work is already done for you.  Let me say that I'm very impressed with your work on MAME.  Hands down the easiest and nicest looking MAME frontend I've ever used on XBox or on the PC.  (I've been out of the PC emulation scene for about 5 years though, so I have no clue what MAME looks like on PC today.  I can't stand using PC emus, especially when the XBox does it all so much better).   I'm also really looking forward to using your new project when it's complete.  It looks amazing.  

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Most didnt believe in my emu here. I think it speaks for itself if people bothered to look at it.

Well I'm pretty new to the scene myself having only owned an XBox for about 14 months now.  I never really messed around with MAME  on the Box before, other than to acquire the entire .84 set and be let down that there were so many problems with it and that I wasted so much time putting that set together.  I had always meant to clean it up, but I never got around to it till early January.  I had heard your emu mentioned before a few times, but I feel that it was never given the reviews it deserved.  I never used it myself until about 2 weeks ago and it completely blows MAMEox128 Plus away.  It's not just the fixes you've put in that got games like Ikari Warriors working, but it's the volumes of subtle improvements to the frontend itself.  You've stripped it of all the garbage and made it so much easier to use.  In the end, I'd like to be able to have everything available on this emulator and be able to ditch MAMEox128 Plus completely, since I have no intention of ever getting the ram upgrade for the couple of extra games you can play with it.

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I know there are still bugs and games missing and features missing and anyone is open to lobby with me and help me out, Im sure if things are really wanted I would allow it.
Its better to aproach me on other forums and if you have put in the work like this project id work with you for sure, but most people are tyre kickers so im sorry im a bit busy for this stuff and seem to be rude its not personal its just time I could be working on my XBMC project or getting drunk

My plan was to come to you with everything shortly when I had it all organized for you and (hopefully) easy to understand and implement.  I figured that this project would probably be mentioned to you on the other forum before I was done, and I don't mind that at all that it was, but I just didn't want to come to you with a half-assed idea and expect you to do all the work.  I know that you probably get asked the same questions a ton of times so hopefully this layout will make an easy to go to answer guide if a game does or doesn't work and if it's even possible/worth fixing a game that doesn't.  

... and I've pretty much been drunk since I've started this project.  The only way you can do this without going insane, in my opinion.

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A few considerations

1) I need the game to be playable at least even with some glitchs

First, let me say that this all looks like a total mess when posted on these forums.  I just put it here pretty much to show people that I was seriously working on this and not jerking everyone's chain.  Don't bother looking at this list when you decide how to move forward.  I have a very detailed and easy to read spreadsheet in Office 2007 that I'm still tweaking before presenting it to you.  Everything is done now pretty much except the non-working games.  I'm still separating them into categories so even the ones which have glitches that could be fixed will be all together for you to make it easier to decide if you want to fix them, or for other people to see and say if they would like to see them fixed.  Unless I commented "Fixable?" on my list, I've never played the game before and personally have no opinion on if it should be fixed or not.

I do suggest that you have Office 2007 because it loses a little bit when opened in an older version of Office.  

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2) I need the game controllable

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here.  Do you mean that in order for you to add it in the end that it needs to be controllable even if that means you have to fix it yourself?  I know from experience that there are quite a few games that you were able to remap that weren't controlable before.  I do have a category in the spreadsheet exclusively for control issues, so it should be easy for you to decide if it's worth taking your time to re-map games which work can't be played well now because of crappy mapping.

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3) I need a streamlined easy to use game launcher interface

I do believe that you've done a very good job here.  Easiest MAME interface I've ever seen.

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4) I have layed it out for 64Meg xbox with no extra controllers (eg light gun)

I don't have a light-gun myself, so not really a bother here.  Even if I did have the gun, I highly doubt that it would work on my projection screen anyways.  It's really a shame that the analog stick doesn't control these games better though, because there really are some cool games that would be great to play even with the joystick if that function worked at all.  (I figure this is something that would be more appropriate to ask $HK for, which means that it likely would never happen at this point)

Still, I think that if there were a way to hide the Gun games from your average user by making it an option to show them in the options menu, that would be an excellent addition for somebody who happens to both own a light gun and love this emulator.

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5) I would like it to fit on one DVD (but would consider it getting bigger if it was really prefered)

I may be wrong here, as I would never put this on a DVD to play it, but I believe that with your last update makes this larger than one DVD already.  Again, I could be wrong.  If somehow I was able to convince you to add all of the other games I've suggested, it would add another 550 MB to the set.

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6) I dont like clones without good reason.

I don't either.  You might notice that even games which are not marked as clones are in fact clones.  This is especially true for the games which I have categorized "Ancient Games".  You wouldn't believe how many different names and versions they had of that Snake game where you have to avoid the walls, yourself and the other snakes the longest.  Any of these games which were the same I took the best version and then dumped the rest into the Clones section of the spreadsheet.


7) Unless they will be played why add it (it makes it hard to find the games you want).

This is pretty subjective and the part I'm most hoping that I can win you over and change your mind here.  I agree completely to clutter the interface with roms that you would never play would really detract from the emulator.  801 games is already a rather large list to scroll through, even if you do know what you want to play (which totally makes your easy Favorites system great).  550+ more would be quite a few extra roms to sift through and could be quite annoying for somebody who would never play them.  But old dogs like me prefer a lot of those older roms to the Street Fighers.  

Here's my idea for this....

To make this the ultimate emulator for everyone who uses it, I propose new categories for what I've dubbed "Classic Games", "Ancient Games", "Retro Games" and "Gun Games"

Classic Games - Really great games from the 80's that aren't included on your list, such as Mappy and Crystal Castles.
Retro Games - Some of these are really good, some not so great.  Pretty sure all of these are from the early to mid-eighties.
Ancient Games - Mostly all from the 70's.  A lot of these didn't even have sound.  (Some had sound that was HORRIBLE.  I did not include the horrible sounding ones in this list)
Gun Games - Games which are marked unworking now because they require a light-gun or somebody to fix the analog control so it's workable.

Now.... in order to add all of these it would really screw up your flow of the emulator for you because you would never play most of these yourself and it's just clutter.  I'm sure that a lot of people would never play them, so I truly understand your hesitation here.  

What I was thinking, if there is a way you can get the emulator to do it, was to have an option screen dedicated to enabling or disabling these extra categories.  It wouldn't effect the ease of use for anybody at all who would never play these games.  In fact for most people, including yourself, these options and the roms themselves could remain completely invisible.  The extra work is only for people like me who will actually play most of these games at one point or another, or somebody who wants to take advantage of the light-gun, and it would require us to go into the options menu and enabling these categories.  Then there would always be the option to disable them again should someone not want to play the old ones for a while.  

This I feel would be the step necessary to make this the ultimate MAME emulator for everyone who wants to use it.  

If this could be done, you might even decide to implement this for all categories.  I have no opinion on that, but it might be cool to be able to turn off or turn on whatever categories you'd like at any time.


I can almost give you a 100% guarantee that any of them on this list work flawlessly and should require no more effort on your part than just adding them.  My only hesitation in not giving it the 100% is that I tested them on MAMEox128 Plus! and not on your emulator.  I'm willing to go with 99% accuracy here though.  

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I have seen for the first time issues ive picked up mentioned here so congraduations it looks like someone has taken the time to look properly and some of the stuff is just my lazyness I know its there and some is I havent tested it to that extent.

Glad you noticed that too.  Though none come to mind at the moment, I know there were quite a few times that I noticed issues like these that we were in agreement on too.  That is why I eventually decided to take your supported games list as a working list and completely skip testing the rest of them that you had already added that I hadn't tested before investingating your work.  Thanks for that..... it saved me days of work I'm sure.  More importantly though, I'm glad you noticed it because that means that you take me seriously here because you know that I'm taking this seriously and I know what I'm doing.

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Anyway if the author of this wants I could make an Arcades 2 (looks like maybe another 100 games could be added) and maybe he can make his own full set as I wont put in every game id say as some are so bad and just clutter the interface

That would be great man, and it's what I've been hoping all along since I learned about your emu and started using it.   Originally this project was just to get a working list of roms for MAMEox128 Plus!, but it evolved into more of a wishlist for the much better emu.  

If I must, than I will be adding roms to it myself, but I really do hope you reconsider and think about my suggestions for enabling/disabling the categories that you don't like.  My biggest fear about adding the roms myself is that if you were to update the emulator the roms I added would have to all be re-added again, which might make me think twice about upgrading.  Even if you still refuse to add all of the roms I've listed as working, I hope you'd put the new categories in and the ability to turn them off and on.

Thanks for reading, and I'm looking forward to taking this project to the next step.  Can't wait to see your other project to.  I'll contact you on the other site when I have everything prepaired for you.

~ressurectionx

[ressurectionx]

Hey Smothermunchie,

Glad to take you back there, even if I had to stare into the abyss of insanity to do it.  Remembering some of these great games and what life was like back then sure was a pleasure and made all of this not such a chore.  Cool that there's a place like this to share the work with.  And I'll gladly accept poptarts and beer from anyone who's offering.   Thanks for the offer... I'll keep Lansing in mind if I'm ever out in Michigan.  Used to visit South Haven a lot when I was a kid, but haven't been out that way in probably 10 years.  

Have a good on man
~ressurectionx

[BritneysPAIRS]

Ill look into any option, but if it doesnt work it goes on the scrap pile for me ive done that with lightgun games they are buggy and dont work on many TVs esp now with HD TVs but ill look at all stuff and see if its ok or clutter...i tested on 100s of people and I can tell you they only play certain games I know they want everything but of 100s spyed on they allways played the same games (although im sure ive missed games that why I ask peopleon my forum and they have helped me add 100 odd games)

[ressurectionx]

Hi BritneysPAIRS,

Is it possible to make a change to the emulator interface which would allow a user like me who will play all the games to turn on or turn off the additional categories so this won't be a bother to people who won't play them?   Something that would make "New York, New York" invisible to you and the younger kids by default, but would allow me to flip a switch and play it if I wanted to?

I'm just looking for the best solution for everybody so there's no question at all when somebody asks what is the best emulator for MAME and the universal answer is MAMEdox Arcades.  I just don't see any reason why not to add every working game (that's not a blatent clone) and let the user decide for themselves which ones they would like to make available to themselves (making the defaults, of course, whatever your preferences are).  98 out of 100 people would probably never want to play "New York, New York"... but there's always the 2% who want to.  Making these roms invisible to the 98% seems to me to be the best way to go about it.  I've got about 100% of every game available for the other systems I have on the XBox.  It'd be a shame to have to keep MAMEox128 Plus! just for the extra games that didn't make the cut.  

As for the gun games, I understand if you don't want them.  I'm never going to play them without the light gun, so the control would have to be fixed first before I ever played them.  I didn't notice too many of them being very glitchy though unless you mean the control on them just totally sucks.  The few that I did notice actual glitches other than control issues on I remarked them in my spreadsheet.  Then again, I didn't play any of them very long at all because the horrible controls, so you may have noticed something that I didn't.

Question:  If I have to add roms to MAMEdox Arcades on my own when all is said and done, will I have to re-add them any time you come out with an update, or can I just copy the update over it like I did with the Arcades over the Platinum without messing up the roms I've added?  The prospect of choosing between losing all the roms I've added or not getting anymore updates from you to preserve my own work is not a very good one for me.  I'm doing all of this work so when it's done I won't ever have to do any more work on it again.

I appreciate your looking at all this and your consideration for my suggestions.  Since I've made some romfixes myself with this new list (using clones when they are a better choice than the parent or the parent rom just doesn't work), it would be better if you had the datfile and spreadsheet rather than use the list I posted here to test.  I'll let you know when it's available.  I suspect some time on Sunday I will have everything finished.

Thanks again,
~ressurectionx

[underworlderZer0]

I know I speak for the silent majority when I say I am really really really hoping you guys can come together and get this done. I will gladly send ressurrectionx a case of pop-tarts and britney something too if this project gets completed.  

[BritneysPAIRS]

The switch is easy the testing and redoing stuff in the rom like name and keymap etc takes time.
Also the question of upgrade it will depend if I totally change the GUI eg a new skin with video previews instead of pictures if that is the case maybe a totally new build is required minus most roms.

I know you want everything but you could just give them another folder and say overwrite and go add roms to allow these
eg a folder for light gun a folder for x

I will add any A B or C list games just dont like adding D and E list games (if they want that why not use BAED its a full rom working rom set now

[ressurectionx]

Sorry man, but I'm kind of a dummy.  I'd like to get a little clarification here on a few things if you don't mind.

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The switch is easy the testing and redoing stuff in the rom like name and keymap etc takes time.

So you mean that if you upgraded Arcades and a new release came out, I could easily install the new upgrade over it and I wouldn't have to change any of the roms that I had already added personally?  Everything would load up just fine with all of my added roms after coping the new emu files?  I mean here, of course, the games which I was able to add on my own which didn't require remapping.

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Also the question of upgrade it will depend if I totally change the GUI eg a new skin with video previews instead of pictures if that is the case maybe a totally new build is required minus most roms.

I'd like to say that videos would be freakin awesome.  I heard you mention that on the other forum before, and I didn't even know something like that would be possible.  

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I know you want everything but you could just give them another folder and say overwrite and go add roms to allow these eg a folder for light gun a folder for x

So..... you still didn't answer my question about the ability to turn on or turn off categories.  Is this possible/not possible, or is it something that you just don't want to do?  Either way is fine if you don't like my suggestions, but I'm curious to know if this is a possibility.

I don't know what you mean by saying "give them another folder and say overwrite and go add roms to allow these eg a folder for light gun a folder for x".   Do you mind spelling that out to me like I'm a dumb little kid?  I'm all for doing for myself what others aren't inclined to do, but I need a push in the right direction.

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I will add any A B or C list games just dont like adding D and E list games (if they want that why not use BAED its a full rom working rom set now

Don't know what the "BAED" is.  Is that an XBox emu?  If it's on the computer, I'm not interested at all.

My reason for wanting a full set is just for the sake of having a full set and having the ability to easily navigate to any one that I just may happen to want to play on a given day.  My XBox is pretty much a museum to video games from the 80's and 90's and I'd like these on the same emu if possible.  No disrespect meant to ya, but I don't see what the hang-up is, so long as there is a way to make the "D" and "E" list games invisible by default.  There can't be more than 50 to 100mb of "D" and "E" roms on my list, so it's not a space issue at all.  It would be the one time annoyance for you to put them on (which would be infinately appreciated by me), and then you wouldnt' even notice them anymore.

Even if you really won't add these games I would think that a section in the options for turning categories on and off would be a great idea for everyone.  Then if I chose to add them all myself and I'm not in the mood for playing those old games one day, I can just turn the categories off and I don't want to have to scroll through 1358 roms to get to the one I'm looking for.  Hell... an old dog like me is more likely to turn off the "Fighter" and "Shooter" categories, believe it or not.

Also, if you still won't add these, I just thought of another problem I may have.  I don't know if I can have the great naming conventions you make when I add the games myself either.  Is that something that can be done in the emulator itself somwhere or do you code that in the binary?  If it's a binary thing, I don't have a prayer of doing this right on my own.  

Sorry if my questions are a little noobish or annoying to you here.  I'm not a genius computer programmer.  Just a guy who knows his limitations but wanted to fix something that looks like it's been broke for a long time.  (I don't mean your emulator, just the MAME emulation in general on the xbox and all of the rom issues.)

Thanks again, and thaks also for your quick replies,
~ressurectionx

[BritneysPAIRS]

Anything feature wise is possible....its how to best do it GUI wise thats the key.

BAED is an xbox emulator with all working roms for HK build 3 DVDs just I dont see it living these days... I helped them out but alais I dont see it around now I allways thought it might go that way personally

[ressurectionx]

So do you think that the idea of a feature to turn on and off categories in the options menu (or any place you decided was best) would be a good addition?   One that defaulted with less desirable "D" and "E" list roms automatically turned off right on the first time they fired it up.  One that perhaps is very difficult to access unless you know what you're doing so people don't accidentally turn them on.   You know how people are man.... if these roms were added and some noob downloaded this and just fired it up, chances are they wouldn't even think to turn them on so they would never know that these roms even existed.  Especially true since you said, and I agree, that you don't think a lot of people would want them cluttering the box up with roms they'd never play.  They're so small that they'd never be in anybodies way.

I'd just consider it an extra feature to play to a fringe demographic, which I'm happy to have made myself a part of.... no matter how small a part I play in this process.  If everything is there but only 5% of the people ever use all of the features, it's still going to be used and people who use it will definately appreciate it.  It's a hell of a better feature than probably every useless feature that you stripped from MAMEox128 Plus.  (or whicever emulator you used originally.  Sorry.... I'm kinda a noob myself)

This is such a great freaking emulator and that addition would make it the "Tits of the XBox"  

[ressurectionx]

No rush on nothing though.  Let me get the list and the datfile to you and then we'll talk more about it.  I know you're busy, and there's plenty to do with just the good roms first.   .

Thanks for everything,
~ressurectionx

[BritneysPAIRS]

I do agree in many ways, this is why I added the load rom feature but didnt support it. Its just that it takes time to get roms to level it takes to put into this EMU. So first off really the ones that people want that ive missed im sure there will be a 100 or so. Also each time I release a release every rom is checked that it loads this alone takes about 4 hours

PS I wanted to go though settings and get rid of all settings bar about 10 of them... plus I want to add all old midway games and automatically disable sound when they are run

[ressurectionx]

Wow.... 4 hours per game?  You really are thourough.  I could see why you wouldn't want to do all that work if it takes 4 hours to add "New York, New York".  

I'd love to know more about the process of adding roms to your emulator to your specifications.  Does it take 4 hours to add the newer games because you also take the time to play them all the way through when you test?  The nice thing about most of those older games is that there really is no end and it's just the first level over and over again with increasing difficulty and/or speed.  Plus there's no choosing different character so you don't have to test it out with 12 characters like a Street Fighter game.  If testing a game from start to finish is a large part of your adding efforts, I'm sure the time would be greatly minimized on these oldies because of their simplicity.  (And that goes for me adding them myself too).  It's a pretty safe bet that if you beat a level or two or play until all of your lives are out and you're satisfied that the game worked properly that you wouldn't have to play it anymore and you could trust that it worked fine.  Plus, I've already marked down any game that needs to be remapped too, so if I haven't made any comments or suggestions on remapping you can put 100% trust that the game is mapped fine the way it is.

I have yet to even try to use your program for adding roms, so I won't bother asking you much about it yet until I figure out the basics on my own.  That being said, I really hope I can change the name of the rom and the category in the GUI in your "load rom" program.  That would be pretty much perfect then, even if I do a bunch of them myself.

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Do you think I could look forward to a "Turn on/Turn off" category feature when you make a new release?  That would be awesome.

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I'll get that spreadsheet and dat to you by the end of the weekend.  I'm almost done.  I thought I had tonight off so I could finish it, but they've got me working overtime.  12 hours at work is how I love spending my Saturday night off /sarcasm.  Had a lot of fun spending 30 minutes getting the snow off my car and shoveling my way out to drive 1 mile to work.  I could have walked here faster.  

Thanks for keeping the discussion cool man.  I'm not trying to be a bastard here or anything.  I'm just as passionate as you are about this project, but not nearly as capable of seeing it through and tweaking it.

~Ressurectionx

[BritneysPAIRS]

No 4 hours to test every rom again before release to see they load.... and it takes about 4mins to add a rom, if its an issue one about 10-15mins

ill look at the catagories should be easy but ill prob just do diff folder for roms that can be turned on/off

eg Roms
Roms Lightgun
Roms Unpopular

and remove the options for multiple folders and just make it on/off switchs. But I should redo the settings totaly on the next build so just the options people need are there and not all the rubbish thats there now

[ressurectionx]

Well you've done a considerable job getting rid of the rubbish to this point, so I'm looking forward to seeing your new changes as well.  I know I only ever used about 1% of the options available to me in MAMEox128 Plus!, so it will be nice to see even less of the junk next build.  

As to the rest of your last post..... Badass.  Now I'm getting excited.  

[ressurectionx]

Here it is BritneysPAIRS....version 1: Datfile and spreadsheet

Hopefully there doesn't need to a version 2.  I believe I've thouroughly tested the list and the datafiles.  Let me know if there are any problems using this though.  I've tested the rapidshare download and it's good.  

Looking forward to hearing from you next.



Enjoy everybody.  Love to hear your opinions.