Tag Archives: MAME

Apr 12

AdvanceMAME 1.4 and AdvanceMESS 1.4 for Raspberry Pi3

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Hey All,

I compiled AdvanceMAME 1.4 and AdvanceMESS 1.4 for the Raspberry Pi3.

On the Pi3, games like Street Fighter II and The Simpsons run like butter with full audio.  It’s great!

You can download them here:

http://sheasilverman.com/rpi/raspbian/pi3/advancemame_1.4-1_armhf_pi3.deb

http://sheasilverman.com/rpi/raspbian/pi3/advancemess_1.4-1_armhf_pi3.deb

To install run:

sudo dpkg --force-all -i advancemame_1.4-1_armhf_pi3.deb
sudo dpkg --force-all -i advancemess_1.4-1_armhf_pi3.deb

On another note, our first “PiPlay Advance” boards came in:

2016-04-05 (3) 2016-04-05 (2) 2016-04-05 (1) 2016-04-05

There was of course an issue with our pin routing, so we had to order a new revision of the boards.  So excited to see this project start coming together!

-Shea

Jan 22

Friday Post: AdvanceMAME 1.4 debs

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Hey All,

Updates maybe sporadic for the next few weeks.

AdvanceMAME updated to 1.4 so I have recompiled the source and made .debs out of it.  This will work on the Pi and Pi2.

AdvanceMAME 1.4 Deb Download

To install goto a terminal and type:

sudo dpkg --force-install -i advancemame_1.4-1_armhf.db
advmame

You will now have a directory in ~/.advance and will need to edit your advmame.rc file.

nano ~/.advance/advmame.rc

Add to the first line:

device_video_clock 5 - 50 / 15.62 / 50 ; 5 - 50 / 15.73 / 60

Then press ctrl-x then y and hit enter to save.

You can now place your game files into the ~/.advance/roms directory and launch a game with the command:

advmame gamename
advmame sf2

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Mar 28

Friday Post: Framebuffer Copy and new PiMAME 8 beta release

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Hey All,

Another week another PiMAME release 🙂

This is beta 2 of the new PiMAME 0.8.  I’m loving the feedback.  I know there are bugs and issues, but I’m able to iterate so much faster now.  This latest release includes:

  • Added NES support again.
  • Added C64 support again.
  • Put back in restart, shutdown, and updater tools.
  • Menu will now notify you if there are updates available.
  • PiMAME bootsplash video
  • Tankstick support

High priority features I’m working on:

  • Adding back in screenshot support
  • More joystick configuration options

Framebuffer copy

I’ve started playing with Notro’s FBTFT module again.  This allows you to use little inexpensive LCD screens for things like the console and X Windows.  The problem is that most programs expect output on framebuffer 0.  These screens operate on framebuffer 1, or /dev/fb1.  Tasanakorn has created a program called fbcp.  This mirrors the screen from the hdmi / rca port and onto the SPI based screens you see above.

It doesn’t work 100% yet for me.  I don’t know if its my screen or the program.  I’m going to purchase some more and test them out.

Little Arcade Machine

Steve Smith has created this awesome little MAME cabinet.  Plans and more images are below at the imgur link.

http://imgur.com/a/Pr4rG

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Shea

Jan 30

Video of XArcade Stick Working with the Raspberry Pi

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Hey All,

Real quick, just wanted to show a very rough video of me using the XArcade Tankstick on the Raspberry Pi.  I have the Trackball, Buttons  and Joysticks all working.  Gridlee has issues with it (has to have custom inputs set) but Street Fighter 2 and Missile Command worked “out-of-the-box”.  I had to make a minor edit to the AdvanceMENU configuration file, but it looks like its working nicely.

I’m going to try a fresh re-install of PiMAME and try to recreate the results.  I’m hoping to have a guide for this very soon ™.

-Shea

Jan 23

PiMAME 0.5 Beta Release

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Hey all,

This is just for testing purposes, but if you like to live on the cutting edge, I’m making available the beta/pre-release/testing release of PiMAME 0.5!

It’s based off the PiMAME 0.3 image, with the Uploader file size limit set to 200MB, and the Snapshot artwork in AdvMENU.

Let me know if you have any issues with it!

-Shea

Jan 22

X-Arcade Tankstick Unboxing

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Hey all,

My new Tankstick arrived today, courtesy of XGaming.com. They have asked me to test it and get it running on the Raspberry Pi. I only had a couple minutes to play with it, but I made a little unboxing video for everyone:

Size comparison of the Pi versus a Tankstick:

tankstick
This thing has some heft to it!  With the few minutes I got to use it, I notice why some users of the Raspberry Pi are having difficulties making it work right.  It’s nothing wrong with the device, but with the way some of the software interprets the inputs.  I have a couple of hunches and ideas on how to fix it, which I hope to get to within the next week.

PiMAME 0.5 is also coming along nicely.  I’m reverting back to the 0.3 stack and just adding some minor modifications.  That should be released on Friday.

-Shea

Jan 18

Friday Post: Advance .debs

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Hey all,

New Debs!

I have the latest AdvanceMENU, AdvanceMESS, and AdvanceMAME versions compiled and turned into .debs for your installing pleasure.

  1. Files:
    1. AdvanceMAME 1.2
    2. AdvanceMENU 2.6
    3. AdvanceMESS 0.102
  2. To install, run these commands:
    1. sudo dpkg --force-overwrite -i advancemame_1.2-1_armhf.deb
    2. sudo dpkg --force-overwrite -i advancemenu_2.6-1_armhf.deb
    3. sudo dpkg --force-overwrite -i advancemess_0.102.0.1-1_armhf.deb

The reason dpkg requires force install is because the Advance* projects compile a lot of the same helper binaries, like advj and advc.  When dpkg tries to install the next package, it sees it has already installed something with the same name, and freaks out.

Doing a force install tells it to overwrite and continue, making everything work.  I don’t recommend using force install for everyday installs, but I know it works for these.

X Gaming X-Arcade Stick

I was very surprised when I was contacted by X Gaming this week.  They are sending me one of their really cool looking X Arcade tank sticks to test out with the Raspberry Pi and various emulators.  A couple people have posted on the Raspberry Pi forums and on my blog asking if this stick works, so hopefully I will have an answer for everyone very soon.

I’m looking forward to everyone’s feedback on the new .deb files.  Let me know if something is messed up, doesn’t install for you, or is just wonky.  Also let me know if it does work, because that’s good to hear as well 🙂

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Jan 14

PiMAME 0.4

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Update:  I have received numerous reports that this version is much slower than the previous one.  I am reverting back to the previous Raspbian for PiMAME 0.5.  That should fix the speed issues.  The new release will be up this week.  Thank you for all the feedback.

Hey All,

I am pleased to announce PiMAME 0.4 is now available for download.

PiMAME is now built around the 2012-12-16 version of Raspbian.
AdvanceMAME 1.2 and AdvanceMENU 2.6  are installed.
PulseAudio has been removed.
Snapshots of supported games are loaded and will appear in AdvanceMENU.
The ROM uploader file size limit has been increased from 2MB to 200MB.

I recommend users exit out of AdvanceMENU at some point and run:

sudo raspi-config

Overclocking the Pi from raspi-config greatly increases the performance of AdvanceMAME.  You are also able to expand the filesystem to fill up the rest of your SD Card.

I am looking forward to all questions, comments, and suggestions!  Have a great week.

-Shea

Download PiMAME

 

Dec 21

Friday Post: PiMAME bandwidth and DeskCade photoshoot!

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Happy Friday All!!!!

I am off work until the New Year!!  I think I’m going to sleep until Sunday 🙂

First things first.  Happy Holidays and an early Happy New Year to all my readers.  All of you have been awesome.  Thank you for all the comments.

PiMAME Updates

I have used up over 100GB of bandwidth in a week.  That’s AWESOME.  I have never used so much bandwidth ever, yet alone in a week.  Luckily I have generous bandwidth allotments between my two hosts, so hopefully I won’t have to scramble for mirrors again.

Expect PiMAME updates over the weekend.  I am doing a lot to it.  The next update should be great.

Photoshoot

We had a secret santa in my department, and my co-worker was given a really cool light box since he is a freelance photographer.  He did a little photo shoot of my DeskCade units.

-Shea

Dec 18

PiMAME quick fixes and information

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Hey all,

I’ve been getting tons of feedback about PiMAME.  Thank you for all the comments and suggestions.  There have been a few issues/questions that have popped up, hopefully the tips below helps you out.

Here is a quick fix for the AdvanceMENU sound issue:

  1. ssh into your Raspberry Pi.
  2. exit out of AdvanceMENU by pressing Escape.
  3. at the console, type: nano +99 .advance/advmenu.rc
  4. edit the sound_background lines to look like below:
    1. sound_background_begin none
    2. sound_background_end none
    3. sound_background_loop none
    4. sound_background_loop_dir none
    5. sound_background_start none
    6. sound_background_stop none
  5. press control-x to exit, it will ask you to save, press “y” to confirm.
  6. Reboot your Pi and it should be good to go.

Adding games:

Your game files should go in the /home/pi/roms/ directory.  I cannot help you find games for MAME.

Stopping AdvanceMENU from starting at bootup:

If you want AdvanceMENU to not start at bootup edit /home/pi/.profile and remove advmenu from the bottom of the script.

Logging In:

The username and password are the default Raspbian ones.

  1. User: pi
  2. Password: raspberry