johnparker007

Hey @Amusements Thanks for the info... the Win 10 trying to block is 'standard', as it's not signed and it's a brand new .exe that Windows hasn't seen before. If the project gets super popular, then once the exe installer is stable/final I could in theory pay (~$400 I think it was) and get it signed. False positives are a pain with antivirus programs though, not sure what I can do about that at this stage. I've ran the Installer exe through virustotal, 63 virus scanning engines all reported it safe: So for now, I guess I can only suggest uninstalling, then trying again... or (temporarily!) disabling Avast, installing it, then reenabling Avast. Please be sure to reload Avast once it's installed though, if you do go for that option! I have submitted the setup exe to Avast for inclusion on their 'whitelist'. That should mean that their next update it should hopefully no longer flag it as a threat. The problem is I'm going to be updating the Installer quite a bit! So they'll always be behind. In theory you can use an old installer, and it'll still catch up via the patching system. So another option is to wait a month or two, then update Avast definitions, and this version of the exe you downloaded today should be allowed to install

Have done a basic first pass on the 'codec' work (for storing/replaying attract modes etc). Results in less CPU load, less RAM usage, smaller build size (than raw uncompressed frames). So now the default arcade in the 'pre-pre-Alpha' has working attract modes (with minor issues - you'll see things like segment alpha displays showing all 8s etc occasionally, 'stuck' displays... to be fixed later). If you want to try this tech demo it's at: arcadesimulator.net, if you already have it installed, it will auto-patch to this latest version when you next run it. Quick vid of the new codec in action

Well, I mean, anyone can visit arcadesimulator.net and download it, it's kinda the opposite of 'protected' by design. To play 'MFME' fruit machines (that MAME doesn't emulate correctly) they'd need MFME installed as that won't come with Arcade Sim (only MAME will come with it). If someone decides to stick the Arcade Sim installer and the MFME installer on a DVD, and sells it on eBay - I wouldn't really be able to do anything about that... much the same as it's not possible to control the sale of fruit machine DVDs, virtual pinball DVDs, etc on eBay. I just looked and there's one here for MFME: And here's an 8TB hard drive (that is a crazy amount of ROMs!) crammed full of ROMs etc: I honestly don't know what can be done about people selling these things on eBay. I guess the only way you can try slow it down is by reporting all the eBay listings...

What security measures do you mean @Big J?

Thanks guys Yeah I wish Chris could've seen this too, even though he was more into the low level emulation side of things, I think he would've been interested in it. It will probably be quite a while yet, I know this probably seems strange, since there were videos of me playing machines ages ago, but nothing works currently since redoing the rendering systems (to make them fast). I might get (some of) these test machines going, but I have plans for redoing a bunch of the conversion processes (will make conversions hopefully faster/less painful in the long run)... plus I need to redo how the machines in general exist - as I think it needs to be a 'download on demand' system. So if someone wants to download arcade sim, and just play in a small arcade with 20 different machines in - they only download those machines (automatically) to their local library when they first load that arcade. There will be an option to 'sync entire library', so people who want to play offline can ensure they have all the machines installed from the server in advance. All this stuff is for the best in the long run, always good to get the big structure work sorted up front on projects of this scale - so a more patience I'm afraid Before then I expect to be chipping away at some smaller bitesize parts for my weekday evening tasks, such as developing attract mode codec (reduces filesize and improves performance), and then changing to a linked asset... then I'll do a patch so everyone will have that update. Also have a fix planned for a lot of the flickery overlapping lamp issues (not blended lamps like game logos) which I may get in before the big structure changes(again I'll do a patch when I get that fix working).

(Can't edit above post, but just remembered, as well as WASD for movement; hold left shift to move faster).

If it's anything it's more like a pre-pre-pre-alpha lol But for those technically curious folk, the current build can be downloaded from the webserver Download button: http://arcadesimulator.net/ (Windows Defender will show a popup with a Don't Run button, you need to click 'More Info', then Run Anyway button - it's because it doesn't recognise my .exe so is being cautious in case it's a virus). Keys are WASD for movement. There are some debug keys for changing some light settings: - and + [ and ] , and . and R This is purely a tech demo at this point! Most stuff doesn't work, isn't written yet, there are plenty of bugs! So please can I ask, no bug reports or anything yet ...as they will be of no use, as this is so early in development. I just thought it'd be good to get a slightly usable build uploaded for those who just want to see the machines rendering etc on their own machine, now I have the webserver/fileserver - many thanks again to Slasher and Reg for that. I just tried it with the default (only) arcade it comes with that I made tonight in about 3 minutes But it just about coped on an old AMD Phenom II, with and AMD 5800 GPU - though fans were whirring quite audibly! P.S. @Jamesy4 In theory, if you want to try this, you should just be able to launch Arcade Simulator from your Windows start menu (if it's still installed), and after some progress bars and restarts - it should auto-patch itself to the latest version. Seemed to work for me at least, though the Arcade Simulator process wasn't full-screen, so I had to press Alt-Enter to get it full screen again. Though I think I knocked the keyboard, so it might have been me that caused that in the first place.

lol you were fast - I only had that download up briefly for my own testing to make sure things were vaguely working over on my test machine (my local ArcadeSim server box) - I took the .exe down soon after to avoid confusion, as I realised people might try to use it! And yeah, that part isn't working yet (the save file system stuff, which in turn needs new UI, which in turn needs me to learn how to do 'anchored UI' so it'll work on resolutions other than 1920x1080p and then redoing all the UI so far. Yes - all the functionality will ultimately work on end user machines, but everything requires so much work/rework/refactoring, it'll be a while yet... also; "So unless we aren't meant to do anything like that yet until a final version" There won't really be a 'final' version, the plan is to update with patches. So when you start it up, it will patch both the Launcher and/or the 'Game' (the main simulator program and assets) automatically when it finds a newer version on the server. In theory once things have settled down a bit, then the patches shouldn't be too large.

Made good progress on figuring out this 'Windows Installer' lark (the thing end users will initially download), here's a demo of the current windows installer (as a Setup.exe type installer): Some minor issues, in terms of the files that the patcher/updater creates don't get removed when uninstalling again from Add/Remove Programs... but I've just made a note, and will fix that at some future point as a low priority issue.

Big thanks!!! going out to @Reg and @slasher, who have both massively stepped up, and each offered to help with hosting various bits of ArcadeSim's online infrastructure So now, arcadesimulator.net is hosted on Slasher's server, and the large installer/patcher files are hosted on Reg's desertislandfruits server. It's a really big help, so thanks very much guys! In terms of an update, still plugging away at this installer/patcher stuff - there's been a lot to do, and still a lot to do - but making good steady progress on it - the installer/patcher queries arcadesimulator.net to find out where the fileserver is (currently DIF), and then downloads/installs from there. - the installer/patcher now stops on errors, but will allow game startup if the network simply isn't available (so once you've installed on a laptop, you'd be able to play out and about, without needing an internet connection to start up) - have reduced the install size from around ~2gb installer/~2gb game down to around ~170mb installer/~350mb game. There's quite a bit more to do here such as reimplementing the 3d character controller, and creating the attract mode codec, among other things for further fixing of resource duplication/inclusion issues... Still need to work on stuff for initialising some save data, packaging as a windows .exe installer, other misc bits and bobs... getting there though Here you can see it downloading/installing from DIF servers (after retrieving the DIF server address from arcadesimulator.net server). At the end I disable my internet connection to show it still starting up offline:

Managed to get a bit further with the Installer/Patcher system - but unfortunately only by intentionally breaking various things that we need, to get past the errors! So next I need to try figure out quite a few problems, but at least it's installing something... (I do have this working fine in an 'empty' project, the primary issues are currently down to native plugins and streaming assets).

First tests of a Launcher/Downloader/Patcher system - not actually working yet! ... and I've a lot of file reorganisation to do when I do get it working... but it will mean I can push out small (filesize) patches every week or so as I add/improve things. Then when users launch Arcade Sim, it'll auto-patch itself to the latest version if there's a new one on the server, without them having to download the whole thing again. (this will all work offline, it'll just silently fail to find the server and start up as normal).

Thanks for letting me know it's working at your end bud Should look like this for people now, if not, then as slasher says - try clearing your cache as I screwed the first couple of attempts up! Site at: http://arcadesimulator.net/

To be honest, I think Tor's the only one that's reliable for this from mucking around so far - I keep deleting and reinstalling the backend (wordpress + sql DB) and then after it should be working, my mobile phone over 4G data still says 'Can't find localhost' whereas the Tor browser, it's always reflecting what I'm expecting to see. I guess Tor does no caching, which makes things slower, but at least you're seeing a realtime live copy from 'outside', uncorrupted by caching issues. I bet @slasher can do this stuff in his sleep

lol it's just to get an 'outside line' into my PC to check for server connectivity, though I've heard there are herbs and the like on there

Hmm that's odd - it works if I go to the link from Tor browser, or from my mobile phone with only mobile data enabled (no Wifi) - so I thought that meant it was properly 'live'. Maybe it is the DNS stuff catching up like you say... if it's still dead in a day or two I'll have to look into it - ta for the heads up! It should currently look like this (screenshot from Tor browser): (arcadesimulator.net forwards to arcadesimulator.duckdns.org that then links the remote browser to the new server in my office) EDIT: just checked on a random site that checks how your website looks on different screen resolutions (so another external computer accessing the ArcadeSim server) and that appears to be correct, so I think you're on the money @niallquinn, it must be down to the DNS servers taking their time to propagate it out across the net:

I've assembled the cobbled together parts (to save money by using stuff I had), and made the server machine: - AMD Phenom II @ 3.3ghz - 8gb RAM - 240gb SATA SSD - Radeon 5800 - 1200W PSU (not a typo, it's a beast) - motherboard with 4x full PCI-E slots (again an old beast), built in gigabit ethernet - large old school cooler case It's the massive one on the left lol This was originally used for bitcoin mining, then DVD burning. And no - I didn't get rich from the bitcoin, though I was in early - had to sell them back then as needed cash unfortunately... just made a few hundred quid (would have been worth a few hundred thousand quid now if I'd kept them, c'est la vie). It's now installed and serving up a very basic holding page - via a ddns service. http://arcadesimulator.net/ It'll probably go down/change a bit while I'm working on things... good to have an actual start on this now though

Quick server tech update So I've been having a little look around at how to host the downloads and patches from my house along with the website, I think it'll be cheaper since I'll need a server for some other arcade sim world stuff (online multiplayer, cloud-stored machine rams, league tables etc), plus potentially have that as code repository, and managing offsite backups of everything. Big thanks to @slasher who's already been giving me helpful advice, much appreciated! Found just about enough bits to cobble together a dedicated server machine that'll live in my office, then it can be on 24/7 doing arcade sim tasks. Just bodging around with my 'bedroom PC' for now to experiment, which is currently on weak Wifi (moved to the attic to escape the noisy neighbour, but it's too hot up here so I'm moving back down over the weekend - going to need to sort out soundproofing)... But here is the first sign of life, publicly addressable test website running This is just a test, I need to get the server built and then I'll stick on a proper website... which will mainly be a download button to download the latest version. Before it's release I'm sorting out a patching system, so that once you've downloaded it, when there's an update, you will have the option to download the patch update to get the new stuff. All the downloads/patches will be hosted from my house, so it'll cost no additional $ for the bandwidth That means I can release pre-pre-pre Alpha builds - as everyone can just seamlessly update their client. Will mean that (very buggy incomplete) versions will be available much sooner. That website above will probably work until I shut down my PC later, I've previously bought the arcadesimulator.net domain, so I'll need to get that pointed at the duckdns one.

Maybe like Cash Explosion attract mode near the end of the recent vid above? That does some very slow fading in and out of lamps https://youtu.be/YBoJ4jI4kjg?t=156 lol there's something on Bonanza's dot matrix attract mode text I noticed during testing that's not aged well; something about going 'Injun bashing' - I certainly don't think they'd have that in there now!

Not a lot of time to work on stuff this week, but manage to get some work in - made a new batch system for re-recording attract modes, recorded more of the test machines, so all with their lamps with brightness recording (very noticeable on Cash Explosion attract, a lot of slow fade), segment alphas/dot alphas, and seven segment displays - rendered thru the new fast renderers. Various graphical issues are present, and Smash n Grab is broken - I think I was using that one to test something a bit back, so I'll need to rebuild it. Hopefully get another hour or two in here and there over the next few days to keep chipping away at stuff...

I wonder if that's to make LEDs look more like bulbs - definitely looks a bit less harsh, and kind of warmer when lamps flash on and off rapidly.

Got a little sidetracked Ended up implementing the incandescent bulb ramp/decay curve model - so now the bulbs 'glow up' and 'fade down'. Looks a bit nicer/more real, and more matches 60FPS fruit machine videos on youtube. Curve settings will ultimately be user-overridable on a per tech/machine basis. (@serene02 I know you were asking about this a bit back )

Pre-alpha will be a while yet, a lot of things to sort out - I posted a rough todo list a bit back... but it's all slowly progressing I did do a BWB Rat Race a bit back, in a Barcrest cab variant VId machine cabs I've seen so far all looked pretty custom, but just focussing on standard reel based fruities for the moment.

That's a really nice MiSTer build man! The game/system OLED looks great too

Done more on the segment alphas, looking usable now Stuff still to do on these; decimal points, scaling issues, off segments not drawn - but I'm generally just getting the fast renderers good enough for pre-alpha, and then later I can spend time sorting out the minor issues. These fixes will then get rolled out in the patch updates.