johnparker007

Yeah it's confusing, since the DIPs are adjustable (in MFME) without the service door adjustment, but they are also inside the machine... I will work it into the Oasis UI design then, so the internal stuff like DIPs/SP keys require a door open (or a popup saying 'Opening service door to perform adjustments' when they are clicked on). I'm all about making things as easy to use as possible

Thanks, that's great info I may build that into the Oasis UI (so to adjust the SP keys, there's a service door switch above with an info/tooltip, so it's simple to use but realistic)... good stuff

I notice that in MFME, the stake/prize/% values can often not be changed, they are populated presumably from the ROM but then ghosted out: ...but, in MAME, they can be changed, and on rebooting, the startup message shows the new values are live: Same game (Capt Scarlet - Ace - JPM Impact hardware), I adjusted from the default of 98% to a value of 70%, and on reboot the new value is live. What's the deal here? I thought the stake/% 'keys' are things like those 9 D pin dongles, and if you plug in different ones, it adjusts the values... so why does MFME prevent this from being adjusted? I suspect I'm missing something... (I ask as planning to in the future build these adjustments into Oasis, but wondering if some ROMs should actually prevent these adjustments for true preservation of the original hardware behaviour - i.e: is this a mistake in MAME to allow these to be adjusted, that we need to fix?).

Done a little more hacky testing, this renders basic 2d reels, synced with the emulation. Kept MAME window visible so I can press keys in MAME for the moment to drive the emulation (play the machine). Ultimately MAME will be a hidden child process and Oasis will be passing inputs through:

Another little update to Oasis Layout Editor - a bunch of hardcoded bits, but this now shows proof of concept of the new way of interfacing to read component states from MAME: There is no 'screen-scraping' taking place here to flash the lamps in the editor, and so also no need for 'data layouts' (previous MAME/MFME work for Arcade Sim has all relied on the hideousness that is screen scraping data layouts). I'm instead pulling a component data feed direct from MAME. Need to suss out how to get the MAME.exe running as a totally hidden child process - good to see the idea works anyway, this new technique of reading the lamps etc has not been done before

Robin_Hood_NumberReelWorking.zip

I have reordered the reel symbols to match Pot of Gold, and copied settings, and amazingly that now works! Weird, I'll have to look into this more at some point, seems like it shouldn't make any difference, but for some odd reason it does. Hmmm I'm not feeling super great, so I'm not on top of my game - doesn't seem like it should have mattered though (the changed between original and this). Here is is anyway, number reel now works between new games:

Checked the DX of Pot of Gold and the number reel works correctly. Will transfer all settings over and check on Robin Hood...

Not sure of any other layouts with 6 symbol reels offhand, but I think it's most likely an emulation issue rather than a layout config issue unfortunately...

Not sure, there's something iffy going on for sure (I could see without matching exactly your layout)... I can see it behaving inconsistently between layout loads, I've replicated your screenshot of your layout setup, and done a video: Here, 2 on number reel moves 5 spaces: https://youtu.be/DEnLg05g-4M?si=xLVLsI5PTe0r7bZ6&t=13 Here, 2 on number reel moves 6 spaces: https://youtu.be/DEnLg05g-4M?si=xLVLsI5PTe0r7bZ6&t=170 (there's lots more inconsistencies, these links just to save time for reviewing the difference) Perhaps it could be configured to work correctly in MFME between relaunches of the layout, but I'm still leaning towards a bug in the reel controller emulation - would love to be wrong though, since we can't fix the latter! Here's a zip of that updated layout to exactly match your screenshot: Robin_Hood_(Ace)_NumberReelBug.zip

Some are from when I did the initial 2016 run: Once I've finally developed the Oasis layout editor including MFME importing and MAME exporting, others can build/convert the classics to internal MAME layouts, to help with development over there (for instance with this reel controller bug, if it is one).

Are you sure this woks correctly? After closing MFME then reloading? I made a 6 symbol reel, and still see the issue - can be configured, but upon restarting MFME and reloading, the number is wrong again. I think it still might be a bug in the reel controller emulation code... RobinHood(Ace)-numberReelBug.zip I've attached the layout to try...

Ah nice one, so not reel controller emulation bug, that's a relief!

I have double-checked and I see the same issue. Unfortunately I don't think this can be fixed in MFME, I suspect it's an emulation bug in the reel controller code. The author (Chris Wren aka Wizard) has sadly passed away a few years ago, so the source code for the emulator is lost. So I guess for now, it's a case of fixing it each time when you start playing! In the (very) long term, this will be playable using MAME as the emulation backend, as we have the code and can fix issues - but that's a long way off (the rom runs now in MAME but there's a ton of work involved in getting graphical layouts working in 2d/3d).

Nice, I had thought it would be pretty cool on a handheld PC like the Steam Deck! Thanks for letting us know it works well on those devices

Awesome vid man, thanks for the review!

Cool - I do keep an eye on the Speccy scene, as I think I showed before, I have a full screen shoot'em up engine in development, and some other projects, it's a challenging machine to work on, but you can get some decent performance out of it

Hey @Reg, erm what's going on in this new video that popped up on my youtube recommendations?! Video link:

Ok a small update on the Layout Editor component of Oasis, here is a demo of it importing an MFME Extraction (of Vectra's Popeye layout). It now places the lamps, and flickers them just to show they are there as separate editor components within the project:

It's a very long way off, I'm not up to doing much coding at the mo, projects this complex take a lot of time and effort... you do have the existing Arcade Sim to keep you going at least!

I've checked my old fb account - this may not be comprehensive, new groups may have started etc - but here's the recently active ones on my list: Sinclair For Sale (or Buy) World of Spectrum Sinclair For Sale (separate group to the first one in this list!) ZX Spectrum Latest Games sinclair sales Sign up to some/all of those, and ask about your New Wheels John in the groups, if someone can help you locate and procure an obscure Speccy game, it's these guys

I don't know if you've been using the facebook groups, there's a few - quite a few years back I went through the same process of buying all the old Speccy games I either used to have a (usually pirate) copy of, or even just remember playing at a friend's house. Thankfully that didn't comprise of too many games/boxsets! The rare ones get expensive So you can often find things cheaper outside of ebay through the fb groups, especially if you get a few from a single person who is willing to 'build piles', so you can accumulate a pile and then they send them all together as a single package. Also, you can request, as someone may have a copy of New Wheels John for instance, but not be very attached to it and so willing to sell, even though they don't list it. Good luck in your quest, I rebuilt mine, and have zero regrets at having them all original on a shelf! I saw some insanely obscure stuff on the groups, sometimes going for crazy money like £400 for a single game (these are usualy suuuper rare titles). Almost always cheaper (and friendlier) than fleabay.