[Development Updates]

Some incredible work going on here

[layout creators]

I have everything I previously released in development folders and everything originally released by M1Adness in a folder in release date order so nothing has been lost. I plan to make all the old M1Adness layouts available in 20.1 form with some minor tweaks in the not too distant future but will need to clear that tweaking with some of the original authors. Plus of course there will be new content in a more standardised form.

[MayGay's SPOTLIGHT a little WONKY]

3 hours ago, Road Hog Mad said:

From what I can gather 27 checkbox is £1, 26 is 50p. 

Messing around with the checkboxes results in it all paying out in 10p's or 50's and 10's etc. No god damn 20p's lol.

28 & 37 must be tokens and something else (but its an all cash machine)

Pity on the config menu (pac drive) for payouts we can't have a value of 0.5 rather than 1. Then 10p payout games could be played.

If the roms were built for the original cabinet, i.e. to reglass, there was no 20p tube as such. It has 10p, 50p and £1 coin tubes fed from the main mech and a 20p token tube fed from a token mech. It is not impossible that the 20p tube token tube could have been reused but you would have then needed to change the coin mech routing and possibly the sorter as well so I doubt they would have done anything so troublesome outside of a factory build.

[MayGay's SPOTLIGHT a little WONKY]

From the graphic these look like the low stake version all cash roms. So I don't think anything is going to switch JP wise and no tokens. The token version the cherries would be £1.00. This looks like a version I played on 5p, there was also a 2p version of one of these variants.

In case anyone finds this thread in future looking for help on cash/token setting and token tube for a token romset, this should be a direct reglass of Searchlight, in which case 37 is the all cash switch. If deselected it would be token JP, selected cash JP.

Token tube sensor should be switch 28.

[Early days but have sourced some cheap cabinets :)]

2 hours ago, Road Hog Mad said:

This is indeed an option i'm looking for in some games as my setup is a 20p hopper and £1 hopper. Example 777 Heaven pays out in 10p's. So I can't use that one (but can use the pull handle version).

Long shot... and every game is probably different, but which boxes do you un-tick to make the machine think its low on 10's so it pays 20's?

Going to vary depending on the machine/tech. Even different machines from the same era by the same manufacturer can have different configurations. Question of trial and error in many cases.

[Early days but have sourced some cheap cabinets :)]

2 hours ago, Road Hog Mad said:

Think they have to be parallel or something, someone needs to step in on that one. And I think you'd need something else to power it as they maybe 24v and not 12.

I see your point with just 1 hopper, having 2 gives more options though. 

Re. Buttons, not as hard as it looks! 

Agree on the two hopper route as a £1 and 20p hopper would match most machine payout configurations of hoppers and tubes at least post sort of 1990 time. However if you want to payout on really old stuff like 80's machines you would need 10p, 20p and even 50p in the case of old Barcrest clubbers. Solid Silver for example can payout 10p, 20p, 50p and £1 coins. There could be the option of unchecking the coin high switches for certain tubes in the layout, for example the 50p tube on Barcrest clubs then it would pay the lower denomination coin instead.

I don't have experience of implementing this as I say, so no doubt someone will chime in and hopefully say something along the lines of you only need £1 and 10p and the "voodoo box" between MFME and the hoppers will count the coins for you so spin out 5 x 10p for a 50p coin payout for example.

At least I hope that's the case at it would make everything so much simpler!

[Early days but have sourced some cheap cabinets :)]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

Much appreciated

Pretty much the conclusion I came to. Don't mind splashing out on primer given the MDF itself was so cheap

While on the topic of splashing, I don't expect to get direct moisture on these, so not too concerned. I'm planning on having at least one in the house and possibly one in the garage if I end up building two

I think the main thing for me is to get the monitor and PC in, and a working button panel. I would like coin entry and payouts at some point but it's a fair way off.

The machines both came with Universal hoppers, if I could use them that would be nice but if not I will see what others have used and source one of them

No worries. I marvel at the threads of cabinet builds, it is definitely something I would like to do at some point in the future. Time is my main enemy there, lot's to learn. It's great that MFME can now interface with real parts, makes the whole thing much more authentic, so hopefully you can do something similar on those lines in future. Have a look at @Reg threads if you haven't seen them already, quite inspiring.

[Development Updates]

The most impressive part of this is the pace of change, great work

[Early days but have sourced some cheap cabinets :)]

On 12/02/2021 at 15:24, slotsmagic said:

Decided to start stripping one of the cabs at 06:45 this morning (the least-working one, Super Skill Tower) while waiting for the courier to come and collect the T7 I had delivered a couple of days ago. That T7 didn't match description - was sold as a black PC, mentioned in description and shown in the photos, yet arrived with older PC, crackling speakers and a lot of scuffs / scrapes to chrome not shown on original photos, plus dimmer monitors and everything felt wrong, even the notey sounded a lot slower than my other T7... so not the machine they advertised but one with the same decals!

Regarding this cab, not much that can be salvaged in terms of the electronics, the Pluto 5 is faulty, the coin and note mech are about 10 years out of date, I don't know if the PSU is working, although I guess I could test that in my other cabinet?

Anyway, not done a lot really, just this so far. Tempted to order some wood to replace the glasses but still don't know the way to go, MDF or plywood? Still not decided on mounting the monitor, whether I attach directly to the MDF / ply (it doesn't weigh much, thank god modern monitors are so light!) or mount to the back of the cabinet or base on say a cantilever arm and line it up?

Oh, I'll give the cabinet a proper clean too, it's full of 15 year old dust and a bunch of other bits that can do with being tidied up. This one has rust around the button panel, so will be sorting that out as well, and respraying (just black I think, nothing fancy!).

 

 

[edit]

Well, I've got a sawmill literally around the corner, so figured I may as well go and have a look. Having checked out both the 6mm MDF and 6mm ply (the original glass is 6mm thick) I opted for the MDF. The ply looked a bit fragile, especially at the edges, and the MDF feels plenty strong enough at that thickness. Plus it's nice a cheap. The top glass is under 600x600mm, and they sell 600x600mm sheets of 6mm thick MDF for £3. Can't go wrong at that price.

The original glass might have only been 6mm, but there was also the lamp mask, which was at a guess 1 or 2mm thick. Didn't want to risk going up to 9mm MDF and then finding out it wouldn't fit, so have stuck with 6mm and if needs be I'll just pad the edges out with something so it's not loose when mounted in the cabinet.

The sawmill offers a cut to size service, since it's a proper mill, but as they are only really open for essentials I'd feel a bit silly taking some fruit machine glass up with me and asking them to do that. Plus the more DIY it is, the more fun** it is.

** you can change 'fun' for 'frustating' depending on preference.

I see you have purchased now so coming to this a bit late, just a few pros/cons from experiences.

Perspex: Main downside is when it scratches but you could put a transparent film over the exposed parts. Not affected by water/damp so ideal if you are planning to store anywhere humid/shed/near kitchen.

Plywood: Hard/inflexible. Good resistance to water/splashes but can stain easily. If it splinters it's a nightmare so anywhere you are likely to touch needs to be well sanded smooth and ideally treated. Splinters can be as bad as razor blades!

MDF: Softer but more flexible. More forgiving when trying to squeeze in edges although edges can fray into a fine dust. The worst choice for water/splashes/staining, it soaks it up as it is porous. Not a disaster for an occasional drink mishap as if you are quick with a cloth it will dry out fine but if going to store it in a shed or anywhere near humid like a kitchen it should be 100% primed and painted as once it deforms that's it. You can get an MDF specific primer from Screwfix like this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/leyland-trade-mdf-primer-750ml/222fg

Hope this helps!

[Few questions]

29 minutes ago, 123 said:

Hi @slasher I’ve been messing around with the pc today and the processor that’s in it according to google should run windows 10. These are the specs

so I tried  again to upgrade this to windows 10 but got this error 

so I’m not sure what to do as for all I know this is more than the minimum specs needed.

Thanks 

https://superuser.com/questions/950353/pentium-4-cpu-not-supported-for-upgrade-to-windows-10

Have a look here as well, slotsmagic has found a PC for only £100 that should be suitable

 

 

[09/02/2021]

Happy Birthday Chris, we will meet again.

[Painfully Slow - Machines that are just Slow to Play]

On 02/02/2021 at 15:52, johnparker007 said:

 and have various things like support for bulb 'ramp/decay', turbo start until machine has booted (like you can already see in Arcade Sim)... and whatever else can be dreamed up within the contraints of DLL injection hacking to enhance the final released MFME version.

 

Bulb ramp/decay would be incredible. Would love to see that low pulsing glow on screen.

[Image Quality question]

Getting access to good quality art has always been the challenge. Regardless of AI and scaling and the like, nothing can replace starting with the highest quality image possible.

Technology has helped, in the early days we were working with at best the "latest" 2 megapixel cameras and they couldn't handle dark very well which led to a lot of nice and bright but heavily flash burned images. There are a lot of correction tools built in to graphics packages now as well, even some that auto detect the phone camera used and apply correction automatically. One issue with cameras remains that some don't allow you to tweak settings enough and are continously hunting to adjust the image as you are trying to take it. For fruit machines that means lots of underexposed or overexposed images and it can be difficult to get the same image twice.

The challenge of artwork for me has always been the same, getting something high quality but also 2D flat with minimal distortion not requiring lots of rotation and perspective correction. The resource that can achieve that is the original glass artwork, scanned in at a good resolution. Age means more often than not some damage which can be minor all the way up to severe bubbling or broken off pieces of ink.

Like many things in life you can get out what you are prepared to put in. Pics are free/cheap but require lots of correction, flyers usually have to be bought at low to medium cost but often have pieces of machine missing or arrows over the artwork and glass scans either need you to purchase the real machine or find someone with the machine that is willing to let you dismantle it and scan it. Purchasing is now a major issue where the "classics" shall we say are already 30 - 40 years old and some machines have huge price tags, sometimes well over a thousand pounds.

[Omega Maygay Sound roms]

2 minutes ago, vectra666 said:

Great result all round hopefully the final piece of the puzzle will be done soon, the dx?? Looking at the various images we have of this it doesn’t look to bad to recreate the decals etc for this 

maybe one for you @Retrofruit

thanks @Chopaholic for the video too. I take it this can out after sudden impact and the like as has more “features” than them like an improved edition 

Thanks for the thought Vectra, maybe in the distant future, got too much lined up for now to take another one on!

Hopefully @Pook will continue his original attempt or if not I am sure @Tommy c would do it justice.

[Omega Maygay Sound roms]

43 minutes ago, stanmarsh14 said:

Here is the layout in Chops vid, as well as 2 full sets of ROM's.... go crazy folks!

Not had chance to test set 2 yet, so will not surprise me, if this is a £6JP variant.
 

Omega £4.80JP 20p (Classic - Maygay).zip 1.03 MB · 0 downloads Maygay Omega £4.80JP 20p ROMs 1.zip 152.37 kB · 0 downloads Maygay Omega £4.80JP 20p ROMs 2.zip 152.37 kB · 0 downloads

Excellent thanks!

SA4-089 is Omega Single Site and SA4-090 is Omega Single Site Data version. So effectively the same rom, just data and non-data.

[Omega Maygay Sound roms]

Wonderful!

[Development Updates]

Seeing this for the first time today, WOW, what an incredible piece of development work.

[Wizard - A Virtual Wake]

Oh Chris. I really don't know where to start. So let me start with my day today. The day of your funeral. The day I spent doing what you loved.

This morning I woke up and went to collect a fruit machine. Yes, another Maygay. After driving home I struggled, as usual, to get the machine in the house on the laughable home made ramp I built all those years ago. It was 26 degrees today and the sweat was pouring off me. An hour later the machine yielded and was in my shed, the ramp now broken. Just like my heart. Yes that's the shed already stuffed with machines, stuffed with parts. I learned from the master on that one. This afternoon the roms were in my new reader being dumped ready for a layout. I then fired up MFME to check the roms and thought about the reason I wanted emulation all those years ago. Solid Silver. So I went back to my old development folders and found the folder of six different versions I started and abandoned. Hundreds of hours of work. Nowhere near the time you put into coding of course. So I found the most recent and tried to load it and of course dat files are no longer supported. So I took the long road, loaded into 5.1 saved out and back into 20.1. Each time being forced to read your copyright notice to the end. Each time reminding me, (c) C.J.Wren.

Once the layout loaded, I was horrified. It looks awful. No wonder I abandoned it, for the sixth time. Then I remembered how far I have come since I abandoned the last one and the reason I have progressed so far. Your emulator.

When I started this my artistic skills were truly awful. Stick men, blocky cars with two wheels, a sun with a smiley face. That was about my limit. Then you changed all that.

I was always interested in emulation and sought out Spectrum, Amiga, SNES etc then wondered one day about fruit machines. The idea was somewhat preposterous, why would anyone want to play a fruit machine on their PC? Of course I searched anyway not expecting to find anything. Of course I didn't. I checked again, and again, and again as time passed. Then I eventually found your Nifty Fifty demo. Credit limited, very classic layout, no sound. Laughable now - but I was hooked. When Nifty Fifty starts it says "HI THERE". Yes it's cheesy, but you really did have me at "hello". I spent the rest of that afternoon in the office reloading the demo trying to beat my previous bank. Not a single iota of productivity. I must have reloaded it a hundred times or more. Highest bank? God knows. It was so long ago - but like so many of us a day that sticks in the mind. We all remember the day we discovered fruit machine emulation. Your emulation.

So then started the journey. The forum sign ups, the downloads. The Hovel, Poundrun. Me seeking the elusive Solid Silver. Buying my first machine (Nudge Nudge Wink Wink) and finding you on ICQ. The nervousness, the trepidation as I typed. I thought why would you waste your time talking to me? I need not have worried. A few days later I am visiting you in person to dump the roms. Oh. My. God. I couldn't believe it. You lived alone. You lived my dream. As you led me through the house showing me your collection of pinballs, arcade cabinets and parts I was in awe. Star Wars upright in your kitchen? WTF! It was heaven. Heaven of course until you then showed me your garage. An unbelievable collection of MPU3's. Never seen anything like it before, your garage door was like stepping through a portal straight into an early 80's arcade. Your personal babies. Not a chance I could play them!

Then at some point you achieved my dream, my personal holy technological grail, M1 emulation. I started taking this a bit more seriously.

I visited you several times over the years. More roms to dump, some bits of tech for you to look at. I remember your excitement at the program card you hadn't seen before. You wouldn't let me leave with it! Some months later, it was emulated. Of course it was emulated. You relished the challenge with insatiable hunger. Any feature I requested, duly considered if not always implemented. Any bug I raised, later fixed. You even emulated mechanical machines from schematics showing just how far you were willing to go to achieve the perfect emulator. Your dedication surpassing all others.

Of course the journey hasn't been without its upsets and turmoils. I don't need to remind you of these. I had to personally remove myself from FME for a while. You did too. While I was engaged in other serious matters, you were still there working on some of the bugs we discussed. The emulator grew and grew. What a treat to come back to. Blended lamps, wonderful. Untold new techs. Multi player boxes. Video support. Your never ending drive for perfection.

When I look back at the years gone by I now realise what MPU34 and MFME are. They are windows into our personal pasts. It's like your great aunt who you see once a year pulling out the photo albums. You see yourself, 10/20/30/40 years ago. In this case the photo album is the emulator. Everyone has their favourites from their past. When they discover your emulator and a DX for the machine they used to play, you transport them back in time. You tap their personal history, their memories. As they play and think about the times they used to play the real machine, holidays they were on, towns they visited. That's MFME. Everyone's own personal history book. Every book with different pages. Every player with different favourites.

So Sunday night happened. On my phone, browsing the fruit machine groups on facebook I saw the announcement with a link to Desert Island Fruits. The news was you had been taken from us. I immediately dropped everything and went straight to the PC. As I read Harveys words I couldn't believe it. It must be a joke. Then I saw the funeral list. Christian J. Wren, Ilford. I knew where you lived. Then it hit. This was serious. Devastating news. Then the replies came. The outpouring of grief. Bloody hell. I was grieving, others were too. We were united in grief. Equally shocking, the amount of emotion for someone most of us have never met. The words people posting hitting home like right hooks. So many of us in tears. Why was I personally so upset? All you did was dump some roms and have a laugh with me a few times. Of course, it's that hook you have. Your life's work on all of our PC's. Our personal history books, open and playable. The emulator connects us all. All thanks to you.

Then my eyes were further opened. It's not just a few hundred UK fruit machine players here. Just last night I saw a comment on Degsys YouTube video from a member of the German scene and how you touched their lives too. They are running their German machines in the emulator. Your emulator is not just national, it's worldwide. You have literally touched the lives of people around the globe.

Now the development is over. There won't be a 20.2 (c) C.J.Wren, at least not on this earth. My personal anger is palpable. Some bastard illness or accident has befallen you. Cruelly denied you the chance for your own perfection when you were so close. We don't know what the cause was, but I hope we do eventually find out. Something to direct our blame, our anger. Our Wizard taken from us at least 30 years too early. Will this anger bring you back? No. Will it lead to a new emulator release, no - but it sure will help us feel better with something to blame. Of course you are no doubt the angriest of us all. You never got to fix that coin mech bug, that video machine will never run properly, you know the list.

I know exactly what you are thinking up there. Why are we wasting time on this when we could be working on layouts? Just let us have our moment. To let you and your family know how you have personally touched our lives, changed our lives. The addicts you have cured. The escape you have provided. The entertainment you have given us. Literally the lives you have saved. Yes Chris, you did what so many of us fail to do in life, you made a difference.

As I am typing this out I wonder if I can post it. Does it need little improvements here and there. Small changes. It's your fault sir. That drive for perfection you have fired within me. Like so many layouts before now this message will never quite be good enough - but post it I must. I must because I have to let you know what a difference you have made to my life, to all of our lives. The emulator that took me out of my destructive means of escape, arcades. The emulator that then became my means of escape, without the cost of credits. The emulator that then became my cost, buying machines and storing them!

I can only hope that there is a heaven on the other side. No doubt when you arrived in heaven and were asked what you wanted in paradise, it was a PC and a spiritualised copy of your development environment. There's still work to be done, after all. Maybe you can look up Roy Howell and get a bit more info, he's hopefully up there with you somewhere, nothing like a bit of inside knowledge from the top man.

As for us, what else can we do but do what you want, such is your power. We will carry on. Find machines. Dump roms. Create layouts. Remember that sixth version of Solid Silver? The dream you realised for me? Yes of course I will start again. In 4k. With your shiny new 20.1 emulator with all the features I so desperately wanted so long ago that you have poured your time into. It's the only way I have to honour your memory, using your creation to the best of my ability. Will the layout ever be finished? You know the answer to that one Chris - but I will get it out there for you, dedicated to your memory. Your life changing emulator.

I could type so much more Chris. Then like usual, I will miss the deadline. So in its imperfect form, it's time to release this work in progress. v1.0 of my memories of you, my eternal thanks.

So it's farewell my friend. It is my hope that one day we will meet again. I'll bring my roms and my spirit warehouse of every machine ever made. You will bring your perfect MFME v65.3, (c) 2065 C.J.Wren. We will share a beer. Share some more memories. Pump out some fixed layouts for the FME afterlife. Can't wait.

 

[The Saddest Day]

Thank you Harvey.

It can't be easy for you whilst this is all still so raw but I am sure the community are all appreciative of your efforts to try and make some sense of this.

[Tokens vs Cash]

On 06/09/2020 at 17:55, Big J said:

I def

I certainly agree with the MayGays as they hated paying tokens(mainly JP) unless they were on a streak most of the time on a number of them. Think this may of been asked/answered before but does inserting in tokens only on MFME have a difference on gameplay?

Just a theory!

It's not just a theory it's a provable fact especially on Maygay.

Some machines it is so blatant it can only be coded that way.

I first saw this in an arcade when I started playing a nice token win through a Noels House Party. Suddenly cash wins and features were non-existent. Every so often it would just spin in three sevens directly.

Later on I saw this again in another arcade, this time on Maygay Cluedo. Sevens just spinning in which was unheard of on earlier chips. Up to this point the only Maygay I had ever seen spin in a jackpot was Screen Play. It would do a really long reel spin and stop the 7's one away and give one nudge for the win.

If you want to see how blatant it can be you want Maygay Monopoly Bingo. From a factory reset, play say £30 with cash. Normal gameplay. Reset the ram and play £30 only with tokens. Watch as the machine behaves completely different, not only will it suddenly start spinning in the three Waddingtons symbols it will even hold them afterwards!

You might think that if the machine had been played normally for a long time the percentages cash/tokens would be balanced so if you started playing on tokens it would take a while to start this behaviour. You would think wrong. The behaviour change is very quick, typically less than a JP of tokens.

It's another example of the dirty tricks manufacturers used to code in to help operators. For the player it meant the best you could achieve was the value of your tokens back in more tokens, less the house edge which in those days was typically 20-30%.

 

 

[The Saddest Day]

I've just seen this on social media and can't believe it. I had the pleasure to meet Chris on a few occasions at his home and to say he lived and breathed retro gaming is an understatement. His whole house from top to bottom and his custom built fruit machine garage were an enthusiasts dream with fruits, 80's video games and parts piled up all over the place.

MFME ultimately helped me kick my arcade habit and I am sure there are many similar stories. MFME will live on with new and updated layouts for years to come.

Thank you for the legacy that is MFME and MPU3/4 before it Chris and personal thanks for bringing M1A emulation to the masses. So long and thanks for everything you have done.

Rest easy in emulation heaven.

[Wine for Wizard]

I am only just hearing about this now and wanted to add my thanks for all the effort that has gone into MFME (and indeed MPU34 and FRUIT.EXE before it!).

I have always been a fan of emulation and back in the days of waiting for PS1 emulation whilst enjoying SNES and Megadrive my dreams were realised when I came across a limited credit demo of Nifty Fifty. RAM wasn't saved and I had no sound but there it was, a Barcrest machine running on my PC. I then proceeded to play it for about three hours non-stop (to the detriment of my required office work) seeing how much I could get out of it in the limited credits available (the precursor to 50 credit challenges!).

Then I stumbled across Alex' Hovel and the rest is history. My first stab at a classic layout (Barcrest/BWB Berserk) arrived August 2002 and once M1/A/B emulation made its debut FME entered a golden age.

Certainly FME has cost me a lot over the years both mentally and monetary and continues to do so. It did however take a hopeless addict out of arcades at a time when I really couldn't afford to be one. Hours in "amusements" was replaced by hours travelling the country for resources and further hours on PC graphics packages but it helped break the cycle of addiction.

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to FME over the years no matter how small and special thanks to those who helped me personally with FME endeavours particularly Wizard, Dialtone and Pete_W.

Certainly it is unlikely any of us would be here enjoying FME without Wizard so very happy to raise a glass and make a contribution. Cheers to !

[Tips: Rom Dumping]

On 28/11/2018 at 21:16, spa said:

Hummm, strange. I have just dumped my ofah sound rom, put it in pooks dx and it runs with correct sounds. Maybe it's the program roms?

onlyfools_snd.bin 512 kB · 4 downloads  4

I believe there were a few machines that the sound got screwed on from the same era. As well as OFAH I remember seeing a few Doctor Who machines where the samples were playing all wrong. Seemed pretty consistent so most likely a program rom issue, maybe someone put the table in back to front!

[DX'ELLENT Jiggin in the riggin. £5 MFME 6.1]

For info Windows 8.1 support ends 10/01/2023, so a little while yet.

[Reg's Second MFME Cabinet]

22 hours ago, Wizard said:

Laptops, Tablets or Monitors with multiple touch points do support pressing more than one button at the same time, looks like yours just emulates a mouse.

Also how is the response time of touch screens compared with physical buttons? I always thought touch screens were very slow by comparison - perhaps a benchmark against non-cheating skills like Cash Explosion > Skill Cash feature! (not that I can hit it these days even with buttons!)