Jump to content

Development Updates


johnparker007

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Robsonmeg46 said:

this sim looks great can you play all these ? and how big is the program and roms in total storage needed for all this as i would like to try it out on my surface pro but will have to purchase a sd card first, many thanks rob

Live version is fruit machines at present, currently requiring MFME to be installed in order to play them.  The video games are just R&D, but the plan is that they will make it into a patch later.

As @serene02 says above, it's probably 1gb or so, not entirely sure!  And you may indeed struggle with your internal graphics.  You'll need Windows 10 installed, not sure if it works on older versions (MFME doesn't).

Edited by johnparker007
  • Like 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tech update :) 

More tests - power cycling MAME machine inside the Arcade Simulator project:


Quite a way to go to get these working yet, but good to test the tech (These were not running under Arcade Sim project before, and I previously couldn't correctly start->stop->start etc a machine).

I think when the first go live, they will not be playable as there will be no inputs, as I've found another big job I really need to do.  I'm currently using the 'old' Unity InputSystem for everything, and due to MAME integration and other future input needs, I really want to be redoing everything to run under the 'new' InputSystem.

It's more to set up/refactor, but it future-proofs a lot more, and will make it much easier to get Gamepads/Joysticks supported with hopefully less configuration (as Unity have already done the config work for popular gamepads for android etc)... so things like Xbox/PS4 etc controllers will be usable with autodetection, once it's all set up properly.  Here's a shot of the new Inputsystem, where I was checking out the inputs available to link for when a user has connected a Switch Pro controller to their PC:

image.png.b73de7ea56e2bd2e9156438ecf5b6a84.png

Also - got rid of the 'smoked glass' effect I had on the front glass on the Goliath's, as it makes everything subdued, and a bit washed out.  It will only be used for the custom cabs that need it (for instance the original R-Type cabinet has smoked glass):
image.thumb.png.3a1b88cce6e44171bc2d645a2b0b01b6.png

Edited by johnparker007
  • Like 5
  • Thanks 1
  • Awesome 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work JP.  The updates are always interesting and much appreciated.

I assume this will work like the fruits - press enter to hop on > game initiates > hop off > game shuts down?

If so, do ya reckon...

An illusion of smoothness can be achieved with a frame-precise save state captured on the title screen, JUST after a coin is inserted and JUST before any credit jingle plays?

IE: User browses machines, picks Pac-Man and hits enter.  A coin entry sound effect is immediately heard and the attract video continues for a few seconds while

mame.exe pacman -state 1

executes in the background, and takes over the screen once loaded.

The coin entry sound effect might need to be quite drawn out, and the whole process might not be snappy enough to be worthwhile.  Also, it would cost the option of using any hi-score save hacks if this was your intention.

Edited by pubjoe
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had thought about doing the save states, as turbo startups are not quite fast enough... though as you say, it will cost the high score hacks (which I already have working, in the short Salamander restarting test video above, you can see the high score is not the usual default high score of 57300, but much higher as it's one of mine).

Another option is that it always saves state when you exit machine, though if you rage quit a game, midgame, then that would mean it would start up part way through a game, also not great.

In theory, I may be able to expand the high score hacks, so that I patch them in myself (so then a save state can be used), but this is all finessing for later really. 

The plan for the MAME machines is just to get them initially playable, via keys and potentially controllers - a basic 'first pass'.  As there's so much to do, in so many areas of the project, I can't really afford to spend a very long time on any one part - so it's kinda the 'minimum viable product' approach for now!

In terms of hands, for bots replaying recorded save games, I can sync them with the action (as I know in advance what will happen), and also VR for hand controls (though it'd might be grotty trying to play a fruit machine by pressing the virtual buttons in 3d space), though for the human user playing via physical buttons, the issue is that if they press 0 to insert a coin, the hand will either be behind as it has to move up to then insert the coin... or I introduce an artificial lag, so the coin is only inserted when the hand has actually moved up to the coin slot. Same issue present to a lesser extent with buttons.

Hands are again a much later feature though... everything I work on, simply opens up more work!  So probably for the majority of 2022 I'll just be working on expanding the fruit machines, video games, and potentially other physics games (coin pushers etc).  Also probably trying to sort out the messy situation of getting textures (of layouts/arcade models) usable in a lit environment, that is going to require heuristics/ML/etc but hopefully when it's done, the arcade won't have to be so dim any more!  I'm keeping it dim to hide the issue for now ;) 

  • Like 3

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Doom hands are just a joke that I couldn't resist mocking up.  Though I bet they could work for a laugh as a basic old school 2D layer like in Doom, with limited frames pre-drawn for each button position of most machines (instant hit with a couple of frames of recoil - including a few frames for a nice all-three-hold-button handspan of course).

The coin held out in front, poised and ready while you wander around the fruits homing in on a coin slot might fit nicely with the 8-pints bloom effect though.

I dread to think how hands could be implemented in a proper and modern looking way ...but trust you to have thought about how you could! 😃

Edited by pubjoe
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, pubjoe said:

The Doom hands are just a joke that I couldn't resist mocking up.  Though I bet they could work for a laugh as a basic old school 2D layer like in Doom, with limited frames pre-drawn for each button position of most machines (instant hit with a couple of frames of recoil - including a few frames for a nice all-three-hold-button handspan of course).

The coin held out in front, poised and ready while you wander around the fruits homing in on a coin slot might fit nicely with the 8-pints bloom effect though.

I dread to think how hands could be implemented in a proper and modern looking way ...but trust you to have thought about how you could! 😃

They do look fun in your mockup to be fair!  Some kind of doom 3d shooter/arcade hybrid game would be very unusual... maybe one day in the far off future, when multiplayer is in ;) 

The modern hands would be 3d (from a 3d skinned mesh with skeleton), and then a blend of an animation with inverse kinematics is how I'd go about getting it to move around the controls.  All been thought about before, but it does mean introducing artificial lag, even when observing someone else in multiplayer, so I'm going to be leaving it all until much later for now :) 

  • Like 2

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More early testing - all very hacked together, as is tradition ;) 

Unfortunately the arcadesimulator.net webserver is down, so I can't do a proper test in a build, so it's just running very glitchy in the Editor, hopefully the webserver will be back at some point 🤞 (I think that it means Arcade Sim is broken for everyone right now unless they completely disconnect from the internet to play it - I have a note to work on this at some point so it doesn't fail to boot when the webhosting fails). 

Anyway - just testing a hardcoded Salamander MAME instance, inside a cabinet - the choppy framerate is because this isn't a proper build:

 

  • Like 2
  • Awesome 2

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Checked on the arcadesimulator.net web server before I hit the hay, and it's back :)   So here's a test in a proper build; much smoother as expected, but, it did crash out to Windows upon exiting the machine, so some figuring out to do there... playing on some weird keys for now, no QAOP set up yet...

 

  • Like 3
  • Awesome 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The crashing out to windows on MAME machine exit in a build has now been resolved.  There's now a nasty 1 second freeze while the machine disengages - but much better than crashing out to Windows!  I have some ideas to sort that freeze out via spinning up another thread, but will probably work on finessing it later - at least it works now :)

 

  • Like 5
  • Awesome 3

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The nasty 1 second freeze on exiting a machine has been solved :)  Some minor issue to clean up, but they're on a list for now.

Also - I've implemented a turbo-startup feature, so while the machine is booting, it will run as fast as it can, until it gets past the internal emulated time, that I will set up for each machine.  (e.g:Salamander is ~7.5 seconds of internal 'real' runtime, before it has booted).

Here is a demo of the new boot up and improved exit code in action on the Salamander test game  :) 

 

Edited by johnparker007
  • Like 5
  • Awesome 2

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Reg said:

1:04 such a tease !  I thought you were going to stop on Rally-X !

Haha not quite yet! :)  The only game that has been manually set up for this stage of dev so far is Salamander.  I'll get there though, it's definitely looking like it should all be workable now...

  • Like 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Test of some games, vertical monitors now in :) 

Various bugs, some games missing due to differences between MAME 2003/2020, broken some marquees, attracts for vertical games need regenerating in native orientation, various optimising, performance is currently lagging... apologies for spotty gameplay, I was eating during parts of this test lol :)

 

  • Like 8
  • Awesome 3

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, vectra666 said:

looks great, but the background sounds of the other machines, do they make that noise when in attract mode, or are they much quieter in real life

Prob a bit loud at the mo - there will ultimately be a user adjustable slider to set the volume of background machines.  Also I have more to do with the distance/volume drop-off stuff, and also the volume per machine... in the end end should sound balanced as a real arcade :) 

Machines do make noise during attract mode, arcades full of video games were fairly noisy places, even when not many people playing! :) 

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Done a check of the games, since I'm currently stuck using an ancient version of MAME (2003), a few don't work (even though they have a working attract video, as that was recorded separately using a modern MAME build).

Getting it to work with newer MAMEs is hopefully possible in the future, I need to look into it more (it's not apparent what the problem, is but I'm crashing a lot, so a bit stuck on that one right now!), but for now will put these games to one side as non-runners in the MAME we do have working:
image.png.1af01c0d34dee9614900d26e717284f4.png

If/when I do get a more up-to-date MAME working (ideally the latest, will be useful for fruit machines too), I'll be able to transition these non-runners back into active service.

  • Like 3

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, nails said:

thank you for the continued progress and updates.

will we have to source the mame roms, or will they be hand picked by yourself?

You won't have to source MAME ROMs... it will all just work :)  Later there'll be something to enable you to play games I've not yet built, in some kind of generic cabs with a everdrive-style menu... I will be building a lot more video games at some later stage though, as they'll be fairly quick from my side compared to building fruit machines.

3 hours ago, Reg said:

Watching this in absolute awe.

That video is nuts and my god, the enviorment is stunning and the Rally X part - well 12:52 point made me so happy.

@johnparker007 on behalf of at least myself - thank you for all you are doing with this brilliant fantastic project.

Glad you're liking it, I thought I'd best have a test go on that Rally X! ;) 

  • Like 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have now set up the precise turbo startup durations for the other machines.  R-Type is too short, due to ROM differences between MMAE 2003 / latest, that will be fixed with the latest MAME.  Have fixed Defender after it turned out to be too short in the video.

Have removed the 5 games in a previous post above, plus 3 more due to MAME 2003/latest issues.  Rest seem to work ok, as per vid below :) 

Turbo startups, all machines:

 

Edited by johnparker007
  • Like 4
  • Awesome 1

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...