MAME year in review (Haze/Arbee)

[Robert]

From Haze:

2005 - A Great Year for MAME?

0.90 was Released on the 4th Jan 2005

0.103 will almost certainly be released within the next week or two.

 

13 full MAME releases, and countless ‘u’ updates mark a very productive year in terms of MAME development.

 

The highlights of the year for me were without doubt the emulation of the games using the Data East encrypted CPUS ‘102′ and ‘156′ and the Seibu SPI graphic decryption+emulation; all of which the original creator of MAME, Nicola Salmoria, played a big role in making a reality.

 

Exactly what 2006 has in store nobody quite knows. 2006 was always the year quoted for the big Sega rewrite, but that’s now mostly done thanks to the dedication of Aaron Giles, Charles MacDonald and Nicola over the past year and a half although we’re still no closer to finding some of the Sega boards we need in working condition.

 

I’d like to hope the Seibu protection gets sorted out this coming year, it’s been sitting there holding back a number of drivers for quite a while. CPS3, the remaining Data East titles, Kaneko, Gaelco? I don’t know, We’ll just have to see what happens. Emulation is unpredictable, sometimes you just need to observe the smallest detail you missed before and everything falls into place. As long as there are still things to emulate we’ll look for ways to emulate them.

 

Anyway, I’d just like to say thanks to all the developers who’ve worked on MAME over the past year, some amazing progress has been achieved and every day brought some new surprises. I hope I’ll be able to say the same this time next year.

 

From R.Belmont:

Year in review

Haze has to even ask if 2005 was a great year for MAME and MAMEdev? To quote a certain puppet movie, the only answer possible is F*CK YEAH!.

 

Here’s an extremely partial list based on a combination of my memories and a MAWS search for new and changed games from 0.90 to the present.

 

the System 32 part of the Sega rewrite

Seibu SPI and the i386/486/Pentium core

3D Konami games including playable Gradius IV

massive ST-V improvements in both speed and quality

Subtle but important PSX hardware improvements

futher improvements to Hyperstone-based games

complete YMF271 (OPX) emulation

Brian Troha’s crusade to emulate every minor bugfix revision of every Incredible Technologies game

major Sega Model 3 improvements

Area 51: Type 4 support

fixes for many long-standing Vegas bugs like the Carnevil crash

improvements for many classics, including the fabulous new discrete sound emultion for Asteroids

the Data East decryption and the ongoing progress on the Galeco encrypted VRAM monstrosity

the latest Big Damn Aaron Rewrites™. End users don’t get much out of them, but they continue to make MAME the most fun software platform to develop on in the known universe

sound additions and improvements to a ton of Namco games. I don’t stand anywhere near alone on making this happen, and I’m just as much in awe of the results

playability and graphics improvements to the Namco (Super) System 22 games like Ridge Racer and Prop Cycle

The resurrection of MESS as a viable, useful platform. There have been major improvements to MESS’s emulation of early B&W Macs, the Sega Master System, Game Gear, NES, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color. And we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to see Dracula X boot in the PC Engine driver 

A glimpse of possible real N64 emulation for MAME and MESS

Also, I’m going to give away some completely useless awards that are worth nothing. If you win any of these, you should probably hide until any recognition passes.

Rookie of the Year: Ville Linde, for several of the most-impressive-to-me items in that list above.

Most Valuable non-MAMEdev (non-technical): the MAMEtesters cast and crew, including Fujix, Twisty, and everyone else on there.

Most Valuable non-MAMEdev (technical): Cync, who was the impetus behind a lot of my Namco work this year.

Most Amazing “Out of Character” Performance: Haze. I mean, did anyone guess that the master of cheap Korean pr0n games would also turn out to be the primary locksmith for the DECO CPUs?

[Agozer]

It's been a great year for MAME and fans alike.

[flowrent]

What about Namco System 11 and 12 ?

Are they going to do something about it ?

i think the Tekken series ( 1,2,3 and Tag ) and the Soul series ( Soul Edge and Soul Calibur )..i think they are worth the effort.They are one of the best arcade games ever..

[Agozer]

What about Namco System 11 and 12 ?

Are they going to do something about it ?

i think the Tekken series ( 1,2,3 and Tag ) and the Soul series ( Soul Edge and Soul Calibur )..i think they are worth the effort.They are one of the best arcade games ever..

Well, people can use ZiNc while they wait. Minus Tekken Tag of course.

[flowrent]

Too bad the waiting is so long..The effort made is really to be apreciated,i understand that.They take things in a row they can't just handle all plaforms simultaneously,i only wish those older games left un-emulated be solved quickly and the team focuses on more recent arcade machines and games.

All the best to everyone and let it be another prolific year for Mame.

[Superman]

I would like to see more updates to the Sega Model 2 driver. The bits that do work look very impressive and fast. I wanna play Virtua Racing dammit!