Play with LINUX??

[mahlemiut]

Hi, it's been a while since I don't stop here...

I've been looking for a wolfmame for Linux or OSX and saw this post.

Aren't there more patches for SDL versions since .143? (http://emulators.homeactionreplay.org/sdlbuild/)

Is there another way to make a wolfmame for those OS?

You can build your own (I don't release any Linux binaries as I have in the past had issues building 32-bit binaries on my 64-bit system).

Download MAME/MESS source from mamedev.org, apply Wolfmame patches (http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/wolf148.zip), open a terminal, go to the folder containing the source, and type 'make'

It should automatically detect your system setup and build the correct version. SDLMAME should be buildable on Windows, Linux, BSD, and OS X (and a few other *nix like OSes)

You'll also need the dev packages installed for SDL, SDL_ttf, GTK+, OpenGL (and maybe a few others but I forget ) Future versions will also require Qt.

EDIT: almost forgot, you'll need Python 2.x installed to build also. It's not needed to run MAME, though.

[eyp]

Ok, thank you, I didn't know that the patches were in that zip file

[mahlemiut]

I've set up an Arch Linux VM, so that I can build 32-bit versions of SDLMAME easily.

Each will require SDL, SDL_ttf, OpenGL, Qt 4.8.

Qt is only used for the debugger, so older OSes with older versions of Qt will be fine so long as you don't use the debugger. Future versions have removed the need for Qt 4.8, for at least the rest of this year.

The 32-bit version has libgcc and libstdc++ statically linked, so it should run on older OSes (it does for me, at least).
The 64-bit version does not statically link libgcc and libstdc++, but is built on my old-ass Ubuntu 10.04 system, so should on system at least a few years old.

http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/wolfmame-0152-linux32.7z (32-bit)
http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/wolfmame-0152-linux64.7z (64-bit)

Please let me know how (or if) these work for you.

[francoisadt1]

Hi Barry

What is the memory footprint of running Arch Linux with wolfmame within a VM?

Background info:
Currently I am running Windows XP SP3 but it needs at least 2GB - 4 GB of Ram.
When running Wolfmame within the VM using XP it's performance is just on the edge of acceptable.
Depends upon how much ram I allocate. So now I want a Linux flavour setup to run within a VM on Windows 8.

Regards
Francois du Toit

[mahlemiut]

I give the VM 1GB of RAM (I only have 2GB total), and that's certainly enough in most cases to run MAME (might be difficult with some memory hungry drivers). I can also build MAME within the VM ok, but it's hardly optimal (about 2-3 times slower than natively). Arch Linux will run okay with 1GB, but this can depend on what other software you have installed. I use XFCE for a window manager, to keep it at a manageable level. Gnome or KDE are nicer, but are much bigger resource hogs than XFCE. Qt4 is required for the MAME debugger on SDL versions, so KDE might be the better option, although it will work on any window manager so long as Qt4 is installed.

MAME doesn't run all that fast either, about 7 times slower than normal, largely due to issues with OpenGL. It works well enough for some drivers (like Pacman, or even the Amstrad CPC driver), and may well vary depending on your setup. If you have VM extensions available on your CPU, so that you can use multiple cores and 64-bit guest OSes, it can only help.

[francoisadt1]

Hi Barry

Thanks a lot. For those that want to try this as well this is what I did:

I have installed LUBUNTU with in a VM using VMPLAYER on windows 8. Getting a better performance as Windows XP running also 4GB of RAM.
Keystroke responses are quicker within LUBUNTU than Windows XP. I have to check the emulation comparison using INPVIEWER. Could not get
INPVIEWER enabled within Wolfmame152? I am pressing DEL OR INSERT nothing do show below. If somone can confirm the full commandline paramters for me, when and where to put the -iv - before or after -playback or before or after "gamename"?

Anyway:
To those that want to give it a try:
1. Download LUBUNTU - lightweight window manager flavour of Linux. Less memory on windows ect..
2. Install with 4GB ram to make same performance comparison with an Windows XP installation.
3. Install dependancies to make Wolfmame working:
A. Make sure GCC and Build Tools are installed:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get gcc
sudo apt-get install build-essential

B. Make sure OpenGL is installed:
sudo apt-get install libglu1-mesa-dev freeglut3-dev mesa-common-dev
sudo apt-get install libopenal01 libopenal-dev

B. Make sure Window Graphics rendering dependancies are installed:
sudo apt-get install libjpeg62
sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev libfontconfig-dev
sudo apt-get libQtGui4
sudo apt-get install libqtgui4
sudo apt-get install libSDK_tff-2.0


4. Download Wolfmame from:
http://wolfmame.marpirc.net/wolfmame-0152-linux32.7z

5. Extract. Create ROMS and INP folders, Copy your roms in this ROMS folder

6. Create mame.ini by running "mame -cc"

7. Edit mame.ini to point to your roms folder like this (Only an example):
rompath /home/francoisadt/Apps/mame/Wolf32bit/roms
home/francoisadt/Apps/mame/Wolf32bit/inp
ect....


5. To install mame instead of wolfmame do this:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:c.falco/mame
sudo apt-get update
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:c.falco/mame
sudo apt-get install mame
gedit ~/.mame/mame.ini

[mahlemiut]

To use the input viewer, use -iv 1 (for player 1 inputs, change the number to look at the inputs for a different player, can be anything between 1 and 8 ). When active, you can hold Delete to view the current and default DIP switch settings (it will display nothing if the machine has no DIP switches). The input viewer is not dependant on whether or not you're recording or playing back an INP, so order is irrelevant.