Friday 16 September 2011

MAME4droid: Infinate lives anyone?

An easy method to activate the cheat system has been posted by Seleuco, though the problem will likely be fixed soon in an upcoming build.  In the meantime, simply create a folder in sdcard/Roms/Mame4all called cheat or  cheats.  ('cheat' worked for me.)  Then move the installed cheat.dat into it. Start MAME4droid, load a game with cheats enabled, call up the Mame menu and navigate to cheats, then enable the cheats of your choice.   Tested and working!

Thursday 15 September 2011

MAME4droid: quick news

MAME4droid version 1.1.1 has been released through the Android Market.

September 14, 2011:
Version 1.1.1 Disabled ASM z80 ASM Core for Sound CPUs. It was causing problems with some ROMs.
 Also, Seleuco has confirmed MAME4droid's cheat system is currently not functioning as it should.

Yes its seems that mame cheat file is no read properly on MAME4droid (its work in iMAME4all)... i dig on it... and i will fix it.

Thanks!

Tuesday 13 September 2011

MAME4Droid documentation

So the features I found were not undocumented, they can be found in the Wiki section here.  It just hasn't been updated yet to mention MAME4droid.  The controls are as follows:

- Virtual pad: Movement in pad, mouse and analog control of the four players.
- Buttons B,X,A,Y,L,R: Buttons A,B,C,D,E,F.
- Button SELECT (1): Insert credits (UP+SELECT = 2P credits, RIGHT+SELECT = 3P credits, DOWN+SELECT = 4P credits).
- Button START (2): start (UP+START = 2P start, RIGHT+START = 3P start, DOWN+START = 4P start).
- Button L1+R1: Pause.
- Buttons L2: Exit to selection menu to select another game.
- Buttons L1+START simultaneously: Show profiler.
- Buttons START+SELECT simultaneously: Access to the MAME menu.
- Button R2: Open help & global options.
NOTE: To type OK when MAME requires it, press LEFT and then RIGHT.

On another note, there does appear to be a 'cheat.dat' file that is installed with MAME4droid.  I'm not sure if it is not functioning, or that the games I've tried are not covered by the cheat file.

Monday 12 September 2011

New MAME4droid v1.1

Two new versions of MAME4droid have been released since my last post.  Seleuco has been busy and times are good for Android gamers everywhere.


"DEVELOPMENT 

September 13, 2011: - Version 1.1. 
Speed boost in low-end machines. Added ASM 68xxx & z80 ASM Cores. Minor Bug Fixes. 

September 12, 2011: - Version 1.0.2. 
Minor Bug Fixes. Improve Honeycomb HW acceleration responsiveness ."

Insight on the immediate future of the program was posted by Seleuco in the Issues section of his website.

"I'm going to pause develop two weeks after the first release... I'm only fixing... But I have some things to do in future versions... The most important is the analog touch part that I develop to iPhone version... Far way from android control."

No noticeable changes with the wiimote controls with the latest updates.  The method of accessing the in-game MAME menu still works.  One of the great things this is handy for is setting a key for 'Pause'. 

raindog469 reports the Android code for MAME4droid is now available to view.  I just scanned MAME4all.java.  Glad I didn't have to come up with that.

Lastly, I attempted to use the in-game cheat find, but did not get very far with it.  It's very unlike other cheat searches found in emulators like Zsnes.  At any rate, I'm hoping for a cheat file option.
 
 

MAME4droid v1.01: Undocumented features?

I'm using a standard Wiimote when playing MAME4droid on my tab, but I kept hitting the controller's back button by accident, and exiting the game.  So I went into the settings and defined the back button to "SELECT' which I thought would be next to turning it off.  (Setting 'BACK' to another button only gave me two 'BACK' buttons.)  Turns out with this version of MAME4droid, 'SELECT' is actually 'add coin'!

But it gets better.

I had also set the 'A' button to 'START' on my Wiimote, and while playing today, accidentally hit 'START' and 'SELECT' together. The in-game options menu appeared!  We may not have save states, but we can cheat.

Unfortunately, it's Monday and have to get to work.  No time to test any of it out and questions remain:

Will a normal cheat file work?
What is a watchpoint?
Will MAME4droid remember the cheats I find?




Saturday 10 September 2011

MAME4droid: A few screenshots

Tried to make a video, but have issues with my camcorder.  Until I figure it out, here are a few MAME4droid screen captures.

 title screen


Popeye (bootleg), landscape, original aspect ratio

Burgertime, portrait mode

Digdug, portrait mode, stretched to screen, no onscreen controls

Teenage Muntant Nnija Turtles

 The Simpsons

Friday 9 September 2011

Initial gameplay with MAME4droid

So the first few games I've tried seem to work well with
MAME4droid running on my Viewsonic g-tablet.  It's also compatible with my aftermarket rom, Vegantab.  My main problem at the moment is with my wiimote.  Only the directional pad, A, and the back button seem to register.  The wiimote is new and all the buttons show up when pressed in the wiimote controller app, so I'm doubting the problem is with the controller.  But when I try to define them in MAME4droid's settings, pressing 1, 2, +, -, or Home does nothing.  Could be a case of RTFM :)