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The Guide to Emulating NeoGeo and CPS:a must if you’re into quality&FREE arcade games
You may have already heard of NeoGeo and the Capcom Play Systems They’re excellent 2D arcade consoles – much better than most other 2D ones. Some of the titles released for these consoles are still much better than anything comparable on Windows Mobile. Therefore, if you’re into platformer or fighter games, you MUST check out the emulators running them.
(Speaking of the the Capcom Play System, it's abbreviated as CPS and should not to be mistaken for Capcom CPS Changer. There have been three major revision of them, CPS-1, CPS-2 and CPS-3 . The latter doesn’t have many games and isn’t supported on Windows Mobile).
Up until recently, it has been pretty impossible to emulate these platforms under Windows Mobile (WM for short). If you read the only related (and highly outdated) article at pdagameguide.com, dated back to 2003, you’ll see emulating NeoGeo was pretty much impossible then – all you could do is running NeoGeo Pocket Color games, which, being made for a not very powerful handheld platform, aren’t as sophisticated as desktop NeoGeo titles and should, therefore, not be preferred over the desktop versions. (Let alone their emulators being pretty outdated and incapable; for example, NeoPocott v0.38b R1 (also see THIS) hasn’t received any update for over six years!)
Pretty recently, well-known Windows Mobile coder Masterall has released the WM port of FinalBurn Alpha, the first emulator for WM that does deliver excellent emulation capabilities and SUPERIOR speed. And it’s free – as with the ROM images themselves. Finally, in addition to emulating NeoGeo and CPS-1/2, it’s also capable of running Toaplan and Cave games.
Masterall also has some other ports he can be VERY proud of. Picodrive, for example, is the best Genesis (Sega Mega Drive) emulator I've ever seen (I’ll elaborate on Genesis emulation in a later article). He’s also the author of pocketGBAdvance, a GBA emulator, of which he’s promising a usable version very soon.
All in all, he’s pretty much comparable to the other “big” names of emulator porters like n0p (Genesis Plus/Pocket PC, PocketSNES, DOSBox and Stratagus), PocketInsanity (PocketUAE) or Sunbug.net (PocketGBA).
In addition to the related pdagameguide.com article being completely outdated, I’ve decided to write an all-in-one guide on these questions because the related information currently available is very hard to digest for a non-professional Windows Mobile geek. Hope this guide will help a LOT.
Why do I recommend this emulator and these games? Why should you bother?
Because
the emulator runs just GREAT on most current hardware, even with sound
even the most CPU-intensive games run OK (with enabled sound!) on the (for gaming) best, fastest current handhelds (Dell Axim x51v, for example)
the games are available for free
many of the games are MUCH better than anything else (comparable, in the same genre) on Windows Mobile. Very few native Windows Mobile games (for example SKY FORCE Reloaded is the only comparable title, as far as, say, 1942 clones are concerned)
if you do follow this guide, you can run these games REALLY easily - I've tried to explain it really clearly how the emulator must be configured, where to download games from, what games to get and so on
Difference between NeoGeo and the two CPS versions
Unfortunately, the NeoGeo emulation (as of the recent, 0.008 build is concerned) is certainly less featureful than that of emulating CPS games. Therefore, you will always want to check out whether a particular title is available as a CPS game and if and only if it isn’t switch to the NeoGeo version. Note that the developer has been promising fixing these problems very soon.
The problems with the NeoGeo emulation are as follows:
with NeoGeo games, it’s not possible to save / load game states, unlike with CPS games. This is a big problem if you would like to continue your game after exiting FinalBurn
auto fire doesn’t work with them either (while it worked with all CPS games I’ve tested)
Getting, installing
Get the latest version in the first post of the the official FinalBurn thread at Modaco – it’ll always have the latest version (you will need to register your nick in there).
That there are four RAR files there. One is named FinalBurn.rar. This is the WM executable. The other three contain the desktop Windows version of the emulator, are named fbauds.part01.rar … fbauds.part03.rar and should only be got if you will need to create cache files of the titles you’d like to play. Use WinRAR.
Note that the latter emulator does differ from the official desktop Windows version of FinalBurn Alpha downloadable here. The latter is far newer (and is, therefore, preferred to the version available at Modaco) but doesn’t support creating cache files. That is, do download the fbauds.partX.rar’s too. (And, again, you may also want to download the official desktop Windows version of FinalBurn Alpha here, should you want to play the titles on your desktop computer.)
To play NeoGeo games in the emulator, you will also need to acquire the ROM BIOS file, Neogeo.zip (you won’t need to do this if you ONLY want to play CPS games!). This ZIP is different for the desktop Windows version (downloadable here; also see THIS) and for the WM version (accessible here). Put the ZIP file (do NOT decompress it!) in the ROMs subdirectory of FileBurn (with the desktop version, you can also put it in the home directory where the main executable EXE file resides – it’ll find it. The WM version won’t), which is auto-created upon the first execution of the emulator (see later).
Finally, for the desktop version, you will also need kailleraclient.dll. It’s for example available in the official desktop FinalBurn Alpha distribution - just download the ZIP file and it’ll be right in it. You won’t even need to start the main executable, fba.exe. Or, alternatively, get it HERE as a separate download. Again, this only applies to the desktop version – with the WM version, all you will need to do is getting Neogeo.zip and copying it to the ROMs directory. Note that you may also need to download and install the free DirectX 9.
Game ROM’s you download must be put under the ROMs dir as ZIP files (that is, you don’t need to decompress them). This directory will be automatically created when you start the executable on both the desktop (fba.exe with the official FinalBurn version, fbaud.exe with the cache-generating debug version) and mobile (FinalBurn.exe) Windows.
Getting games (ROM images)
Probably the best ROM source is emuparadise.org, where you can download a lot of games from. The games there are all in a format compatible with the emulator. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean ALL the available titles are indeed compatible: it’s only with CPS games that they are. There are still a lot of NeoGeo games that are just plain incompatible (and aren’t even listed by FinalBurn as compatible). Nevertheless, the ones that are recognized are, in general, really worth playing.
CPS-1 ROMs should be here (but seems to be empty now); CPS2 here. Finally, NeoGeo ROM’s are here.
Keep in mind the following while downloading files from emuparadise.org:
you can only download one ROM image at a time. emuparadise.org, in addition to checking the same browser instance, also check for the same IP. That is, you can’t fool the server into thinking it’s serving another completely independent user when you leech images from IE and Firefox at the same time.
don’t use Internet Explorer to download images because it’ll very often time out. Prefer Firefox (Mozilla) – it has never timed out on me, as opposed to (the latest version of) Internet Explorer.
There are a LOT of very cool games in there; games that are MUCH better than most (or, with horizontal scrollers, ANY) comparable, native titles on Windows Mobile. There is nothing on Windows Mobile comparable to, say, Metal Slug. Yes, FirePower-onrush uses a lot of textures / graphics from Metal Slug (see Sponge’s comments HERE, after my review, for more info on this) but is still WAY worse.
I’ve also tested many titles under the emulator, in the next subsection, I list and elaborate on them.
NeoGeo titles, links & compatibility reports
Captain Tomaday: works great (kids’ vertical scroller)
Ghost Pilots: great, even at 44 kHz (let alone 8!) (vertical scroller)
NAM – 1975: Operation Wolf clone: works great, even at 44 kHz, highly recommended if you like
Metal Slug 2: One of the BEST! A MUST!
Metal Slug 3 : in order to run this title on anything with less than 128M RAM, you will also need to download the non-encrypted version in addition to the default one. Make sure you run the latter on devices with free RAM less than 40 Mbytes.
Metal Slug X: Great game, working also great
Samurai Shodown: works great, even at 44 kHz
King of the Monsters: OK, even at 44k
A list of, as of the current version, some non-recognized games:
Metal Slug 1
The Last Blade
Blazing Star
Metal Slug 4
(both versions of PocketCultMAME recognize them but can’t run. The desktop MAME runs them all. The desktop FinalBurn Alpha doesn't.)
As of now, it’s pretty futile to try to download these games. The situation may change in the future, though: FinalBurn Alpha is constantly been updated to support as many NeoGeo games as possible.
CPS-2 titles, links & compatibility reports
1944: a really good 1942 clone! A must have!
19xx: another excellent 1942 clone, works great even at 44kHz! Another must have!
Alien vs Predator: fighting, not that good IMHO
Armored Warriors : not very good either
Battle Circuit: side scroller, not very interesting
Dimahoo: too, another good 1942 clone (not as good as 1944 / 19xx though)
Eco Fighters: side scroller, not very interesting; you still might want to give it a try
Night Warriors: typical Street Fighter clone
All these games run flawlessly, mostly with 44 kHz sound, on the x51v – and even on the HTC Wizard (with, particularly with 19xx, 8 kHz sound). The 520 MHz WM5 VGA HTC Universal is pretty bad (very slow) for emulation, so is the 624 MHz WM5 (2.01) VGA HP iPAQ hx4700 (which is only a tad better and DOES require and external BT game pad because of the completely gaming-unfriendly touchpad). The WM2003SE VGA Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 is acceptable (but, of course, visibly / audibly worse than the x51v), so is the WM2003 QVGA HP iPAQ 2210.
Also note that FinalBurn Alpha supports (almost) all CPS games, unlike with the case of NeoGeo.
Using the emulator I – starting games
The desktop and the WM versions of the emulator are, fortunately, pretty similar. This means if you learn how, for example, the ROM selection screen works, what the main directories of the emulator are etc. in the desktop version, you will also be able to utilize this knowledge under WM.
Starting the emulator is pretty easy: just start the main executable file (after decompressing it anywhere (under Windows Mobile, preferably to a memory card because it’ll look for the ROM images in a subdirectory) and, with the debug desktop version, also adding kailleraclient.dll): fba.exe with the official desktop FinalBurn version, fbaud.exe with the cache-generating debug desktop version and FinalBurn.exe on the Pocket PC.
When first run, the executable file will also create the necessary directory structure, including the ROMs subdirectory. You can start putting your ROM games in there (and, of course, Neogeo.zip containing the NeoGeo BIOS if you do want to play NeoGeo games). Under WM, you’ll be presented the following screen:
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Here, go to File / Load Rom. It’ll present a long list of all games compatible with FinalBurn. You don’t necessarily want to see this list but only the accessible AND compatible games; therefore, you will need to tick in the “Show Only Available” checkbox at the top. Now, the listing will become far more manageable as it will only list the games that you can run:
By single-clicking an item in here, the emulator starts it after creating a so-called ‘cache file’ as can be seen in here.
Creating cache files can be a real nuisance. If you do this on your handheld, it may take quite a time (1-2 minutes at most; if it takes more time, you can be pretty sure your handheld has crashed and needs to be reset). Furthermore, with ZIP files exceeding 50-60 Mbytes (for example, the excellent platformer Metal Slug 3, which is a whopping 79Mbytes), all your dynamic RAM memory (independent of the available free memory on your storage card or internal storage) will be all quietly consumed and the handheld will either crash (as is pretty common with WM5+ in these cases) or just display it has run out of memory (with WM2003(SE)).
Therefore, if you do encounter such situations, you will want to create the cache images on the desktop Windows, using the above-introduced debug cache-creator version of FinalBurn Alpha. To do this, just start fbaud.exe (after copying neogeo.zip and the ROM image ZIP of the to-be-converted game to the ROMs subdirectory), go to Game / Load Game (F6), select the game you’d like to convert (screenshot here; I’ve also made sure to hide non-available titles by ticking in “Show Available Only” (see the mouse cursor) and click OK. The cache file will be created and named exactly the same as with the ROM ZIP file name – with the extension “cache”. That is, for example, if you create a cache file of the unencrypted Metal Slug 3 (mslug3n.zip), the related cache file will be named mslug3n.cache. It’ll be put in the “cache” subdirectory of the desktop emulator. Make sure you copy this file to the memory card, in the same ‘cache’ directory. It’s also here that other cache files are stored.
By the way, don’t forget to delete partially created cache files from this directory (that is, files that weren’t finished because of the dynamic RAM memory or the storage card getting full). Messed up cache files are the main reason for messed-up graphics in the emulator.
Now, after having created the cache file, the game will start. You will, however, need to do some additional configuration to be actually able to play games. This will be needed to done only once – fortunately, the configuration options you make will be stored in the cfg directory. BTW, these files are all human-readable and editable; they contain the game-specific button settings. That is, the ones you’ll always need to set up.
The first step in making the games playable, after loading them, is setting up the hardware buttons.
Using the emulator II – setting up the buttons
After you’ve loaded a ROM image (and clicked the screen so that the execution stops and the menu is displayed), you must go to Options / Keys. It’s there that you must assign hardware buttons to functionality.
Doing this is pretty simple: you click an on-screen button and, then, press the hardware button you’d like it to be assigned to. For example, click the Coin and, after this, click a button you’d like to use to simulate feeding money into the arcade machine (the first step in starting a game; after this, you’ll also need to press the Start button). You will also need to assign the A, B, C and, with NeoGeo, D hardware buttons too. (These will have different functionality: for example, in Metal Slug, firing, jumping and throwing a grenade. Button D isn’t used.) Note that the emulator also supports WM5 hardware soft keys as can also be seen in the screenshot below (C and D buttons). If your mobile has a built-in keyboard, you can also use most (not only alphanumeric) keys on it.
You will also need to set up the D-pad directions; always treat the D-pad in Portrait mode, even if the game itself is in Landscape.
You can also tick in the “Enable Auto-Fire” checkbox if you want auto fire; remember, however, that it, currently, only works with CPS games, NOT with NeoGeo ones, unfortunately.
A typical screenshot of setting up the hardware buttons is as follows:
Finally, keep in mind that you can only set up the buttons for Player 1 in here. Should you also want to set up the Player 2 buttons, you will need to edit the game configuration file in the cfg subdirectory.
Using the emulator III – setting up the on-screen keys
If you have a mobile device with a touch screen (that is, not a plain MS Smartphone / WM6 Standard model) AND your device isn’t a 2.8” HTC model (HTC Wizard, Trinity etc.), you will also find on-screen buttons REALLY useful.
In Options / Screenpad, you WILL want to tick in “Enable Screen Keypad”.
I recommend staying with Mode 1 (emulating fire buttons on the screen) – Mode 2 emulates the D-pad in there. Click OK.
Note that
these settings are NOT game-specific (unlike assigning buttons); you’ll only need to set it once; preferably right after the first execution of the emulator.
as has been pointed out, you won’t necessarily want to use on-screen buttons on HTC’s new WM5+ devices having the standard 2.8” QVGA screens. These devices, unfortunately, all exhibit a VERY bad digitizer bug explained for example HERE. This means if you constantly tap and hold the screen (for example, to activate auto fire with CPS games), the CPU will need to spend a lot of time on serving this and the emulation speed will drop considerably, which will be very annoying particularly if you enable sounds. That is, if you do need auto fire, then, use a hardware button instead of the screen with these models.
Using the emulator IV – setting up the sound
Finally, particularly on slower models or with CPU-intensive games like all parts of Metal Slug, you will want to make sure the sampling rate is either set to the minimal 8 kHz or the sound is completely disabled.
Go to Options / Sound and set the sampling rate accordingly. If the sound is unbearable even at the minimal, lowest-quality 8 kHz, disable it completely. Otherwise, with non-CPU-intensive games and/or on, for gaming, very fast handhelds (like the Dell Axim x51v), you will want to turn it up to 22 or even 44 kHz as can be seen in here.
Note that you’ll need to reload the actual ROM image for these changes to be heard.
Fortunately, most games will work with enabled sound even on slow(er) models like the HTC Wizard (overclocked to 260/273 MHz). You will only encounter sound choppiness with very few titles; most importantly, with Metal Slugs, which do have a choppy sound even at the lowest-quality (8 kHz) setting on even the Dell Axim x51v running at 624 MHz.
Using the emulator V – setting up the orientation
If the game you’d like to play uses Landscape (only few titles like, for example, 19xx, use Portrait), you’ll want to know the emulator uses Landscape Right by default. If you’re right-handed (and, therefore, want the D-pad on the left of the screen), you’ll want to switch this to “Landscape Left” in Options / Display.
Using the emulator VI – resuming the game; suspension concerns
Now that you’ve set up everything, you can run the game. If it’s NOT a NeoGeo game, you can save / load the state any time you want, using any file name (that is, you can have any number of states for any games).
Note that the emulator is prone to crash if you suspend (and, then, resume) a game while it’s running off a storage card. To combat this problem, you will ALWAYS want to pause the game first and only then suspend the machine and only resume the game 3-4 seconds after powering up the handheld again. During these 3-4 seconds, the handheld will have sufficient time to recreate the storage card file handles.
This helped me a lot. If you, however, still encounter crashes after this (which can be a REAL pain in the back, particularly if you’re well into a game like Metal Slugs and don’t want to replay the first few maps), copy the entire directory structure to the main storage, where storage card handle invalidation isn’t a problem.
As both ROM images and, particularly, cache files can take up pretty much memory, the latter is really only usable on devices with 256+ Mbyte built-in storage (like the Dell Axim x51v). Most current devices with 128M built-in Flash ROM can only have few (if any) games in the main storage.
Note that you can pause the game by tapping the screen. If you have enabled on-screen buttons, in an inactive area; if you haven’t, anywhere.
Saving / restoring game state
You can also save / restore the game state (after you’ve loaded the particular ROM).
As the emulator uses the standard operating system-level file access dialog, it’ll
list all the files under My Documents, the root of storage card(s) and one subdirectory under them
only lets for saving to these locations.
In the official FinalBurn thread at Modaco many people recommend Tillanosoft’s tGetFile to fix this problem. I don’t, because it’s a commercial application. Use Mad Programmer’s free (!) File Dialog Changer instead. Its installation is explained in HERE.
Note that, again, this only works with CPS games, NOT NeoGeo ones! This may change in the near future.
What about MAME ports, you may ask
You must have heard of MAME, the well-known emulator project, of which PocketCultMAME is probably the best port (also see this PG thread), also offering a lot of features (feature-wise, it’s excellent).
While, on a sufficiently fast desktop computer, the NeoGeo emulation of MAME isn’t worse than that of FinalBurn, under Windows Mobile, the situation is completely different.
Unlike with the desktop MAME (which can be pretty hard for a newbie to use without a front-end), the Windows Mobile port, PocketCultMAME is pretty easy to use. After decompressing the distribution file (and, with the 0.5 preview, also overwriting one of the EXE files with the separately downloadable NeoGeo update), copying your ROM ZIP’s to the ROMs subdirectory and starting PCMAME.exe (with 0.5, PocketCultMAME.exe), it lists the available titles.
Too bad its NeoGeo compatibility is really bad. For example, the latest version, 0.5WIP (with, of course, the NeoGeo update patch) couldn’t run any of the NeoGeo games I’ve thrown it at (without converting them to another format). It’s only the NAM-1975 title screen that it gets to – but, after you insert the virtual coin and start the game, it exits, as with all the other tested titles. The old version, 0.4a, is similarly incompatible.
In the Modaco thread, some people have also reported being able to run Golden Axe under PocketCultMAME. However, the speed was clearly inferior to that of FinalBurn Alpha – that is, it’s just not worth the effort.
That is, for the time being, you will want to forget (current) MAME ports entirely – if you need NeoGeo or CPS games under Windows Mobile, the only way to go is FinalBurn Alpha. The only real utility of it is the broader compatibility of the desktop MAME with existing NeoGeo titles – for example, it was able to play Metal Slug 1, unlike with (both the desktop and the mobile version of) FinalBurn Alpha. I’ll report on updates / enhancements / optimizations to PocketCultMAME. In the meantime, stick with FinalBurn Alpha on your Windows Mobile handheld.
(Note that FinalBurn also runs on the MS Smartphone platform!)
thank you so much for this great guide. i was playing metal slug on FPSEce, but i think it might run much faster on an NeoGeo emulator than a play station emulator especially that i have k-jam (wizard). i was overclocking to 260 without the boost. i think i must try it with the boost even if i get only 1 extra FPS it is still worth it. thanks again mate.
i too tried some of the demo games on FPSEce, couldnt be bothered to get my disks and rip them... though might do it later my biggest problem is the controls, the i300 has some extra buttons that could be used, i seen some articles about maping but they all have to do with reg edit, i wish for a program to capture or remap to run as some kind of plugin, to use ALL the buttons, all but the on/off reset cause that would suck heh, but the call, win key and the ok/close buttons are all a must IMO, even the volume button can be used, for buttons such as select/menu/start etc...
FPSEce ran ok with the demo, but without proper controls not that playable, the fps was decent too, with this cpu, im just wondering if these emu's will utilize any other co processors... such as most have them im sure... how else are we able to play/record in mpeg4 and the such
thanks for showing that emu here. its one of best emus available, just try blazing star to get image of what masterall have done for emu fanatics.
+1 for you, too.
emu fanatic..
btw, isn't it sad, that i STILL cant have snes emu with sound on wizard? i've checked every that exist.
Alien vs Predator: fighting, not that good IMHO
Armored Warriors : not very good either
Battle Circuit: side scroller, not very interesting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...BLASPHEMY. <_<
Then again, playing 'em on your PPC is probably pretty awkward, without a BT gamepad.
In any case, I love this emulator, and I'm waiting patiently for Ninja Masters to be loadable.
(I need to get a better unit than the Atom. Sheez.)
Arcade games... If you have ever read WikiPedia's related article, you know it well enough arcade machines had the status as the forefront of new game releases and, by using the latest, sophisticated graphics and sound chips, used to present a far better gaming experience than any home computer or even home gaming console of that age for about 15 years - at least before 1995.
The golden age of arcade games was, as has been stated, probably before 1995. The arcade titles of that age were considerably better than anything achievable on a home computer or console. For example, consider the game Scramble. When it came out in 1981 as an arcade title, at the age of the Atari 2600 (home console) and the VIC-20 (home computer), naturally, neither of these home systems were able to provide at least something close to the gaming experience of the "real" arcade title. For example, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (which was only released a year later; the game even later: in 1982, Melbourne House's "Penetrator" and in 1983, Bug-Byte's "Cavern Fighter") had much inferior ports, and this is true of almost every home systems of the early eighties.
This trend continued through the entire eighties, well into the early nineties. It was only in 1990, with the release of SNK's dual (AES (home) and MVS (arcade)) system NeoGeo, that a home console hit the market with exactly the same games as its arcade counterparts. NeoGeo has received some really nice games; most importantly, the vastly successful Metal Slug series, which is a very popular 2D platformer title even today.
However, the NeoGeo didn't really sell to home costumers as well as, say, SNES or Sega's Genesis; mostly because of the price of the cartridges (about the twice of those of SNES) and the comparative (compared again to SNES and, before its release, the technically even less comparable NES and Genesis) rarity of titles. This means it was only with the advent of really powerful home computers that the age of arcade machines started to decline. Still, a LOT of these games are of very high quality even by today's standards, particularly when compared to the lack of quality games on mobile platforms like Windows Mobile. Therefore, emulating arcade machines (and running arcade games) on mobile devices is much more important than on desktop Windows with, at times, much better native titles.
When you hear the word "arcade games", don't think of 25-year-old "crap" like Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Frogger and the like. Some people only like referring to these really old titles as "the" arcade games. That's in no way true: the Metal Slug series and the 19XX-series (starting with the old 1942) are also arcade games. Therefore, anyone stating "arcade games are very old and technically very bad games not worth emulating" only shows he/she doesn't have a clue about what he's saying. Or, if he's an arcade emulator developer, he may just be explaining why he hasn't implemented any support for any new system ;-)
As arcade games were produced even in the 2000's, there are really quality titles around. For example, I don't think you'll be able to show me a 1942 clone for Windows Mobile that is better than 19XX or 1944 written for the CPS-2 arcade machine (and perfectly runnable on a better Windows Mobile handheld!) This means there is a plethora of up-to-date, visually and, sound-wise, absolutely stunning action games well worth emulating on our mobile devices.
Keep in mind that, in this complete guide & tutorial & roundup, I refer to all the games ever released for arcade machines - both 25-year-old early games and 5-10-year-old, really advanced ones. Of course, I'll put definite emphasis on emulating newer systems to ease the lack of high-quality, comparable 2D action titles on Windows Mobile (WM for short).
Why should you bother?
To bring up memories (or, if you prefer simple games)
To play (more recent) games better than anything else on Windows Mobile in the genre
and, of course, because Windows Mobile is able to run these titles.
Downloading games
Look for “MAME” sections on ROM sites. Some ROM sites have dedicated NeoGeo and/or CPS-1 and CPS-2 sections. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to give you links. If you open your eyes and use Google, I'm sure you'll find the ROM sites in a fraction of a minute.
Don't be afraid of these sites - I've tested the ones coming up as the first after some quick Google searches. Not one of them continued any viruses and all MAME downloads were usable and CRC error-free.
After downloading the ZIP files, just copy them in the roms subdirectory of your emulator. Do NOT decompress them!
Note that MAMECE3, unlike the two other, more recommended emulators (Finalburn and PocketCultMAME, which must be manually copied to the handheld) comes with a CAB installer. This means you'll manually hunt for the roms subdirectory. If you install it to a storage card under WM5+ or in the built-in storage with any operating system version, it'll be at \Program Files\MameCE\Roms\ (with WM5+, on a storage card, prefixed with the path of the card itself). With operating systems prior to WM5 and a storage card-based installation, it'll be in \MameCE\Roms\ on your card.
Finalburn Alpha 0.09
First and foremost, the most important arcade game emulator you MUST check out is the WM port of Finalburn Alpha (current version: 0.09), the only REALLY usable CPS-1 / 2 and NeoGeo emulator. You can read a complete review & tutorial on the title HERE (click the link!); therefore, in here, I won't really elaborate on it - except when directly comparing its features, speed and compatibility to other arcade emulators.
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Its main strength is its speed (in which it's just unbeatable), sound quality (in that, not even PocketCultMAME comes close, let alone MAMECE3!) and features like on-screen tap areas. Its main disadvantage is, however, the complete lack of running non-NeoGeo / CPS games. That is, it won't be able to run anything released before 1990 - and only about 10-20% of later games. However, the titles still available for the platform (and playable on a current WM device) are still overwhelming - this emulator is really nice!
Finally, it's capable of running even (most of) the latest (NeoGeo / CPS) games. For example, 1944 - The Loop Master was released for the CPS-2 in 2000. Still, Finalburn emulates it flawlessly.
MAME-derivatives or ports
MAME is probably the most widely know multiplatform emulator emulating almost 10 000 arcade games, starting from the oldest and ending with the latest titles. It runs flawlessly even on slower Windows devices (for example, even, CPU-wise, underpowered UMPC's) and is REALLY recommended for a quick test to see what kinds of games you can (hopefully) also play on your mobile device.
To do this (test and/or play arcade games on your desktop Windows computer), you will need to download and utilize the desktop MAME. I'll explain this in the following section. Note that this has nothing to do with WM - just a quick explanation of what you should do in order to be able to play these games on your desktop computer (including UMPC's, notebooks and the like).
The desktop MAME
Download mame.rar from here - there, you’ll need the topmost file (now, it’s mame0115b.exe). UnRAR it to anywhere. Move your ROM ZIP files to the roms subdirectory of the emulator. For NeoGeo games to play, you’ll also need THIS file. Just put it in the home directory of MAME.
To start a given game, directly execute MAME.exe (in the home directory), passing it the name of the ZIP file (also the official MAME name of the game) like this:
mame 19xx
This will start the game (if everything is OK). Upon the first running of each ROM set, you’ll need to at least once press Left and, then, Right on the cursor block of your PC. Then, after the game has loaded, you’ll need to press 5 (with two players, 6) to insert (virtual) coins and, then, press 1 (with two players, 2) to start the game. In one-player mode, the games are controlled by Ctrl / Alt + D-pad; in two-player mode, the other player is controlled by D: left; F: down; G: right; R: up.
Now, back to the question of Windows Mobile: what arcade emulators are there on the platform? Now follows PocketCultMAME, the best generic MAME port.
PocketCultMAME
(main game selector of version 0.4a)
(main game selector of a 0.5 preview)
Currently, this title is by far the best generic MAME port. This means it's able to run both 25-year-old classics (which Finalburn Alpha is fully incapable of) and (comparatively) new titles.
However, it should NOT be used for NeoGeo / CPS emulation - in that, Finalburn Alpha is WAY better. Should you be unsure about what runs under Finalburn Alpha and what needs the more generic, but slower PocketCultMAME, you may want to deploy the ZIPped ROM files under both emulators. If Finalburn runs the game flawlessly, then, just stick to it and don't even test the game under PocketCultMAME - believe me, it'll be FAR slower with should enabled (if it runs at all).
For emulating significantly older stuff (games from the entire eighties - not just the 25-year-old titles), however, it's the emulator you must check out.
There are two versions of the emulator: 0.4a (currently the fastest version with, compared to the newer one, more limited compatibility) and 0.5WIP, a MUCH slower, experimental tech demo with much broader compatibility.
This means you should download both versions. Always try to run a title under 0.4a first and only give a try to 0.5WIP if it doesn't run in the older emulator.
Note that version 0.4a has two additional EXE files as a separate download. One of them, noCYCLONE, is related to the Motorola 68000 emulation and using it instead of the default one will result in a certainly visible speed penalty. It, however, offers somewhat improved compatibility with some titles otherwise incompatible with PocketCultMAME 0.4a. That is, if an otherwise as compatible listed game doesn't run in the standard version, just exit it and run these two files instead to see whether, then, it runs or not. Affected games are for example 'Black Tiger', 'Rampage' and 'Pang'; see for example THIS for more info.
Conveniently, unzip the two additional EXE files in the same directory where the traditional executable of 0.4a, PCMAME.exe, resides. As these files are named differently, they won't override the default file, PCMAME.exe. Putting it in the same directory results in not having to copy the same ROM files in more than one directory on your memory cards.
Still speaking of add-on downloads, 0.5WIP also has an additional download fixing some NeoGeo issues. As PocketCultMAME should NEVER be used to run NeoGeo games (it's just too slow for this), you don't necessarily want to download / install it.
Using these emulators are pretty straightforward and if you know how Finalburn Alpha is used you also know how PocketCultMAME is: after starting the application (PCMAME.exe with version 0.4a and PocketCultMAME.exe with 0.5WIP), you're presented a list of the compatible, playable ROM's in the roms subdirectory. You select one and start the game. During the game, you insert virtual coins to the game, (keep) press(ing) the Start button and, then, play.
Also, you can do some settings. For the two current versions, I've compared these in the following chart. Make sure you follow the links to see the screenshots of the individual settings. This will really help you in discovering the emulator.
The chart is available HERE (CLICK THE LINK!).
Note that you WILL want to fine-tune these parameters; most importantly, you WILL want to disable sound, should you encounter speed problems. Also, if you have a Dell Axim x50v / x51v, you MUST enable 2700G support for greatly increased speed.
To demonstrate why it's worth fine-tuning these parameters, I've made some very serious benchmarks to find out what the speed culprit is (it turned out to be the sound, unlike with, say, Finalburn) and how the different settings have an affect on speed.
I've run the tests on three different devices: the Dell Axim x50v / x51v (VGA WM5 device with the 2700G 3D chip equipped with a 624 MHz Xscale CPU), the HP iPAQ h2210 (an older, QVGA WM2003 model with an older, less efficient, 400 MHz Xscale CPU) and a Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 (520 MHz VGA WM2003SE).
Note that the chart only contains data on the first two models; with FPS display enabled, nothing runs on the Pocket Loox 720 (only a black screen and a part of the "FPS" text is displayed in the bottom left corner). (Note that this problem may be pretty common with all F-S models; see THIS.) This means I don't have quantitive results on the Loox. However, it, subjectively, delivered pretty playable results. With the Loox, I could only display the FPS in MAMECE3 (in 1941, 38 fps without sound; 20 with it). Note that, except for the last column, I've only en/disabled one feature / changed one parameter a time to see how it affects speed.
The chart is available HERE (CLICK THE LINK!).
As can clearly be seen, you WILL want to disable sound with more action-packed games. With much older, less CPU-intensive games like Scramble, you can safely keep it on. If this doesn't help or you still need additional speed, you may also switch to the "Steplines" mode to only display half of the scan lines. And, of course, if you do own a 2700G-enabled Dell Axim, make sure you enable the 2700G support. While it, because of the pixel doubling, results in for example hard-to-read text, its speed gain is enormous.
Note that the "doc" subdirectory of both versions contains the lists of compatible games and a quick intro to the emulator.
Fixing your ROM images with RomCenter
The author of PocketCultMAME frequently asks users to fix the ROM’s they plan to use; that is, to convert to the (ancient) MAME format used by the emulator. Unfortunately, as using the recommended application RomCenter isn’t really explained anywhere (except for some not very detailed forum posts still missing some very important steps like THIS, THIS and THIS) this may prove to be an impossible task for many. This is why I’ve written a mini-tutorial to fixing ROM images.
Download RomCenter from HERE (don’t get the 3.0 Alpha; the latest stable release, 2.71, accessible on the Download page, will do just fine), install and execute. Go to File / Open datafile manager and click Add…. In the file selector dialog, look for pcmame.dat (or, as far as version 5 is concerned, pcmame05.dat) in the home directory of the (two) Windows Mobile PocketCultMAME’s. Note that you can safely import both if you plan to convert the format of your ROM’s into both 0.4a and 0.5WIP. Click Close after finishing adding the file(s).
Now, open the drop-down list under the menu bar of the menu bar of RomCenter. Select the file you’ve just added (pcmame.dat for 0.4a or pcmame05.dat for 0.5) as can be seen in here.
Now, go to File / Add ROM path. In my case, it’s c:\ArcadeRoms\. The items will be quickly scanned and loaded, but still not displayed. To do this, just click the name of the path (NOT “Games database”!) in the left pane.
Now, right-click ALL items in the right pane that have a yellow (NOT a green and NOT a red!) icon in front of them. Select “Fix ROM” in the menu. The file will be fixed. The resulting (fixed) file will be placed in the same directory, overwriting the old (bad) ROM image.
Note that because of the overwriting behavior, you may want to fix a COPY of your original ROM files.
(Mega)MAMECE3 9.5
(in game)
(in the game selector screen)
This very old, but still usable emulator may also be of interest, particularly if, for some reason, PocketCultMAME isn't able to run something. This is because PocketCultMAME is much better in every respect, particularly screen tap, auto fire and sound-wise. With MAMECE3, you definitely will NOT want to enable the sound because it's really annoying and really bad.
There are two versions of the emulator: MAMECE3 and the much larger Mega MAMECE3. Now that, with the advent of very cheap memory cards, the 6 Mbytes difference in size doesn't really matter any more, I recommend the second - theoretically, it supports more than a thousand games, as opposed to the 100+ MAMECE3.
Unfortunately, it's, along with the sound problem and not supporting auto fire / screen tap areas, is definitely less compatible with newer titles than even the 0.4a version of PocketCultMAME, let alone 0.5WIP.
You may also want to reconfigure game keys (1 2). Note that UI Menu stands for the in-game menu.
Finally, a not really recommended title,
iMAME v0.07
This title is based on the very old MAME version .261.
This application, reviewed for example HERE, is very restricted in that it only contains drivers for 19 arcade games of the early eighties. The lack of support for other titles means you can't even play for example Scramble or Zaxxon on it - you can in no way make it run any other titles than it contains built-in support to.
As with the other titles, you need to download ROM images off the Web to make it work. This may turn to be pretty problematic because most of the images of the games it supports have been removed from ROM sites because of ESA - that is, it's much easier to get hold of, say, the Zaxxon ROM than that of, say, Pac-Man.
As it is REALLY limited, playable ROM-wise and doesn't have anything to show up with (not even Scramble or Zaxxon), I don't really recommend this title. BTW, this - the complete lack of support for extra functionality like on-screen tap areas and the lack of support for anything else than the 19 classic games - was the reason for my not including it in the Comparison Chart either.
Verdict
get Finalburn Alpha. When compatible with a (newer, NeoGeo or CPS) arcade ROM, it'll deliver by far the best results.
get both versions of PocketCultMAME. When Finalburn Alpha isn't compatible with a (non-NeoGeo or CPS) title, the two versions of PocketCultMAME may still be. Always try running a given game in 0.4a first and only if it turns out to be incompatible move to 0.5WIP because of the much lower emulation speed. Also remember to check and, when necessary, convert your ROM sets before playing to avoid later incompatibility problems. If a as compatible marked title still doesn't run under 0.4a, make sure you give a try to the two alternate main EXE files to see whether they help.
You can also get Mega MAMECE3, but remember to prefer PocketCultMAME to it. The latter has better (on-screen) controls, autofire and WAY better sound.
Only get iMAME if you don't need anything else than the 19 built-in games.
The comparison / feature / compatibility chart
It's available HERE. DO CHECK IT OUT!
As usual, I present you a reliable, dependable chart comparing all the reviewed titles (and the desktop MAME). In addition to comparing features like state loading / saving, screen tap areas, auto fire etc. (please see my earlier emulator reviews for an explanation of these; I won't do this again in here), I've also checked the compatibility of many titles.
Recommended articles
My other game emulator reviews in the Games section of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog. I plan to cover / discuss ALL emulators available for Windows Mobile and have already published some of these articles. Do make sure you follow / read these articles - nowhere else will you find a better source of emulation-related information, I'm absolutely sure.
Other articles / links of interest
Rich Hall’s Play Arcade Classics on Your Handheld and Pocket PC. Note that, the article being some six years old, the links to the ROM repositories don't work any more.
An iMAME review
A shortish article on MAMECE3 and iMAME
It's possible to run Metal Slug X in the PSX emu
The reasons for PocketCultMAME to be slow on x50v / x51v
Some compatible games with Cult
RomCenter - how it shoud be used? 1, 2, 3. Note that you will still want to prefer my mini-tutorial instead.
pocketcultmame 0.4: there's a way to save
Compatibility reports of, for example, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Game speed reports
Reports on Time Pilot, Time Pilot 84, 10 Yard Fight, Zaxxon and Super Space Invaders
What ROM versions there are; which to prefer if there are more than one
A MegaMAMECE3-related AximSite thread
New MAMECE release with 68k ROMS support
MAMECE3 compatibility reports: THIS, THIS, THIS (with for example a lot of WonderSwan, PlayStation discussion and elaborating on THIS generic PPC emulation article. Make sure you read the feedback in the thread before believing everything in that article!) and THIS.
PocketCultMAME preview available (PG)
Hi-res issues
.36 ROMsets torrent (additional explanation)
It's unlikely MAMECE3 will ever be updated (a 2004 post - nothing has been released in the meantime)
A related Russian language thread
top thread gotta look into this
Do finalburn and MAME only play there "own" roms or do they play nes for example to?
marcovit said:
Do finalburn and MAME only play there "own" roms or do they play nes for example to?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No NES support - check out my NES Emulation Bible for NES-related emulators at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=306705
Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile. A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage. Why aren't there any media players or a PSX emulator or a N64 emulator even? They've been out on the iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile and even Symbian has it. Don't get me started on Maemo. I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?
For example the HD2 can play DivX and has a working PSX emulator. All the Desire/N1 has is yxflash for playing DivX which is a pretty poor media player if you ask me.
This has all been discussed in the past. Search and you'll find the answer.
supremeteam256 said:
This has all been discussed in the past. Search and you'll find the answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is changing every day. The outlook and future of Android is being shaped every day. I amn't looking for an answer, i'm looking for a discussion so please get off your high horse.
I amn't some noob asking stupid questions, I know Android runs through Java and this is why intensive apps aren't as numerous. That's not the point of this thread though.
abc27 said:
Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile. A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage. Why aren't there any media players or a PSX emulator or a N64 emulator even? They've been out on the iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile and even Symbian has it. Don't get me started on Maemo. I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?
For example the HD2 can play DivX and has a working PSX emulator. All the Desire/N1 has is yxflash for playing DivX which is a pretty poor media player if you ask me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are media players. Plenty of them. Maybe you should look. And why would you want an N64 emulator? I don't even see the point in the NES emulator on the market now. Personally, handheld consoles are only things that should have an emulator on a mobile phone - especially on an all touchscreen one. MAYBE an N64 emulator would be cool on one with a physical keyboard. Also, have you EVER opened up the market AT ALL?! There are plenty of useful apps.
WTF is with all you people who expect Android to be the best even though it is practically brand new? How about you sit down and just wait for a little bit, ok? All these posts down-talking Android are just annoying. You haven't even let it develop yet, you just assume the first cake baked will the better than the rest.
And if it's so easy, go do it. Don't complain because someone hasn't met your wants yet. Suggestions work better than hammering. You grow a tree by planting a seed, not cutting it down.
r3s-rt said:
There are media players. Plenty of them. Maybe you should look. And why would you want an N64 emulator? I don't even see the point in the NES emulator on the market now. Personally, handheld consoles are only things that should have an emulator on a mobile phone - especially on an all touchscreen one. MAYBE an N64 emulator would be cool on one with a physical keyboard. Also, have you EVER opened up the market AT ALL?! There are plenty of useful apps.
WTF is with all you people who expect Android to be the best even though it is practically brand new? How about you sit down and just wait for a little bit, ok? All these posts down-talking Android are just annoying. You haven't even let it develop yet, you just assume the first cake baked will the better than the rest.
And if it's so easy, go do it. Don't complain because someone hasn't met your wants yet. Suggestions work better than hammering. You grow a tree by planting a seed, not cutting it down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoa whoa, calm down
I wasn't putting down Android at all, i'm just curious as to why there seems to be so few "heavy" apps like N64/PSX emulators and the like. There are no GOOD media players, by that I mean a media player that plays DivX and plays it well. The only one I know of is Coreplayer 2.0 and development for that seems to be very slow. There are useful apps but there are far more useless apps or just pure rubbish strewn in the market. Far too much actually.
I never suggested developing these apps are easy but I don't even see many attempts at developing apps like that. There isn't enough variety in apps, for every app there are ten more trying to copy it. I just don't feel that i'm using my phone to it's full potential.
At least we're free to have/develop Apps like Emulators and Media Players, unlike a certain Fruity Smartphone.....
chrism_scotland said:
At least we're free to have/develop Apps like Emulators and Media Players, unlike a certain Fruity Smartphone.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol @ fruity smartphone starting with "i"
abc27 said:
I know Android is java based but surely it can't be that difficult to get any of the above working?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Time for a technical reply
I put several emulators on the market (search 'shagrath') and believe me, this is not so simple. The current state of native development on Android is very early. Meaning you have to implement a lot in Java (not really a big deal, but you can't reuse code done by other people in Qt/GTK/SDL/whatever), and there's no real APIs to access video hardware in a fast way, except OpenGL, which can be ok on some devices, but slow on others (N1 i'm looking at you)
I'm sure this has something to do with Google making things right before opening up better APIs. After all, the goal of Android is to support many hardware components/SOCs (system on a chip), while keeping compatibility of older Android apps. On the other side, the OSes you mentioned are all based on a single combination of hardware/software or so (except WinMo maybe ?). Better, a lot of them are breaking compatibility in their newer versions (Meego, WinPhone7, Symbian^3), because you can't keep crappy APIs forever
So, in a nutshell, a really good video player will not come before Google ship new APIs (I guess the CoreCodec guys have done all they could and are now waiting for them)
PSX and N64 support has more to do with motivation and code resources, because we have access to OpenGL on Android. I've yet to see a good Mobile PSX emulator other than Fpsece on WinMo (which is closed source, and will likely never be ported elsewhere). And both PSX and N64 emulators on Maemo are slow.
I haven't read through the whole thread but a few of the Samsung Galaxy line of phones are suppose to come with a pretty good built in divx player for android phones. For a general media player the music app for the Motorola Cliq XT is one of the best I have seen for Android.
Well there are emu's for:
NES
SNES
GBA
Genesis
GBC
We(Android community) have Quake 3(runs quite smoothly on small maps) and Quake 1 running, as well as doom (zdoom to be specific if memory serves me correctly). N64 emu is currently being developed by scottgl. We have web servers, DLNA servers, remote RDP clients (although no servers to the best of my knowledge).
I do agree that there has yet to be a really strong video media player on the Android, again as mentioned above, that’s due to API support (or lack thereof ).
I fail to see your problem, Android has plenty of great apps! Unless you think the omission of a few thousand fart apps means no great apps......
Maybe money is the issue?
In my view Android does currently lack large quality applications in some areas particularily media players. Many of the apps have an amateurish feel to them ( no offense guys but that's my honest opinion).
I suspect a significant factor is the difficulty in making money from the Android Market. Developing large scale polished apps takes a lot more time than the average hobbyist developer has available and since it's considerablely more difficult to make a decent income (compared to the Iphone market) we end up with a large number of lower quality apps as the developer/s stops after a while without a financial incentive.
IMO. The lack of some sort of quality control mechanism and easy moneyization ( E.g. charging apps to the Carrier bill ) may prove to be one of Android's achilles heel
abc27 said:
Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of brilliant apps on the market but it's rare that you find anything worthwhile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on what your definition of "worthwhile" is. Frankly, I've had a G1 for two days and it has been better in many areas than my iPhone 3GS (which I still own!).
abc27 said:
A lot of the "apps" are just rubbish soundboards or quotes or themes or other garbage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's just not true...
From what I've seen (which hasn't been much yet), Android is indeed lacking on the media front. However, there are two things to consider here: (a) The iPhone makes a really good iPod, and (b) Most Android devices do not double as dedicated music players; they are meant to be smartphones through and through, which sacrifices many things on the media front.
This was a problem on practically anything that wasn't the iPhone, but as someone mentioned here, Android is in quite an early stage of the game. It literally just got "decent" after Eclair, which was released, what, last year?
Haven't tried it yet, but grab it quick... emulates 0.37b5 ROM list. Yes, it supports Xperia Play buttons.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.seleuco.mame4all&feature=search_result
Project page: http://code.google.com/p/imame4all/
Nice find. Testing romset now
I prefer this to jrioni, it has a better user interface.
Games run at good speed, just as good as jrioni, and I find the sound better in this.
Still no save states that I can see though.
Posting for tiger kings emulator to own them all. Mame needs save states to be functional imho. I play for 5 minutes at a time at work and can't progress in games without save states.
The good thing about this emulator is that it saves all your high scores. with Jromi you have to manually save and load your high scores.
My Metal Slugs and CPS2 games dont seem to work though.
dsswoosh said:
I prefer this to jrioni, it has a better user interface.
Games run at good speed, just as good as jrioni, and I find the sound better in this.
Still no save states that I can see though.
Posting for tiger kings emulator to own them all. Mame needs save states to be functional imho. I play for 5 minutes at a time at work and can't progress in games without save states.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are *arcade* games. They're only meant to be played for 5 minutes at a time. Only purpose for savestates is if you are cheating your way through a game with infinite quarters.
zerojay said:
They are *arcade* games. They're only meant to be played for 5 minutes at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally disagree with this.
Some games take 30+ minutes to beat and complete. Some are even longer taking 1 hour+ to beat.
You forget that this is a mobile device. Which means you are playing games on the move.
People playing on trains, aeorplanes, cars, 10 minute work breaks, sitting at the bus stop, sitting on the toilet (yea i do this ), etc etc etc
You want to continue your game, but at a later date.
zerojay said:
Only purpose for savestates is if you are cheating your way through a game with infinite quarters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sentence makes zero sense if you sit to think about it.
"Infinite Quarters" are there whether you have save states or not
Completing metal slugs, alien vs predator, final fight, street fighter, strider, rampage, ghould n ghosts, heck LOADS of games take ALOT longer than 5 minutes.
If you played ghould n ghosts for 5 minutes at a time, you would forever be playing the first level.
What is the point in that?
Yes, it is inconclusive, save states ARE needed.
However i have some unfortunate news, MAME4ALL will NEVER have save states, since it is based on a version of MAME that doesnt have them either.
Our only hope is to see what magic Tiger King can produce.
Anyway, no disrespect to Jrioni, i was one of the people that loved and bought his version of Mame.
I support him ALL the way.
But this version of Mame i prefer, the UI is superior to Jrioni. And since it is free, there is no need to purchase Jrioni anymore.
Anyone who wants to play Mame games, this is now the best version.
Glad I held off from buying Jrioni now. Was waiting for save states.
This seems better, though without save states as well.
...and to say Save States are not needed on a mobile device is well...I'm not going to get into it again...but its pretty stupid.
Red_Kop said:
Glad I held off from buying Jrioni now. Was waiting for save states.
This seems better, though without save states as well.
...and to say Save States are not needed on a mobile device is well...I'm not going to get into it again...but its pretty stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
does Mame4droid support dip switches?
reason why i ask its pointless playing mame games for me on medium setting, i like to crank the difficulty up on games, otherwise no challenge !
harlzden said:
does Mame4droid support dip switches?
reason why i ask its pointless playing mame games for me on medium setting, i like to crank the difficulty up on games, otherwise no challenge !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it doesnt.
Which is quite annoying because i cant change the analog sensitivity for games like Paperboy, which is unplayable on Mame4Droid because he steers to the left all the time.
Jrioni's graphics seem to be a bit better too. Mame4droid is a bit blockier.
Sound and speed works best on Mame4Droid though. And Mame4Droid is far more user friendly in setting up screen sizes etc.
mame4droid support dip switches u can enable it during in games by pressing select+start at the same time will bring up the menu, only the bad side is the graphic blockier but enable smooth graphic the games lag if it can fixed this then this is the best emu u can get for play.
Does the APP comes with roms or do you have to download them if so from where?! does the app run well on the sony play?
Teku
squall12 said:
mame4droid support dip switches u can enable it during in games by pressing select+start at the same time will bring up the menu, only the bad side is the graphic blockier but enable smooth graphic the games lag if it can fixed this then this is the best emu u can get for play.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes!
Dip switches work.
This is hands down the best Mame emulator for Android. The only thing that can top this is save states or support for newer ROM sets.
Guy above. Don't ask for roms here. They are easily findable with any search engine.
for the roms to work with this Emulator what file type do the roms need to be?
It tells you on the market download page
dsswoosh said:
No it doesnt.
Which is quite annoying because i cant change the analog sensitivity for games like Paperboy, which is unplayable on Mame4Droid because he steers to the left all the time.
Jrioni's graphics seem to be a bit better too. Mame4droid is a bit blockier.
Sound and speed works best on Mame4Droid though. And Mame4Droid is far more user friendly in setting up screen sizes etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must be doing something wrong because even though sound is a bit better than Jrioni's, this emus is much slower, almost unplayable. So I will stick to Jrioni.
rugalb said:
I must be doing something wrong because even though sound is a bit better than Jrioni's, this emus is much slower, almost unplayable. So I will stick to Jrioni.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What games are you seeing that are slower?
For instance Three Wonders, and Mortal Kombat 2 does not work. On a second attempt I uninstalled it and downloaded from Market and works fine now.
FYI Three Wonders works perfectly in Tiger Arcade 2.20
I'm trying to put this on my ATT Captivate and I can not get the games to show up on the program. I know that I have the right versions of the games. After installing the program, I checked the SD card to see if a ROMs folder was created. There wasn't any so I created a ROMs/Mame4all/roms folder which didn't help. I tried to move the program to the SD card, but I couldn't see the folder when I put the card in a reader. What am I doing wrong?
Never mind. It was on the phone. I was able to see the folder after plugging the phone directly into the computer.
I was thinking along the lines of need for speed, call of duty, or if not even something like gamesoft, ie: asphalt, nova, etc...
All the games in the store are very childish
You're either using a lot of hyperbole or have a different definition of "very childish" than most people do, since there are some reasonably violent or otherwise serious / adult games in the store. However, with that said, there exist NFS games on WP7, so I would expect them to come to Windows Store (and hopefully Windows RT) as well. Don't count on something like Call of Duty, though; the Tegra 3 probably isn't powerful enough to run it worth a damn. Also, it would suck to try and play it via touch...
I feel that the casual games like jetpack joyride and fruit ninja and robotek do a reasonably good job of keeping you occupied on a touch device.The likes of call of duty would not be enjpyed much on a touch device.
Yea, but they could be enjoyed with a 360 controller or a keyboard and mouse.
i guess only time will tell. MS probably wants you to purchase a xbox for hardcore games. In all honesty I don't like playing games on touch devices. I think they are too simple and the controls can be annoying. Most video games lack depth.
For some reason games like Jetpack Joyride are loading real slow on my Surface. During play it seems like it's skipping frames too. Anyone else notice this?
equisbox said:
i guess only time will tell. MS probably wants you to purchase a xbox for hardcore games. In all honesty I don't like playing games on touch devices. I think they are too simple and the controls can be annoying. Most video games lack depth.
For some reason games like Jetpack Joyride are loading real slow on my Surface. During play it seems like it's skipping frames too. Anyone else notice this?
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Jetpack Joyride is terrible on windows in general, on my surface it skips frames a hell of a lot less than it does on my desktop
Used to. Last update fixed the slow down when Touching the screen in game. Fps is pretty much smooth now.
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express
bnlf said:
Used to. Last update fixed the slow down when Touching the screen in game. Fps is pretty much smooth now.
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express
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I am using the latest update, I get very limited slow down on the surface, even on the last update it is still very noticeable on my desktop though
equisbox said:
i guess only time will tell. MS probably wants you to purchase a xbox for hardcore games. In all honesty I don't like playing games on touch devices. I think they are too simple and the controls can be annoying. Most video games lack depth.
For some reason games like Jetpack Joyride are loading real slow on my Surface. During play it seems like it's skipping frames too. Anyone else notice this?
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Well MS is talking about an Xbox surface, so hopefully that will bring some joy to the more expensive surface devices.
lilstevie said:
I am using the latest update, I get very limited slow down on the surface, even on the last update it is still very noticeable on my desktop though
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So quick question. I know windows devices usually ship with the automatic updates checked on. How often does it update? Weekly? Does it automatically update when not in use or does it wait for you to reboot, like my computer? And does this include updating the apps or just the OS?
right, I mean definitely games like COD would not be good on a touch screen, but like someone said above, I would gladly buy a wired xbox controller if it meant I could play some higher end games. But yea, I guess time will tell, it's just unfortunate that no one is even claiming that they are working on anything. Atleast with WP8, gameloft announced a bunch of cool games and they are still atleast a month out, so i'm guessing we'll probably have to wait a while before anything big shows up for win RT
Surface RT updates weekly by default. It will not update while in Standby/Sleep mode, but will update in the background when turned on. Once the updates are installed, if a reboot is required, it will force one within three days (or you can do it before then).
By default, only high-priority OS (and possibly Firmware) updates will be installed. This probably includes "Recommended" ones, but will not include "Optional" updates. Updates to other Microsoft software on the device (like Office) might be automatic by default; I always enable the full Microsoft Update (instead of just Windows Update) and forget if I had to do this on the Surface or not.
Windows Store apps do *not* get updated through Windows Update, and will not update by default. To update them, use the Store app. Its live tile will tell you how many apps have pending updates.
equisbox said:
So quick question. I know windows devices usually ship with the automatic updates checked on. How often does it update? Weekly? Does it automatically update when not in use or does it wait for you to reboot, like my computer? And does this include updating the apps or just the OS?
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I tend to take a little more control and manually check for updates on a daily basis, but windows 8 default setting is to reboot 2 days after
Gameloft Windows Phone Games
Anyone think that Gameloft will be porting the new games that they are planning on releasing for Windows Phone 8 (http://www.gameloft.com/download-games/community/) to Windows RT - I don't know much about porting games, apps, etc...but from what I read, it seems that it shouldn't be that difficult for them to do because they utilize the same coding. I am hoping to play some better games on my Surface in the near future.
It would make sense - there are going to be a lot of windows tablets out there in the next year with all of the convertibles, etc....not to mention all of the Windows 8 PC users who aren't serious gamers, and won't pay 40-50$ for full PC game, and who would gladly pay 5-10$ for tablet version to play on their desktops.