I'm curious to see how they stack up to mame. Specificly the DCS games since the xbox ports of mame run them pretty slowly.

Are these ports or actual emulated versions? Can you get into the test menus or adjust the dips?

Well I don't think the DCS is emulated, I think they changed the music format so they wouldn't have to use DCS. MK1/2/3 look perfect but I think the sound is in a different format.

The games are stored in single files that I don't know how to open up.

MK1 = 137MB
MK2 = 138MB
MK3 = 96MB

I think they emulated the visuals and then changed the format of the music, that's the only way I could explain the large file sizes.

EDIT:

After typing this I checked out the MK2.SR file and this is what I got:


Just as I thought, the music is stored as uncompressed WAVE files, heh. ROM files are also in there. I don't know how to extract this stuff though. Apparently there is a table of contents at the beginning of this file and then a bunch of data after the TOC.

Wonder how they got their MK2IMAGE.ROM, my MAME set is 13MB, heh.

edit:

I ripped some music:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/djspace/mk2a.wma

I just opened the whole file in Adobe Audition, told it the file was 44.1kHz, 16bit, mono, Intel PCM and it worked fine. The sound effects are 22kHz.

If I could only replace the MK3 music with the music from the CD versions of the games. I'm assuming that Midway made the music in a CD quality stereo format and then converted it to mono and compressed it. The home CD-ROM versions of MK3 have music that sounds EXACTLY like the arcade version except it's stereo 44.1kHz CD quality! I wish Midway would've just put that stereo CD quality music in place of the arcade mono junk since they just used wave files.

oh well

> I'm curious to see how they stack up to mame. Specificly the DCS games since
> the xbox ports of mame run them pretty slowly.
>

Using Xbox & MAME is the last option since Xbox is bascially an out-of-date computer. Try playing the Midway
games on a computer (if it runs about 2Ghz clockspeed). The difference will be noticeable.





> Are these ports or actual emulated versions? Can you get into the test menus or
> adjust the dips?
>

That is basically what the store product is: ports, that are not fully emulated.

Probably only partly emulated....not fully as compared to MAME because MAME is a true documentation project including all aspects of the (PCB / hardware ) being fully emulated.

No home product port will ever come close to what MAME does because to handle emulating any "specific hardware", it takes lots of time and if the staff is on "paid salary" scale, it would cost way too much and the investment money spent on salary would be twice as much spent compared to the profits expected from the commercial software product.

It would be a product that would likely lose money if attempting to faithfully emulate hardware for products meant for home use imo. If meant for arcades, like Ultracade products, the investment would be worth the expense since arcade businesses would demand near perfection of a product.

boat

Heh, I looked through the screenshot gallery for MK2 and there is a shot where the sprite priority is messed up. Its from the background with the floating monk and clouds (can't remember the name - the tower?) and the pillars in the background get clipped before they reach the top of the screen.

http://midwayarcade.com/gamedata/mk2/screen16.jpg

The shadows show up randomly but in MAME they show up all the time. I just played MK2 on MAME on my xbox (with sound off of course) and well MAME is doing a better job with the graphics. The xbox version does have sprite issues.

edit:

I just noticed that priority issue is correct now.

Back in mid to late 1990's, a software company "Digital Eclipse", was doing the programming. They used their own emulator. They emulated the games, but not the audio hardware and were using WAV files instead.


They marketed William games, Midway games (including Atari's Greatest Hits package).


Digital Eclispe uses WAV files for the audio. They might say their product is an emulator, but deffinitely not a true emulator imo. They "short change" the audio aspect.

I consider their product a port because of that.

Seems fine...bought it earlier along with a boxed copy of Bart vs the Space Mutants nes at EB. ;)

I played out a few of the games, and wtf :( :( spy hunter 2 IS an atrocity. Very nice package for $20 and easily can earn your quarters worth on a single sitting going between say Gauntlet2, Rampage WT, and Total Carnage. I can't say I ever liked MK2 immensely, but MK3 is a slap in the face how they ruined the gameplay so I really haven't bothered with either.

Im just pissed they yanked MK1 so their gay new MK games could have a freebie tossed in to earn instead. :(

I figure if Midway had more of a hand in it then the audio would be better. MK3's music is 22kHz mono and sounds like crap! MK2's music is mostly overdriven, there's a bit of distortion in the music. Midway probably has CD quality recordings of most DCS soundtracks in their posession that could've been used instead of the nasty compressed versions.

I was dissapointed that Wizard of Wor didn't have the 'organ music' and some of the sounds were wrong.
Timber seemed to be a bit off with the music as well...
Hard Drivin's controls seemed a bit 'off' but then again I was using a PSX Dual Shock controller...

I played Mortal Kombat II/3, Gauntlet 2, Xybots, Narc, Timber, Total Carnage, Pit Fighter, Wizard of Wor, Xenophobe, Primal Rage, and Hard Drivin'.

Having played them, and listing a 'few' issues I had, I still think it was worth pre-purchasing. My 'ancient' 900mhz CPU can't do a few games in MAME and they're 'playable' *Gamecube version* plus the controls are set up nicely...

I do think the '1st' pack was better than the 2nd, but I think both are worth $20 each...

> Seems fine...bought it earlier along with a boxed copy of Bart vs the Space
> Mutants nes at EB. ;)
>
> I played out a few of the games, and wtf :( :( spy hunter 2 IS an atrocity.
> Very nice package for $20 and easily can earn your quarters worth on a single
> sitting going between say Gauntlet2, Rampage WT, and Total Carnage. I can't say
> I ever liked MK2 immensely, but MK3 is a slap in the face how they ruined the
> gameplay so I really haven't bothered with either.
>
> Im just pissed they yanked MK1 so their gay new MK games could have a freebie
> tossed in to earn instead. :(
>
>
Because there is no 'special edition' of Mortal Kombat: Deception so Gamecube owners can't get Mortal Kombat... :(

What a rip off...

Yah the Cube one is very playable with no problems. The overall package blows compared to the tasty classics the first had. Unless you're a MK freak some of the stuff is slim pickings, but a few of those slim ones will easily add up into $20 of blown quarters making the purchase worthy.

Notables being Gauntlet2, Rampage, Hard Drivin, Arch Rivals, Total Carnage, Xenophobe, Pit Fighter, and I suppose NARC.

> Yah the Cube one is very playable with no problems. The overall package blows
> compared to the tasty classics the first had. Unless you're a MK freak some of
> the stuff is slim pickings, but a few of those slim ones will easily add up into
> $20 of blown quarters making the purchase worthy.
>
> Notables being Gauntlet2, Rampage, Hard Drivin, Arch Rivals, Total Carnage,
> Xenophobe, Pit Fighter, and I suppose NARC.
>
>
Mortal Kombat 2*, Gauntlet 2, Xybots, Narc, Timber**, Pit Fighter*, Wizard of Wor**, Xenophobe, Primal Rage*, Rampage World Tour*, and Hard Drivin*.

* My piss poor 900 can't rum the MAME version.
** MAME emulates them better but I still like them...

> I figure if Midway had more of a hand in it then the audio would be better.
> MK3's music is 22kHz mono and sounds like crap! MK2's music is mostly
> overdriven, there's a bit of distortion in the music. Midway probably has CD
> quality recordings of most DCS soundtracks in their posession that could've been
> used instead of the nasty compressed versions.

MK3's music is mono in real life (and therefore M1) too. 32 kHz instead of 22, but still not great. The Rare guys made that frequency range work for them - lots and lots of bass :-)

I can't quite figure out hard drivin though, never did way back. All I seem to find out how to do it spin out, go too fast on turns, and my car always seems to be a magnet for other cars when coming off some ramp/airborn bit so I munch out. Always preferred STUNTS on pc. :)

Well the PC-CD version of MK3 has music that sounds exactly like the arcade version except that it's CD quality.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/djspace/track02.mp3

Compare that to what you hear from the arcade set. They should've just used this stuff in the new versions instead of low-quality waves.

Ok I'm going to write a bit here on the package because I'm even getting PM's over at the EmuChrist board over this package.

Basically what we have here is simple cut and dry emulation of the base code and graphics...everything that covers every last damn bit of the game except the audio. The audio calls in the code instead of pulling the samples out of the audio files in the arcade for the DCS chip (or whichever) instead it being yanked from a large file which has WAVs in it.

MK2 as Krool brought up in a message I got asked if Scorpion, Sub Zero, and Reptile had the exact same animation wobbles on the character screen, and if SZ's motion in fight worked correct. Answer is YES. Unlike the PC where it's copy paste shit to save room, it's all intact. Just again, the audio is fetched wav snipets in a master file.

All games seem to do this and perhaps is why there is such the load times from the menu into the title of the arcade game as it's buffering the audio into your systems RAM.

Furthermore, this is nothing new as this is a shortcut that Digital Eclipse has done for years from everything from the 16bit consoles, to the GBA, and other systems since. The problem then was slowness of the CPUs, but now it's a tad different.

They ported this shit to 3 systems using one commonly ported build. HAD they from the ground up coded this shit system specific at some low level for the most assininely optimized asm code (or whatever), then YES it likely would have used all the original ROMs for the audio as well. Problem is, porting shit makes it inadequate for the one system, and definitely doesn't use it's base equipment. Both the cube (version I own) and the box could have handled this game package MK's and all in full if done on a per system basis, but the PS2 is a big maybe.

> No home product port will ever come close to what MAME does because to handle
> emulating any "specific hardware", it takes lots of time and if the staff is on
> "paid salary" scale, it would cost way too much and the investment money spent
> on salary would be twice as much spent compared to the profits expected from the
> commercial software product.

Funny how it's not economical for a company to do this, yet a free project done by enthusiasts seems to hit the nail right on the head. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just think it's odd.

Anyways, would it be possible for a company like Midway or Namco or Atari to actually use MAME in a project like this? I'm sure it's possible to make a DVD that would run on a PS2 (or XBox... Gamecube might not be possible), yet have a data track with the MAME source code that could be read in a computer so that they could conform to the GPL. Basically, they'd just be selling their own ROMS, with a nice shiny version of MAME compiled for the console of choice. It would probably take a lot less time than writing their own (crummy) emulation from scratch.

I suppose the big hurdle here would be that the source they'd have to include would have to contain the hardware-specific stuff that they'd have to add to support the consoles, and giving that kinda stuff away might be problematic... but aside from that, is there anything preventing this?

--Zero

The sound SUCKS. The music has a weird tendancy to drop to levels so low it makes it impossible to hear, while the sound fx remain at a normal volume. The sound also stutters quite a bit, both fx and music. I'm very disappointed with it and if MK1 has that much trouble with the audio, I can only wonder how the DCS games turned out, even if they replaced all the sound with WAVs.

I noticed another really odd glitch while I watched some of the video kollector's cards for various characters. They showed footage from (their appearantly "emulated") MK2 with characters fighting in the Armory. Whenever the round ended and the winner went into his victory pose, the floor started scrolling across the screen under the characters. Looks very weird. I wonder if their final version does that...

> > No home product port will ever come close to what MAME does because to handle
> > emulating any "specific hardware", it takes lots of time and if the staff is
> on
> > "paid salary" scale, it would cost way too much and the investment money spent
> > on salary would be twice as much spent compared to the profits expected from
> the
> > commercial software product.
>
> Funny how it's not economical for a company to do this, yet a free project done
> by enthusiasts seems to hit the nail right on the head. I'm not disagreeing with
> you, I just think it's odd.
>
> Anyways, would it be possible for a company like Midway or Namco or Atari to
> actually use MAME in a project like this? I'm sure it's possible to make a DVD
> that would run on a PS2 (or XBox... Gamecube might not be possible), yet have a
> data track with the MAME source code that could be read in a computer so that
> they could conform to the GPL. Basically, they'd just be selling their own ROMS,
> with a nice shiny version of MAME compiled for the console of choice. It would
> probably take a lot less time than writing their own (crummy) emulation from
> scratch.
>
> I suppose the big hurdle here would be that the source they'd have to include
> would have to contain the hardware-specific stuff that they'd have to add to
> support the consoles, and giving that kinda stuff away might be problematic...
> but aside from that, is there anything preventing this?
>
> --Zero
>
I don't think the PS2 was 'fast enough' for MAME *nor enough memory* and the version they made was created to run on all 3 *PS2/Gamecube/XBOX* systems.

> I don't think the PS2 was 'fast enough' for MAME *nor enough memory* and the
> version they made was created to run on all 3 *PS2/Gamecube/XBOX* systems.
>
That's kinda like what I said above towards the bottom of my post, but it appears that ze-ro has some anti-gamecube thing going on if he thinks the cube couldn't run it while the PS2 can. Already has been determined in some circles the PS2 couldn't run much of anything newer for a shit if someone tried.

Ahh who cares.

Fact is...MAT2 is emulated across the board EXCEPT for audio, and a recoding of Primal Rage.

> > I don't think the PS2 was 'fast enough' for MAME *nor enough memory* and the
> > version they made was created to run on all 3 *PS2/Gamecube/XBOX* systems.
> >
> That's kinda like what I said above towards the bottom of my post, but it
> appears that ze-ro has some anti-gamecube thing going on if he thinks the cube
> couldn't run it while the PS2 can. Already has been determined in some circles
> the PS2 couldn't run much of anything newer for a shit if someone tried.
>
> Ahh who cares.
>
> Fact is...MAT2 is emulated across the board EXCEPT for audio, and a recoding of
> Primal Rage.
>
>

Basically what I've read about on gamer forums is that in fact Primal Rage alone is NOT emulated. I dunno wtf the reason is as I dunno what hardware it uses. Perhaps the PS2 (slowest and lowest mem of the lot) couldn't handle being emulated completely short of audio or what. Whatever the reason is, that game is a recoded PORT. Also as a recoded port some of the moves have been redone in the game now copycatting basic Street Fighter 2 patterns for attack (you can get a guide for the game alone at gamefaqs.)

That's what I mean.

It was a trick of some sort.... like a fatality, but the result was that.

I think it was on a MK2 1.4. Didn't even have babalities, and kintaro was completely impossible to beat.




> The sound SUCKS. The music has a weird tendancy to drop to levels so low it
> makes it impossible to hear, while the sound fx remain at a normal volume. The
> sound also stutters quite a bit, both fx and music. I'm very disappointed with
> it and if MK1 has that much trouble with the audio, I can only wonder how the
> DCS games turned out, even if they replaced all the sound with WAVs.
>
> I noticed another really odd glitch while I watched some of the video
> kollector's cards for various characters. They showed footage from (their
> appearantly "emulated") MK2 with characters fighting in the Armory. Whenever
> the round ended and the winner went into his victory pose, the floor started
> scrolling across the screen under the characters. Looks very weird. I wonder
> if their final version does that...
>


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