That Time Crisis 2 link up seems to work ok. Again, it's a bit slow on my laptop though, but then a single instance Time Crisis 2 running is a bit slow! It was apparently tested with an Intel i7-12850HX and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. I don't think you need anything quite that fast to run it but I reckon a pair of fairly meaty PCs and you'd have a decent alternative to original pcb sets.
Ridge Racer Collection
- Thread starter 2huwman
- Start date
Yeah, you can pull their branch, go to the green 'code' button and download as a .zip.
You'd then have to compile it by following the tools on the mame site. Bit late tonight, but I can help people through it if needed.
GitHub - pocketjazzy/MAME-TC2-Public: Custom MAME build that supports Time Crisis 2 link play
Custom MAME build that supports Time Crisis 2 link play - pocketjazzy/MAME-TC2-Publicgithub.com
I'll be honest, our C139 code needed work and was hacky, but to be fair to the MAME team, I can't see something that AI-ridden ever being accepted, it's completely unfathomable. It’d need a big tidy up. That Rage Racer AI-assisted port code was lovely, so it can be done.
What about you, Sailorsat and PocketJazzy combine forces to get it over the line somehow with the MAMEdev team?
Such a shame all the effort put in by everyone so far and not utilised.
Granted it's probably very niche usage for the majority of the MAME user base but I am biased and would LOVE to see it included as I have your JBmame running in my twin namco driving cab.
Then again, a lot of folks have super wide screen monitors and could avail of triple screen ridge racer and drivers eyes if it was in the official build.
John Bennett
Senior Member
I've been focusing on other stuff really, but I'll be forced to come back to it as Galaxian 3 has C139 code in it, so I probably can't just drop that code off on the MAME doorstep and leg it for someone else to integrate. So maybe I'll have a go with some of it by then (a few months away). I never looked at Time Crisis 2 so I don't even know what PocketJazzy's AI code does that Sailorsat's driver doesn't already do. More chance of the older code being accepted as it's at least readable/reviewable.
I wonder if Final Furlong 2 and Gunmen Wars uses the same link hardware as Time Crisis 2? Actually there's quite a few twin drivers and the like in Mame which all seem to show "Completely unemulated features: LAN" when you boot them up. Four Trax and Suzuka 8 Hours are two that comes to mind, I assume they use some earlier variant of link hardware though anyhow.
John Bennett
Senior Member
Oh MAME shows nothing as there's literally nothing merged in for Namco linkup code.
Try Sailorsat's CabMAME build, that's got the most up-to-date code for all the linkup code for loads of Namco games (and other systems). Even stuff like the control tower in Suzuka works, although the sprites do odd things (I must look at that too). Many of the games support up to 8 players.
Retroman839
Senior Member
Yeh ..
I think I must be comfusimg That devil amd
Angel cars ..I remeber the Morgan thingy maybe it was the speed in rage racer that I remeber and didn’t compete it.
Tc2 with gun4ir is a must ..Make hooker was a bit over my head last Time I looked . Will all this will get into flycast or tek parrot soon ?
The network emulation code is there languishing over a year now but hasn't been merged into official mame. Plus for other systems.
Many Namco games including all the ones you mention (coded also by John)
namco_c139: semi working implementation (ASIO, async, threaded) by SailorSat · Pull Request #13867 · mamedev/mame
hooked up the c139 to (super) system 2, 21 and 22. this makes 'Driver's Eyes' working. other C139/C422 games are working but the network is highly timing critical (unstable). ( this is...
github.com
Powerdrift:
ybdcomm: first implementation (ASIO, async, polled) by SailorSat · Pull Request #13866 · mamedev/mame
this makes 'Power Drift - Link Version' playable in LAN (setup dips correctly!) for some reason I have yet to determine, comm_framesync causes issues in multithreaded mode, hence this one u...
github.com
Super Monaco gp / Last survivor:
xbdcomm: first implementation (ASIO, async, polled) by SailorSat · Pull Request #13865 · mamedev/mame
this makes 'Super Monaco GP', and 'Last Survivor' playable in LAN. for some reason I have yet to determine, there are issues with SMGP in multithreaded mode, hence this one uses a p...
github.com
Sega system 32 (F1 games and slipstream)
s32comm: ASIO rewrite (async, polled) by SailorSat · Pull Request #13863 · mamedev/mame
this changes s32comm from osd_file sockets (blocking) to ASIO sockets (async). for some reason I have yet to determine, comm_framesync causes issues in multithreaded mode, hence this one uses a pol...
github.com
Improvements to Model 1 and Model 2 network code:
m2comm: ASIO rewrite (async polled) by SailorSat · Pull Request #13862 · mamedev/mame
this changes m2comm from osd_file sockets (blocking) to ASIO sockets (async). for some reason I have yet to determine, comm_framesync causes issues in multithreaded mode, hence this one uses a poll...
github.com
Plus the author of the has shown in their youtube a few other systems with network emulated like the midway crusin series and jaleco systems all with link play working but why would they submit the code if the above doesn't get accepted?
E.g.
No feed back in the PRs must be so disheartening. I know everyone is volunteering on the project but if you look at any similar project like the "supermodel" github, the lead maintainer there is always giving feedback to new pull requests and always helpful, encouraging and appreciative in the comments. That would go along way in mame if there was a senior mamedev person with the time to do that.
John Bennett
Senior Member
I did chat to Sailorsat a bit a while back. I thought they had it all in-hand (and I'd kinda lost interest), but they've gone very quiet of late. Wouldn't be surprised if the motivation to put it into MAME has waned. Code review is one thing, but people weren't exactly jumping up to help rework the code into an acceptable format.
Sailorsat did follow the instruction to break it up into lots of smaller merge requests now, so they can be done individually rather than someone trying to pick up the whole lot (which I'll try to do later in the year for the stuff I understand if it's not been done by others).
To go full circle, it does mean new emulators like this Ridge Racer collection come along, cherry-pick this stuff and end up way ahead of MAME.
Sailorsat did follow the instruction to break it up into lots of smaller merge requests now, so they can be done individually rather than someone trying to pick up the whole lot (which I'll try to do later in the year for the stuff I understand if it's not been done by others).
To go full circle, it does mean new emulators like this Ridge Racer collection come along, cherry-pick this stuff and end up way ahead of MAME.