XMAME/XMESS DOCUMENTATION

xmame/xmess documentation with an installation guide, the FAQ (frequently asked questions), hints, tips and tricks, the changes to the code, and much more!


Introduction

Welcome to XMAME

This the the *nix port of the legendary MAME. MAME is an arcade machine emulator, started in 1997 by Nicola Salmoria. It started out as a series of emulators for individual games. This series of emulators was combined into a single multi-game emulator. This is the current form of MAME; no longer a one-man show, there are over 100 contributors to the project.

Keep everything up-to-date!

The most recent copy of this guide, the xmame/xmess sources and much more can be found on the xmame/xmess project homepage at http://x.mame.net/.

Pending Jobs - or TODO

If you think you can help with the todo list or you can make a contribution that you feel is interesting, please send mail to the xmame/xmess coordinator. See Mail for contact information.

  • Optimise mouse warping.

  • Remove osd_input_init_post, add display ready flag.

  • Updating of fps is off (dirty marking problem) with vector games.

  • Convert all remaining sound drivers to plugins.

  • Rewrite display/input code to be more modular, oo-ish, and usable as a separate library.

  • Split -[no]scanline option into emulated and real scanline options.

  • Add an option to specify which resolution to use, add clipping and panning if it doesn't fit and use it anyway.

  • Use Pentium TSC for uclock where available.

  • Network:

    • Add support for more than 2 players.

    • Explore P2P as an alternative to the existing server-based method.

    • Add mouse/joystick support to network play. [Is this already in place?]

    • Make network code more robust, version check, input settings check, etc.

    • Split off the OS-specific portions of the network code and submit the rest for inclusion in the MAME core.

  • Check X11 joystick support. Rumor has it it's broken, but then again there's only one bug-report, so it seems no one is using it.

  • FM soundhack for linux-i386.

  • Make which messages are emitted and when configurable (log-type's and log-level), make fileio emit messages about which files it tries to open, to help debug rom-loading problems, and walk through all messages xmame emits giving them all a standard format like:

    OSD:        Info:    bla
    X11-window: Warning: bla
    Svgalib:    Error:   bla
        
  • Add scancode 128-255 for non-PC keys like F13 -- F24, more keypad keys, etc., update all display targets to use this.

  • Also see the text todo file, kept around to quickly enter stuff while hacking: todo.