KiNOX's interview #10 |
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Target : Gridle Interviewer(s): MGandhi and #Gamerom (Brasnet) ppl Date : 99/08/28 |
This interview is a part of KiNOX's website.
It's an interesting chat with Gridle, one of the MAME programmers. Here you will know a lot of things which you wanted know but never asked! But remember, these are only the views of Gridle, and not the MAME team's only true opinion. I want to thanks the #GameROM ppl from Brasnet who helped us with the questions!
1. What's the MAME history?
During the period of December 1996 and January 1997, Nicola Salmoria had been working on several single arcade game emulators, which he merged, and the result was MAME 0.1, released [exactly] on 5th February 1997 (23:23 GMT+1)
2 - Who are the MAME programmers now?
The MAME team consists of over 50 (maybe over 100) skillful people, who are either active or non-active. Most of them have the Real-Life(tm). Syndrome, so they work on whatever they want, whenever they want and can.
3 - MAME is afraid of IDSA or any legal troubles?
No. MAME is not illegal (add whatever definitions of "gray legal areas" here), so there isn't anything to worry about.
4 - Some Kinox visitors always asks for me: When MAME will emulate CPS2?
Crack the main CPU encryption and it will be trivial. Note that even the bootleggers havent duplicated CPS-2 board, so the encryption is very difficult.
5 - What are the next news in MAME?
Follow the WIP page. It's too hard and usually useless to try to imagine the next direction where MAME goes. I was personally very surprised, and impressed with the Konami stuff when I got back from my vacation.
6 - Some months ago there were rumors about SEGA and MAME, saying that SEGA sent to MAME team a Dreamcast development kit, and soon they will release MAME in a Nostalgic Pack, is it true?
They were meant to send it to the MESS team since MAME focuses on arcade games. (No, it's not true ;-)
7 - What do you think about MAME clones (i.e: GeoMAME, AMAME etc)?
A/PMAME are soon useless, as soon as Allegro can be compiled with GCC 2.95 the Pentium optimizations will probably automatically be used in DOS MAME. Depends on Nicola though.
Most of the other unofficial MAMEs are unnecessary too, maybe with the exception of EMU+
8 - There are some claims about MAME speed, all agree that's fast but thinks it can be faster than the present speed, comment it.
The source is out there, so all the nonbelievers can go and optimize it. (Try speeding up the memory system first)
9 - What should be the next arcade boards emulated in MAME? We can expect System24?
You cant really expect anything. The driver developers normally dont send in drivers until they are mostly working.
10 - A special question, Hyper NeoGeo 64 emulation is a MAME team dream?
Doesnt that thing have RISC CPUs and 3D hardware? No way that is going to work soon ;-)
11 - Kinox always stimulate open source emulators, what's your opinion about it?
Just look at MAME? That doesnt need any opinions!
12 - Some times at eBay, Yahoo! Auctions etc, we find MAME for sell in CD compilations, comment it.
The license clearly says that it is illegal.
13 - We realized a poll at Kinox to choose what are the visitor's dream, and a special MAME version compiled only to run some drivers won, there is a chance to it happens?
You can do it yourself, but what's the point? Nobody forces you to gather the 1600 other roms that you dont need.
14 - The MAME team is working in MESS too?
The MAME and MESS teams are two separate entities. MESS team obviously isn't as big and easy project, so the progress is slower. The main problems between MAME and MESS are that the MAME core has to be modified a lot before it can be used in MESS, so new MAME versions usually force the MESS team to do a lot of changes and never reach the release quality. ;-)
15 - You recommend a frontend to use with MAME?
I dont. Frontends arent necessary for me, and I do all kinds of things faster manually
16 - MAME team is having troubles with something?
The endless stream of lamers asking silly questions over and over again.
17 - And now some personal questions, MAME emulates ton and tons of arcade games, but what's your preferred game/developer?
Bombjack and Bubble Bobble rank high up on my list.
18 - Well, and what's the still not emulated arcade game which you want see MAME running it?
Well, that must be Hard Drivin'.
MAME Emulator Project
http://mame.retrogames.com/ Gridle
(c) KiNOX