Recommended software-setup for Raspberry Pi 3 MAME-machine wanted.

[ZarathustraDK]

It's all in the headline. Which software should I use for a dedicated arcade-frontend-like MAME-machine if I'm on a Raspberry pi 3?

OS: Dietpi? https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/216
DE / X-windowmanager: ? (I suppose attract need some kind of graphical environment to run in)
Which version of MAME: ? (performance vs newer something something)
Which Romset: ?

I'm currently trying to compile on raspbian jessie, which I guess would be a waste of resources; but right now it's the only distro I've managed to get both samba and wifi to work on concurrently (samba is black magic to me), so i figured I'd cut my teeth on that until I knew the optimal software-composition.

[omegaman]

Raspbian works fine for me on my PI2. Optimized for the pi, supports wireless out of box. What's not to like. 

[ZarathustraDK]

Raspbian works fine for me on my PI2. Optimized for the pi, supports wireless out of box. What's not to like. 

Ok? I just got the impression there was a lot of hullaballo about using a lean image in order to optimize performance. Which MAME do you use, and when does it start to choke (for instance it'll probably run Double Dragon full speed, but not Street Fighter 4; when does the hardware-limitations start to take its toll)?

[verion]

If you are using full distro - you have almost everything working out-of-the box, but you end up with big image full of stuff that you are not using. It really doesn't matter performance wise - if you are using a window manager that is low on resources like JWM. Only real downside is that you have a bigger image to back up / restore / host for download. And maybe a few seconds longer boot-up.

You can always start with arcade oriented distro like RetroPie and replace default FE for AM. Big bonus is that you'll start with preconfigured emulators already backed-in.

---

But if you really know what you are doing (or redoing it from scratch) you can use small base - like DietPi or minibian - and build upon it using only stuff that is really needed.

[ZarathustraDK]

Ah that's nice to know. I already have a retropie setup on an RPi2 (stuffed in a GAEMS Vanguard case, dedicated to all pre-N64 consoles; I've made an arcade-cabinet for my current MAME-project). I guess I could steal the emulator installation script from there and build on top of Jessie, I'm not really keen on taking retropie to the chop-shop

[omegaman]

Well, there is a minimal raspian image that you can download as well. But, then you'll need to add packages to it, if you want to use AM.  With any distro you can take out the stuff you don't want. I wanted something with some balance out of the box, and raspian makes it super easy to optimize. Try to configure wireless, or even Ethernet on a barebones image, it's a pain in the arse. Granted, for Linux experts it's probably a walk in the park, but still a pain.

Raspian, boots in a few seconds right out the box. I just uninstalled all the crap that I didn't need or want. My system boots right into AM in seconds. That said, nitro-widget is working on a new release of dietpi with AM installed, if you want something super light.

[ZarathustraDK]

A little update:

I went with raspbian jessie. Compiled Attract Mode, it works.

But...

Then I installed all the mame emulators available from source (wanted to try out some different ones) using the retropie-script. They got installed alright, but strange errors abound:

advance-mame (both 0.94 and 1.4) refuses to run in X since the script compiled them to use framebuffer instead of SDL. I have no idea how to compile it with sdl support. Tried running it another tty but it complained of missing roms even though the path was correct in the .rc-file.

mame4all doesn't recognize 7zip'ed roms, it runs fine if I unpack the contents into a dir, but that's hella messy. Kinda strange.

Also tried compiling advmame manually, but by then there were conflicts and broken packages because the retropie-script had installed a bunch of stuff not in the repos.

I think I'll wait for image nitrogen widget is cooking up 

[omegaman]

Here you go, this blog has some great info on how to get mame to run on the pi. And, you will also find a compiled versions of mame 0.171 for RP2, and MAME4ALL 0.37b5 RPI  I don't think there is a complied version for RP3 yet, but all the info is there to compile yourself.

http://choccyhobnob.com/mame-for-raspberry-pi2/

[ZarathustraDK]

Sorry Omegaman, I've given up for now. There just isn't enough info out there yet on compiling stuff specifically for the RPi3, and stuff compiled for the RPi2 is a no-go (tried the 0.171 you linked, it took 30 seconds just to load mame).

I can get Jessie on there and have the hardware work. But then get stumped at the "AM wants X but advmame doesn't"-problem and the "compiling-instructions are there, but not with hardware- and X-support"-problem.

I'm absolutely positive that it should be possible, I'm just not good enough I can solve dependencies and do basic compilation, but I'm at a loss if I have to start editing make-scripts and configure flags.

This would be the ideal setup so far: Image for the RPi3 with Dietpi, whatever X-setup that makes sense, AM (hardware-accelerated?), Advmame 0.94 & 1.4 (compiled to work with X in order to work with AM and hardware-accelerated), wifi-setup-script (think it comes with DietPi), samba-shares setup.

For now here's a script I stumbled upon that compiles and installs AM succesfully on a clean install (works on RPi3 + Jessie):

Code: [Select]

cd ~
mkdir develop
sudo apt-get install cmake libx11-dev libx11-xcb-dev libflac-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libopenal-dev libjpeg8-dev libfreetype6-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-image0-dev libxcb-util0-dev libxrandr-dev libxcb-ewmh-dev libxcb-keysyms1-dev libxcb-icccm4-dev libudev-dev libavutil-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavfilter-dev libswscale-dev libavresample-dev libfontconfig1-dev
cd ~/develop
git clone -b rpi https://github.com/mickelson/SFML sfml-pi
mkdir sfml-pi/build;cd sfml-pi/build
cmake -DEGL_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/vc/include -DEGL_LIBRARY=/opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so -DFREETYPE_INCLUDE_DIR_freetype2=/usr/include -DFREETYPE_INCLUDE_DIR_ft2build=/usr/include/freetype2 -DGLES_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/vc/include -DGLES_LIBRARY=/opt/vc/lib/libGLESv1_CM.so -DSFML_BCMHOST=1 ..
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ~/develop
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mickelson/attract attract
cd attract
make
sudo make install


[omegaman]

No problem, I know how frustrating it can be. Hopefully, I will get my PI3 today - its been 7 days already. Then, I can join in on the fun, too. But, I'm going to use retroarch for all my emulators. I know the mame libretro cores run pretty well on the RPI2, so that is where I'm leaning.   

Anyway, if i'm not mistaken, I think nitro made the switch from advmame to retroarch as well. The link I gave you was on how to compile the lastest mame from source. And, I think the steps would be the same, just with updated core instructions.

It would be cool, if we could get the latest mame working like those guys did on the RPI2.   

[ZarathustraDK]

I think it'd be counterproductive to run mame 0.171 (unless it's for the sake of running 0.171 ofc ); on the RPi2 they talk about 50% slowdowns running Outrun and Gauntlet with 0.171. Color me optimistic but I expect to play more than Donkey Kong and Galaga at full speed on the RPi3

Retroarch huh? I'll take a look at it.

BTW I managed to compile advmame with SDL by using "./configure --disable-fb". It seems to work, it doesn't complain about X anymore, it just can't find the roms.

But but but... the same thread discouraged the use of sdl since that would rule out use of OpenGL ES (which the pi supposedly is capable of).

So that's the next conundrum: Running Attract Mode in X while launching the mame-client outside X for GL ES support. I gather GL ES support would be nice in regards to shaders, but I wonder if there is any performance gain emulation-wise.

[nitrogen_widget]

just download the retropie script & compile the emulators vs installing binaries under X.
I works just fine on RPI1 & RPI2.

My personal preference is mame .78 through retro arch.
You can use light weight glsl shaders to emulate a CRT with fairly decent results (would probably look better under some tinted plexi in a cabinet) and rom compatability is better than mame4all also advmame is gimped on X due to no sdl1 acceleration outside the frame buffer.

I THINK someone ported advmame to SDL2 but i havn't researched it fully.

My RPI3 shipped but i'm resurrecting (fixing up) a car right now so i have very little time to work on my images.

[ChoccyHobNob]

I'm still getting hits from this topic on my website, I suppose I should update the link.

http://choccyhobnob.com/software/mame/