19 replies to this topic

[Howard Roark]

Sorry for the basic questions but instead of reading the whole forum maybe you can possibly indulge me a few questions. I have read quite a bit, I can get the emulators to work. (Not got any from here but got some from other sites.)

I understand the main emulator is MFME which comes in various guises.I think there are a few more from what I read - that is JPemu, BFemu, FMEF and EPEE. Is this correct?

Also from what I have picked up MFME is the most popular and emulated more fruit machine technologies than the rest. I see when opening MFME a lot of technologies are mentioned but do they all fully work? If not do the others cover this?

Are emulators being worked on for other technologies or has everything been done? I'm more interested in the emulation than I guess playing the games. Thanks for any help and thanks for what is a very interesting site.

[ady]

Thanks for the comments on the site Howard....

I'm no programmer at all!....but a very few 'toy' with the coding.

Don't give-up on the thread if you only get a few slow replies as thats kinda 'specialist' grounds.

MFME is by far the most popular.

Nice to see a new member 'join in'.....you may find some past threads using the search function for names that may be able to tell you more.

[Matty.N]

Sorry for the basic questions but instead of reading the whole forum maybe you can possibly indulge me a few questions. I have read quite a bit, I can get the emulators to work. (Not got any from here but got some from other sites.)

I understand the main emulator is MFME which comes in various guises.I think there are a few more from what I read - that is JPemu, BFemu, FMEF and EPEE. Is this correct?

Also from what I have picked up MFME is the most popular and emulated more fruit machine technologies than the rest. I see when opening MFME a lot of technologies are mentioned but do they all fully work? If not do the others cover this?

Are emulators being worked on for other technologies or has everything been done? I'm more interested in the emulation than I guess playing the games. Thanks for any help and thanks for what is a very interesting site.

First of all welcome Howard

now to answer your questions

MFME/BFMulator/JPemu are all emulators that are ready for download in the downloads section

EPEE is a mythical emulator that has never seen the light of day and never will as the coding team would not divulge any information about the said project, they wouldnt even release the Debugger which is a critical part of the emulation process, but they wanted lots of help/ other things for a few screenshots. (Best waiting for other people to comment on this/read other threads on here & PC forums (fruit-forums) as i wasn't around when this happened & picked up bits from various threads)

Yes MFME is the most popular as it runs a majority (i use the term lightly as most techs do run but most are limited, IE MPU4 cant use video displays & Scorp 4 cant emualte CC talk)

But of all the techs listed in MFME a few dont work, those being epoch, Electrocoin Bar x, MPU4 video and BFMs old dot matrix's are upside down when used in MFME

As for any new emulators yes there is but progress is slow as the coder (Guitar as he is known on the forums) has other projects that take priorty, his emulator FMEF (Fruit Machine Emulation Forever) is open source i believe, also atm his emulator will only run MPU4 atm and that is nearng completion, FMEF will run most BWB roms,whereas MFME will only run a select few, also Guitar has said he will start work on the older electrocoin techs (the one used in Pyramid & its clones)


On a side note he says he plans to work ona new kind of emulator dubbed VBPoch, all that he has said publicly is that it will require a modded Epoch board so one assumes that the board will do most of the work & the emualtor will just emulate the reels/bulbs/payout etc etc

im sure other people will add in but i feel this is quite possibly everything, ive only been on the scene for about 15 months but this is what ive learned in that time

oh and the reason why MFME has all those techs listed but doesnt support them

blame whoever leaked the emulator & a few roms/layouts onto Usenet, its believed they have killed the scene, yes its slowing down but its not dying.... not quite yet

edit: would like to add Guitar plans to emulate the Castle tech aswell and hats something i look forward to (despite being surrounded by Noel & his cronies =/)

Edited by Matty.N, 21 December 2009 - 04:44 PM.

[Howard Roark]

Thanks for the replies guys.

So basically we don't have an all in one for everything but MFME covers most. Am I taking it correctly that MFME is no longer being worked on but still has many bugs/issues to iron out. Is it possible to fix these issues? I'm sure some of the MAME dev team could do something with it however this looks unlikely for the reasons you give.

Good news with FMEF and VBpoch. You mention these are open source. I can't find the code for these on this site is it best to contact the coder directly for this?

Thanks again I will continue to read around and see what else I can find.

[Matty.N]

Thanks for the replies guys.

So basically we don't have an all in one for everything but MFME covers most. Am I taking it correctly that MFME is no longer being worked on but still has many bugs/issues to iron out. Is it possible to fix these issues? I'm sure some of the MAME dev team could do something with it however this looks unlikely for the reasons you give.

Thats pretth much it but it isnt possible to fix the problems as the author Chris Wren/Wizard wont give the code away, but if anyone was to create a new emulator he will help you that way (as guitar said, he provided some crucial help when needed) and MAME/FME only come together in the way of getting some of the video slots working but its nothing really to do with MFME

Good news with FMEF and VBpoch. You mention these are open source. I can't find the code for these on this site is it best to contact the coder directly for this?

FMEF is open source but VBPoch is only a plan atm so im sure no such code exists, if you want the code it would probably be best to sign PM the member here known as Guitar, alternatively you could message him on the MPUMecca as he is more active on there as far as i can see

Mecca - The MPU Mecca - Unreal Portal

Thanks again I will continue to read around and see what else I can find.

Would probably be best reading the threads on fruit forums as thats where most of the action happened, a fair few threads will be invalid though as it was DDOS attacked at one point & a lot of data was lost

[c0nfu53d]

Thanks for the replies guys.



I can't find the code for these on this site is it best to contact the coder directly for this?

Try reading or starting a thread here FMEF - Fruit-Emu (Fruit Machine Emulation)

[Howard Roark]

Interesting replies guys.

I'm fairly sure from my knowledge of what goes into MAME (take a peek in the source code) a lot of it could go into a fruit machine emulator. If you check out the schematics there are a great deal of components emulated in MAME, CPU's sound chips for instance.

It is a shame the coder of MFME will not allow people to use his code to advance his work. Any other authors willing to share apart from the FMEF/Vbpoch guy? I'm very interested to take a look.

Thanks.

[Geddy]

I'm fairly sure from my knowledge of what goes into MAME (take a peek in the source code) a lot of it could go into a fruit machine emulator. If you check out the schematics there are a great deal of components emulated in MAME, CPU's sound chips for instance.

No doubt there is. Let's hope Wizzy did not break MAME's licence then eh hehe.

It is a shame the coder of MFME will not allow people to use his code to advance his work. Any other authors willing to share apart from the FMEF/Vbpoch guy? I'm very interested to take a look.

Tis a shame I guess since he won't be releasing again. However it is his so his choice. Doubt DT or Re-A will part with theirs either.

[jamesb99_1999]

MFME was the combined emulator - BFM was specifically aimed at BFM related techs by Re-Animator - and JPM for JPM based techs in the old days - MFME took over from them as a combines emulator. Many people believe some of the core coding is based on MAME stuff but the only people who could comment on that are the coders (Wizard/ DT and Re-Animator). Tony (DT) was the developer of JPMulator and Re-Animator was coding BFMulator - Wizard (Chris Wren) was the one who started it though and he and DT are credited on MFME. The reason many techs are listed on MFME many of which don't run are that they run in some versions of MFME and not others (always worth trying in a different version as the newest don't have all the techs.) and also that some were put on there ready for when Wizard got around to developing them.

Epee was a planned emulator which for whatever reasons didn't get off the ground/ was pulled.

FMEF is at the moment a VB based MPU4 emulator which is being worked on by GUITAR (it is not currently open source however in the long term he intends to make it so) - he is also trying to work on the related old techs to get them to work.

[Memap]

Double post, please delete

[Memap]

To go further back in time, MFME began life as MPU34 which emulated, as the name suggests, just MPU3 and MPU4 machines. Chris wrote that and was looking to sell it as all that existed at the time was made up fruit machines in shockwave flash (an up to date version of the fruit machine simulators of days gone by for the Sinclair Spectrum and the like). Unfortunately for Chris, the emulator was made available for free to the public and back then the scene revolved around the old FruitForums board (and before that a god awful message board). That was when the scene was at its most ground-breaking with DXs just starting to be built and new lamping techniques being figured out with better software releases of Photoshop and PSP and both of them being made available on torrent sites and therefore at the asking price of the average FME leecher. Harvey (DXer of Viva Espana and others) used to own the FruitForums board but shipped it on to Alex Maroney after quite a major shitstorm. Can't remember the details but it was around the time that ..........
Anyway, back to the story. Basically, Chris walked away from the scene after mpu34 had been pushed into the public domain and the editor wasn't public domain. It was also possible to release locked layouts back then so that they couldn't be edited and improved upon. After a while, JPeMu came to fruition (no pun intended) and thereafter I believe Tony Friery (DialTone) got in touch with Chris and they worked together to integrate JPM technology into the MPU34 software, taking the step of the MAME nomenclature and going with MFME seemed the logical step and M1A support (including a version of The Italian Job) was released over Christmas many years ago (2003/4 I think), as well as integrating RA's work on BFeMulator. While some things improved, certain fruitloops still existed in the community and some of the stalwarts drifted away while others set up other forums. Personally, I would have loved the scene to have stayed on one site, but there are to many egos about. I think my last release was either Excalibur DX or Rich & Famous DX but I've not looked at doing layouts for a long time. Probably won't do either, but I've still got a Squids In and a Fruit Explosion top glass at home as well as a stack of flyers to be scanned in. Oh and I found a few manuals the other day. Might get round to digging some dev tools out again at some point but yeah, the scene had very humble and less from honourable beginnings. It's no longer humble....

[cardie]

Thank you for the post. I love scene history and any nuggets of new info are always welcome.

bj

Even I dont remeber all that, I do about roadhog though

[Matty.N]

fruit forums

pc forums

f***ed up forums

|:

im scared

[Memap]

Ah yes, the other legendary place that courted a lot of controversy. Maroney's Web Hovel. Long gone, just like poundrun forums. Kev that scottish ponce had a forum going at the start too, but Harvey was too cool to worry about that and so was Kev Mc in the end.

One other event/person springs to mind. Dave Headwound. Well, actually, Nicky Special. Except he was special in a different way. You know those fresh graduates in a suit who think they're the only ones in the office with a degree sort of special....

[ritdav]

Just to add Gary in fact made the very first dx viva espana .I'll leave others to explain what happend to him.Also I believe there was a threat of legal action when Chris tried to sell the emulator so he made it freeware although there is another version

[Memap]

Just to add Gary in fact made the very first dx viva espana .I'll leave others to explain what happend to him.Also I believe there was a threat of legal action when Chris tried to sell the emulator so he made it freeware although there is another version

Was it Duty Free that Harvey did? Both robbing barstools

[Memap]

Ah yes, nearly forgot about the legal issue. Essentially Chris didn't want to be done for copyright infringement.

Gary was close to Empire Games at the time and someone f***ed up the relationship with them by releasing current (at that time) games.

[jim2311]

Ah yes, nearly forgot about the legal issue. Essentially Chris didn't want to be done for copyright infringement.

Gary was close to Empire Games at the time and someone f***ed up the relationship with them by releasing current (at that time) games.

 

Please, please... lets not drag up the past again by resurrecting a 4 year old post that may start finger pointing and leading on to something more serious. We just had a sore, and sometimes embarrassing, 15 round heavy weight bout a few month back.