72 replies to this topic

[tga]

oh to enable the artwork, might not come up as default, press tab , video options, should be able to select it in there if you popped into your artwork folder

[tga]

other thing that needs doing, the feature board needs rotating 90 degrees anticlockwise. would need to change lamp co-ordinates , might take a screeny of mame, load it into photoshop and match the res the layout was made for. then rotate in photoshop and get x-y-z from the marker. hell of a lot of lamps to move round.

[tga]

having to look at the ecoinf3.c code, spotted a few things i think.

PORT_BIT( 0x20, IP_ACTIVE_LOW, IPT_BUTTON3 ) - exchange button me thinks , think the little red button

 

also.

 

DECLARE_READ8_MEMBER(ppi8255_intf_d_read_c)
87   {
88   // guess, what are the bottom 4 bits, if anything?
89  
90   int ret = m_optic_pattern | (ioport("IN0")->read() & 0xf);
91  
92   // | 0x80 = reel 4 fault
93   // | 0x40 = reel 3 fault
94   // | 0x20 = reel 2 fault
95   // | 0x10 = reel 1 fault

 

i think these are the index reel checks mentioned in the manual ( thanks spa, i found your post for the pyramid h/w manual) haze had problems with the sound, unsure of the chip. according to the manual , its yamaha based, unsure of the number, if anyone has the machine, and able to take a picture of the board , would be really helpful.

 

I'm going to mail haze with what ive found, rather than do my own build, im hoping he might be able to work with me on this one.

[tga]

have mailed el-condor at agemame, hopefully he can pass on my findings to haze and get the ball rolling a bit more. I know he's busy so im not holding my breath. If the reel emulation becomes 100% accurate and the exchange button mapped. sphinx should be playable.

[tga]

small update, on the agemame site, a modified .lay file has been posted for doctor who.  The new lay file add's the correct changes for the layout to work with the new mame.  Anyone interested in having a go should go straight for this, will need the original .zip to get the images from.

[tga]

in the meantime , to keep myself busy im going to start working out and posting the lamping setup.  theres a way to get mame to bring up a x-y marker while ingame. and use the mouse to look at co-ordinates. i could just work out the layout looking at the locations, but this might be quicker for pinpointing a specific lamp.

[tga]

hmm can only get the x-y marker if i make it a lightgun game , probs just gonna figure the x-y and do lamps that way.  soon as i sober up ,will post some later, ive started adding some decals and images to the layout. i want to get the feature board playable later .

[tga]

Been spending a while looking at the ecoin_200step , this is call in the steppers.c/.h that sets the reel pattern.  Mame has emulated the reels with a half step motion,. so for 1 step of a reel , its actually 2 steps. you can see in the emu that when nudges come up , the reel moves, but then completely looses position.

 

people get this fault on the real machine where the reels wont stay in alignment. So there must be a reel index check that modifies the motor input as the reels spin. this will probs determine final location. When reading through the pyramid hardware manual, i notice the reels checks match a optic, so i dunno if the optic input could be the final position of the reel. If the board outputs a index check that calls a stop to the motor. or if it is something simple with the reels only half stepping when should be full steps.  either way , its one of these 3 or maybe a couple of them.

 

Its looking more and more likely i will need to start building my own custom build of mame (for testing), also i want to try and switch the sound driver to a yamaha based chipset and see if i can get proper output.

 

the other silly thing the reel problem could be, i noticed the reel emulation is working in reverse.  as the nudges sometimes move up , im just wondering if it could be that.

 

If anyone wants a pop at trying to figure this out , look here

 

http://mamedev.org/s...steppers.c.html

 

at the ecoin_200step_reel entry. it could be the above mentioned things, or could just be the motor input needs doubling or something. im going to get the source and see what i can come up with. 

[tga]

also just as a note , the pyramid h/w manual can be found here

 

https://docs.google....p=sharing&pli=1

[tga]

great knowing none of the new visual studio express installs don't work with windows 8.1

[tga]

small update, going to produce a fruit-emu only version of mame for testing, i dunno if anyone has seen how long mame takes to compile, even on a quad-core , takes some time........

 

i also need to fully understand the emu , which is where im struggling a bit, going to really delve into c# and look into it, might be a little while before i post anything new , but this side of things needs to be sorted before anything else can happen really.

 

i have a working temp layout for sphinx, but without the machine being emulated properly its a bit of a waste.   I noticed all the mpu 4 games in mame have the 3.2 lamp error , i might put the hack in , get this working then people can move/create new layouts for the mpu 4 machines in mame.

 

hopefully in a few days i will know enough about z180 functions and the ports that are emulated.  From here i can look at whats happening, debug the motor inputs , understand them.  and hopefully work out a way to get the emulation in-line.  maybe look at the stepper emulation a bit more.  Unfortunately i know nothing of these things or how they work at the moment.

 

hopefully a bit of time and dedication might get me somewhere, i hope so.  Will keep you all posted.

[fuzion]

Would you possibly be able to port the mame emulation code over to mfme source and build a version of mfme?  It would be pretty awesome as the editor in mfme is pretty easy to use to create layouts.

 

J

[fuzion]

Whatever you do though is fantastic, it's great to see you getting into this and it's a major help to the fme scene.

 

J

[Daryl]

it is Tommy mate...

 

...Follow the first post down on the front page, and you will see how many posts and comments have been made to it - yours was last, until I've just added this

 

http://www.fruit-emu...5#commentsStart

[niallquinn]

Somehow missed this thread....thanks for it!!!!!!!!

 

Cheers.

 

BF (NQ).

[richy1976]

Any more progress?

[tga]

things are a bit slow :/ been looking at the motor input a tiny little bit.  I will hopefully get a little time this weekend to plough on with it.  I should be able to post a Fruit only version of mame a bit later. Should aid with the compile time , so making changes and playing about will be a billion times quicker.

 

moving the emu code from mame to mfme could be possible, but would need author's permission and also would need to figure a reel step system within mfme, it would probs just be easier to modify the mame code till i can get it working accurately.

 

Lookin at the manual , some of the dip switches need to be off for the machine to work correctly, i also noticed some changes to the chr display when having a play.  So i think this needs a little investigation.

 

Hopefully will post a bit more later

[captainhaddock]

thanks for keeping us updated tga

 

Dave.