Mess System Bios Roms
Using bios roms with Mame is an inert process, mame will actively look for and use a relevant bios when it requires it without you needing to do anything. If you're using mame32/UI it might be worthwhile auditing the bios roms and the game roms you are trying to play to see if mame is reporting any files missing. Placing Bios's in folder.
I like the way you determine mess roms softlist systems based on their path, this is a great strategy for the complexity of loading mess roms in a mame romset. (although maybe you need to refresh the instructions here as in mame now as it doen't seem like you can any longer go -rompath D:GamesMultiMESS 2014snes snes tmnt4j for MESS system games)
Electric Blush's comment here though is in fact a showstopper for most everyone - its been quite a few years now since softlists stopped having the system rom (e.g.: a5200.zip) itself as part of the softlist, so its highly unlikely and extremely cumbersome to manually put each one there, and these days people are more inclined to have a separate software list folder apart from a mame roms folder as thats the way the dats are (so the bios rom for a system won't be 'parallel' to the soflist roms dir either). I think therefore that in effect most new Retroarch MAME users won't be able to load any MESS roms at all (except a very few like nes or gamegear which don't need a bios) because you set the found Softlist directory as the sole rom path. Note that even shoegazer (see 32x section for long discussion on retroarch) fell into this trap.
Ideal solution would be to allow >1 path to be specified on the command line (just as MAME allows) so that you can specify where the Mame ROMS directory is (which is where most users will have their system bios files). My interest is getting this working from the command line asap - Just from trial and error it looks to me like atm you don't seem to determine the end of a quoted path ' and you capture rom path including the closing ' until the end of the string. If you could fix this, split paths by semicolon, and allow >=2 rom paths, everyone could play MESS games with the MAME core (unless you have a better suggestion?). I think that's important since the MESS collection is undoubtably the biggest and most varied core in retroarch
| Developer(s) | Originally MESS Team, now MAME Team |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1998; 21 years ago |
| Stable release | 0.213 (September 4, 2019; 6 days ago[1])[±] (as part of MAME) |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Emulator |
| License | |
| Website |
Multi Emulator Super System (MESS) is an emulator for various consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core and now a part of MAME. MESS emulates portable and console gaming systems, computer platforms, and calculators. The project strives for accuracy and portability and therefore is not always the fastest emulator for any one particular system. Its accuracy makes it also useful for homebrew game development.[2]
As of April 2015 MESS supported 994 unique systems with 2,106 total system variations.[3] However, not all of the systems in MESS are functional; some are marked as non-working or are in development. MESS was first released in 1998 and has been under constant development since.
MAME and MESS were once separate applications, but were later developed and released together from a single source repository.[4] MAMEDEV member David Haywood maintained and distributed UME (Universal Machine Emulator) which combined much of the functionality of MAME and MESS in a single application.[5] More recently, on May 27, 2015, MESS was formally integrated with MAME and became a part of MAME.[6]
License[edit]
MESS was distributed under the MAME Licence, which allowed for the redistribution of binary files and source code, either modified or unmodified, but disallowed selling MESS or using it commercially.[7] The license is similar to other copyleft licenses in requiring that rights and obligations provided in the license must be remain intact when MESS or derivative works are distributed.
In addition to the MESS Licence, The MESS Team required that: 'MESS must be distributed only in the original archives. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version, nor to remove and/or add files to the archive. Adding one text file to advertise your web site is tolerated only if your site contributes original material to the emulation scene.'[8] The MAME license required source code be included with versions of MESS that are modified from the original source, while the MESS legal page states that when distributing binary files 'you should also distribute the source code. If you can't do that, you must provide a pointer to a place where the source can be obtained.'
Mess And Mame Rom Set
While MESS was available in both binary and source code forms, the restrictions on commercial exploitation cause it to fall outside of the Free Software Foundation's definition of free software. Similarly MESS was not considered to be open source software if appraised according to the criteria of the Open Source Definition.
Challenges[edit]
Generally the emulation only includes raw hardware logic, such as for the CPU and RAM, and specialized DSPs such as tone generators or video sprites. The MESS emulator does not include any programming code stored in ROM chips from the emulated computer, since this may be copyrighted software.
Obtaining the ROM data by oneself directly from the hardware being emulated can be extremely difficult, technical, and expensive, since it may require desoldering of integrated circuit chips from the circuit board of the device they own. The desoldered IC is placed into a chip reader device connected to a USB or serial port of another computer, with pin sockets on the reader specifically designed to match the chip package shape in question, to perform a memory dump of the ROM to a data file.
Removal of a soldered chip is often far easier than reinstalling it, especially for extremely small surface mount technology chips, and the emulated device in question may be effectively destroyed beyond recovery after the ROM has been removed for reading.
However, if one has a working system, it is far easier to dump the ROM data to tape, disk, etc. and transfer the data file to one's target machine.
Uses[edit]
In 2013 the Internet Archive began to provide abandonware games browser-playable via JSMESS (a JavaScript port of the MESS emulator), for instance, the Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[9]
Mess Bios Roms
See also[edit]
Mess Roms Download
References[edit]
- ^'Releases - mamedev/mame'. Retrieved 4 September 2019 – via GitHub.
- ^Grand, Joe; Frank Thornton; Albert Yarusso (2004). Game Console Hacking: Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, Atari, & Gamepark 32. Syngress. p. 506. ISBN1-931836-31-0.
- ^'Welcome to the MESS Wiki!'.
- ^'Let the games begin'. MAME development team. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
- ^'UME 0.148 (Universal Machine Emulator)'. David Haywood. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
- ^http://www.mamedev.org/?p=406
- ^'MESS Licence'. The MESS Development Team. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2016.Cite uses deprecated parameter
deadurl=(help)CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link) - ^'MESS Legal'. The MESS Development Team. Archived from the original on 4 July 2010. Retrieved 4 July 2010.Cite uses deprecated parameter
deadurl=(help)CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link) - ^Robertson, Adi (2013-10-25). 'The Internet Archive puts Atari games and obsolete software directly in your browser'. The Verge. Retrieved 2013-10-29.
External links[edit]
- Historical Software at Internet Archive
- Arcade Database Database containing details of any game supported by Mame/Mess, including past versions. There are images, videos, programs for downloading extra files, advanced searches, graphics and many other resources.