[MAME] CPS3 online with Mame32++ .116u4.1?

[Kurgan]

I've noticed a lot of people having problems with CPS3 emulation (getting the 'Insert cd-rom" message) in u4 and u4.1.

Is it just me or is it "broken" in this release? I haven't actually tried it yet myself, but I've heard complaints.

According to Mamedev u4 is the latest version until .117 comes out, which I imagine won't be too long (a week?).

The DDEMame page (Mame32++) says that .116u4.1 is actually based on u3 (where CPS3 is confirmed working) so shouldn't it work this time too?

Please post your feedback here (or in the bugs forum)

[civilian]

If I read it correctly, they were trying to get the cd-rom emulation part of that hardware working properly? I mean...it is a documentation project! Its intended, not a bug.

[gothic_hobbit]

Yeah, i've come across that too. People will just have to use the previous version until it gets fixed.

[civilian]

There isn't really anything to fix. For example, in 3s if you choose "ReWrite the game" once, the game'll run as normal offline without going through the rewriting stuff. The only downside is that u have to wait 30-40 minutes every time u start a game online lol. The merit goes to poop capcom hardware. I suppose someone could make a CD emulation hack to accelerate the process but I strongly doubt that u'll get anything our of the officials.

[gothic_hobbit]

So the older version that went straight into the game was inaccurate emulation ? They could have at least left an option in to do that. Well at least it runs at full speed on my 2ghz PC

[Kurgan]

Well, if there are hacks to skip the cd check, then the online versions should just use those.

Mamedev won't because they want "accuracy" above all. Waiting 30-40 minutes before each online game will never fly with this crowd.

It's a good excuse for them to kill any potential it has for the online fanboys though!

But yeah, sorta like the deco cassette games, only much worse (and most of those games weren't two players at once anyway).

[Master O]

I was under the impression that you had to let the game go through the installation process, then once it loads, there will be a 70 mb or so nvram file in your \mame\nevram folder.

After that, load it as normal. There is also a "NO CD" version for one of the games, too. I forget which one though.

[Kurgan]

The loading thing is really unnecessary. You can grab the Nvram file from a friend and never have to worry about waiting.

For online play, only an idiot would sit there for 30 minutes when they could just use the NOCD (there is a "NOCD" version of each CPS3 game, though not every language region of every game) hack instead and go right to the game.

All the "NOCD" does is skip the cd check (tricking it into thinking the CD was already loaded). If you want to play the NOCD version of SFIII:TS for example in US/English, you can go into the dip switch menu and change the region to USA from Japan.

Of course online dipswitch changes don't carry over in Mame32++ if I'm not mistaken, but it's not really a big deal. So what, are the post-match taunts in Japanese text? Nobody really cares about that stuff anyway in quick multiplayer matches.

Version .117u2 is out, but the "NOCD" games have been supported since .116u4, iirc, so really there's no reason, unless you really want to see it loading the cd protection.

[civilian]

The loading is unnecessary regardless. You don't even need the chd. If you skim through cps3.c (the cps3 drivers file) you'll think the same. Those chds are the original cd r0m image of sfiii3. When the original cd r0m loads, they are copied to cps3's flash r0m to be loaded from there instead of the incredibly slow cd r0m. most files in the sfii3.zip romset are dumps of the flash r0m which are loaded and used by the "special" no-cd romsets. Think the bios file of the no-cd romset and the default cd loading romset differs by 2 bytes. Thats what earlier versions of mame used to make the testing process faster. I'd think that the difference in the final game played, cd or no cd and whichever country is just the same couple of bytes in the bios reigon. Of course, the latest emus don't load those flash dumps with their default sfiii3.zip romset so its impossible do without the no-cd romset or have the flash writing reemulated(if not already done).

[Kurgan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought even if you used the NOCD versions of the games, you still needed the CHD file in the proper directory in order for Mame32++ to recognize the game at all... (since the parent set requires it)

Am I mistaken?

If you don't need to have the CHD's installed to play online, that would certainly be good news to a lot of folks!

[civilian]

yes you are mistaken

sfiii3n will load without any chds.
it just needs the folloing files to run no-cd version of 3s:

sfiiin.zip:
sfiii3_japan_nocd.29f400.u2 00080000 usr1 00000000

sfiii3.zip:
10 00800000 usr4 00000000
20 00800000 usr4 00800000
30 00800000 usr5 00000000
31 00800000 usr5 00800000
40 00800000 usr5 01000000
41 00800000 usr5 01800000
50 00800000 usr5 02000000
51 00800000 usr5 02800000
60 00800000 usr5 03000000
61 00800000 usr5 03800000

and with reigon hack, sfiii3n will show whatever language/version of game you are after with no cd loading

[Kurgan]

Nice. So online players can skip the CHD's!

Good to know.