Gregory DG Posted January 5, 2002 Share Posted January 5, 2002 Ok, I'm no dummy when it comes to emulation... I've been into it ever since the early releases of Stella and having to create a unique file for each game, but I have yet to have a good experience with this emulator. No other emulator has given me such problems. MAME, Handy, ZSNES, KGEN, VB Advance, NESten, Gemulator, Virtual Colecovision... Everything but MESS seems to have an easy to use "Click this!" and it works mentality. But, MESS is true to it's namesake... It's a mess. And all I want it for is simple 7800 emulation... Can't someone update Virtual 7800 for me? I'd like to try some games I can't get for the 7800. One suggestion to the MESS programmers: When you pop up an error on the screen, how about some suggestions as to what to do to fix it?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 5, 2002 Share Posted January 5, 2002 I'm not part of the MESS team but if you post what kind of problems you are having either myself or someone else on the board can probably help you to get it working. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted January 6, 2002 Share Posted January 6, 2002 Yes, MESS can be a pain to get working (this coming from one of the developers!) But once you get it going it's not to bad to use. If you want to try the 7800 emulation be sure to use the previous version of MESS, a bunch of games that used to work don't work in the new version. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted January 6, 2002 Author Share Posted January 6, 2002 quoteI'm not part of the MESS team but if you post what kind of problems you are having either myself or someone else on the board can probably help you to get it working. Well, it's a bit irrelevent now, as I've decided to never use it. (Sorry guys.) This has been my second go 'round with MESS and it never works or even tells me what to do to fix the problem. Oh, just for the record: All I ever get from it is a generic error saying that it can't start the 7800 emulation. And I've placed the ROMs in the correct positions. (I know, because I've tried removing them and I get a different error.) Ah well. Let me know when there is a standalone 7800 emulator... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 6, 2002 Share Posted January 6, 2002 Sound's like a problem with your 7800.rom file. Either it's in the wrong place or you need to unzip it. However, if you don't want to Mess with it I guess it doesn't matter. As far as standalone 7800 emulators go, I am aware of several different attempts at it. But none of them have been really finished or made generally available. Who knows, maybe someday. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 6, 2002 Share Posted January 6, 2002 some of you guys remember my pain getting mess running and i fully agree with Greg. Mess is a mess. but i managed to run mess... how? well... the only tip i can gave you - download the actuall release on the mess website. - get the game f.e. joust which work 100% - put joust.a78 into /software folder - put 7800.rom into /bios/a7800 (with this spelling!!!) then start messgui.exe go to menu "options/directories" and check if the directories are correct set ("software" pointing to your rom image-folder and "bios" to your "Bios" folder) now try to click with the right mouse button on the "Atari 7800" in the "System" folder in the middle of the screen. you will get the properties for the emulation. even here you can check manually the paths to the directory and inser a rom manually. if all seems ok. close mess and restart it... the autodetection routine should now find your 7800 roms in the "software" folder when you click once on the "Atari 7800" system. there should now appear "Atari Joust" or something similar. double click on Joust and voile Emulation should start... there will 2 info screens popping up... one well known from mame (the system info) and a 2nd for the inserted cartridge (telling you have inserted joust). my pain was that mess never showed the inserted cartridge with the path to the rom file... finally if both messages appear...your emulation is correct and the only solution could be that the roms are corrupt...otherwise the atari logo will apear and after 5 seconds the joust logo... hope this helps a bit.... heaven ps. mess is pain in the ass... but the new release should work now even for newbies like us... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted January 7, 2002 Share Posted January 7, 2002 Well I have to say I find MESS pretty straight forward to use, especially given it is emulating a TON of systems, not just one. Simply place a valid OS ROM in the "bios" directory. The directory name is indicated by mess - the second column - and named the same as the directory - a7800/a7800.rom. Put the games anywhere you like and then right click on the system name Atari 7800, select properties and open the "software" tab - browse to the directory with ya roms in and bingo!!! Works every time for me... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted January 7, 2002 Author Share Posted January 7, 2002 Well, I did give it another try... (I refuse to let software beat me.) Problem was I was expecting MESS to have many of it's settings in there by default (ie directories for the game ROMs.) Now that I've tried it, I'm sorry to say that I'm not all that impressed. About the only thing it has going for it is 7800 emulation. Other system specific emulators do a better job... And I'm surprised 2600 emulation is not 100%. It will take several more releases before this one can compete with the more established emulators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted January 7, 2002 Share Posted January 7, 2002 Greg I am inclined to agree with you about the fact MESS only really does the 7800 well. It does do a pretty mean TI emulation also. I actually haven't tested anything else as I just use other emus more suited to the project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 i fully agree... the only reason for me to use mess is the a7800 emulation... for arcades i use MAME (what else?) 2600 - z26 800,130,5200 - atari 800win 2.8plus (THE best because updated from our coder so it is nearly 100% perfect, stereo sound, up to 1 mb ram supported!) gameboy/game boy color - no$cash (for coding, excellent!) GBA - boyscott c64 - ccs64 (THE best...) thats all machines i am using heavily. i have several msx, spectrum, super nintendo & other exotic 8bit emus and 16 bit like WinUAE (Amiga), STEmulator, WinonST(Atari ST) hmmm... seems i am sticked to 8bit & 16 bit machines & emulators... ;=) oh... btw... i have to download a Vectrex emulator... this is missing. the coleco emulator i can not remember, oops and a intelivision is also missong... jobs to do... i realized that when playing hundres of games on different machines it shows that the atari machines were not so bad compared to that what the media/marketing told us atarians... f.e. c64 games werent so much better than the atari versions (even often not from sound)... have to go to work (my 1st day after 2 weeks vacation... but i have coded a lot in this 2 weeks :=)) heaven http://www.s-direktnet.de/homepages/k_nadj/main.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 Colecovision emulation is pretty good via MESS also. Took awhile for me to get teh directories setup, but after that things went ok. MESS sometimes has a mind of its own when trying to find those pesky ROM files! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 ... and MESS contains the only Entex Adventurevision emualtor! Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted January 8, 2002 Share Posted January 8, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Greg @ TAT: Now that I've tried it, I'm sorry to say that I'm not all that impressed. About the only thing it has going for it is 7800 emulation. Other system specific emulators do a better job... And I'm surprised 2600 emulation is not 100%. The MESS engine is not really well suited to emulating the 2600 hardware so it is taking a lot of work to get it emulated in MESS. quote: It will take several more releases before this one can compete with the more established emulators. Well, we aren't actually trying to compete. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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