Mac SDL MESS - WTF?

[Bruce Tomlin]

It doesn't look like anyone cares about making new versions of MacMESS, much less trying to get it to compile on anything current (I tried a couple of months ago on my MacBook Pro and found that they linked in the closed-source WasteLib which is still not officially released for Intel yet). And the thing is buggy as hell anyhow, even crashing half the time when I try to quit from it, and many other wonderful subtle things. The last straw for me was when I tried the Sega Genesis emulation in the most recent version (101?) and was greeted with an obvious endian bug in the VDP drivers.

 

So I finally decided to try this SDL thing since someone was actually trying to keep up with it. The install of SDL was a bit less easy than most installs (it was in a .dmg image, but it made you manually drag a framework into /Library/Something) But then I tried to get SDL MESS running. First of all, it's a command-line binary, okay, that's fine, but that's about all I can figure out.

 

There seems to be some sort of windowed interface, as there's a screen shot of a game select window on the web site. (macmess.org)

 

But when I unzipped it, there were basically no examples on how to run the damn thing. Oh, sure, there were instructions for compling it (not useful since I downloaded the BINARY version!), and a bunch of lists of command line parameters... but no examples of useful commands to do things like getting that windowed interface without groping in the dark for hours.

 

And most of the command parameters are for the Windows version, and the Windows version of MAME at that. Like a Mac OS X user is going to be familiar with command line MAME on Windows. Oh yeah, and thanks a lot for telling me how to run MAME when I downloaded MESS. I know they share a lot of the same codebase, but one emulates individual arcade games, and the other emulates consoles/computers that play games. There's an extra level of stuff that needs to be specified. And besides, I want to run the freaking windowed interface.

 

This is exactly why I've hated mplayer for Windows the few times I've run it, and loved VLC. VLC just works, but mplayer wants you to be able to type in your video name from the command line just in case you're masochistic enough to prefer it that way. (yeah, I hear mplayer has a windowed version somewhere, but they don't make it an obvious download)

 

So can someone just tell me how to use it in a way that doesn't presume I enjoy typing long shell commands with lots of paths and file names? Or doesn't assume that I am already familiar with using it on a completely different operating system?

 

Maybe they should have a FAQ contest before they have an icon contest?

[+remowilliams]

I'm running the MESS binaries from http://www.macmess.org/ as well as the MacSDLMESS front end.

 

Assuming that everything is how it should be for MESS, you should only need to run MacSDLMESS click the "+" inbetween "Pick App" and "Play" and point it at the MESS binary. It should then read the list of supported systems, then you can click on a specific system and set the runtime options (including cart roms, disks, etc.) in the lower right hand window.

 

It's worth noting that the MESS binary seems to be named messpm, regardless of the architecture. It also does not have executable flags set by default when it's extracted so it will appear as a "document"

 

Now if someone could tell me how to type a "Help" key on a frigging PB/MBP keyboard - I'd be set! Help toggles the UI options on emulated computers in macmess.

Edited December 12, 2006 by remowilliams

[Bruce Tomlin]

Assuming that everything is how it should be for MESS, you should only need to run MacSDLMESS click the "+" inbetween "Pick App" and "Play" and point it at the MESS binary. It should then read the list of supported systems, then you can click on a specific system and set the runtime options (including cart roms, disks, etc.) in the lower right hand window.

What "+"? What "Pick App"? What "Play"? Point what how?

 

I downloaded the Intel binary version (which for some reason is called "PM" -- what does that stand for anyhow? apparently not PowerMac) and there are only a few binaries, none of which is a .app bundle. Double-clicking on "messpm" just brings up a terminal window with the basic "you didn't give me any parameters" usage message.

 

And I can't even seem to manually get one game to work from the command line... it says "Usage: MESS <system> <device> <software> <options>" but when I try "messpm gen_usa cart file.bin" it says "Error: unknown option: cart".

 

Is there something special you have to do to run an SDL-based program? And if so, maybe they should have added info on that with MacSDLMESS under the assumption that, oh, I don't know, maybe the average Mac OS X user has never done it or anything like it before?

Edited December 12, 2006 by Bruce Tomlin

[+remowilliams]

What "+"? What "Pick App"? What "Play"? Point what how?

 

The MacSDLMESS GUI below. Did you download both MacSDLMESS (the frontend GUI) and SDLMESS 0.110 (MESS itself)?

 

 

I downloaded the Intel binary version (which for some reason is called "PM" -- what does that stand for anyhow? apparently not PowerMac) and there are only a few binaries, none of which is a .app bundle. Double-clicking on "messpm" just brings up a terminal window with the basic "you didn't give me any parameters" usage message.

Yeah, PM would usually indicate the architecture and is a bit confusing, but ultimately irrelevant. You could name it Bob if you wanted to. If you read the windows.txt (under docs) you'll see command line options. Or you can run 'messpm -showusage' or 'messpm -listdevices' to see more information and per system info.

 

Is there something special you have to do to run an SDL-based program? And if so, maybe they should have added info on that with MacSDLMESS under the assumption that, oh, I don't know, maybe the average Mac OS X user has never done it or anything like it before?

Yes, you need to have the SDL runtime libraries installed before you can run any SDL compiled app. This is covered briefly in the Read Me.rtf that is included with MacSDLMESS.

[Bruce Tomlin]

What "+"? What "Pick App"? What "Play"? Point what how?

 

The MacSDLMESS GUI below. Did you download both MacSDLMESS (the frontend GUI) and SDLMESS 0.110 (MESS itself)?

Yeah, I saw that nice picture. But I don't see a separate download for the frontend GUI. Or at least no link with "GUI" anywhere near it. Wait, you mean that link at the top without "GUI" anywhere near it IS the GUI? @#(*%&)Q@#$!@!!!!!!!!!

 

Putting the GUI in a separate download from the core is annoying enough (see my rant about mplayer for Windows), but having it named almost the same as the core without an explicit "I AM THE GUI! RIGHT HERE!" is even more annoying. Even just an extra <HR> tag would have been enough clue for me to figure it out.

[Bakasama]

Putting the GUI in a separate download from the core is annoying enough (see my rant about mplayer for Windows), but having it named almost the same as the core without an explicit "I AM THE GUI! RIGHT HERE!" is even more annoying. Even just an extra <HR> tag would have been enough clue for me to figure it out.

 

I know of your pain, I never understood how to get SDL versions of MacMAME and MacMESS to run. Making KOF 2003 and many Neo Geo hacks are brainddead easy to complie in regular MacMAME than getting that SDL program to work.

 

Since you're ranting about the frontend being separate from the program, I bad news for you, that's the future of those programs.