Mame On Pandora Question


zohnnyg

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if someone were to make a mame emulator on pandora would it be possible to use the stylus and touch screen to emulate a light gun for games like Area 51? (im not sure if pandora could run Area 51 its just the first game that came to mind that most people might recognize)
 
zohnnyg said:
if someone were to make a mame emulator on pandora would it be possible to use the stylus and touch screen to emulate a light gun for games like Area 51? (im not sure if pandora could run Area 51 its just the first game that came to mind that most people might recognize)
Yes, it is within the realm of possibility. Nobody can say whether or not they will write in that functionality, but they could.
 
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*drool*

MAME on Pandora.

*drool*

Will be fun hooking up to a TV too! :)

And yes, the touch screen input should work quite well as a light gun emulation. It would just have to implemented of course. The bigger question is what light gun games in MAME were based on hardware that the Pandora could emulate at decent speeds? We shall see someday I hope.
 
Prophet said:
*drool*

MAME on Pandora.

*drool*

Will be fun hooking up to a TV too! :)

And yes, the touch screen input should work quite well as a light gun emulation. It would just have to implemented of course. The bigger question is what light gun games in MAME were based on hardware that the Pandora could emulate at decent speeds? We shall see someday I hope.
Hmmm...some games that come to mind are Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbold, Beast Busters, Point Blank, Alien3, Dragon Gun, Gunbuster, Hogans Alley (Playchoice-10), Jurassic Park, Laser Ghost, Lethal Enforcers, Line of Fire, Rail Chase. All these games are in fairly older versions of mame and could possibly run fairly well. It's nice to know that there might be a possibility of playing light gun games in MAME on Pandora (if ported) Also even other emulators might be able to do light gun support if the authors decide to do it. I know PSX has the Point Blank and Time Crisis games, plus the gorgeous Elemental Gearbolt. Duck Hunt would be fun to play on NES, plus the earlier mentioned Hogan's Alley. There's so many cool possibilities that could come out of the Pandora.
 
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zohnnyg said:
if someone were to make a mame emulator on pandora would it be possible to use the stylus and touch screen to emulate a light gun for games like Area 51? (im not sure if pandora could run Area 51 its just the first game that came to mind that most people might recognize)
I like that idea. Could be a good thing to implement
 
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I'm just hoping you can comfortably hold the Pandora sideways for vertical shmups. Anyone with a mockup want to try that? Hold it so the screen is on the right, then have your left thumb on the right analog stick (so that left on the stick would actually be up), and your right hand pressing face buttons.
 
Or for vertical games, you could assign the buttons to spots on the touch screen.
Using left hand with face buttons or analog, and right hand on the screen.
 
I`ve just had a go at holding the pandora mock-up in the way squeakypants suggested, To play mame games in vertical orientation and found it quite awkward to imagine playing like this. The thing i found was, As you can see from the first pic, Your thumb is placed right-angle to the pad and seems to me that it may be a bit confusing, But thats just my opinion.

CIMG0642.JPG


Click for an enlarged picture

CIMG0640.JPG


Click for an enlarged picture

CIMG0643.JPG


Click for an enlarged picture

These two lower pictures are just two of my own suggestions that (at least for me) made playing in the vertical orientation a lot more easier, Plus the screen seemed better placed on the left side rather than the right.

But these are just my opinions and findings. YMMV.

Trooper
 
Thanks for the pics! I'll have to try myself, but the 2nd picture or 3rd picture may be best since you can use the dpad (which is better for shmups anyway).

Just out of curiosity, how did you make those mockups?
 
What I am more looking forward to, is hopeful eventual support for more advanced 68000 and 68020 based games like the Cave and Psikyo shooters, and maybe even some SH-2 based things like Cyvern. From what I saw on MAME for gp2x if it was made after 1990 you were pretty much shit out of luck as far as running it. :(
 
Some cave games run in FBA, and there are other specific emulators like the neogeo and cps-2 ones that allow you to play later games at full speed.
 
Stealth Bagel said:
What I am more looking forward to, is hopeful eventual support for more advanced 68000 and 68020 based games like the Cave and Psikyo shooters, and maybe even some SH-2 based things like Cyvern. From what I saw on MAME for gp2x if it was made after 1990 you were pretty much shit out of luck as far as running it. :(
Cyvern was added in MAME 0.62 as non working and its status is still imperfect.
Basically we will need some much more recent version than the 0.37b5 Franxis uses (and he uses that one for very good reasons).

Anyway given the design of the Pandora, vertical shooters won't be very practical :D
 
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I think vertical games will look OK. But only use 1/3 of the horizontal screen real estate. See this ~240x340 px game scaled to max height in an 800x480px frame, with filtering:

filteredvp1.jpg


If you're OK with killing the aspect ratio you could make it wider. As for Cyvern, it runs fine, it's just not fully accurate yet.
 
Well, the spare screen part could be used to show information about game controls, manuals or anything similar.

But not only for vertical games... it could also be valid for scaled 4:3 games (640x480), where 160 pixels would be available outside the game screen to show info (walkthroughs, anyone?) :D

Of course, to be fair, that would be optional and be disabled by default in all games / emulators...
 
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