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is there a mame distro you can install on some mini pc? i have used mame on desktops but would really like to have a small dedicated retro gaming setup that you

by b20000 5y ago

is there a mame distro you can install on some mini pc? i have used mame on desktops but would really like to have a small dedicated retro gaming setup that you just switch on and works. at the same time i don’t want to spend 2k on some ready to go cabinet.

m-p-3 5y ago
Maybe something like Lakka[1]? It emulates many game consoles and I believe MAME is part of it. [1]: https://lakka.tv/ https://lakka.tv/
- brimble 5y ago
  Lakka is Retroarch packaged on top of a minimal Linux distro—like those distros that exist just to run Kodi, and, in fact, last I checked, it's build on exactly one of those (Libreelec, I think?). Retroarch is a frontend for libretro, which provides a set of APIs that emulators can use for I/O. If you can produce a library from an emulator that conforms to the APIs, then you've got what Retroarch calls a "core". Thus retroarch acts as a kind of target for emulators, that lets them all use a common frontend, including for things like button mapping (each emulator maps to a set of "fake" Retroarch inputs, which Retroarch then maps to your actual controller) or video output/filter settings. This is a different approach from other meta-emulators that typically invoke full, independent emulators as if running them from the command line, and try to manage them externally. And yes, there are multiple mame cores for Retroarch: https://github.com/search?q=libretro%20mame&type=Everything https://github.com/search?q=libretro%20mame&type=Everything [EDIT] Also, I've run Lakka on hardware as weak as a Raspberry Pi 2. You can't use fancy video filters (say, to make games look the way they did on a CRT TV or monitor) but it'll run a whole bunch of Mame games, plus all 8-bit console games and most from the 16-bit era at acceptable frame rates and latency. It also worked well enough to be comfortably playable for a surprising number of Playstation (PSX/PS1, the first one, that is) games and for exactly one of the N64 games I tried on it (Super Mario 64—all other N64 games were a lag-fest, if they ran at all, but that one was smooth and snappy). Any mini PC from the last 10 years is probably more powerful than an RPi2, so should do even better. RPi4 takes that "most" on the 16 bit era and makes it "all" and makes a bunch more N64 and Playstation games playable. Probably many Playstation 2 games as well, but I've not tried it.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > including for things like button mapping (each emulator maps to a set of "fake" Retroarch inputs, which Retroarch then maps to your actual controller) Is this really necessary? Why not map input devices directly to core inputs? Makes configuration needlessly complex in my experience.
    - rincebrain 5y ago
      Imagine that you swap out your GameCube + USB adapter controller for a PS5 controller. Now you only have one place to go remap buttons, rather than N. (That would be my guess, anyway.)
    - brimble 5y ago
      That way the core authors don't need to know a thing about how the parent program (usually Retroarch, but it doesn't have to be) handles input re-mapping, and you can change all of them in one place—or use multiple for different cores, or even set it on a game-by-game basis, RA supports all that, too, and the cores don't have to care about it. It's less complex than a wrapper program having to know a bunch of different config formats and conventions. Again, cores run as shared libraries inside Retroarch. These "fake inputs" aren't, like, actual OS-level simulated devices. It's more like a core listens for events of type (name made up) "ra_analog_0" and treats anything coming in as left-stick x-axis positive-direction input, and by convention so do most or all other cores that emulate a system with a left analog stick (or perhaps with just one), unless they have a good reason not to, so default Retroarch-provided automatic input device mapping can make most common gamepads do something sensible with most cores, as soon as you connect them. Then if you prefer to swap left and right sticks, you do it one place and it works everywhere. Or if you prefer to swap left and right on just one game, you do that. The core never has to know about any of it.
orev 5y ago
Retroarch is probably what you’re looking for. It supports pretty much any emulator, and gives a nice front end you can navigate with controllers. It takes a bit to get comfortable with the interface though.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I know it's not what GP is asking for, but you can also integrate RetroArch with Steam - it's on the Steam store. My kids can play steam games and emulated games now without having to run or figure out two systems. Also a high powered PC plays certain games much better. The drawback to RetroArch is that the UI is non-intuitive and it's a bitch to configure.
  - b20000 5y ago
    that's my main concern - screwing around with config files. I just want to download an OS image, write it to a USB stick, put my ROMs on the stick, put the stick in my mini PC, and boot it up and play.
    - colordrops 5y ago
      There's a raspberry pi build that wraps RetroArch with EmulationStation and sane configs. It's pretty easy to use. I believe it's called RetroPi.
      - b20000 5y ago
        a quick search for retropi on amazon brings up listings for close to $300, for a pi in a case with a $15 controller. looks like there is business to be made by installing a distro on a $35 pi and marking it up by ~$250.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  It also has some truly incredible features. Low latency optimizations, audio/video synchronization and the composable shader stack are some of the highlights.
flatiron 5y ago
I use arch for my mame cab. It’s nice because it constantly updates mame to the latest (you should with your Roms as well) and only runs mame on boot. Very easy to setup and maintain. I run it on some old quad core amd HP thin PC. Plays all non-3d games perfect. Also look into a Mister. Not a mame cab but tons of arcade games and consoles. That’s my “ass in seat” gaming rig.
- b20000 5y ago
  mister looks cool. is it as simple as buying the hardware, putting the ROMs on it and powering it up?
  - mattl 5y ago
    Pretty much, yes. You run an updater script which pulls in all the stuff.
  - flatiron 5y ago
    https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer That will update it and download the mame Roms from archive.org. You will need a de-10 nano, sdram card, and a usb otg hub. I also have a Wi-Fi and a Bluetooth dongle. Works amazing. New PSX core is 90% there. Saturn is coming too, but no ETA
    - b20000 5y ago
      wow looks like this is the tits. will try this.
- pizza234 5y ago
  > it constantly updates mame to the latest (you should with your Roms as well) This is not necessarily a feature; actually I consider it an anti-feature, as one is forced to chase the romset versions (either download the full set, which nowadays is tens of GBs, or the diff, which I've never tried). If one actually plays games, and they play correctly, there's no value in upgrading the emulator and ROMs to new versions.

by b20000 5y ago

m-p-3 5y ago

Maybe something like Lakka[1]? It emulates many game consoles and I believe MAME is part of it. [1]: https://lakka.tv/ https://lakka.tv/

brimble 5y ago
Lakka is Retroarch packaged on top of a minimal Linux distro—like those distros that exist just to run Kodi, and, in fact, last I checked, it's build on exactly one of those (Libreelec, I think?). Retroarch is a frontend for libretro, which provides a set of APIs that emulators can use for I/O. If you can produce a library from an emulator that conforms to the APIs, then you've got what Retroarch calls a "core". Thus retroarch acts as a kind of target for emulators, that lets them all use a common frontend, including for things like button mapping (each emulator maps to a set of "fake" Retroarch inputs, which Retroarch then maps to your actual controller) or video output/filter settings. This is a different approach from other meta-emulators that typically invoke full, independent emulators as if running them from the command line, and try to manage them externally. And yes, there are multiple mame cores for Retroarch: https://github.com/search?q=libretro%20mame&type=Everything https://github.com/search?q=libretro%20mame&type=Everything [EDIT] Also, I've run Lakka on hardware as weak as a Raspberry Pi 2. You can't use fancy video filters (say, to make games look the way they did on a CRT TV or monitor) but it'll run a whole bunch of Mame games, plus all 8-bit console games and most from the 16-bit era at acceptable frame rates and latency. It also worked well enough to be comfortably playable for a surprising number of Playstation (PSX/PS1, the first one, that is) games and for exactly one of the N64 games I tried on it (Super Mario 64—all other N64 games were a lag-fest, if they ran at all, but that one was smooth and snappy). Any mini PC from the last 10 years is probably more powerful than an RPi2, so should do even better. RPi4 takes that "most" on the 16 bit era and makes it "all" and makes a bunch more N64 and Playstation games playable. Probably many Playstation 2 games as well, but I've not tried it.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > including for things like button mapping (each emulator maps to a set of "fake" Retroarch inputs, which Retroarch then maps to your actual controller) Is this really necessary? Why not map input devices directly to core inputs? Makes configuration needlessly complex in my experience.
  - rincebrain 5y ago
    Imagine that you swap out your GameCube + USB adapter controller for a PS5 controller. Now you only have one place to go remap buttons, rather than N. (That would be my guess, anyway.)
  - brimble 5y ago
    That way the core authors don't need to know a thing about how the parent program (usually Retroarch, but it doesn't have to be) handles input re-mapping, and you can change all of them in one place—or use multiple for different cores, or even set it on a game-by-game basis, RA supports all that, too, and the cores don't have to care about it. It's less complex than a wrapper program having to know a bunch of different config formats and conventions. Again, cores run as shared libraries inside Retroarch. These "fake inputs" aren't, like, actual OS-level simulated devices. It's more like a core listens for events of type (name made up) "ra_analog_0" and treats anything coming in as left-stick x-axis positive-direction input, and by convention so do most or all other cores that emulate a system with a left analog stick (or perhaps with just one), unless they have a good reason not to, so default Retroarch-provided automatic input device mapping can make most common gamepads do something sensible with most cores, as soon as you connect them. Then if you prefer to swap left and right sticks, you do it one place and it works everywhere. Or if you prefer to swap left and right on just one game, you do that. The core never has to know about any of it.

orev 5y ago

Retroarch is probably what you’re looking for. It supports pretty much any emulator, and gives a nice front end you can navigate with controllers. It takes a bit to get comfortable with the interface though.

colordrops 5y ago
I know it's not what GP is asking for, but you can also integrate RetroArch with Steam - it's on the Steam store. My kids can play steam games and emulated games now without having to run or figure out two systems. Also a high powered PC plays certain games much better. The drawback to RetroArch is that the UI is non-intuitive and it's a bitch to configure.
- b20000 5y ago
  that's my main concern - screwing around with config files. I just want to download an OS image, write it to a USB stick, put my ROMs on the stick, put the stick in my mini PC, and boot it up and play.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    There's a raspberry pi build that wraps RetroArch with EmulationStation and sane configs. It's pretty easy to use. I believe it's called RetroPi.
    - b20000 5y ago
      a quick search for retropi on amazon brings up listings for close to $300, for a pi in a case with a $15 controller. looks like there is business to be made by installing a distro on a $35 pi and marking it up by ~$250.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
It also has some truly incredible features. Low latency optimizations, audio/video synchronization and the composable shader stack are some of the highlights.

flatiron 5y ago

I use arch for my mame cab. It’s nice because it constantly updates mame to the latest (you should with your Roms as well) and only runs mame on boot. Very easy to setup and maintain. I run it on some old quad core amd HP thin PC. Plays all non-3d games perfect. Also look into a Mister. Not a mame cab but tons of arcade games and consoles. That’s my “ass in seat” gaming rig.

b20000 5y ago
mister looks cool. is it as simple as buying the hardware, putting the ROMs on it and powering it up?
- mattl 5y ago
  Pretty much, yes. You run an updater script which pulls in all the stuff.
- flatiron 5y ago
  https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer That will update it and download the mame Roms from archive.org. You will need a de-10 nano, sdram card, and a usb otg hub. I also have a Wi-Fi and a Bluetooth dongle. Works amazing. New PSX core is 90% there. Saturn is coming too, but no ETA
  - b20000 5y ago
    wow looks like this is the tits. will try this.
pizza234 5y ago
> it constantly updates mame to the latest (you should with your Roms as well) This is not necessarily a feature; actually I consider it an anti-feature, as one is forced to chase the romset versions (either download the full set, which nowadays is tens of GBs, or the diff, which I've never tried). If one actually plays games, and they play correctly, there's no value in upgrading the emulator and ROMs to new versions.