ZodTTD Updates: psx4iPhone, and (wait for it) MAME4iPhone

by Eric March on October 1, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Owing to how busy we’ve been around here working on various projects — including Frapstr’s site — I’m afraid I’ve been a bit out of touch with the jailbreak scene the last week and change.  I am now here to remedy that, and I’m going to start with where the biggest news is: ZodTTD.

Yeah, you remember him.  Emulator porter extraordinaire whose works have slowly been getting updates and trickling in to Cydia.  Allow me, if you will, to quickly run down some what Zod’s been up to:

MAME4iPhone 0.50
Probably the biggest news here is yesterday’s release of MAME4iPhone.  Yeah, of all of the emulators people have been eagerly anticipating for the iPhone, MAME has probably been at the top of most people’s lists for a good long time — and now Zod has finally managed to bring it to the slavering, button-mashing masses.  MAME4iPhone is based on MAME 0.37 and currently supports a huge list of 2,252 arcade ROMs.  (That link will bring you to the thread that lists all of the supported ROMs.)  Not all of the ROMs may work as expected, and you’ll have to make sure that your MAME collection is from MAME 0.37, or is compatible with it, or they may not work.  Here’s Zod’s sound bite:

So here is what mame4iphone v0.5.0 consists of:

• Based on MAME v0.37 Beta 5
• Although MAME v0.37 Beta 5 is quite old, and I’m not quite sure
  why it was chosen as the basis for many ports to ARM handhelds yet, it
  still supports over 2000 ROMs!
• These arcade game’s date range from the 1970’s all the way to 2000!
• Sound is supported but disabled by default. To enable it,goto Now
  Playing and slide the slider for volume up from the off position then
  start a game.
• Once a game is started it will ask you to press OK. Use RIGHT then LEFT then RIGHT then LEFT to press OK.
• Save states are only just being introduced in MAME v0.37, so mame4iphone does not currently support save states.
• Upon installing a folder /var/mobile/Media/ROMs/MAME/ is already
  made for you. Place your MAME-titled zipped ROMs in the
  /var/mobile/Media/ROMs/MAME/roms/ folder.

Not every ROM in the MAME v0.37 set may work as expected, either due to
performance or bugs. But please let me know which games do work well!
It will give me good insight on how to proceed with updates for
mame4iphone!

The biggest challenge may be finding 0.37-compatible ROMs.  Those of you who have kept up with the MAME legacy since the earlier days will know that the ZIP files containing the ROMs often underwent changes, either to amalgamate different clones into one ZIP, add missing files, and so on.  For those who already have MAME ROMs, you probably already have clrmamepro, but if you don’t, it will help.  For the rest of you, well, Google is your friend is about the best assistance I can offer.  I used a set of 0.34 ROMs I had for MAME CE back in my WinMo days, and despite missing at least half of the ROMs 0.37 supports,

MAME4iPhone is now available on Cydia packager.

psx4iphone 0.8.0
Due to popular demand, Zod has now ported his popular PSX emulator to Firmware 2.1.  No, it still doesn’t run full speed, but it has undergone some improvements and changes:

Here’s what’s new:

• Updated GUI. Much improved!
• Buttons highlight when pressed.
• Runs on all 2.x.x firmwares to date.
• Large performance gains from all previous versions.
• Much more stable gameplay.
• Volume control can be changed and save states/bookmarks can be made during gameplay!

Let me know if work needs to be done on the GUI, as this release
will be a large indicator of whether/how I will implement it in future
releases and updates of my projects.

Current bugs still needing to be fixed:

• Saving save states inside the exit menu can generate a bad
  save. In the meantime choose to save using the save button and choose
  no in the exit menu.
• Loading save states is hit or miss. Try using the save button as
  often as possible currently, as saving in some spots of games do not
  work. The more save states, the better the chance of working. This is a
  high priority bug.

Those of you waiting to get your Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy on again (or for the first time) can now do so.

psx4iPhone 1.8.0 is now available on Cydia packager.

So there ya go.  Now I’m sure you’re eager to go try out MAME (those of you who didn’t just dash off at the merest mention of it)

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Related Stories:

• May 14, 2008 -- All ZodTTD Emulator Beta’s Go Public Today; PSX4iPhone/Gameboy4iPhone/gpSPhone (0)
• April 7, 2008 -- PSX4iPhone v0.2.0 – Performance Increase, Support for 1.1.3/4 (4)
• March 16, 2008 -- Genesis4iPhone Released to Testers (8)

Posted in Emulators and Roms, Featured, Gaming Related, iPhone Related