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Best way to emulate Apple II and Apple IIGS? LB guide uses MESS and is old...


cleverest

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1 hour ago, Headrush69 said:

Just use current MAME, works great.

My LB command line for Apple II

 

Cool! I'm using somewhat of an older version of MAME, I think 0.271 because of how I have it configured and bezels set up, so hopefully it still works...

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1 hour ago, Headrush69 said:

Just use current MAME, works great.

My LB command line for Apple II

 

Sadly it didn't work, I get a flash of a COMMAND PROMPT window and then it goes away...what does your emulator settings window look like? What do you have checked and where are your games located for these titles? 

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Assuming you have your path pointing to your software folder in your mame.ini rompath:

Capture.thumb.PNG.c8d1c7718eae4e631683fdabb5f3f846.PNGCaptures2.thumb.PNG.66d2a005a5be7c9ba9018438ad665c65.PNGthe -sl4 phasor is optional. I added that so it would use that soundcard versus mockingbird

apple2ee -sl4 phasor -gameio joy -flop1

Alternatively, if you have the "use file name without file extension or folder path" checked then the command is as follows (drops the flop command):

apple2ee -sl4 phasor -gameio joy

The advantage of this method is MAME will load a zip file from a proper MAME software list set that has two disks inside the zip automatically into flop1 and flop2 drives.

Edited by sundogak
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12 minutes ago, cleverest said:

I couldn't get any of the commands to work with MAME, flashes  command prompt then goes away... ? I'm stuck using the crappy ActiveGS I guess.

For Apple IIGS did you try the following without "use file name only without extension" ticked?
apple2gs -skip_gameinfo -flop3

And for games needing the OS to boot:
apple2gs -skip_gameinfo -flop3 "PATH TO System 6.0.1 DISK IMAGE" -flop4

More on that here:


and here:
 

 

Edited by kurzih
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You are awesome! apple2gs -skip_gameinfo -flop3

worked for the first Apple IIGS game I tried. (Airball) it let me press TAB to select KEYBOARD or JOYSTICK, but neither seemed to control after that....maybe it's just that game..

Ancient Land of Ys would not work with either command though. ?

One thing though, I noticed I could only exit with ALT+TAB plus + mouse to right-click program on taskbar to close it...how do you YOU exit it better?

Edited by cleverest
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It's sometimes marked on the filename if it needs an OS to boot depending on what collection the files are from. I use the boot OS alternative on all files by default, but if there are some that don't work that way I then use the "Custom Command Line Parameter" in the Launchbox Emulation tab for them. But most have been working with booting the OS first.

For exiting I use the focus button on MAME (Scroll Lock by default) to get "back" the full keyboard control to the host computer instead of the emulated one :)
Then I can normally just press ESC to quit. Or you can also then access the MAME menu (TAB) to switch discs (File Manager). To get the keyboard focus back to the emulated computer just press the Scroll Lock key again.

Edited by kurzih
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5 minutes ago, kurzih said:

It's sometimes marked on the filename if it needs an OS to boot depending on what collection the files are from. I use the boot OS alternative on all files by default, but if there are some that don't work that way I then use the "Custom Command Line Parameter" in the Launchbox Emulation tab for them. But most have been working with booting the OS first.

For exiting I use the focus button on MAME (Scroll Lock by default) to get "back" the full keyboard control to the host computer instead of the emulated one :)
Then I can normally just press ESC to quit. Or you can also then access the MAME menu (TAB) to switch discs (File Manager). To get the keyboard focus back to the emulated computer just press the Scroll Lock key again.

I just discovered the apple2gs -ui_active -flop4 "L:\LaunchBox\Games\Apple IIGS\Black Cauldron, The (USA) (Disk 2).2mg" -flop3

Which allowed the second disk to load on The Black Cauldron, so awesome...I didn't have ui_active before so no tab/UI features were coming up, now I can exit with ESC like I usually can in MAME so that's great! Thanks for the Scroll Lock trick.

None of this works for the Regular Apple II eh?

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Your issue with the apple2 is likely missing rom files that are required. 

If you can start mame from the command prompt with the -v option it should tell you what is missing.

I believe newer MAME versions requires the roms from the disk controller as well, I believe diskII_ng it's called. Sorry away from computer so can't get specifics right now.

 

Edit: Roms needed:

Quote

a2diskiing.zip

d2fdc.zip

Just add those beside your apple2ee roms where you keep you MAME roms.

Edited by Headrush69
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4 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

Your issue with the apple2 is likely missing rom files that are required. 

If you can start mame from the command prompt with the -v option it should tell you what is missing.

I believe newer MAME versions requires the roms from the disk controller as well, I believe diskII_ng it's called. Sorry away from computer so can't get specifics right now.

 

Edit: Roms needed:

Just add those beside your apple2ee roms where you keep you MAME roms.

Looks like I have those in the MAME roms path already, but older versions, I have 0.271 MAME I believe...should I keep the older ones, or overwrite these two files there?

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Sorry when I say apple2, I’m referring to the entire platform, but apple2 is the plus model and apple2ee is the enhanced 2e model and they have different requirements.

Running from command prompt with -v option will always tell you which file in a rom zip is missing or where it is finding the file it needs. MAME is incredibly flexible when it comes to checksum matching and sometimes a specific file can change to a different rom zip, but it will still find it if it’s in a rom zip it knows for that machine.
 

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17 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

Just use current MAME, works great.

My LB command line for Apple II

 

You had posted:

apple2ee -gamma 0.50 -gameio joy -flop1


I couldn't get that working, I got THIS working though: apple2ee -ui_active -skip_gameinfo -gamma 0.50 -flop1

I had to remove -gameio joy

Not sure what -gamma .50 really does for this platform...can you explain?

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