Sdl_mess

SDL MAME/MESS for Amiga
=======================

This is a *straight port* of SDLMAME / SDLMESS. It doesn't have any
Amiga-specific features. This is bad because it's therefore
even slower than it could be.
However, it does mean that with only small changes, the Amiga has the current
version of SDLMAME/SDLMESS.

Speed
=====

MAME and MESS are slow. VERY slow. Don't expect to run modern emulations on an
A1200. Use older versions if you want to run games faster - they're
faster (but less accurate).
You can speed things up by creating more appropriate screen modes.  The less
scaling it has to do, the faster it is... so if your arcade machine
or computer uses a 320x240 screen, then use a 320x240 screenmode. If you don't
want the actual screenmode, use the -w parameter to run in Windowed Mode.
This can be a lot faster.

Change the screenmode by setting the environment variable SDLMAME_DESKTOPDIM to
an appropriate value, e.g.

(from a Shell window)
1.RAM Disk:> SetENV SDLMAME_DESKTOPDIM 320x240 SAVE

MAME usually needs a hefty stack. I use a stack of 2048000 to be safe.

A side effect of using SDL for the front end is that AmigaInput is supported.
This means that you can use digital joysticks if you have a digital
interface such as a Catweasel.

MESS Note
=========

By default, the "UI Toggle" button (necessary to quit!) doesn't always map to a
usable key. It should be Scroll Lock, but sometimes this doesn't work on
certain machines. Best thing to do is to run MESS, go to Configure General
Options, then the User Interface, and find "UI Toggle". Then set this to a key
that's normally used (Print Screen, something like that).
If you don't do this, and you run it full screen, switch the screen to the back
and use Ctrl+C to break into it. You may need to try several times!
If you launch from Workbench, you may need to send it a Ctrl-C via another
program. Hence it's a good idea to change
the UI Toggle to a known good key before anything else!

Icons
=====

The icons were done by DaveBraco on Amigaworld.net - thanks!

Suggestions/Comments/Praise/Donations/Hate Mail
===============================================

Contact me by emailing:
ian.gledhill()btinternet.com
or PM'ing me (Spirantho) on various forums such as Amigaworld.net, Amiga.org,
Amigans.net, etc.etc.

Please, though, NO ROM REQUESTS! You need to find your own, sorry (it's not
hard).