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M1 Arcade Music Player

Current version: 0.79a1 (released on 2012-04-26)

Technical discussion about the VGM format, and all the software you need to handle VGM files.

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  • ValleyBell Offline
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Post by ValleyBell »

With the standard M1, it probably searches for m1.ini/.xml in the current directory. That means just calling it with the full path doesn't work.
You must 'CD' to the direrctory of M1 and call the .exe from there. (or use a .bat file that lies in the same folder)
  • rata536 Offline
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Post by rata536 »

Yup, created the .bat file and works perect now. Thank you very much.
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  • drdevil Offline
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Post by drdevil »

Why isn't Lady Bug supported? I'm trying to make a VGM rip of that game, but the game has no sound test and the game start jingle is interrupted by sound effects, so using M1 would be the best way to rip the game's music, if it were supported. Other than that, making a VGM rip of the game would be incredibly easy.
I'm HarmoDevil. Formerly Dr Devil, but I still use the drdevil username here.

Check out my Soundcloud.

I might get back to VGM ripping someday.
  • ctr Offline
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Post by ctr »

M1 does generally not support games without a dedicated sound CPU and when it does, it's almost always HLE.

Lady Bug is one of those cases.
  • TEOL Offline
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Post by TEOL »

Can anyone mod M1FX by mamesick to mod VGM's as well as the Waves it does already. It's lightweight, it has had more game fixes done to it in it's final V 12 version, it's also Windows GUI native so it just makes sence.

Also with a source code version it can be fiddled with by some cleaver git to include all the new chips from the combined MAME & MESS 0.175 source code so we can possibly get a proper new release of M1 out of this as well as the dual Wave & VGM Logging addons we want M1FX to have now that it's done to the normal version.

I've already worked out for example that boards has been renamed to includes as well as the sources having different extensions on the ends as before but they are the same sources plus more based on the size of the files compared to the original in a Windows search compare I did, some of the misc other stuff the old M1FX uses has been moved to 3rd partys and CPU's has 2 versions for consoles and arcades now but the source itself hasn't really changed at all other than more added stuff and some folder name and minor extension differences.

I think having a VGM M1FX would be benifital to the cause as I use the M1FX12 version a lot already a lot more than the normal one as it is plus the ability to make new versions based on what we know about the newer MAME Source now really does sound rather tasty whilst the normal M1 even though it's compiled on anything is more of a Mac Source Code so it only runs in Windows with complicated coding or with a 3rd part GUI version which the 3rd party GUI didn't have the VGM logging tab in it.

This M1FX12 source code can be found on the MAMEUIFX Forum and mamesick is sadly leaving the scene so neither the MAME or M1FX would be updated by him anymore but still at least VGM Rips could make use of the M1FX engine of his and also the MAME source code to get our own M1FX VGM and 0.175 out there to keep the legandary M1FX software alive.
  • talent Offline
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Post by talent »

Can anyone help me with adding support to M1 for a game not listed in M1.xml?

I'm trying to add Streets of Rage II (Mega Play) to M1, but am probably not doing something right when defining the XML specs.

Here's what I've got so far:

Code: Select all

<game name="mp_sor2" board="Mega Play">
	<description>Streets of Rage II (Mega Play)</description>
	<year>1993</year>
	<manufacturer>Sega</manufacturer>
	<m1data default="0" stop="65280" min="1" max="32768"/>
	<region type="cpu1" size="2097152">
		<rom name="mr-15425.ic1" size="2097152" crc="cd6376af" sha1="57ec210975e40505649f152b60ef54f99da31f0e" offset="0"/>
	</region>
</game>
I think I might have the <region> portion wrong or that the Mega Play board isn't implemented in M1 yet. I'm not sure as I'm not well-versed with M1.

If someone can help, I can help to provide a VGM rip of mp_sor2.

Thanks for any feedback.
Last edited by talent on 2017-02-17, 22:58:30, edited 1 time in total.
  • ctr Offline
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Post by ctr »

This will not work if the music hardware is completely different. You're telling M1 to emulate the game as if it was running on "Raiden II" hardware. This will not work at all. I'm not sure if M1 even supports Mega Play hardware at all. You're probably better off using MAME with music trigger scripts. (if they even exist).

Also, a bit curious if there are any major music differences between the Mega Play version and the original MD version...
  • talent Offline
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Post by talent »

Thanks for the reply, ctr.

You replied before I could edit my previous post! The code I had previously was from a failed attempt based on what `m1 -b` was reporting for mp_sor2 as running on "Raiden II" hardware.

I changed this to "Mega Play" but it looks like M1 doesn't support it at the moment.

I read on some post that the Mega Play rom plays certain sounds differently such as percussion, so I wanted to confirm this without playing the game on MAME :)
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  • ValleyBell Offline
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Post by ValleyBell »

The closest configuration might be

Code: Select all

board="Sega Genesis/MegaDrive"
But there is another problem - M1 needs to know the sound driver of the game in order to be able to play certain songs/SFX.
Each sound driver gets its own ID (<m1data subtype="id" .... />).
According to the source code, the following sound drivers are supported:
  • 0 - GEMS
  • 1 - generic driver w/JSR setup
  • 2 - Sound Images
  • 3 - SMPS/Z80 (special) [Note: m1.xml uses ID 1 for most SMPS Z80 games)
  • 4 - generic driver w/Z80 image
  • 5 - Test Drive II (DSI custom)
  • 6 - SMPS/68k
It *might* be possible to get the SoR 2 driver working if you use ID 1 or 6 (it's an 68k-based driver, IIRC), but that requires advanced hacking techniques.
And you'll need to look up the M1 source in order to figure out what additional parameters you need.
  • tamincog Offline
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Post by tamincog »

For some reason even with the VGM commands for m1, I can only log music as wav files. What might be the problem?
  • Paul999 Offline
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Post by Paul999 »

What ripping log VGM? what is this key log VGM?
It's me! PS999
I'm really working and doing...
Youtube|Twitter|DeviantArt

My HDD USB is working on the PC home, now I'm back! I can work to the rip.
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Post by Paul999 »

We created my new list M1!
It's me! PS999
I'm really working and doing...
Youtube|Twitter|DeviantArt

My HDD USB is working on the PC home, now I'm back! I can work to the rip.
  • MagikGimp Offline
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Is M1 dead?

Post by MagikGimp »

It no longer works properly and BridgeM1 is even worse. I realise both are separate projects but they share resources. I was just wondering if anyone had any interest in maintaining the projects at all or are they going the way of MAWS etc.? It's a shame but I know there are full recordings already on this site.

It's been a while since I checked all this stuff out; even MAME has changed quite a bit now. Things have moved on and a lot is different now with things having been left in the dust. I wonder if it's because technology demanded more rigid programming and it's harder and less fun to maintain software these days. Sure, we have more tools now; but that's the impression I get. It's all a bit sad in a way.

Thanks everyone.
  • ctr Offline
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Post by ctr »

It is pretty much dead. I heard from MAMEdevs that they want to eventually rewrite M1, but it will probably not happen anytime soon (it has been on the todo list for years). Funnily, instead you can now play VGM files with MAME...

Post by Rotating Username »

MagikGimp wrote:It no longer works properly and BridgeM1 is even worse. I realise both are separate projects but they share resources. I was just wondering if anyone had any interest in maintaining the projects at all or are they going the way of MAWS etc.? It's a shame but I know there are full recordings already on this site.
what do you mean by "it no longer works properly"? It's been nearly a decade since either program was updated, and about a year since a release of an XML or list pack. On Windows 10, m1 & BridgeM1 still work about as well as they always have, as far as I can tell. Are you talking about the inevitable redumping and/or renaming of the ROMs, or am I missing something?

Incidentally, while I also miss MAWs, ProgettoEmma serves largely the same purpose, although it admittedly hasn't been updated since January 2017. There's also the Arcade Database, although I find it a fair bit clumsier.
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