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MAME/MESS VGM mod

Current version: 0.256 (released on 2023-06-28)

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

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Re: MAME/MESS VGM mod

Post by GTheGuardian »

About the "Known Not Working games" list:
I tried logging DonPachi, but the music doesn't sounds properly, from what I checked in MAME Debugger, it seems NMK112 is banking the music as well so the game isn't loggable sadly.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/shma94lzdg9xgxe/donpachi_0.7z

Also, I noticed that MESS 0.152 doesn't logs GB VGMs properly, now they happen to have GB DMG clock set to 0 Hz and even if I change the clock, the VGM still is silent:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yp6aybgi80lat8g/gameboy_0.vgm
Last edited by GTheGuardian on 2014-03-29, 2:59:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ValleyBell »

The MAME/MESS developers moved some code around between 0.148 and 0.152 and so the code that adds the GameBoy to the VGM's list of current sound chips ended up in device_reset instead of device_start.
Because of that it got called twice when starting GB emulation and all logged data went to the second one of 2 GameBoy chips in the VGM.
And due to another bug, it removed the clock value of both GB chips from the VGM if the first one is unused.

Anyway, both bugs are fixed and I'll update the MAME/MESS mod soon.

I'll stick to MESS 0.148 for GameBoy ripping though - they broke the game that I used to test GB logging.
("Speedy Gonzales - Aztec Adventure" has some wrong colours and the music is way too slow now. Everything worked fine in 0.148.)
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Post by 2ch-H »

MESS 152 bug?

The Sharp X1 vgm output of the AY-3-8910A clock(28859 Hz) is wrong, Correct clock 2000000 Hz.
MESS 148 had been correctly output.

MAME / MESS 153 has been released, Is there update plans of VGM MOD?
PC-88 game that work is increasing.
Last edited by 2ch-H on 2014-04-07, 20:21:16, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ValleyBell »

I just updated the MAME/MESS VGM mod.

It should fix the AY8910 and GameBoy clocks. (I even added code to make the GB clock correct for Super GB, btw.)


I don't have plans to release a VGM mod of MAME 0.153.
I've been releasing a VGM mod for every 4th release since 0.136, so the next planned one is 0.156. (That's about one release per year, btw.)
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Post by ValleyBell »

You can download the MAME/MESS VGM mods for 0.156 now. → OP
(with MESS I mean MESSUI, as usual)
Happy ripping!


I also updated the version history. It now includes all mods of MAME/MESS I released since 0.140. (I don't think I have v0.136 anywhere.)
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Post by MusicFox »

I was going to rip Pachinko Grand Prix for the Disk System, but it has a problem in the new MESS. Too bad...
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Post by MusicFox »

I have a problem with 0.156. The FDS channel doesn't seem to play and the emulator crashes when trying to load something.
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Post by ValleyBell »

After a long wait, here is the update for MAME/MESS 0.156, featuring all the new chips.
You can start logging packs already, the VGM Tool Collection will be updated in a few days.

The update includes ctr's C352 clock fixes and the GameBlaster fix. (I forgot to apply mixmaster's SAA clock fix though.)
Downloads are in the OP.

Note: I advise against logging ES5505/06 for now. Those chips are a bit more complex, so although they log properly, the tools don't support them yet. ES5503 works fine.
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Post by ctr »

I forgot to say this earlier, but if you plan to do rips of Namco System 23 or Super System 23 games, you will need to set the correct divider setting manually in a hex editor for now. It should be somewhere around 296.

I spent much of the previous days trying to figure out why the divider setting is different for almost every system using the C352, but so far I have not managed to find an explanation.
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Post by ValleyBell »

So, well... here is the new MAME VGM release. MAME 0.164 this time.
Aside from a few emulation improvements (hopefully), there is only 1 package now, as MAME and MESS fused offically. (btw: They finally managed to un-break Model 2 SCSP support after it was broken since around MAME 0.148. The tempo is still quite off though.)
On the VGM side there's nothing new, except that I fixed a small bug where the VGM logger wrote the wrong C352 clock divider.
I also fixed a few bugs with the MAME menu, so now it doesn't nuke your wavelog or error.log anymore.

What you all probably want is something to download. Here we have binaries for Windows: 32-bit (23.99 MB) / 64-bit (27.71 MB)
You can find the rest in the OP.


Now a few words about the compilation process.
At first: IMO compiling MAME gets more insane with every release. You don't only need to download a 420 MB large (packed) git repository for the source code - you also need to mirror a 630 MB repository for the build tools that unpacks to 2.18 GB. I wonder when they'll include their own OS.
So in total you need 2.8 GB for the build tools as well as 870 MB for the source.
Additionally you get a "build" folder where 1.6 GB of object files (for both, 32 and 64 bit versions) end up. Compiling the 32-bit version took 2 hours with 2 simultaneous jobs on my system. (Though to be fair, it isn't the strongest one.) I spent more time building the 64 bit version, because I compiled it twice. (One time before and one time after applying the VGM mod.) But that was to be expected.
The resulting EXE files with 144.5 MB (32 bit) and 168.9 MB (64-bit) are about twice as big as the ones from MAME 0.156.

So yeah... I think I can safely say that building MAME is a safe way to waste some space. The buildtools folder is still larger than the MAME folder with source + object files + EXE binaries, btw. (2.80 GB vs. 2.75 GB)

Anyway - enjoy ripping. I'll try to get some archive updates done soon.
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Namco Old Title

Post by Mappy »

Hello, ValleyBell.
I tried to log old Namco title through MAME MOD, but the VGM file does not logged properly.
The titles I failed to log are Xevious, Tower of Druaga, Mappy, Hopping Mappy, Sky Kid, Toypop.
Are These titles are not supported ?
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Post by MusicFox »

Mappy wrote:Hello, ValleyBell.
I tried to log old Namco title through MAME MOD, but the VGM file does not logged properly.
The titles I failed to log are Xevious, Tower of Druaga, Mappy, Hopping Mappy, Sky Kid, Toypop.
Are These titles are not supported ?
Unfortunately, the sound chip those games use (Namco WSG) is not supported by VGM. And from what I heard, it doesn't sound like they will ever be supported. Sorry!
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Post by ctr »

Mappy wrote:The titles I failed to log are Xevious, Tower of Druaga, Mappy, Hopping Mappy, Sky Kid, Toypop.
Are These titles are not supported ?
Namco Classic Collection Vol.1 has Mappy and Xevious. While the instruments do not fully match the originals, they're still pretty faithful to the originals. Regarding the WSG, never say never... The main reason against implementing this is that this isn't just one sound chip, it's a whole family. I could see the C15 and C30 possibly being implemented in the future. The Mappy hardware uses the C15.
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Post by Mappy »

Thank you for reply!
I love the musics of Hopping Mappy.
I am looking forward to the day when MAME MOD and VGM support these chips.
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Post by TEOL »

It's now gone up 12 versions to 176 time for an update me thinks.

Also MESS may not support playing games on the AMIGA due to dodgey joystick detecting but sound is something it does do right on AMIGA so far in MESS and AMIGA does work with Megadrive pads on the real thing and MESS does emulate Megadrive pads well so maybe changing the Joystick mode to a Megadrive joypad might get us some more amiga rips other than demo disks mouse games and title menus of joystick games if it's easyy to change an input method for joysticks to megadrive pads that is.

But for certian though we do need the 176 VGM logging mod even if we can't trick AMIGA Joysticks to work with Megadrive pad mode.
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