M.A.M.E. Catalog / Launcher II / News: Recent posts

QMC2 0.48 has been released, synced with MAME/MESS 0.158 (released earlier today). For details see change-log below!

The source code is now available in the download section. Expect updated binary packages within the next few days.

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.48:

• fix: system-notes: fixed possible duplication of the system notes detail tab (the bug was only effective when Phonon or YouTube features were disabled)
• imp: updated MESS category.ini contributed by ASH to MESS 0.158
• imp: ROMAlyzer: added an ‘enable log output’ option to both the check-sum scanner and the collection rebuilder (when disabled, log messages emitted by the respective worker thread are suppressed)
• imp: ROMAlyzer: added a ‘deep scan’ option to the check-sum scanner – when enabled (default), the scanner will uncompress each ZIP/7z member in order to recalculate its check-sums (SHA-1, CRC and dump size), otherwise it will rely on the header check-sums (CRC and dump size)
• imp: notes templates: added 3 new notes editor functions to retrieve system-, emu- and software-info within scripts
• imp: ROMAlyzer (software-mode): the widget is now shown (but disabled) while the software-list XML cache is rebuilt; it gets enabled when the cache is ready (this avoids working on premature data)
• imp: updated the alternative system- and software-notes templates contributed by José Marcio Rezende Franco
• imp: MAME/MESS/UME emulator templates updated to 0.158 (added new SDL2 option ‘uifontprovider’)
• imp: interrupt a running search immediately when the system- or software-search’s pattern changes
• new: due to popular demand, the system search can now be configured to include (default) or exclude BIOS and device sets via the menu attached to the pattern input
• new: ROMAlyzer (system-mode): added a ROM state filtering option to the ‘ROM Collection Rebuilder’... read more

MAME/MESS 0.157 were just released (as expected), and fortunately QMC2 0.47 is ready as well. Besides the usual fixes and improvements, the most important addition this time is the ROMAlyzer's new support for software / software-lists. Enjoy :)!

See the change-log below for details.

The source code is available in the download section now. Expect updated binary packages within the next few hours or days.... read more

Quite surprisingly, MAME/MESS 0.156 were released earlier today, so we’re somewhat 'forced' to release QMC2 0.46 as well today. They apparently decided to do monthly releases from now on, and we can honestly not guarantee the same pace for QMC2 releases in the future. But anyway, this time at least we’re able to offer a nice update which contains a number of drastic performance improvements in several areas :).... read more

MAME/MESS 0.155 were released earlier today, so it's just about time for QMC2 0.45 :)!

Besides being synced with v0.155 of the great MAME/MESS emulators, QMC2 0.45 comes with a number of nice ROMAlyzer updates & new features, and as always contains a fair amount of bug-fixes and general updates. QMC2 now supports SDL2's joystick API, and separate emulator configuration templates for SDL2 builds of SDLMAME/SDLMESS have been added (note you have to explicitly select those templates when you switch to SDL2 for the emulator!).... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.44!

This version is in sync with MAME/MESS 0.154 and comes with a number of new features (like our new ranking system) and improvements in many areas as well as important bug-fixes. See the change-log below for details!

The source code is available in the download section now. As always, expect updated binary packages within the next few hours and days.... read more

QMC2 0.43 was (finally) released!

This new version is in sync with MAME/MESS 0.153 (released earlier today) and comes with a fair amount of important improvements, mainly aiming to achieve much better performance and to use remarkably less memory. See the change-log below for details!

The source code is available in the download section now. Expect updated binary packages within the next few days.... read more

Merry Christmas :) !

Today we proudly release QMC2 0.42. This version is in sync with MAME/MESS 0.152 (released earlier today) and contains a number of major performance improvements, especially for the loading of cached data. Despite the performance improvements, we also have a few important stability fixes this time, and Qt 5 support has been greatly improved as well (we still recommend Qt 4.8, though). Please see the change-log below for more details!... read more

QMC2 0.41 has been released today!

The MAME/MESS team decided to change their release model and no longer produce u-releases, so the intervals between two major releases are a lot shorter than before. We still want to keep in sync with them, but this obviously means fewer changes between two QMC2 releases.

However, we still have some nice additions for you this time :). Most importantly, QMC2 Arcade received support for mapping (theme-specific / native) key-sequences to any other key-sequences and/or joystick-functions. And Qt CHDMAN GUI is now scriptable - for more information see our new qchdman-related wiki-page.... read more

QMC2 0.40 has been released today!

The probably most important feature addition this time is the support for other common image file formats (apart from just PNG). There have also been a number of noticeable performance improvements and (mostly minor) bug-fixes that make it a worthy update.

This version is in sync with MAME/MESS/UME 0.150. Please see the change-log below for details!

The source code is now available in the download section. As always, expect updated binary packages within the next few hours and days!... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.39!

This major update comes with a bunch of nice new features and improvements, a ridiculous number of fixes and the first official release of Qt CHDMAN GUI — a stand-alone graphical user interface / front-end to chdman. QMC2 0.39 is synced with MAME/MESS/UME 0.149 which were released earlier today.

Special thanks to our new team member Pete Beardmore who made the great new / alternative darkone theme for QMC2 Arcade:... read more

QMC2 0.38 has been released!

This is yet another major update that comes with a number of cool new features, synced with MAME/MESS/UME 0.148 which were released earlier today.

The probably most attractive new feature is the so called 'arcade mode', a.k.a. 'QMC2 Arcade'. Please see the change-log below for details!

The source code is now available in the download section. As always, expect updated binary packages within the next few days!... read more

QMC2 0.37 has been released!

This major update synchronizes QMC2 with MAME, MESS and UME 0.147 which were released earlier today.

The most important changes in this release include:

- As mentioned earlier on this channel: support for UME has been added!
- The image support has been rewritten completely (code unification) and a new multi-threaded image-checker has been created as a replacement for the old one which didn't support all image types and was slightly buggy.
- A new system-notes detail has been added, and both the software- and the new system-notes can now also be auto-filled with HTML through a neat template-mechanism that even supports some template-logic through JavaScript.
- The YouTube video player now supports local movie files as well. They can be attached to games/machines in the same way as YouTube videos.
- The game/machine detail tabs can now also be reordered directly in the GUI by dragging them with the mouse.
- MESS device-mapper: support for nested slots and real slot recursion was added, slot-setups are now stored with the configurations, and the BIOS used in slot-devices can be selected (if applicable).
- Software-lists: available mount-devices are dynamically updated whenever the device/slot setup changes, <info> elements contained in a number of software-list entries are now displayed as well, and the value for emulator's -snapname parameter can be auto-adjusted for easier creation of software-snapshots.
- HTML editor: added document preview in built-in browser as well as new-from-template and revert-from-saved-file functionality.
- Replaced all QMC2 variant logos and splash-screens with improved versions from JacKc.... read more

We had already moved our wiki pages from SourceForge.net to wikia.com, but we weren’t happy with this decision (which was meant to be a temporary solution anyway), so we’ve now installed a completely new wiki as well and moved all pages to it:

http://wiki.batcom-it.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

Due to SourceForge.net's decision to end the support for their so called 'hosted-apps', we've moved the bug-tracker to a new place:

http://tracker.batcom-it.net/login_page.php

To report bugs, please sign-up for a new account first:

http://tracker.batcom-it.net/signup_page.php

All required issue data was migrated (manually).

Have fun, René

Today we can proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.36 which is synced to MAME/MESS 0.146 (also released today)!

Besides many bug-fixes, the major changes and additions this time include:

- General: polished MAME variant logo from JacKc, improved support for foreign emulators (can now have individual foreign IDs), zlib integration, added tear-off capability to all menus, replaced the MESS wiki driver feature added in 0.35 with a ProjectMESS system search (the MESS wiki’s data got trashed, and ProjectMESS is the new de-facto #1 resource for all things MESS!), support for new ROM audit output, improved responsiveness when loading cached XML data, experimental support for Qt 5
- ROMAlyzer: speed up merge-processing by indexing XML look-ups, interpret new emu-states correctly, log possible XML merge-info bugs, support for CHD v5, allow for saving the ROMAlyzer log to a file
- MESS device mapper: sort slot-options alphanumerically, add a separator between ‘not used’ and available options, allow disabling of default slot-options and indicate them as such
- MiniWebBrowser: allow new (pop-up) browser windows to be created, change zoom with the mouse-wheel (+ Ctrl), enabled the use of QtWebKit’s Web Inspector for non-developer builds
- YouTube video-player: new media icons, support pasting a YouTube video URL onto the player itself (starts playback without attaching the video)
- Translations: 5 new translations for Italian (WIP), Romanian (mostly complete), Spanish (complete), Swedish (WIP) and Greek (WIP) were added
- Mac OS X builds: avoid using xcodebuild for Qt 4.8+ (this means that XCode 4 no longer is an issue when a self-compiled Qt 4.8+ installation is used! Nokia’s binary package still relies on XCode, but qmake then creates incompatible output for XCode 4)... read more

The MAME developers have uploaded their 15th anniversary edition (0.145) last night which makes it a good time for the long-awaited QMC2 0.35 release ;) .

Congratulations to all MAME (and MESS) developers for their 15th anniversary! We all love this project and you deserve a big thank you — keep up the excellent work!

The most important highlights for QMC2 0.35 include:

- Major overhaul of the software-list support: multi-device software-list entries, automatic vs. manual mount-device selection, mixable parts from different software-list entries, a new dock-able/floating software-detail widget with a separate snapshot-browser, a ProjectMESS software-lookup feature and an HTML editor/viewer for personal rich-text software-notes, software-compatibility filtering, software-list loading can be interrupted now and is better indicated through the GUI, software-list export tool, …
- Emulator embedding now also works on Windows! Note, however, that there are known issues for emulators running in Direct 3D mode (‘-video d3d’) which we can’t probably solve front-end wise.
- Changed the MESS device configuration so it offers available device-instances based on the slot-options specified, thus allowing to mount them as well (through the legacy device-mapper and the file-chooser). Also, default slot-options are now correctly pre-selected.
- YouTube video-player: added a semi-transparent overlay widget to display status information at the bottom of the player’s viewport.
- Added a new MESS wiki detail to look up available driver information (MESS targets only).
- Allow for hiding of pure BIOS and/or device sets in all master-lists.
- Selectable default launch-mode used when starting emulation by activating (i.e. double-clicking) an entry in any list.
- All image widgets got an additional context-menu item (‘refresh’) to clear and reload their cache slots individually.
- Game/machine icons are now also shown on the tab headers of embedded emulators.
- ZIP support for software-snapshots has been added (as promised).
- ROM state filtering can now be enabled/disabled on-the-fly and is thus no longer a must.
- New logos for both variants, (optional) splash screens and new application icons for Mac OS X to be associated with the apps were added.
- Lots of important bug-fixes (we took great effort to find and fix all major bugs before doing this release, and hope that nothing important slipped through) and numerous improvements throughout the code.... read more

MAME and MESS 0.143 were released just recently, so this is a good time to also release QMC2 0.2.b20 (since we can make sure to be in-sync with both emulators)!

We will go on like this in future releases, meaning that we will also wait for the MESS release from now on. Thanks to Micko, the MESS releases meanwhile usually follow within 24 hours after the corresponding MAME release, so that it’s better to wait a bit longer instead of publishing updated templates later.... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b19, which incorporates a great number of improvements, bug fixes and new functionality — the latter mainly related to the ROMAlyzer and the emulator embedder.

The most important changes in this release include:

* ROMAlyzer improvements: faster identification by CRC for files from ZIP-archives, greatly improved progress indication and batch processing ability
* ROMAlyzer fixes: ROM status determination for special no-dump ROMs (MAME & MESS) and sets that need no ROMs at all (MESS-only)
* New ROMAlyzer functionality: a checksum wizard with an optional set repair function, a set rewiter to rewrite clean new sets, the determination of the merge-status of each individual ROM / CHD file and a copy to clipboard function for an individual set’s analysis report (as formatted ASCII text)
* Embedder improvements: use of additional space for maximized embedded emulator windows, nicer maximization-toggle
* New embedder functionality: automatic emulator pausing / resuming when its window gets hidden / shown, process status indication through traffic-light icons
* General improvements and fixes: optimized / faster log widgets, all game/machine detail images now contain a context menu with a copy to clipboard item
* New support for a number of players column in all game/machine lists... read more

Happy new year!

QMC2 0.2.b18 has been released today! The major focus of this version is clean support for Qt 4.7, which you can safely use now (we actually recommend it). Also, some embedder and ROMAlyzer related fixes and improvements made their way into the current code.

The most important changes this time include:

* Major improvements for the emulator embedder to cleanly work with Qt 4.7 and to fix existing/known bugs with regard to auto-maximization, emulator focus and mixed/concurrent joystick control
* Support for XML data which contains unicode characters (this actually makes the creation of XML- and gamelist-caches a bit slower)
* ROMAlyzer fixes (interpret verifications through chdman as file integrity checks only) and improvements (show only checksums that are enabled for calculation)
* Support for additional/new XML data... read more

Updated files for QMC2 0.2.b17 have been uploaded due to a small/minor but probably annoying bug which was discovered shortly after its initial release.

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b17!

This version comes with a great number of major fixes and improvements that should make it one of the best releases ever. The most important changes include:

* Added generic support to drive a ROM tool for any external processing based on the game/machine ID or its title
* Support for newer XML data when retrieving game/machine details
* Experimental support for Qt 4.7 -- basically working fine, but there's one embedder-related (minor) issue left
* X11 platforms only: the embedder now handles multiple emulators correctly when they are running the same game/machine... read more

QMC2 0.2.b15 has been released today!

Besides a few bug-fixes, this version includes the following new features:

* Added optional support for catver.ini from http://www.progettoemma.net/?catlist to all MAME targets — this includes two new optional/on-demand columns and views (category, version)
* Added a new ROM types column to all game/machine lists
* The exit/stop button now blinks when there’s background activity to indicate the activity itself as well as the button’s seconds function
* A new option (PlayOnSublistActivation) has been added to allow for direct launching of a game/machine when it’s activated in the search-, favorites- or played-lists
* The MP3 player now also handles MP3 streams (just add a valid stream URL instead of a local file name)... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b14!

This version includes quite a number of interesting improvements, some new features and a set of important bug fixes. Users of older versions will most likely notice the drastically improved startup performance (about 50% of what it took before).

The most important changes since 0.2.b13 include:

* Nice performance improvements for ROM state filtering and loading of all cached data
* The ROMAlyzer now has built-in support for chdman which can be used to deeply verify, automatically fix and/or update CHDs
* New context menus for the main-widget’s horizontal and vertical splitters to allow for orientation flipping and swapping of their sub-widgets/sub-layouts — this enables the user to freely layout all major widgets!
* X11-only: the embedder now includes a toggle switch to maximize the emulator window
* MAME targets only: added a demo mode to run random games from the overall list... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b13. This version incorporates a number of interesting new features as well as a major overhaul of great parts of the code to get rid of some long-standing bugs and restrictions.

The most important changes since 0.2.b12 include:

* Emulator configuration widgets now use check-boxes (instead of the former combo-boxes) for all boolean settings — thanks to Bill Blake for the suggestion
* During a session, the item expansion state and scroll bar values of game- or machine-specific emulator configurators are preserved
* Except for icons in menus, all static icons are now adjusted to the size of the current application font (even icons on the tool bar)
* You can now specify a separate font for all log browsers (mono-spaced fonts are recommended)
* X11 & SDLMAME/SDLMESS only: optional / on-demand embedding of emulator windows through XEmbed (includes related features such as an easy snapshot tool — additional features are planned or under consideration)
* Support for additional (foreign) emulators which can be used on a per-game/per-machine basis (among others, this includes support for XMAME/XMESS for those who may still care ;) )
* New Portuguese translation — thanks to Marcelo Bossoni
* Quite a number of important bug-fixes, work-arounds and further improvements... read more

(SDL)MAME 0.135 has just been released, so it’ time for yet another update…. QMC2 0.2.b12 has been released to the public!

The changes this time include:

* Optional live indicator of the physical memory utilization (POSIX-only for now)
* The variant launcher now has optional support for spawn & quit when launching another variant — mostly important for low memory systems
* Template check against the running emulator’s options and defaults (see Tools -> Cleanup -> Check template map) — this easily reveals discrepancies between the configuration template and the emulator core
* Documentation additions, bug-fixes and general improvements... read more