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

QMC2 0.187 has been released!

This version comes with a number of more or less important bug-fixes and improvements for system- and software-notes, software-lists and QMC2 Arcade (which also supports the icon cache database now). For more details see the change-log below!

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

After a longer-than-expected delay, QMC2 0.186 has finally been released!

There has been some real-life stuff preventing an earlier release, nothing to worry about though, just things that make fun (my son and I are building a practice room for our upcoming band… I’m the drummer, and the one that owns the house and pays the bills. It’s about 70% done. 😉 ).

Despite this (free-)time-consuming work, still a number of important bug-fixes and improvements went into QMC2 again. Most importantly, MAME 0.186 can now be used without any (known) issues. For details see the change-log below!... read more

Better late than never... sorry for the delayed news post!

QMC2 0.183 has been released (yesterday)! We’re now using the same version as the corresponding MAME release, and this time it’s actually required to use MAME 0.183 when updating to QMC2 0.183 because the -listslots output has changed.

Besides a few important bug-fixes we’ve improved a number of primarily software-list related things, added support for system- and software-manuals and made each component’s current tab switchable via context-menus of the tab-headers. See the change-log below for more details!... read more

QMC2 0.71 has just been released. It’s in sync with MAME 0.182 which was released yesterday (yes, we skipped 0.181) !

Besides two important software-list related bug-fixes we’ve updated the bundled versions of zlib and the LZMA SDK (7-zip) to their latest releases. Since both steps were fairly big code-wise, this should generally improve/modernize archive compatibility and performance. See the change-log below for more details!... read more

QMC2 0.68 has been released. It’s synced with MAME 0.178 which was released earlier today!

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.68:

• imp: updated minizip to a newer git revision (as of 28-AUG-2016)
• imp: updated PDF.js to a newer git revision (as of 31-AUG-2016)
• imp: updated category.ini to MAME 0.178
• imp: emulator configuration templates updated to MAME 0.178 (added new OSD video option ‘monitorprovider’)
• new: added two new options to the ROM status exporter which allow for exporting only favorites or tagged sets

QMC2 0.67 has been released. It’s synced with MAME 0.177 which was released yesterday!

This is mainly a bug-fix release. It contains an important fix for the Mac OS X platform where loading from cached data caused an endless loop during start-up. Sorry about that :)!

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

QMC2 0.66 has been released. It’s synced with MAME 0.176 which was released earlier today!

Besides some more or less important bug-fixes and nice improvements related to building with system-provided zlib and/or minizip libraries (instead of using the built-in ones), work has been started on a long-awaited new feature called filtered custom views. While the views actually already run mostly fine (and are super-fast) it’s still incomplete. Most importantly the actual filtering doesn’t work yet, and it’s missing a tree mode (flat mode only right now). Because of this, the relevant code is WIP-ified at the moment, which means that you will not be able to try this feature in official builds (if you would like to test it, you’d have to build QMC2 from source and specify WIP=1 on the make command line).... read more

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.65 which is in sync with MAME 0.175, released two days ago (sorry for the delay, but there’s also real life). The good news is that this delay gave me the opportunity to fix a last-minute Windows-specific bug which I was pointed to just in time by oddi (thanks!).

You should again see a much better start-up performance than before (once data from the emulator is cached, of course). QMC2 now skips the emulator identification step when the binary’s modification time hasn’t changed. Also, the ROMAlyzer’s collection rebuilder now handles CHD reproduction in a number of possible ways – I’d recommend watching the video tutorial linked to in the previous post for more information!... read more

QMC2 0.64 has been released which is in sync with MAME 0.174, released yesterday.

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.64:

• imp: updated category.ini to MAME 0.174
• imp: using a cleaner base image for the loading animation (rotating circle-arrow)
• imp: updated PDF.js to a newer git revision (as of 08-MAY-2016)
• imp: ported the built-in audio player to Qt 5 / QtMultimedia (the AudioEffectDialog is deprecated now, it isn’t available for Qt 5 builds and will be dropped as soon as we switch to Qt 5 completely; the make option FORCE_PHONON has been removed in favour of the new option MULTMEDIA for Qt 5 builds) — see also bug tracker ID #94
• imp: added info about using semicolon (to separate multiple items) to the tool-tips of all front-end artwork options
• imp: emulator configuration templates updated to MAME 0.174 (changed default value for HLSL option ‘vector_length_ratio’)

QMC2 0.63 has been released which syncs with MAME 0.173, released earlier today.

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.63:

• imp: updated minizip to a newer git revision (as of 26-MAR-2016)
• imp: updated PDF.js to a newer git revision (as of 31-MAR-2016)
• imp: updated category.ini contributed by ASH to MAME ‘git latest’
• imp: emulator configuration templates updated to MAME ‘git latest’ (added new core options ‘intoverscan’ and ‘output’, added new BGFX post-processing option ‘bgfx_avi_name’, updated HLSL options)
• imp: ROMAlyzer / check-sum scanner: display the scan timer already during the preparation phase of an incremental scan

QMC2 0.62 has been released. It’s in sync with MAME 0.172 which was released earlier today.

This version marks QMC2’s 10-year anniversary! As such we’ve tried our best to make this version as clean and smooth as possible. Though we’re now reaching optimization limits for the current design, you’ll notice that start-up performance has been improved greatly again. Many things have been cleaned up and a number of important fixes went in as usual. For details see change-log below.... read more

QMC2 0.61 has been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.171 which was released earlier today.

Besides the usual updates due to MAME’s latest changes and some smaller general improvements we’ve been able to speed up the start-up performance once again. Enjoy!

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team... read more

QMC2 0.60 has been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.170 which was released earlier today.

Besides some minor bug-fixes and the usual updates we’ve taken some time to optimize machine list loading and other start-up operations. Here’s the latest benchmark in case you care :).

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

QMC2 0.59 has been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.169 which was released earlier today.

Besides some important bug-fixes we now also support libarchive throughout QMC2. See 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.

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.59:

• fix: custom software artwork wasn’t updated / displayed correctly when more than one additional software artwork class was defined — see also bug tracker ID #127
• fix: main GUI didn’t quit until the last independent browser window was closed
• fix: corrected query error logging for all database managers
• fix: avoid high CPU load by constantly updating software detail
• imp: qchdman: added new script-engine functions for platform-independent folder creation and removal
• imp: ROMAlyzer / check-sum scanner: improved thread synchronization which speeds up scanning and fixes corner cases where the cross-thread event frequency could get too high
• imp: new loading animation (less obtrusive)
• imp: slightly speeded up loading the ROM state cache
• imp: updated category.ini contributed by ASH to MAME 0.169
• imp: emulator configuration templates updated to MAME 0.169 (added new HLSL options ‘bloom_blend_mode’ and ‘shadow_mask_tile_mode’)
• new: added optional support for libarchive (use make LIBARCHIVE=1 to enable it at build time) — see also bug tracker ID #93
• new: software-list loading and checking also display a rotating circle animation now (unless the animation is switched off)
• inf: the French translation has a new maintainer — thanks to Yû Voskoboinikov
• inf: SDL2 is now preferred – if you still need/want to build for SDL1 and both SDL versions are installed, specifiy SDL=1 on the make command line to forcibly use it

QMC2 0.58 has been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.168 which was released earlier today.

This time the most important feature addition is the support for custom artwork (image) classes that you can define locally and use just like any built-in artwork class throughout QMC2 (including QMC2 Arcade, but only the ToxicWaste theme has support for it at the moment). Within this context you’re also able now to select parent fallback behavior individually (per artwork class) so that for example images for high scores wouldn’t be taken from a parent whereas other artwork classes would use the fall back mechanism (this feature is available for all types of custom or built-in artwork, including icons and video snaps).... read more

We’re proud to announce that QMC2 0.57 has been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.167 which was released earlier today.

Besides the usual bug-fixes you’ll (hopefully) notice that start-up initialization is smoother and slightly faster in this release. The ROMAlyzer’s collection rebuilder received some love and can now make use of a hash cache to avoid many, many database (hash) look-ups during rebuilds. It also has a new dry run mode which doesn’t produce real output but checks what would happen if you’d actually do a rebuild. Among other things, this makes it fairly easy to rapidly produce a fix.dat file.... read more

I've moved the QMC2 homepage to my own domain since I have no idea when/if
arcadehits.net will be back.

The new URL from now on is: http://qmc2.batcom-it.net/

Please update your links accordingly!

QMC2 0.56 has just been released! It’s in sync with MAME 0.166 which was released earlier today.

The most important feature addition this time is the optional support for video snaps by QMC2 Arcade (requires qt-mobility). Parts of the main GUI’s layout have been revised to allow for a more compact look. And last but not least, the ROMAlyzer’s check-sum scanner received an (optional) hash cache which greatly speeds up scanning. For details see change-log below!... read more

QMC2 0.55 has been released! This version is synced with MAME 0.165 which was released earlier today.

This is mainly a bug-fix release with some improvements. For details see change-log below!

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.55:

• fix: device configurator: avoid crash when a slot-option references a device that doesn’t exist in the XML database
• fix: corrected a bug in cached machine list loading which confused the ROM check
• fix: interrupting any processing caused subsequent ROM checks on tagged sets to not be carried out
• fix: corrected visibility switching of the ROM state filter menu during machine list reload
• fix: update visible user data (ranks) even if no machine is selected after reload
• imp: updated category.ini contributed by ASH to MAME 0.165
• imp: the value of the -config_path command line option can now also be a relative path (relative to the current working directory, that is)
• imp: slightly improved the performance of loading catver.ini and sorting by alpha-numeric columns
• new: added measurement of the ‘total start-up time’ (printed to the front-end log)

QMC2 0.54 has been released! This version is synced with MAME 0.164 which was released earlier today.

The most important changes this time include greatly reduced initial loading times, new support for video snaps and a number of bug-fixes.

For details see change-log below!

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

QMC2 0.53 has been released. This version is synced with MAME 0.163 which was released earlier today.

The MAME-induced unification process which was started in version 0.52 should now be more or less complete, it’s also much cleaner than before (a number of related bugs have been fixed). Sorry for any inconveniences :).

For details see change-log below!

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

QMC2 0.52 has been released, synced with MAME 0.162 which was released earlier today.

Note that because MAME/MESS are unified in one emulator now, both the MESS and UME variants of QMC2 have been dropped! In other words, QMC2 for (SDL)MAME is now what the (SDL)UME variant used to be. QMC2 Arcade and Qt CHDMAN GUI are not affected by this, though.

For details see change-log below!

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

QMC2 0.51 has been released, synced with MAME/MESS 0.161 which was released yesterday. There have not been too many changes this time, though. For details see change-log below!

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

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Full change-log for 0.51:

• imp: updated MESS category.ini contributed by ASH to MESS 0.161
• imp: ROMAlyzer / check-sum scanner: commit database transactions in smaller chunks when a single scanned archive contains hundreds or thousands of files
• imp: MAME/MESS/UME emulator templates updated to 0.161 (added Mac OS X specific CoreAudio effect options, ‘debugger_font’ and ‘debugger_font_size’ to all SDL templates)
• imp: replaced all occurrances of qSort() with std::sort() as the qSort() function is marked obsolete (for Qt 5 at least)
• inf: YouTube officially took down the v2 API access as of APR-20-2015, so the YouTube feature doesn’t work right now (until we support the YouTube v3 API which is already planned)... read more

QMC2 0.50 has been released, synced with MAME/MESS 0.160 which was released this morning. 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 0.50:

• fix: software-lists: corrected storing of software favorites to include the list name
• fix: updated the catver.ini loader to work with the latest format change
• fix: options: corrected short-cut and joystick-function map coloring on 'cancel'
• fix: corrected the audio player's progress indication when tracks are stopped
• fix: ensure that the software-detail widget is visible when 'undocked' initially
• fix: ROMAlyzer: corrected the calculated size shown when dumps are indicated as available in the check-sum database (but missing in the expected files within the ROM path)
• fix: corrected the use of the right file-dialog for selecting output files in the 'ROM status export' dialog (bug tracker ID #102)
• imp: updated MESS category.ini contributed by ASH to MESS 0.160
• imp: software-lists: added parent image & info fallback (bug tracker ID #92)
• imp: added support for using 'history.dat' as 'sysinfo.dat' (bug tracker ID #91)
• imp: software-lists: software favorites are no longer stored in qmc2.ini but in the user data database (auto-migrated on demand)
• imp: main GUI: slightly snappier start-up
• imp: main GUI: folder based icons are no longer limited to PNGs (every supported image format can be used now, same as with ZIP-/7z-archived icons)
• imp: MAME/MESS/UME emulator templates updated to 0.160 (added OpenGL section and the new 'opengl' choice for -video to all Windows OSD templates)
• imp: added players and driver-status columns to the 'ROM status export' feature (bug tracker ID #103)
• new: software-lists: added a parent/clone hierarchy view (bug tracker ID #81)
• new: software-lists: added per system software-list visibility toggling (bug tracker ID #85)
• new: reimplemented the former 'detail setup' feature as a general 'component setup' to allow for changing the order and visibility of all features in all main GUI components
• new: the arrangement of all main GUI components can now be defined through the new 'component setup' dialog as well (this replaces the old method and its related settings)
• new: added 'parent-only filtering' to the arcade mode setup (bug tracker ID #96) and the demo mode

QMC2 0.49 has been released, synced with MAME/MESS 0.159 which was 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 0.49:

• fix: avoid possible crashes when mass tagging items
• fix: ROMAlyzer (software-mode): avoid that the widget stays disabled under certain circumstances
• fix: process manager: keep white-space characters in (formatted) emulator log messages
• fix: Max OS X: avoid crash on initial load (after recreating the emulator caches)
• fix: QMC2 Arcade (Mac OS X): ensure that plugins are always loaded from the app bundle and not from a probably installed Qt SDK (which would cause a serious crash)
• fix: corrected software-info retrieval — see also bug tracker ID #87
• fix: avoid that the software-list tab can be moved while it’s being created initially (could result in unwanted/uncontrolled tab moves)
• imp: Mac OS X build: using MKSPEC=macx-g++ as default Qt mkspec which allows it to build with binary Qt packages (hurray!)
• imp: updated MESS category.ini contributed by ASH to MESS 0.159 (also added French translation contributed by remax)
• imp: QMC2 Arcade: simplified windowed <=> full screen switching
• imp: enabled the sample-checker for MESS targets
• imp: ROMAlyzer: added a set-rewriter flag to decide if reproduction is aborted on error (recommended)
• imp: ROMAlyzer: integrated the collection rebuilder as a ROMAlyzer tab for improved user-friendliness
• imp: removed the inconsequently used ‘save/restore layout’ options (that is, all relevant windows will save/restore their layout under all circumstances now)
• imp: ROMAlyzer: greatly improved the filtering performance of the collection rebuilder
• imp: ROMAlyzer: better main-widget integration of the collection rebuilder’s features
• imp: updated the alternative system-notes template contributed by José Marcio Rezende Franco
• imp: template translator: handle section comments and use tabs for identation, the build & run scripts now download required jars automatically
• new: ROMAlyzer: added a ‘missing dumps viewer’ to the collection rebuilder
• new: ROMAlyzer: added an ‘exact match’ flag to both filter expressions of the collection rebuilder... read more