[[File:Mess sysinfo.png|thumb|upright=1.2|The MESS MAME system info box for the CPC6128]][[File:Mess gx4000 pang.png|thumb|upright=1.2|MESS MAME also has (still somewhat glitchy) support for the GX4000 and CPC+ series. Note the strange blue bar at the bottom in ''[[Pang (cartridge)|Pang]]''.]]'''MESSMAME''' (Multi Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator Super System) is an emulator for arcade games, vintage computers, gaming consoles, chess computers, and calculators, etc. It is a descendant of MAME 0.162 merged the previously separate MAME arcade emulation project and just like MAMEMESS (Multi Emulator Super System) codebases into one, so that one executable now combines the emulation capabilities of pre-0.162 MAME/MESS. The most important goal of MESS MAME is highly accurate emulation, not speed. MESS and MAME are is mainly a preservation projects project that aim aims to reproduce the behaviour of the real hardware perfectly, so performance may be slightly worse than many dedicated CPC emulators.
==Emulated systems==
Currently, [http://www.progettoemma.net/mess/sysset.php over a thousand systems are supported] by MESSMAME, including the CPC and CPC Plus ranges and the GX4000. This is probably the main reason for using MESSMAME: A single download is enough to emulate more or less every home computer and gaming console that ever existed in the late 1970s and 1980s—provided one can find a ROM set that works (see below).
MESS MAME does not have the depth of other CPC emulators, but it sure has enormous breadth. Its flexible input mapping and MAME-compatible pixel shader effects make MESS MAME particularly suited for gaming.
==Installation==
MESS MAME runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. You can get Windows binaries from [http://mamedev.org/release.html mamedev.org]. If you also use MAME, you may want to get [http://mamedev.emulab.it/haze/latest-ume-mame-mess-binaries UME] instead, which combines MESS and MAME into a single executable with a shared configuration file, <tt>ume.ini</tt>.
On OS X, you can install MESS MAME via [http://brew.sh/ Homebrew]:
brew tap homebrew/games
brew install messmame
On Windows and OS X, the MESS MAME binary is called '''messmame''', on Linux '''sdlmesssdlmame'''. On some Linux distros such as Arch Linux you have to use absolute paths for disk images or ROMs because /usr/bin/sdlmesss sdlmame is a wrapper script that will cd to the directory with the MESS MAME binary. Or you could simply skip the wrapper script and run /usr/share/sdlmesssdlmame/sdlmess sdlmame directly: alias messmame=/usr/share/sdlmesssdlmame/sdlmesssdlmame
==Command line arguments==
Typical command line to start MESS MAME in CPC mode: mess mame cpc6128 -skip_gameinfo -window -flop1 /path/to/disk.dsk
;Device options for the CPC from [http://www.progettoemma.net/mess/extra.html sysinfo.dat]
You can use zipped disk images too. If there is more than one DSK image in the zip file, treat the zip file like a directory, e.g.
mess mame cpc6128 -flop1 disk.zip/disk0.dsk
==Keyboard layouts==
MESS MAME supports two keyboard modes:
* '''emulated''' (the default; keys are assigned based on key position on the emulated hardware)
* '''natural''' (command line option "-natural"; based on the character generated by a key, e.g. pressing "z" will always generate a "z" on the emulated system)
To use a German keyboard in emulated keyboard mode, start MESS MAME e.g. with (key map path on Linux): mess mame cpc6128 -keymap -keymap_file /usr/share/sdlmess/keymaps/km-de.txt
In emulated mode, keys can also be remapped in the emulator menu. First press ''Scroll Lock'' to enable the MESS MAME control keys, then ''Tab'' to open the menu, and finally select ''Input (this system)''. ''Return, Esc'' clears an assigned key.
Note that the ''Delete'' and ''Backspace'' keys are swapped on the emulated keyboard because of the CPC keyboard layout. So you may want to reassign those. Escape on the CPC is mapped to the key left of "1" on the PC keyboard. Alt-Enter switches between windowed and full screen mode.
==ROMs and extension hardware==
[[Media:CPC_ROMs_for_MESS.zip|CPC ROMs for MESSMAME]]. Just unzip the file and move the ZIPs inside into the MESS ROM folder.
;General notes about MESS MAME and ROMs
Just as in Some MAME, some MESS ROMs have parent ROMs that also need to be installed. E.g., <tt>cpc6128.zip</tt> also requires <tt>cpc464.zip</tt> to run. (See the links section for CPC ROM files for MESSMAME.)
ROMs often only work with a specific version of MESSMAME. This does not seem to affect CPC ROMs, but other systems sometimes give an error message when ROM filenames or checksums do not match what MESS MAME expected.
;Slot options (extension hardware)
You can get a list of slot options with
mess mame cpc6128 -lslot
These are (as of MESS MAME 0.159162):
*for "-centronics"
|[[Digiblaster]] (DIY)
|}
[[File:MESS with Dobbertin Smart Watch.png|thumb|upright=1.7||MESS MAME with the Dobbertin Smart Watch ROM loaded (-exp smartwatch)]]
*for "-exp"
{|class="wikitable"
The ROM Box expansion can be used to load external ROMs such as [[MAXAM]]:
mess mame cpc6128 -exp rom -rom1 /path/to/MAXAM.ROM
Up to 8 external ROMs (-rom1 to -rom8) are supported this way.
==GUI front-ends==
Various GUI front-ends for MESS MAME exist for Windows, Linux, and OS X—see this list: [http://www.mess.org/mess:howto#frontends]
[[File:Messmenu.png|thumb|none|650px|MessMenu on OS X with a CPC ROM selected. Currently, seven different CPC models are supported, including some regional variants (French and Swedish).]]
[[File:Cpc shader mess.png|thumb|upright=1.5|GLSL shader example]]
[[File:Cpc hlsl shader mess detail.png|thumb|HLSL "1980s" shader (detail)]]
Like MAME, MESS can use shaders to simulate typical CRT graphics artifacts such as scanlines, colors bleeding into each other, jitter, and display curvature. This involves editing mess.ini (or ume.ini if you use UME).
Mess.ini works the same as mame.ini, so MAME tutorials can be used as a starting point. Some example configurations:
*Windows (using HLSL shaders)
**A scripted setup with separate "1980s" and "1990s" CRT configs: [http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45026&start=240] (huge post is halfway down the page)
==Remaining issues with CPC emulation==
*MESS MAME may fail to read DSK images with certain kinds of copy protection. Speedlock seems to work fine though.*MESS MAME cannot write to disc images in DSK format; only MFI (MESS floppy image) and MFM (HxCFloppyEmulator floppy image) are supported for writing.*Some demo tricks may be broken in MESSMAME, e.g. overscan pictures are horizontally misaligned (i.e., shifted to the right).
*CPC+/GX4000 emulation still has some obvious graphics glitches.
*The emulated CPC464 has the AMSDOS ROM loaded which is a problem with early 464-only programs that rely on the 464's larger free memory.
*{{EnWiki}}
*[http://www.messmamedev.org/ Official site]
*[http://www.mess.org/mess:howto MESS user's manual]
*[[Media:CPC_ROMs_for_MESS.zip|CPC ROMs for MESSMAME]]
[[Category:Emulator]]