MAME 2016 not showing the UI when loading the core only

RetroArch Android devices
#1

WHen I run the official MAME 0.174, it shows the new built in UI, so you can select the system / games you want to play from there. But when I run the MAME2016 core without any content, it shows a black screen only and nothing else happens.

To be able to see the internal MAME UI today, I have to load content, select an arcade game, and when the game is running, I can open the UI and go to the ‘Select a new Machine’ option. And from there I can select whatever system I want and run it. It’s specially useful for computer games, such as Apple II+ or other rare to find systems.

Is it possible to fix the UI when loaing the core only? So I don’t have to do all these shortcuts to be able to pick up a computer game to play.

Another possible issue is that when I try to run an Apple II+ game straight from the Load Content menu, it crashes the emulator. However, the game runs perfectly when I select and run it from the internal MAME2016 UI.

#2

It is a behavior that cant be easily fixed as if we enable no content it will interact the actual code that load content and force some param . Actual is not ideal but not worst too. It will be ideal if we only jave to deal cmdline launch and not trough ra gui. But that what most users want…

#3

I understand. But what I do not understand is why MESS systems (MESS is inside the MAME2016 core as you know) do not run games that are supposed to run in the same way arcade games do, since the software list for the AppleII is there already.

As an example, I’ve managed to load and run the game Sabotage for the Apple II+ computer using MAME2016. To do that, I loaded the content of an arcade game to be able to access the MAME internal UI at first, and from there I’ve selected the AppleII+ system and loaded the game. It works perfectly. But when I try to load content and select the sabotage disk file to run with MAME2016 core, it crashes the emulator. It might be a bug, I just don’t know how hard would it be to fix this. Could you please take a look on this if I send you the LOG?

Also, I’ve found a bug in the “Analog controls” submenu in MAME2016. This menu is the one where you set the analog controls sensitivity, autocenter and control reverse parameters for systems which uses paddle devices or similar controls (such as atari 2600 which has paddle controllers to some games). When you start scrolling the cursor inside this submenu, it crashes the emulator. Could you take a look at this bug as well? If needed, I can provide you the LOG file, just let me know.

And one final thing I need to know: How can I navigate through the MAME2016 system selection screen? Which button I need to configure to be able to jump from one panel to another in this screen? The cursor appears at the center panel, where the system list is, so you can select the desired system to run, but I couldn’t get the cursor to jump from this section to the other sections. And I need to jump, for example, to the panel on the left side of the screen, where you have several options to filter the systems you have, or the systems you marked as favorites, etc. Because now, without jumping between sections, I cannot filter my systems, and every time I want to play an AppleII game or A2600 game, I have to scroll the giant list all the way down to these systems, which is quite painful. If I can navigate between these panels, my problem (and other users problem too) would be solved.