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MAME Running In Chrome

Posted by timothy on from the ok-now-iterate-and-1-and-2-and-switch dept.

An anonymous reader writes to point out this interesting outgrowth of Google's Native Client: a Google engineer has ported MAME 0.143 to the browser-based platform, and written about the process in detail, outlining the overall strategy employed as well as specific problems that MAME presented. An impressive postscript from the conclusion: "The port of MAME was relatively challenging; combined with figuring out how to port SDL-based games and load resources in Native Client, the overall effort took us about 4 days to complete."

4 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Is Google trying to fragment web? by SharkLaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We had that shit before with ActiveX. We need standards, not some stuff that only works in Chrome. However, I guess it's better for Google - now they have something that only works with Chrome. So when new users go to some web site it will say that they need to download and install Chrome to use it. Old users will also be locked to Chrome.

    Don't do that. Only use standards like HTML5 that work in every browser.

    1. Re:Is Google trying to fragment web? by JanneM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "write once, run everywhere"

      Write once, run in Chrome.

      You really want to return to the days when sites required a specific browser to let you in?

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    2. Re:Is Google trying to fragment web? by StripedCow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Java is much more high-level, because it integrates a garbage collector in the VM. This is what makes it a sluggish memory hog.

      NaCl does not do that. It allows lean-and-mean code. It is basically like a lightweight version of VMWare/VirtualBox sitting in your browser.

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    3. Re:Is Google trying to fragment web? by raburton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > I, for one, like the idea that I can have desktop quality applications running independent of platform on my browser - and wouldn't mind if this became the standard

      The browser is your platform, that's the whole concept behind moving everything to web based. That's a good thing if you take the traditional view that the OS is the platform - now you can run any old OS you like (with a standards compliant browser) and you'll be able to run the apps.

      This doesn't make you platform independent though, it makes you OS independent - all you've done is just redefined 'platform'. While apps only use standards you maintain independence. As soon as they use non-standard extensions you are no longer independent and now you are limited again. In this case you are limited to Chrome.

      In this respect it's really no different to ActiveX. Just because google have published the workings of this doesn't make it a standard and there is really no reason for all other browsers to implement it. And if it isn't a standard and isn't available in all browsers people working with it will be forcing their choice of platform on their users and we're back to where we started. Why don't we all just run Windows and use ActiveX?

      Richard.