MAME2003 GameCube Port

A GameCube homebrew project to port MAME2003 (MAME 0.78) to Nintendo GameCube.

This project provides a minimal, fast-loading arcade emulator optimized for the GameCube's 486 MHz Gekko CPU and limited resources.

Project Status

Current Phase: Foundation - Minimal scaffold with libogc integration and build system ready for MAME2003 core integration.

Features

• GameCube native DOL with libogc, using devkitPPC
• Docker-based reproducible build system
• GitHub Actions CI/CD for automated builds and releases
• Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) support for performance tuning
• Build system inspired by proven GameCube homebrew projects

Goals

• Port MAME2003 (MAME 0.78) core to GameCube
• Optimize for 486 MHz Gekko CPU and limited memory
• Start with small/8-bit arcade boards
• Keep binary size minimal and performance predictable
• Support SD Gecko/SD2SP2 for ROM loading

Build Requirements

Local Development

• devkitPro with devkitPPC and libogc installed
• DEVKITPRO and DEVKITPPC environment variables set

Docker Build (Recommended)

• Docker installed and running
• 4GB+ free disk space

Building

Using Docker (Recommended)

# Build regular GameCube version
./docker-build.sh build gc

# Build PGO instrumented version
./docker-build.sh pgo-generate gc

# Build PGO optimized version (after collecting profile data)
./docker-build.sh pgo-optimize gc

# Clean build artifacts
./docker-build.sh clean gc

Local Build

# Build GameCube DOL
make gc

# Run via psoload (requires setup)
make gc-run

# Clean
make gc-clean

# PGO builds
make gc-pgo-generate
make gc-pgo-optimize

Output

Built executables are placed in executables/:

• mamegc-gc.dol - Regular GameCube build
• mamegc-gc_pgo_gen.dol - PGO instrumented build
• mamegc-gc_pgo_use.dol - PGO optimized build

Repository Structure

.
├── Makefile              # Top-level build orchestration
├── Makefile.gc          # GameCube-specific build rules
├── Dockerfile           # Build environment definition
├── docker-build.sh      # Docker build script
├── docker-compose.yml   # Docker compose configuration
├── source/              # C/C++ source code
├── executables/         # Output DOL files
├── build_gc/            # Build intermediates
└── .github/workflows/   # CI/CD workflows

CI/CD

GitHub Actions workflows automatically:

• Build and test on every push/PR
• Create pre-release builds from main/master branch
• Support PGO instrumented builds
• Generate downloadable artifacts

Development Roadmap

1. Phase 1: Foundation (Current)

   • ✅ Platform skeleton with video/console init
   • ✅ Controller polling
   • ✅ Build system with Docker support
   • ✅ GitHub Actions CI/CD

2. Phase 2: Core Integration

   • Integrate MAME2003 core source
   • Minimal driver support (1-2 games proof-of-concept)
   • Basic input mapping

3. Phase 3: Filesystem

   • SD Gecko/SD2SP2 support
   • ROM loading from SD card
   • Save state management

4. Phase 4: User Interface

   • Game selector menu
   • Settings interface
   • Basic ROM browser

5. Phase 5: Optimization

   • Frame skip implementation
   • Audio optimization
   • PGO tuning for common games
   • Memory optimization

Technical Notes

• Uses devkitPro devkitPPC image (20240612) with GCC 13.1.0
• libogc for GameCube hardware abstraction
• libfat for SD card filesystem access
• Profile-Guided Optimization support for performance
• Build intermediates separated by configuration (regular/PGO)