Okay guys, took the plunge and downloaded the latest MAME. 0.181 I believe.
Aug 22, 2014 - Searching around it looks like this is attributed to the MAME version being. If its a game like Metal Slug, you need both the ROMs and the BIOS files. Personally I use MameUI64 (on a 64bit windows machine) with it if you. I'm trying to run any version of Metal Slug in MaMe, but it seems like a combination of correct ROM,MaMe version and BIOS is needed. Jump to content. My subreddits. Edit subscriptions. Request: MaMe version, BIOS and ROM (self.metalslug) submitted 3 years ago by pablo111.
Anyway, I have multiple questions. I've only gotten one game to work and I don't know how or why. I've tried other games and they all just give me that red error message saying 'The selected machine is missing one or more required ROM or CHD images. Please select a different machine.' What am I doing wrong? Is there something else I need to download?
Is what I'm downloading the wrong version or incompatible with my MAME? Have I got the right thing in the wrong folder? Also, MAME now has MESS in it, so it can emulate consoles, right? How the heck do I get it to do that? I've downloaded some BIOSes and put things where I thought they should go, but I can't get anything to show up on the menu to click on it to even try to start a game? Sorry, I'm completely clueless on this stuff.
Haven't done anything with emulators for about 15 years, so all this stuff is new to me. Do I need to scrap the 0.181 and download an older version of MAME? I know there can be compatibility issues when MAME is updated. If so, which one? And am I going to have to try to find a new version every time I download something?
Not every time, but too often in my experience. I used to love MAME and I still dabble with it every once in a while, but IMO the whole project is slowly collapsing under its own weight. I think around the time of 0.36 was when I was really into it; had most of the available ROMs and had everything set up really nicely.
Somehow I lost my MAME directory, so I had to start over. I think I had it installed in some kind of documents folder instead of program files, and just deleted it by mistake when I upgraded my computer.
Anyway, I'm on 0.180 now and it definitely seems like a bigger pain than I remember. Not wanting to download things piecemeal but also not wanting like 30GB in a full romset, I downloaded a romset from an older version of MAME that was smaller, since I only care about games like pre-1990 or so anyway. And yeah, a whole bunch of them just don't work, even with the right BIOS installed. Get MAMEUI64 and with that you can at least audit all your ROMs, and it'll tell you how many of your ROMs really have problems. Do I need to scrap the 0.181 and download an older version of MAME? I know there can be compatibility issues when MAME is updated. If so, which one?
And am I going to have to try to find a new version every time I download something? No, 0.181 is fine. If you are using windows, mameui64 has a nice interface. See the Mame Gorf topic for one recently updated file. For console emulation press tab to bring up the menu for loading cartridge roms. Are you having trouble with older games or newer games? Give us some examples.
Edited by mrme, Sun Jan 8, 2017 7:32 PM. Okay, finally got mameui64 to working. I moved my rom for 1943 over and it works. I moved a rom for 1941 over and it doesn't.
A window comes up that says: buf1 NOT FOUND (tried in 1941j 1941 1941j) ioa1 NOT FOUND (tried in 1941j 1941 1941j) prg1 NOT FOUND (tried in 1941j 1941 1941j) rom1 NOT FOUND (tried in 1941j 1941 1941j) sou1 NOT FOUND (tried 1941j 1941 1941j) yi22b.1a NOT FOUND (NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN) (tried in 1941j 1941 1941j) Any ideas? I also downloaded Metal Slug Super Vehicle 001 and put it in and it wouldn't work either. With a different set of things not found. I tried a different Dig Dug, no go, different set of things not found. Mame not found errors = mismatched versions between rom and version of Mame being used, how many times must this be mentioned? Okay, so I download version 0.164 of mame for the dig dug game that says 'Dig Dug (rev 1) ROM M.A.M.E.
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator/MAME 0.164 ROMs' on the page at Emuparadise and it still doesn't work and doesn't even bring it up in the list. Neither will Metal Slug, which also said '0.164 ROMs' on the page. Neither will 1941, which also said '0.164 ROMs'.
So if I'm trying to use version 0.164 of MAME on games that are supposedly '0.164 ROMs', and they still won't work, then what am I doing wrong? EDIT: and the 1943 still worked fine Edited by Eltigro, Sun Jan 8, 2017 9:39 PM.
I just downloaded a file called 1941.zip. It has all the files you've listed missing except the last one. I think Mame thinks that one last file is unavailable anyway. Does your 1941 container file have the missing files you've listed? With some sets, common files can be shared between container files to save space rather than duplicating files.
In some cases its possible a missing file is in a different container file. Some sets might duplicate the files so every container file is complete. I haven't really looked into it much since I've had little trouble running games. Again I'm using a complete 0.153 rom set (30GB) with mame 0.181, with a handfull of manually downloaded update files.
![Metal slug 6 mame Metal slug 6 mame](https://www.emurom.net/images/stories/neogeo/cabinets/mslug3b6.png)
Mameui64 will tell you what is wrong ie. Missing files. Check that you have the files it says are missing. Edited by mrme, Sun Jan 8, 2017 10:43 PM. I just downloaded a file called 1941.zip. It has all the files you've listed missing except the last one. I think Mame thinks that one last file is unavailable anyway.
Does your 1941 container file have the missing files you've listed? With some sets, common files can be shared between container files to save space rather than duplicating files.
In some cases its possible a missing file is in a different container file. Some sets might duplicate the files so every container file is complete. I haven't really looked into it much since I've had little trouble running games. Again I'm using a complete 0.153 rom set (30GB) with mame 0.181, with a handfull of manually downloaded update files. Mameui64 will tell you what is wrong ie. Missing files.
Check that you have the files it says are missing. No, mine doesn't seem to have any files named those. Where did you get yours and I'll try that file. Here's where I got mine.
Okay, I think I've got the hang of the arcade games. Downloaded and successfully played Joust, Defender, Frogger, Raiden, Space Invaders, Berzerk, Moon Patrol, Bosconian, and several others. (By 'successfully played' I mean that I got them to run and respond to controls.
I didn't get very far in any of them.) Now the question is, how do I get console games to work? MAME now has MESS in it, so it should work for consoles, right? I downloaded an NES rom, but can't figure out how to access it to see if it works. I've also read that I have to load a rom dump or bios or whatever for the NES. Once I find one (which I haven't yet, so if anyone has any leads.) where do I put it?
Does it just go in the same 'ROMS' folder that everything else has gone in so far? Edit: Oh, looks like I might have figured it out. Got the rom to run. Now to check out other consoles. Edited by Eltigro, Mon Jan 9, 2017 1:02 PM.
Looks like you've figured out your MAME problems, but I think it's still worth emphasizing the following, for any other MAME noobs that might discover this thread: - MAME 'roms' are very different from console cartridge roms. Console cartridge roms, once obtained, are guaranteed to work on functioning emulators for the corresponding console. I've still got the same sets of Atari 2600 and NES roms I downloaded in the 90s, and they still work fine everywhere I try to use them (i.e., they don't need to be updated.) - MAME 'roms' sometimes do need to be updated to match the version of MAME that is being used. No need to explain why, just know that this is true.
due to the above point, the most headache-free approach to enjoying MAME will ALWAYS be to settle on a version of MAME that plays all the games you enjoy (note, most games worth playing have been running great for years), then locate a complete set of ROMS specifically for that MAME version. It will be a lot of data (20-30 gigs) but it's well worth it because a) you will have a bottomless pit of WORKING games to explore and b) having a complete set means you don't need to worry about obscure dependencies and parent roms and missing files and blah blah blah-if you have everything, you have everything, and things just work.
once you get MAME up and running with a complete set of matched roms, there is no good reason to update when new versions of MAME are released. The only reason to do so would be if a new game gets added to the 'properly emulated' list that you absolutely must have, but, again, all the good stuff has been running swimmingly for years. I've been using MAME v122 for 6-7 years now and it never lets me down. For the curious, MAME ROM sets change for several reasons. 1- New dumps become available. And game accuracy improves. Not that the old dumps were faulty.
But it's like when Reactor and Gorf were first emulated. The 'Game Program' itself was dumped and voila! We had the games up and running. But sound samples were also needed because information in the Votrax chip wasn't dumped. Now it has, and those two games were updated, changed, and now require the Votrax ROM so MAME can get rid of the samples and just synthesize the voices on the fly.
Thus a new set of ROMS. 2- A project as big as MAME has a lot of people working on it. And sometimes a new and better organization and naming convention is implemented. So ROMS get renamed. The data spread differently across multiple files.
Different sizes of the same ROM/Game may be discovered too. Thus a new set of ROMS. 3- Like #1, things that were approximated and simulated in early versions are now 'computed in real-time' and thus may require additional roms.
This applies to color palettes and sound and copy-protection. Usually this is small sized code from a microcontroller or something like the Atari MathBox or suicide chips.
Incidentally it is these new 'more detailed' features and 'emulations' in conjunction with an increasingly modular approach to programming that is causing slowdowns in MAME. Once these little details are hooked in and connected it's more for your CPU to crunch. You can liken it to bloat, but it's bloat with a reason.
4- Sometimes multiple ROM chips are combined into one file, or split, to better match what was on the original PCB. Sometimes parent/child associations are bought into focus and cleaned up too. I'm sure there are more reasons, but if you understand those then you're 90% of the way to understanding why it's important to match versions with sets. I also agree with picking a set that has the games you like. And it is very true that you don't need to update with every new release, unless it has NEW GAMES PROPERLY EMULATED that you want. You may even just settle in with one set, and as time goes on pick up new favorites piecemeal, a game here, an update there.
If it gets out of hand, roll-em-up like those Windows Service Packs. Edited by Keatah, Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:20 PM. Just don't upgrade to the latest mame right away. Let other people figure out the issues first. As previously mentioned the roms don't change that often, and waiting a bit gives time for those that have changed to make their way around. When you do upgrade keep the old mame running. Point both versions to the same roms folder seperate from any mame folder.
Edit: I wouldnt have known about the speech in QBert if I didn't upgrade to the recent mame update. Edited by mrme, Fri Jan 13, 2017 2:50 PM. I have like three versions of MAME going.
My main set, and then 2 newer versions to cover a tiny amount of recently fixed games that were recently made ship-shape. Eventually I'll roll'em up into one. But there is no rush because everything is fully operational. Now that most emulators are maturing less baggie-chasing has to be done.
And that's a good thing. Think back to the early days.
When each new version of MAME would add a significant amount of desirable games each version. First it was 6502 games, then Z80 games, then Atari XYZ system 45 blah blah games, then the dual 68000 games. You get the drift. You wanted each new version then. But with bullshit Point of Sale terminals and Pachinko machine logic being the major highlights nowadays I think most of us here can afford to skip every release.
What'll it be next combination locks and ball clocks? I think a big part of this was the adventure and learning and relearning of things. Last time I dealt with emulation that I can remember is back around 2001 or 2002 with an SNES emulator (forgot which one) that I played Sim City on. I was using my work computer and playing around with it on lunch.
I just recently got a nice laptop to replace my aging one and wanted to see what it would do. I went from a Dell Vostro 1700 Core2 Duo CPU T7250 with 4GB of RAM and a 256 gig hard drive that weighed about ten pounds, to an Asus with a Core i5-6200 with 12 GB RAM and a 1 TB hdd that weighs about half as much. I know it isn't the fastest thing out there, but it's a pretty damn nice upgrade. Also, it easily handles games like Metal Slug when I wonder if my old one could handle Berzerk! I mean, I could probably get through the first whole level of Metal Slug by the time the old one booted up! Anyway, I'm looking forward to continuing to learn new things about emulation. As of now, I have emulation up and running for 12 different consoles as well as arcade machines, using three different emulators (more if you count all the different cores in Retroarch) funneled through LaunchBox as a front end.
Going from having nothing at all a week ago, I think I'm not doing too bad. I was thinking of tackling Saturn next, but may hold off for a bit. I'll watch for compatibility issues, but everything seems to be working for now. The main thing is that I would find keep finding sources online that reference old versions of emulators with different UIs or different features and was having trouble figuring out where they were on mine. I think there's a lot of stuff out there that assumes you know or already have something. And I can't wait to download emuMasterlock ver 1.02 and get started opening some combination locks on my own computer!
I was able to locate what should be a full rom set for FBA 0.2.97.42 and I have updated my lr-fbalpha emulator to the latest from sources. I have been reading the indicated help and docs about how to make sure roms are the right version but taking a step back I haven't found anything that explains where exactly to put the other.zip files in the complete collection folders other than 'roms' I know 'samples' goes to the./bios/fba/samples folder. But the contents of the other folders such as coleco, gamegear,megadriv,msx, etc all look like they are just game rom sets themselves. Are they somehow needed to be copied to the bios/fba folder as well? I ask because I am still seeing many games such as the metal slug series failing to load when using what should be an fba 2.97.42 rom with the latest lr-fbalpha 0.2.97.42 and the games in question are listed as working for a raspberry pie 3 (which I have) in the lr-fbalpha 0.2.97.42 games list spread sheet. It feels like I am missing a step here somewhere. Yeah ok so after re-reading some info I finally understand what the 'parent' field means in the games list for each rom set.
So if you want to play Metal Slug 5 (mslug5.zip) you also have to have Metal Slug 4 (mslug4.zip), and Metal Slug 3 (mslug3.zip), and Metal Slug 2 (mslug2.zip) as well as the neogeo.zip bios roms all in the same rom folder. This does work if you put them all into the roms/arcade folder but the recommendation is to put them in the roms/neogeo folder. Either way you have the issue of all those games showing up as well as the 'Neogeo' showing up which is kinda ugly and less than ideal. I imagine if you take the contents of all those zips and package them all into one mslug5.zip, for example, that might clear that issue up?
Will try that. Said in: Yeah ok so after re-reading some info I finally understand what the 'parent' field means in the games list for each rom set. So if you want to play Metal Slug 5 (mslug5.zip) you also have to have Metal Slug 4 (mslug4.zip), and Metal Slug 3 (mslug3.zip), and Metal Slug 2 (mslug2.zip) as well as the neogeo.zip bios roms all in the same rom folder.
Please stop reading random tutorials and taking a wild guess at things. You do NOT need all those other games to make metal slug 5 to work. Since you failed to properly read (or just ignore) the wiki links I posted, I'll go ahead and give you this little tidbit and end it there. To run metal slug 5, you just need neogeo.zip and mslug5.zip in the roms folder.
So if you want to play Metal Slug 5 (mslug5.zip) you also have to have Metal Slug 4 (mslug4.zip), and Metal Slug 3 (mslug3.zip), and Metal Slug 2 (mslug2.zip) as well as the neogeo.zip bios roms all in the same rom folder. Only if you use the files from the romset as is - which is a split set. You can use the clrmamepro or romcenter to load/filter/rebuild the romset and get a non-merged zip ROM, which can be used standalone so you don't need to have all the parent ROM(s) (the other mslug games) in order to play one game. Said in: Confirmed that putting the contents all into one zip works yes. Also if having the 'neogeo' dummy game in the list is undesirable you can put the contents of neogeo.zip into each dependant game zips. If you are using lr-fbalpha for neogeo, you can actually get away with moving the neogeo.zip file into the bios folder.
You still need mslug.zip (or whatever version) in the the roms folder, but FBA will find neogeo.zip in bios just fine. This is nice because it gets it out of the game list.
That might be the case with Metal Slug series. But I have confirmed that the 'parent' field is intended to imply that files from the.zip are needed to run the game listed in the table.
Either by way of having that other game present in the same folder or by manually including them in the game zip you want to play. Edit: Or actually you are right each main mslug only depends on neogeo.zip but many of the variant versions depend on the corresponding mslug.
My eyes were following the rows wrong and getting confused. The Simpsons simpsons.zip - The 4 player arcade version - 2M of files zipped simpsons2p.zip - The 2 player variant - 250k of files zipped simpsons2p will NOT work by itself. It has to have all the roms from simpsons.zip present. As confirmed by first failing to get simpsons2p working at all until I figured this out.
( I am aiming to build a 2 player arcade unit which is why I preferred that one ). Said in: But the contents of the other folders such as coleco, gamegear,megadriv,msx, etc all look like they are just game rom sets themselves. They are, fbalpha also emulate consoles, and it does it well (possibly better than dedicated emulators for a few games). The way it does it is kinda confusing though ('mess style', which means to play a megadrive rom, you would have to prefix the rom with 'md' and remove '.zip' in the command line, and you can't rename them), so i don't know many people who use this feature. Said in: Ah cool thanks.
Yeah I was wondering if something like that might work. Edit: To clarify - the bios zip file (e.g. Neogeo.zip) goes directly into the./bios folder. Not the./bios/fba folder or./bios/fba/arcade folder or anything like that. This seemed confusing to me as to why a specific emulator bios rom set like neogeo.zip would not go in the bios/fba folder but instead into the root folder shared by all emulators.
Yeah, goes right in the bios folder, no sub folders. There are other examples of emulators that access bios files the same way. The fact that lr-mame2003 has a folder there for samples, artwork etc. Is maybe the outlier (maybe there are others that do this too), but those are not really bios files. Still, I do like the organization into subs, but it could create duplication if more than one emulator needs the same bios. I am just glad I got it out of my gamelist. Actually i think of the arcade emulators, lr-fbalpha is the outlier re: neogeo.zip basically, lr-fbalpha checks the /BIOS/ directory for all BIOS/parent files.
It's not just neogeo.zip - you could feasibly put any BIOS or parent.zip that your fba games need, but you don't want them to appear in your gamelist. It's a neat solution that mitigates issues from the many users who understably think neogeo.zip should go in the BIOS directory. I believe every other lr-mame/fba variant will want all of those supporting BIOS/parent.zip files in the current rom directory. I like how lr-fbalpha does it, but i'm tempted to ignore that feature when supporting arcade emulators to keep everything consistent. We could make the same change to lr-mame2003, etc.
(mame2003 does other stuff with hiscore.dat, etc, but that's really a separate issue). Said in: actually i think of the arcade emulators, lr-fbalpha is the outlier Among arcade emus, yes. I was thinking about other platforms too. Several other emulators look to the root of BIOS for files. Maybe it is a config we are using in each case? I can certainly point AdvanceMAME/MESS to that folder (and I do). It is interesting that we have the option at all in FBA, but I am glad we do.
In another thread a while back, we were trying to figure out how to hide neogeo in gamelists. Some comments came from users who had successfully removed it and then realized they had dropped a copy into their BIOS folder a long time ago and forgot they did so.
I was pretty excited when we figured that out. I don't think we really need to change anything in 2003, do you?
I mean, I know you could but your reasoning makes more sense-to keep parent-child dependencies together. FBA just has this as a bonus feature. As for AdvanceMAME, you can reference multiple ROM directories in the.rc file so it is just a configuration that could enable it there. Honestly, the only reason I would pick MAME over FBA for neogeo is a dependency on a single romset. Said in: That might be the case with Metal Slug series.
But I have confirmed that the 'parent' field is intended to imply that files from the.zip are needed to run the game listed in the table. Either by way of having that other game present in the same folder or by manually including them in the game zip you want to play. Think of set types as an file organization method for ROM files (merged, non-merged, split-merged). It's basically the splitting or consolidation of with some duplication depending on your needs like saving space, smaller game list, smaller directory list, etc. But MAME searches the same few zip archives when launching a game in an attempt to locate the needed ROMs. You might have 1 or up to 3 files depending on the set type.
The 'mslug4nd' ROM (clone game) needs x files to run. It doesn't matter where the ROM files exist in either mslug4 or mslug4nd. If you dump all the ROM files into mslug4nd then only the clone should show up in your game list but if you dump all the files into mslug4 then both the parent and clone will show in your game list. The difference is MAME looks for clones in the parent but not in the clone as there is only one parent/clone relationship per ROM. There's no crossover between say mslug4 and mslug5. Neogeo.zip is the odd duck as in it's a 'romof' and not a 'cloneof' file.
It's like a 'system file' and parent/clones don't need to be related. You could feasibly put any BIOS or parent.zip that your fba games need, but you don't want them to appear in your gamelist.
I always thought that was a clever feature but not quite sure how to leverage it. I think it would be just as easy if not easier to just use non-merged sets. Said in: you could feasibly put any BIOS or parent.zip that your fba games need, but you don't want them to appear in your gamelist. Thinking that through a little more the devs must have had a single goal in mind giving flexibility to split sets or maybe it was actually all for the BIOS ROM. It wouldn't work for a merged set and it wouldn't make sense for a non-merged set but useful for split. Which is probably the most common way you find pre-canned sets on the net but it seems here non-merged is more common.
It's worth it though just to move the BIOS out of the way.