SiriusVI

Hey everyone, I know there are many topics in this forum dealing with how to proberly import a complete mame set. However, even though I have read many of these threads, I still haven't found a definitive answer. I have one merged mame rom set and one corresponding set of CHDs. Now, If I wan to import the complete set into launchbox, where would I put the CHD files? I have never dealt with mame CHDs before, so I'm really unsure about this. Here are some of my questions: 1. Do I create a different folder for the CHD files within the mame rom folder? That would put the CHD folder next to all the zipped roms. 2. Or do I create a paret folder called "mame" and then within that folder, one folder for the "roms" and one folder for the "CHDs"? 3. Or do the zipped CHD files go into the same folder as the zipped rom files? 4. Do I have to unzip the CHDs or should I leave them in their 7zip format? 5. If I unzip them, should I put them all in the same folder or should I leave the CHDs in a folder which has the same name as the zip file? 6. Should I import the roms first and the CHDs second or do I just point the launchbox importer to the complete folder and let it do its magic? As you can see, I am confused. It would be reallly helpful if someone told me a simple way to import the complete set (roms and CHDs). Thank you so much for your help!!!

I've since found this plugin: No more manually renaming Mame Softlist roms =).

Another question: How would I go about emulating apple 2 cassette games? I cannot even get them to run in standalone Mame. Mame's GUI only shows the floppy files.

Quick update: I've just added Apple 2GS to Launchbox and it worked fine with just the regular method using mame core in retroarch. No additional "no quotes version" of retroarch needed, no command lines needed. It's really weird that apple 2 needed all that extra stuff when apple2gs works fine with just the hash files and correct folder naming.

This works perfectly. Thank you so much! You just have to avoid pressing escape when the ui is active, because that will bring up the mame system GUI and I don't know how to retrun to the game once I see that. Now I just need to know the command line for a custom retroarch config so I can use the latest mame core with apple2.

Ah ok... what would that custom command line look like? Do you have any idea?

Works like a charm, thank you so much!!! Now, is there a way to map the "{Scrl Lock}" button to a button on my controller, so I can just press say the left trigger to enable the emulated keyboard?

Also, I found a game that uses 2 floppies and requires me to switch the floppy disk to "side 1" right at the start of the game. Does anyone know how to do that? I've tried unzipping the game and specifically launching side a (from the filename) but the game still wants me to switch to "side 1" at the start. Don't know hat to make of that. The game is called "The Abyssal Zone".

Looks like I finally got it working. I added a new emulator to retroarch called "retroarch no quotes". I ticked the don't use quotes box, as the other tutorial in the other thread mentioned. I added the folowing command line to mame: "apple2ep -rp \"L:\LaunchBox\Games\Apple II\apple2\" -flop1 \"%romfile%\"" There is a critical option in the mame core that needs to be enabled "Boot to CLI". Without this it doesn't work. That's also the reason why I use the mame2016 core instead of the mame core without year tags, because Philips CDi needs Boot to CLI disabled. (I cannot figure out how to tell mame core without year tags to enable CLI only for apple2 games. I though I could do this by selecting "coontent directory override", but apparently the core options aren't saved like that. Does anyone know how to do this?) Now, it SEEMS like I don't need the .ini file. I had a "apple2ep.ini" in may mame\ini folder, however I didn't have it in my mame2016\ini folder. So make of that what you will. I don't think it's required. I also don't know if you need tha hash file using this method. Anyway, thank you sooooo much for all your help. This is a solution I'm happy with ?

There's an explanation how to do it in the other thread. i need to investigate this further. I have to go now, but I'll try again tomorrow. It seems like I'm close =D

I cannot complete the guide since there are no .ini files in my "RetroArch\system\mame\ini" other than "ui.ini"

Uhhhh progress: I now get this using : "apple2ep -flop1 \"%romfile%\""

Thanks for your effort. This community is awesome! EDIT: I think tis is it:

Thank you for that. It doesn't seem to work for me, but maybe I entered the commandline wrong. I tried: "apple2ep -flop1 \"%romfile%\" " "apple2ee -flop1 \"%romfile%\" " "apple2 -flop1 \"%romfile%\" "

Yes I've also noticed tha and I've already tried some things. here are all the apple2 hash files that I have: apple2_flop_orig.xml apple2_flop_misc.xml apple2_flop_clcracked.xml apple2.xml apple2_cass.xml Now I checked which hash files correspond to my rom set. I found that "apple2_flop_misc.xml" and "apple2.xml" contain basically the same files and they both corresond to my softlist romset. When I open "apple2_flop_misc.xml" it says: <softwarelist name="apple2_flop_misc" description="Apple II 5.25 miscellaneous disks"> So I tried naming my rom folder "apple2_flop_misc" instead of "apple2", because I thought maybe these softists need to be separated. Still no luck however. I really feel that some command line in launchbox is needed in order to tell the mame core to load a specific apple bios. I tried the "apple2ee -flop1" as well as many other commands, but I haven't found one that works.

I mainly use retroarch for everything, including mame, because it just works. The Mame core needs minimal setup, I can use shaders and overlays, and I was able to emulate many smaller systems with it. I've just tried to get Retroach's Mame core to launch Atari 5200 games and it just worked (using hash files and softlist roms). I really don't understad why Apple II is the exception here. I gess I could use Mame standalone for Apple 2, but at this point it's just bugging me =D. I WANT to figure out how it works.

OK, so I've done some additional trial and error testing. I'm pretty confident now that the problem is that retroarch does not know which bios to grab when launching apple2 games. Can you think of anything I could add to the "Extra command-line parameters" in Launchbox that would tell retroach which bios file to use?

No, I had changed it, but I reconfigured it so the path is now correct. SUCCESS: I can now launch apple 2 games with Mame standalone. Now I just have to find out how to get the retroarch mame core to do the same. clearly there must be some rom file(s) missing in ma apple2 folder...

Well, my Mame just gives me this message without telling me which files are mising:

Thanks for the info. I am a total noob however and don't know how to launch anything from a command prompt. Where and how do I enter this command prompt? Will I have to change anythin if I use software lists?

So if I use mess2015 core, retroarch launches and I get this result: Is that progress? =D

I've just tried MAME standalone, but it doesn't work as well. I may have set it upincorrectly though. I've never really used mame standalone. Besides, all the other 5 systems seem to work with my method. I have the strange feeling that it might have to do with the different bios versions and mame not knowing which one to load...