Slag-O-Matic

Nobody? Really?

I went through the process of creating a new platform for TurboGrafx-CD using RetroArch. I went through the same process I did with ColecoVision and eight or nine other platforms and they all work without any problems. During the setup it asked me for the BIOS file (syscard3.pce) which I had; I copied into LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch-Win64\system, pointed the setup wizard at it, and everything proceeded as expected. It identified all the games, downloaded artwork, etc. All good. When I launch a title I get the launch screen -- "SUPER CD-ROM^2 SYSTEM. VER. 3.00" with a blinking "PUSH RUN BUTTON!" I hit RETURN and "PUSH RUN BUTTON!" changes to "JUST A MOMENT..." and then...nothing happens. It just sits there forever — or at least for 15 minutes, which is as long as I was willing to wait on each of three different games I tested. In attempting to troubleshoot I unzipped one of the games into its own folder; this resulted in a single .CUE file and several .BIN files. Back in LaunchBox I pointed that game from the ZIP file to the CUE file, and this time the game ran as expected. I still got "SUPER CD-ROM^2 SYSTEM. VER. 3.00" with a blinking "PUSH RUN BUTTON!" but this time pushing the RUN button actually worked and the game started almost immediately. So I figured, okay, for whatever reason this emulator doesn't like ZIP files. So I deleted the TurboGrafx-CD console from LaunchBox (leaving the metadata behind) and unzipped all of the games, each one into its own folder as I had with my test game. I created another TurboGrafx-CD console and pointed it towards my now-unzipped game library. It imported all of them very quickly (since the metadata was already there). My test game still works but none of the other ones do. I don't even get the "SUPER CD-ROM^2 SYSTEM. VER. 3.00" screen; it just goes black and nothing else happens. Digging further I found that all of the games except my test game are pointing towards one of the BIN files in each of the folders. If I manually switch this to the CUE file in the folder then all of the games now present the "SUPER CD-ROM^2 SYSTEM. VER. 3.00" screen, but only a few of the games actually launch/work. So, questions: Does this emulator simply not like ZIP files or is something else happening here that I can't see? If it DOES like ZIP files then why is my system hanging every time I select a game located in a ZIP file? If it DOESN'T like ZIP files then why is it defaulting to a BIN file that doesn't work, rather than the CUE file that does?

...and... So when I run Full Set Importer again after updating MAME, I just point it (Full Set Importer) at my existing ROM library -- potentially with any newly-copied ROMs already in it?

This is all awesome info; thanks! Follow-up hypothetical question regarding Arcade... Let's say I did Tools-Import-MAME Arcade Full Set, but I only have a subset of the full set ROMs (for whatever reason). Is there a way to tell LB/BB to only show the Arcade games for the ROMs that I actually have? IOW, if LB pulls metadata for 3000 ROMs and I have only 500 of them, is there a way to tell LB/BB to only show those 500? And then if I were to add another 100, is there a way to "refresh" the Arcade list so that it now shows 600? So then, a follow-up question based on current events. Marble Madness 2 recently was confirmed (as I understand it) to work with MAME. Yet it doesn't exist in LB...because it's such a new update? Or, another reason? If I download the MM2 ROM and drop it into my Games\Arcade folder, how do I get LB to recognize it?

So far I'm doing well with my LB/BB installation. I've added about eight or nine consoles plus arcade, I've tweaked some graphics, and I'm getting better at troubleshooting (little) things. But I do have a few questions (or at least requests to verify my understanding). There seems to be a separate process for adding ROMs to an existing console versus adding ROMs to Arcade. For console, it seems the process is to add the new ROM file(s) to the appropriate folder inside of LaunchBox\Games and then use Tools-Scan-For Added (Platform) ROMs. Theoretically this will discover the new file(s) I've added and do all the same metadata download magic as it did during my initial import of my library (Tools-Import-ROM Files). Is that an accurate assessment? This falls apart, however, when dealing with Arcade. The Tools-Scan-For Added (Platform) ROMs function doesn't exist for Arcade, although Tools-Scan-For Added ROMs in Any Platform does exist. That seems like an overkill function though; why would it force me to scan ALL platforms when I only need to scan Arcade? What exactly is the correct procedure for adding new ROMs to Arcade? Actually, I'm a bit fuzzy on how Arcade works anyway. The process of Tools-Scan-For Added (Platform) ROMs makes sense to me; it looks at the ROMs, pulls the metadata down for those ROMs I have installed, and builds the platform that way. If my library has 10 ROMs then it pulls metadata for those 10 ROMs; if I have 100, it pulls for 100. Makes sense. But with Arcade it seems the process is reversed? As I understand it Tools-Import-MAME Arcade Full Set just pulls down the metadata for all compatible games, regardless of whether or not you have the ROM files for them, so if I used Tools-Import-MAME Arcade Full Set and had literally ZERO ROMs, would it still show me all of the compatible games and just give me errors because it can't find the ROMs? On the same page, there's also the metadata issue to consider. As I understand the process, I used Tools-Import-MAME Arcade Full Set so the metadata for all compatible games should already be present regardless of whether or not I have the ROMs. (Right?) What happens if I have a ROM that's compatible with MAME, but the metadata doesn't exist for it?

Awesome, thanks.

Circled in red.

Actually the answer is simpler: What I wrote is what ACTUALLY happened, but not what I THOUGHT I did. 🙂 I THOUGHT that the first attempt was just the ROM file in the Games folder, not with the CHD folder there also. Clearly that's not what I did but that's what I thought I did. Anyway, yeah, you're right. I put the folder of CHD files in there and Area 51 worked again. All good now. Thanks yet again!

This has all been very helpful so far, thanks. I downloaded a ROM pack, copied them into Games\Arcade, and things started working (playing) as expected. Not everything, of course, but that's also as expected. I'm still at a bit of a loss with the placement of the CHD files however. I ran a small experiment and got some truly odd results. I started with just one game: Area 51. I had a zipped ROM file (area51.zip) and two CHD files (area51.chd and area51t.chd) inside a folder called area51. I first put the ROM file into Games\Arcade and tried playing it through LaunchBox and it worked (which is to say, the game was running, I saw the splash screen, insert coin, etc). I quit LaunchBox, put the area51 folder with the two CHD files into Games\Arcade, then put the ROM file into Games\Arcade\area51. Ran LaunchBox again and Area 51 failed. So I thought, okay, it's still looking for it in Games\Arcade, so I quit LaunchBox and moved all three files (area51.zip, area51.chd, and area51t.chd) into Games\Arcade, then deleted the now-empty area51 folder. Relaunched LaunchBox and Area 51 failed again. So then I thought, okay, maybe the CHD files are bad, so I deleted the two CHD files. At this point the setup was EXACTLY as it was when I started the test. I relaunched LaunchBox and...Area 51 failed AGAIN?!?!? It's almost like the CHD files "contaminated" Area 51. What's the best way to approach this? I've been previously told that the ROM and CHD files have to live in the same folder, named the same, inside of Games\Arcade, but that doesn't seem to work. Am I missing a step somewhere? Or am I better off just dumping all of the CHD files into Games\Arcade? And whatever the case may be, why did Area 51 work and then stop working even though there's no difference in the setup?

Thanks for the info. So, based on what you've told me I was able to improve my understanding of how things work, or at least how they're supposed to work. If you'd be so kind to check my math here... The CHD files don't (usually) contain any game code. It's more like expanded data for the game -- prerendered cut scenes, music, etc. By themselves CHD files are therefore useless without the associated ROM file. Doing the "MAME Arcade Full Set" thing just downloads a list of all (compatible?) MAME ROMs. It doesn't care whether or not you actually have the ROMs in question, it's just a list. So if you do the "MAME Arcade Full Set" thing with no ROMs, none of the games will work. (And, I misspoke earlier. When I said "things were working properly" I meant that while viewing ARCADE there was a list of titles with all the metadata. I didn't actually try playing any of the games.) So I guess the proper procedure here is to do the "MAME Arcade Full Set" thing and then add the ROMs to the folder as you collect them. Alternately, download a torrent of all of them at once (as I'm doing now) and as MAME is updated for better compatibility those ROM files will already be present and ready to go. Assuming my math is correct so far, my next question becomes: I can put the zipped ROMs inside of Games/Arcade, but where do the CHD files go? Do I put them in the same folder (alongside those zipped ROMs) or is there a unique folder for them?

Preface: Dumb and unrelated question that I can't find an answer for. Every time I launch LaunchBox I get the "Welcome to LaunchBox 12.11!" splash screen. Any way to stop that annoyance from happening? Moving on... My LaunchBox folder sits on the root level of my D drive. I downloaded "MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)" and put the folder on the same root level. I went into LaunchBox then Tools, Import, MAME Arcade Full Set. Pretty much accepted all the defaults except for one; I told LaunchBox to MOVE my files rather than COPY them, simply because they were already there and it's faster that way. Everything seemed to work fine and when I got home from work things were working properly. Except, oddly, LaunchBox didn't seem to move anything. My "MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)" folder and all of its contents were exactly where I left them, which is what I didn't want. I moved the folder into \Games\Arcade\ and then opened LaunchBox. As I expected, it broke all the arcade games since the path had changed. I found this thread and followed suit. I quit LaunchBox, then opened Data\Platforms\Arcade.xml in Notepad++ and changed all instances of "..\MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)" to "\Games\Arcade\MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)". Saved, opened LaunchBox...and they were all still broken. Reopening Arcade.xml I discovered something odd. Each of the games listed were in a ZIP file (e.g., "\Games\Arcade\MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)\loht.zip" yet all of the games in that "MAME 0.243 CHDs (merged)" folder are CHD files. There isn't a single ZIP file in there. Searching my D drive for ZIP files reveals some games I have for other platforms but none of the arcade games (e.g., loht.zip is nowhere on the computer). I'm sure I'm missing a crucial piece of information, so my questions are: Given that I started with CHD files, where did these ZIP files come from? Where are the ZIP files that LaunchBox is looking for (and created?)? Why didn't LaunchBox move the CHD files as requested? How do I fix this without deleting what's there already and starting over from scratch?