spycat

@joseph goes to space Just to clear things up, which version of MAME are you using and which version are your roms?

Also bear in mind that where a MAME software system has games in various formats such as cartridge, cassette and floppy disk formats, or has multiple software lists it's not a simple matter to "consolidate" them into a single Platform due to the Default Parameters required by MAME. You would need to either create different Platforms for each format, or go with a single Platform using Default Parameters for the majority of games that use a particular media or software list type amd use Custom Parameters for the other formats.

Did you check out The Cover Project site? If not, when you go in, go to Guides and scroll to Templates.

Just to clarify things here, there is a difference between emulating a game using a software list and emulating a game using a direct media call. Games in a software list need the Use File Name Only... box checked. Also, your MAME ini file's rompath needs to know where the software list folder is (it's normal practice to put it in your MAME roms folder). The Default Parameters need only have the system, there's no need to add a media option as it doesn't make any sense here and MAME will not expect it and will just ignore it. And, if you wish, you can just point LaunchBox to the game's software list name minus it's extension instead of the path to the game. Launching a game using a direct media call needs the Use File Name Only... box cleared. Your MAME ini file doesn't need to know the game's location, but LaunchBox does of course. The Default Parameters need both the system and media options. The choice of the Adventure Vision as a testing ground was unfortunate and confusing in that the software list has the games dumped in bin format, a format that is also compatible with Adventure Vision games using the direct media call emulation. A software system such as the NES has the nes software list games dumped in a format that will not allow them to be emulated as direct media which only accepts the nes, unf and unif formats. And that's why the nes software list doesn't emulate using direct media emulation. It works fine when proper software list emulation is used. Software list dump formats vary, with some in a format that direct media calling also supports, others have what I would call, for want of a better term, an arcade style look to the files within the game roms. As a rule, games suitable for direct media emulation will have a format that the dedicated emulators such as AdViEmulator, ColEm, Nestopia and so on would also use.

Apart from setting the Associated Platforms fields up, there really isn't anything else to set in LaunchBox for MAME apart from ensuring that your paths are ok. Do you have any arcade games using MAME in LaunchBox and if so, do they run ok in LaunchBox? MAME issues in LaunchBox are usually down to Associated Platform errors, rompath errors, or ini file location errors (this is a regular issue when using MAMEUI). Out of curiosity, could you post a capture of your Associated Platforms window for your MAME emulator?

If your rom paths are ok in LaunchBox, then all I can suggest is to check your Associated Platforms fields for errors. By the way, I'm using MAME 0.212 without any LaunchBox issues.

If your using a software list then tick the box Use file name only... and see if your games launch. All four games in my advision sw list launch ok, but will not if this box is unset. If that doesn't work, then check that you have the advision.zip bios installed.

78081g503.ic655 This is a file for Bios roms such as TPS ZN1 ZN2. Unfortunately it hasn't been dumped yet. x2pe_04.2h This looks like a file for a game rom. The game name would be a help in finding out if it too is a no dump. You may find this link useful https://mamedev.emulab.it/undumped/index.php?title=Bad_dump

For bezels that come with lay files to go, your best bet may be Mr Do's website or the LaunchBox forums downloads section. The Bezel Project may also cover the lay approach for the arcade games, but I'm not really sure about that. There are some very good collections (image wise) out there, but they're not bundled with lays, some have Rocket Launcher type ini files while others come with RetroArch type cfg files. To use those bezel pngs in MAME you would need to supply the lays yourself. As I posted earlier, an image of one of your lay file's contents and it's bezel png name might help solve things.

The diagonal lines usually mean that MAME can't load the bezel due to a difference between the bezel png's name and the image file string inside the lay itself. Although when this occurs, the lines are full screen and the bezel image doesn't show. There may be something else wrong in the lay. Could you post the lay's contents?

It looks like you're getting a default bezel of sorts. Are you using an official MAME version or a compile with default artwork built in? I see you have default horizontal and vertical zips and pngs in your artwork folder.

In your mame.ini file under CORE ARTWORK OPTIONS you have use_bezels set to 0 instead of 1

MAME arcade games artwork folders (zipped or otherwise) all go in the artwork folder inside MAME. Each game's artwork folder should be named after the game rom. Clones are a bit flexible in that the game's artwork folder can be named after either the clone or parent. However, a parent game will not accept a clone named artwork folder. Of course, if you have different bezels for a parent and it's clones, then you need separate artwork folders. The included lay file should be named either after the folder containing it or as default. The lay's image file string must match with the bezel's name including the extension. Your mame.ini artpath must know the path to the folder containing your games artwork folders.

You're welcome. However, personally I'd put bezel support aside for the moment and concentrate on why you can't open MAME itself. That is just not normal.

It may help if you can post an image of one of your bezels and it's lay file content, as well as the name of the game's bezel png and lay.

Hi @madtanks It's odd that you can't open MAME by running mame64.exe Have you tried opening MAME from within LaunchBox by right=clicking any arcade game and then choosing Open MAME (or whatever descriptive name you've given the emulator)? By the way, game artwork like bezels will work whether the artwork folders are zipped or unzipped, unlike the actual games which must be left zipped. It's normal practise to have the various artwork folders, zipped or not, in MAME's artwork folder.

Bass Angler (bassangl.zip) is a clone of Fisherman's Bait (fbaitbc.zip) Bass Angler 2 (bassang2.zip) is a clone of Fisherman's Bait 2 (fbait2bc.zip) They all need the System 573 Bios (sys573.zip) All four games also require a chd which is different for each game. Battle Arena Toshinden 2 (ts2.zip) has two clones, (ts2a.zip and ts2j.zip) All three games need the ZN1 bios (coh1000c.zip) and the QSound device (qsound_hle.zip) Bonze Adventure (bonzeadv.zip) has three Bonze Adventure clones (bonzeadvu.zip, bonzeadvo.zip and bonzeadvp.zip) as well as the clone Jigoku Megure (jigkmgri.zip)

25 Carrot Gold, 250 CC and 28 Plays Later are electromechanical games (fruit/pinball stuff). 2650 Computer System refers to an old 8bit Signetics microprocessor. These are all emulated by MAME. Not too sure about the Memory stuff. It looks like you may have imported everything instead of setting filters.

I've never come across a dedicated Windows based emulator for it. While MAME can emulate Leapster and it's clone Leapster TV to a certain extent, they're classed as non working machines. The last time I tried I could not get any of the games I tested to open except Sonic X and that game just launched to a black screen even though I could get into the TAB menu. MAME, however improves with each build, so maybe in the future these systems will work ok.

You're more than welcome. By the way, you can vote for Bulk Edit Additional Apps in the LaunchBox 2019 New Features Poll.

You need to use a 2nd additional app to close xPadder. Example

@knightCrawler The O2EM Launcher runs games fine for me, and LaunchBox also runs them using the O2EM emulator. I'm using the O2EM emulator recommended bios o2rom.bin which is in the BIOS folder where the emulator expects it, and the Launcher also uses this bios. The images below show my emulator/launcher combined folder, and my Launcher settings.

@knightCrawler Are you talking about the Magnavox Odyssey 2 and it's O2EM emulator? It's been a while since I used the O2EM emulator, but it launched games no problem within LaunchBox. I now use MAME which works fine. Is your LaunchBox Manage Emulators Edit Emulator set to use the O2EM frontend style launcher (o2emlauncher.exe)? If so, then set it to the actual emulator (o2em.exe) instead and see how things go.

LaunchBox does not have a bug. For arcade games and software system software list emulated games, MAME's ini file needs to know their location. For software system games using direct media emulation, MAME doesn't care where the games are as long as LaunchBox knows. MAME, however, needs to know the location of any associated bios/device files.

Hi @andreasrocha both of these systems emulate fine for me via LaunchBox. When emulating software systems using direct media calls as you're doing, the LaunchBox tickbox "Use file name only without file extension or folder path" should be left clear. For software list emulation, it should be ticked. The arcade games side of things doesn't seem to mind whether it's set or not. Also, when emulating using direct media via LaunchBox, the location of the games doesn't matter to MAME once LaunchBox points to them. The games can be zipped or not and actual naming is not critical. What does matter to MAME is that it's ini file must know where the snes.zip and spectrum.zip bios files are. By the way, have you any other MAME software systems working ok via LaunchBox?