stevaside

I just set that command line for Tetris under edit game/emulator, but when I launched the game it seemed all my CDi controls I configured were wiped out again. Not sure if it was due to entering that custom command line for Tetris, but at least for now after reconfiguring, I can tell all games have the same controls with Tetris being the exception. Just hope reconfiguring over & over isn't going to be a constant thing, I've had similar problems using the other MAME for arcade in the past as well, seems every now & then it just loses everything I set & I have to redo it all For some reason I thought the "input this machine" was setting everything universally in this case, sorry I got that mixed up. Got the save/load for CDI working fine now too, guess I forgot how it was just a matter of it asking me to hit a button to save a game since their weren't any prvious saves. I overlooked that, dumb move on my part. I've really never used save states in MAME for arcade much before at all Thanks again for all the time you've took to help me get this going!

I've always set the save state to the S key on my keyboard & the load state to the L key...& also to the left & right trigger buttons of my gamepad for load state/save state. I use a seperate MAME version for arcade games & that has always worked fine. I set the same keys for this one I'm using just for CDi & it does not work, but gives me that message in screenshot I posted. I noticed the default was SHIFT + F7 though The MAME I'm using for arcade lets you hit TAB & set custom controls for whatever specific game you're playing too, but this one with CDi dosn't seem possible. I went to the old thread you posted about custom settings for individual games & kind of see how it's done but still lost. If say, Tetris is the only CD-i game I want custom controls for, because I hate how the gamepad button is the default to fast drop the tiles instead of down button on the D PAD like every other Tetris I've played...what exaxtly would I type in the custom command line parameters under the edit game/emulation ? I noticed your example said BBC in the text & IDK if that's meant for another system or what...also how would I even set the custom controls I want? Would I have to enter a command in that first, then load the game, set controls & It would save it for Tetris alone?? I entered the command you mentioned to pemrnanently save my controller config in CDi so hopefully it stays the way I want it from now on

Well looks like we've finally solved this. I just deleted that from the emulator command line paramaters, but kept it in the associated platforms. It was in both. That still didn't get my games to start at first, another command prompt window with a bunch of text popped up that was so fast I couldn't make out what it said.....until I tried Hotel Mario which loaded right up. Then I realized that one worked because I changed the text in the launch field to software\cdi\hotmario.zip like you said. I went around & did that to other games, changing it to say .zip & they worked too. This still makes no sense to me, how telling it to open a file that doesn't exist works, but the path to the actual rom doesn't, but hey what can I say? I can finally play these damn games in Launchbox now. Thank you SO damn much for all the time you put in trying to help me with this. I searched all over the web & wouldn't have possibly figured all this out without you. Hopefully some day I can guide someone else out there losing their mind trying to get this obscure system running lol &oh [EDIT} one more question if you don't mind. Any idea how to save/load states in this? From what I remember with arcade games in MAME, I was always able to press the key I assigned to save state & it would save the game. Doing that with CD-i games brings this up & I don't see any way to create a save state ....& [EDIT #2] My controller config doesn't seem to want to save for long. I can play a few games & it's fine, but then later on in the day load up another & everything I set is gone & I have do the process all over again. Any way to permanently set my gamepad controls so this tops happening? Another thing, and this might be game specific. Tetris will randomly cut the music off on a level & once i finish it, the game crashes & I have to exit out. Really dissapointed, that is a really unique port with that relaxing, hypnotic music & backround visuals lol Was looking fwd to playing it more

I've tried all sorts of combinations too & still got the error (space after cdimono, no space, with the keyboard command, without, cdrm, cdrom....)

I followed all those steps 100%, checked again & there were no other versions of MAME set anywhere in CDi settings & still no luck. "Error:Unknown Option" is what I get Hotel Mario & Tetris, both games I tried w the command prompt did seem to launch & play fine

Yes, games seem to start fine with the command in command prompt Yes, the list of 459 CDi games shows, double clicking Hotel Mario or any game I have shows errors, I'll upload a screenshot of that one & Tetris..which BTW seems MAME wont even let me take a screenshot with the usual FN + Backspace combo, kept showing a black screen as the image so I wound up using my phn to take a pic ..ughhhhh The "unknown option" error was what LB showed, but now trying to start a game in LB shows an empty command prompt window for half a second before it closes & yes ini path looks exactly like that I just can't believe I made it this far & can actualy play Cdi games, but for some reason not in LB or clicking in MAME app itself. So damn frustrating this console

mame.ini is just in the ini folder Don't see a cdimono1.ini at all, in any folder, I even searched for the file. Closest I found was a cdimono1.cfg file in the cfg folder. I went in the mame.ini file & noticed the rompath listed the software folder , but not the software\cdi where the roms are. I changed it to that thinking that was probably the issue, but no. Get a "error unknown option" message when trying to start a game in Launchbox

Ahhh, knew there was an easier way, but I wound up just scrolling through the list of games on MAME , writing down the file names then naming the folders that....but... I have bigger problems now. I was unable to get the CD-i to play from within Launchbox at all even though I set up the correct MAME as the default emulator. Loading the games from MAME itself wouldn't even work, kept telling me files were missing. That command line method is the only way I can play these games so far...and also the joystick configs I set never seem to save

Ahhh that makes total sense, I didn't put much thought into that lol I've been using MAME for like 16 years, but this is 1st time ever trying it with something other than arcade games. Maybe MESS did it similar, I have used that but AGES ago, so don't rememeber

Well I'll be damned it finally appears to work! Changing the rom path in the .ini alone didn't work, but then creating a subfolder in software called cdi then another within that called hotmario is what did it (And possibly renaming the rom to hotel mario (1994)(philips)(eu).chd instead of hotel mario (1994)(europe).chd that it was titled from the site I downloaded it from had something to do with it as well?) IDK still kinda confusing, why would creating subfolders with certain names need to be done for CDI when most other systems can have all roms dumped in a single folder & load right up? Im going to have to try this with the rest of my CDI CHDs now, but how would I even know what to correctly name the subfolders (Like I did "hotmario" for example)?? Well HUGE thank you for getting me to this point! Also 1 more question can a gamepad be set up with this system? I don't have mine connected ATM, but Hotel Mario seemed to work with the mouse & keyboard. Just thought I read something once that said gamepad on CDI wasn't possible with emulation? Hope that's not the case

Sorry... Looks like it says the CHD can't be found although I put it both in the software & roms folder of MAME. Only difference I can see is this shows a file that has Philips in the name & the one I have doesn't. I also put a duplicate file in there just named hotmario.CHD

Thanks to both of you for the quick responses! I decided to try command prompt again & this is what I got after entering that in

Sorry, not really familiar with running things from command prompt or using powershell. I entered the entire path of MAME64.exe follwed by -v cdimono1 hotmario & got an error

Yes, I even double checked everything. MAME64 from that exact site is what's set up Well IDK that is what I saw. I tried starting game again for the hell of it & another window shows up for like a split second, but I don't see any text this time.

Tried all that & still doesn't work...A window pops up for half a second that says "error: unknown option" Looks like I'm most likely never going to get to try the Philips CD-i, being it's so F******G ridiculous & time consuming to try to get working compared to most other consoles

I was previously trying MAMEUI226, but OK I now have the MAME from that site & there doesn't seem to be an mame.ini file , Certainly not in the ini folder. There's only 2 subfolders in there called examples & presets & nothing in those or any other folder called mame.ini

I was using MAMEUI226 & I already tried renaming it hotmario & still had issues

Yea it rly does sound straightforward, but apparently it's as not as easy as you'd think sometimes. Up until then MAME has always in the past shown cabinet art like I wished if I put cabinet images in the box folder. I only had gameplay checked in screenshots & only box front checked in box priorities, yet every platform gave me random results. Some were fine, some showed clear logos in place of boxes, some double screenshots.....No matter what ALL my image folders were set with the appropriate art. Made no sense, but I just decided to try refreshing all box images in Launchbox for the hell of it & all of a sudden things all finally show the images I want in Big Box including MAME. So guessing something got corrupted somehow & this was all rly nothing of my doing or misunderstanding of the settings (I noticed Group by image/box front in Launchbox for NES was showing box, screenshots & clearlogos for games until the refresh too!)

Ok well I tried it again & this time noticed there was a blank field at the top of the box front priorties that was checked too. So I uncheck it, load up BB again & now see that the NES games are finally displaying how I wanted, Top image = box front, bottom image = Gameplay screenshot. So I feel all relieved only to check other consoles & besides a couple other systems, the majority of everything is a COMPLETE MESS. Arcade is showing videos at bottom, but nothing at the top now. No box art or screenshot...Other systems are randomly showing double screenshots, an extra clear logo image at top & screenshot at bottom, etc etc Ready to rip my hair out now

Just tried it a 6th way that gave 2 screenshots..well mainly that is, until I decided to scroll through other systems instead of the NES I kept testing it on...And I found out that although the NES, TG16 & others show double images, some platforms like Odyssey2 & Visual Pinball throw a bunch of mixed images. As I scroll down those, sometimes it's double screenshots, sometimes it'll show a clear logo up top & a screenshot below & other times it'll show box art & screenshots......No idea of what's going on here, but getting a little tiring going through all this. And just to mention, before I started checking all this all Big Box, I looked at every single image for every platform in Launchbox: Clear logo/screenshot gameplay & box front & they were all correct, none missing) #6 (2 screenshots) BOXFRONT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gameplay SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Screenshot - Gameplay /Box-Front

Okay tried that...actually 5 different ways in priorities settings & no luck at all. All either still showed 2 boxes or 2 screenshots Heres what happened for each combination, the / means checked & they are in order I put them in menu: #1 (Showed 2 box fronts) BOXFRONT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front Screenshot - Gameplay SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gameplay #2 (All box fronts) BOXFRONT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gameplay SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gamplay #3 (All box fronts) BOXFRONT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front Screenshot - Gameplay SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gameplay #4 (2 Screenshots) BOXFRONT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Screenshot - Gameplay #5 (2 Box fronts) BOXFRONT PROPERTIES Everything unchecked SCREENSHOT PRIORITIES: /Box-Front /Screenshot - Gameplay This is real exhausting for something that should ideally be as simple as "Select image type 1, select image type 2" 5 seconds. done

I'm just using the default theme AFAIK with platform images I chose to show in background. MAME is the only one that's currently looking the way I want, (I put marquee images to use in my clearlogo folder for the wheel, cabinets in my box front art folder & videos of each game playing below cabinets) All other systems I wanted the upper image to show box front & lower gameplay screenshots, but instead it shows double box art (as pictured in the NES image)

Okaaay....well I finally got a hold of the updated bios & still can't get this damn console to work. Just about ready to give up. I no longer get the errors about files missing, but I still keep getting these never ending series of popup windows that mention finding a match for the game. I tried to load Hotel Mario & this is what 1st popped up, followed by a sucession of more windows listing games called Marco, Marco Polo all this other crap & after like 5 of those it actually says Hotel Mario, so I click OK & it just skips it & goes to the next window with some other game title that has nothing to do with Mario or CD-i. It will never let me close MAME either, each time it does this I have to go into task manager ??

Just 3: cdi200.rom, cdi220.rom & cdi220b.rom Yes, understand that the bios I have is outdated & missing the other 2 files. I've recently got MAME 0.226 to use for the CDi, but can't find any roms for that version at all. There was a link on archive.org, but it got removed. So I'm still stuck. unable to try the CDi at all. So again, if anyone can PLEASE point me to the updated bios for 0.226 I would greatly appreciate it

Main question I'm hoping to get advice on today, and I know I've managed to get this right in the past, but just cannot figure out at the moment is: How can I choose what images display when going down the game wheels in BB? I want to have the front box art show at top & either gameplay screenshot or video (depending on system) shown at bottom. Only the systems I want videos on are showing how I like, the others all keep showing 2 box front images & no screenshots and for some odd reason 1 shows the clear logos (same as wheel) + the front box art And this isn't extremely important because there are only a couple of the early TRS-80 games I'd like to try, but does anyone know anything about a straightforward way to emulate them?? I've had no luck so far, but I have been using VCC for the "Color Computer" line of games. Really sucks it has no save states though or no clear way to save games. Wish there was a retroarch core or more traditional to console method of emulation for those