I've Conquered MESS - MESS Default Command Line Compendium!

[SentaiBrad]

I posted in another thread about my recent Conquering, but here is a dedicated sticky. I'VE ACTUALLY CONQUERED MESS!!!! So it started with me finding EmuCR, a site that posts up-to-date in development builds of a lot of systems in one place, and some of them are hard to find. One such hard to find one was a MESS build still seperated from MAME. MAME .174 still works (just put BIOS in "../roms/MESS/"), but I liked standalone MESS a bit more for some freedom in mobility within LaunchBox. http://www.emucr.com/2016/06/mess-git-20160605.html

Setting Up MESS

Here is the build of MESS I used, and I downloaded the 64bit versions. It has a decent UI, and in the settings I changed it to not start fullscreen, start maximized, turned GLSL shading on, and to skip game info automatically. Some of these settings eliminate the need for extra command lines.

System Specific Default Command Line Parameters for LB

The PasteBin link WITH EVERY COMMAND FOR EVERY SYSTEM MESS EMULATES. Note: not all need BIOS files. http://pastebin.com/18W3EbD0 An image with the commands in action (similar to RetroArch):

I still think MESS is an utter MESS, so I am sorry if you disagree. RetroArch and MESS share a lot of DNA too actually, but what sets it apart from RetroArch is that RetroArch has gone a long way to improve their UX in recent months and years. Not to mention their documentation is a hell of a lot better in terms of obviousness and explination. The MESS Wiki was a huge huge help in figuring out the -listall command, but for about 45 min I had no clue and was still trying to find a compiled list of what I found in the pastebin link. I am also having, personally, a hard time finding MESS BIOS (please no one link them) past .161. I assume because this is when it was merged with MAME and the MESS BIOS now reside in MAME. However, the MESS build I posted is of MESS .174, and the MESS BIOS for .161 seem to work. I also found a slightly newer post on Archive.org for MESS BIOS that was dated 2016, but a few seem to be missing. So that is a quick overview of what I went through for a few hours. This does mean I will be doing MESS BIOS for systems that need it, even some systems that have emulators already. If you have any questions like always feel free to ask.

Edit: So I've since figured out that a MAME Rom Pack has all of the MESS BIOS located in it's pack, and there are several systems with Tutorials now if you want to see it in action. Click tutorials at the top, and search MESS on our channel.

[SentaiBrad]

Thank you for the kind words @bundangdon! Yea, MESS can emulate certain systems that nothing else can, and in those cases it has to win because it's pretty much the only one. I remember not liking RetroArch much at first either, just like MESS, but I also remember the difference very clearly. When I searched for help, posts and wiki's, RA information was much more readily available and the process once learned was really straight forward. Once I've learned MESS now, it is a fairly straight forward process but getting there was much much much more of a harder task. They're similar beats trying to go for the same goal with different paths. Very reminiscent of LaunchBox and HyperSpin actually in that regard. I will say this, and I always gave MESS this credit, but they do emulate those odd and wierd niche systems that nothing else even wants to.

[Zombeaver]

Thanks for this Brad. Have you messed around (heh) with the MESS core in RA at all? I'd like to use it as an alternative to CCS64 for C64 emulation since the Frodo core is still in early development, but I haven't been able to get it do... well anything really. I would have assumed you could just drop the c64 bios files in the RA system folder like anything else and be good to go but that doesn't seem to be the case. The searches I've done for documentation/help haven't been particularly helpful. Most of the forum posts over at Libretro were basically "Uh...has anyone actually gotten this to work? If so...how?" haha.

[Zombeaver]

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I did some searching and it looks like a whole lot of C64 stuff is missing support on MESS anyway - a lot of the stuff that I would want to use it for isn't even covered apparently. Guess I'll have to wait for the Frodo core... I don't suppose anyone knows anything about compiling these? They have it up on Github. I know literally nothing about how to do that :(

[Lordmonkus]

If someone can get MESS in Retroarch figured out that would be amazing just for the shaders alone.

[Zombeaver]

lordmonkus said If someone can get MESS in Retroarch figured out that would be amazing just for the shaders alone.

Yeah, that's the real reason I was interested in getting it to work - CCS64 is a fine standalone emulator, but I would love to have access to those sweet sweet shaders :( I guess you just have to have the appropriate bios in the system folder and then have your rom named in accordance with what's on this page (Software Lists -> search page -> description [game title])? I may mess around with it tonight.

[SentaiBrad]

So the games them selves do not need to be named a specific way, unless you want to use the UI. The command line normally needs to know what game to load along with the BIOS, and since we already do this the command is just the short code for the system and the short code for the type of media. The benefit with using what I shown is that you can change the Roms location in the UI to your regular MAME Roms location. The reason there is a benefit to that is because if you get a MAME Split Set, MESS BIOS are included since they were merged and that's the reason you can only find MESS 161 BIOS. That said, there is a RetroArch MESS BIOS set out there, there needs to be a MESS folder with them in it and then the proper command line. I will try and figure out that command line for you guys today. I agree that the benefits of RetroArch are better than standalone MESS. The automatic controller being probably the best.

[Zombeaver]

Thanks Brad! Are you sure Retroarch's MESS core (not standalone) doesn't require the special naming convention though? I think that's what @bundangdon was saying. If it doesn't, that'd be great and it'd definitely make things little easier at least. I can't confirm or deny as I literally haven't gotten anything to work with Retroarch's MESS core. Launchbox -> Retroarch -> MESS -> Sub Platform is giving me flashbacks of Rocket Launcher Inception shenanigans haha

[DOS76]

I have it working in RA using MAME core and I know for that you do need to have matching files named what the software list is looking for but I don't know if there is some command that would change that I tried to get it running for Atari 5200 (and did) but my files weren't zipped (which is an easy fix) but they weren't named correctly either and I quickly grew bored of renaming the files. It would be cool if some one put out a software list rom sets using the proper naming for MAME I know I would download them all just in case MAME ever did become easy to emulate these systems. That or a program that would parse the files and rename them to the software list names would be cool.

[SentaiBrad]

No it shouldn't require it. MESS Standalone or integrated doesn't, so the core shouldn't either. Though you'd be using the MAME core now. The BIOS is also a tricky situation, if you use MAME where does it go perse? It'd be hard to drop a MAME rom set in to a MESS folder in your system folder, so that I'd need to figure out. If you use standalone mess (which might be based on an older build and not .170+) and you have .161 BIOS or even the MESS BIOS of .174 pulled out of the package, then you should be good to go.

[Antropus]

I have all bioses saved inside of their respective software list folders and the root of my Software Lists folder was added as a path in mame.ini. The same hierarchy applies to other things. For example: if you create a folder called "Saturn" inside of your mame default "snap" folder and add the snaps for Saturn to it, a software like MameUI should be able to find them, because this is the expected place where Mame will look for them. In general, when it comes to Mess, Mame will look for a folder named after the software list and will then look for the files related to the roms inside of it. The same way, if you want to save all your software lists inside of your mame roms folder, mame should be able to find everything as well without the need to do anything else. I prefer having my SLists separated though, so they don't get all mixed with the CHD folders already in the Mame Roms folder. There are many ways to handle it. You could potentially extract all bioses to a folder called "BIOSES" inside of your mame installation folder, for example, and simply add that folder as a rom folder in your mame.ini. Mame should be able to find it as well. -Kris

[kerszr]

YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THANK YOUUUUU!!!

[SentaiBrad]

kerszr said YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THANK YOUUUUU!!!

You're welcome!

[scooter1974]

Thanks a ton @SentaiBrad ! I finally figured out how to set up ColecoVision and Intellivision on my system :)

[SentaiBrad]

Of course! No problem. My first tutorial for MESS also has some good info in it as well if you, or anyone else, needs a bit more of an explination.

[DOS76]

The tutorial was a great help got MESS running Atari 5200 full time now way better than the other alternatives I'm thinking of changing emulators for Coleco and Intellivision now too.

[SentaiBrad]

DOS76 said The tutorial was a great help got MESS running Atari 5200 full time now way better than the other alternatives I'm thinking of changing emulators for Coleco and Intellivision now too.

Thank you Derek, I appreciate it. I was always feareful my Tutorials would have no value for people, but I am happy to know that people love them and wait eagerly for more.

[Imgema]

lordmonkus said If someone can get MESS in Retroarch figured out that would be amazing just for the shaders alone.

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but the only program that makes RetroArch Mess core work for me is RocketLauncher. I spent so much time trying to make it work through RetroArch itself or Launchbox with no luck. But RocketLauncher makes it work for some magical reason and i don't have the softlist roms. Maybe there's something in the AHK? So, if i want to use the RetroArch Mess core through Launchbox, i add RocketLauncher as an emulator and use that to launch it, using this command for each system: -s "SYSTEM_NAME" -r

[DOS76]

I just noticed that on PD they have both the MAME software list and the software list chd's available to grab (which I am doing) a warning though the software list chd's is 1.35 TB in files size 600GB alone are Saturn chd's (is Saturn even playable through MAME/MESS). I don't know how this would help in LB though as unless you had a way to parse the names that the software list is using against the titles of the games none of the games would come out correct. I don't know if the use MAME naming would work against the software list or not but for some reason I doubt it.

[SentaiBrad]

It's doable without RocketLauncher, and setting up RL just to do this is more complicated. I haven't chosen MESS in RA becauset it is technically inferior. It's the same deal with some of the other cores in RA, like DS and PSP. That said, I will probably figure out a way for it to happen.