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

[rexryan]

Working like a champ thanks..

[broskiplays]

I am currently using MESS for emulating tamagotchi's and even the Nintendo Vii so awesome

[mcfilmmakers]

I'm trying to emulate the Fairchild Channel F but it is very blurry unless I do the following when a game loads:

tab -> Slider controls -> Window 0 Screen  0 Effects: hq4x

The problem is this setting does NOT save and I have to set it every time I load any game.

How do I get launchbox to set this properly automatically when I launch any game?

[Lordmonkus]

This is not something in Launchbox you would change, it's in the raster.ini file in the \ini\presets folder.

Not sure if the settings you want to use are going to be the same for all the systems you are using Mame for or if they are just for that specific system. If they are going to be the same for all that makes life really easy, just edit the raster.ini file using notepad and save it. If they are going to be just for that console I don't know how to set it up just for a specific system but you can check the documentation for it here: http://docs.mamedev.org/advanced/multiconfig.html or if you wanna do it the ultra lazy and simple way you can make a separate install of Mame for that system alone and have it set up just for it.

[Lordmonkus]

I'm looking into some stuff I found that may be of some use, I will post back with anything I figure out.

[DOS76]

[Lordmonkus]

Ok, after some poking around and playing with different things I can't say I have a definitive solution for you but I think I have something to hopefully set you on the right path.

Start out by loading Mame on its own with no game loaded and you will be in the Mame UI, click "Available" on the left hand side and you should have a list of systems you have bios files detected for. With the system you want to configure selected, in this case the Channel F, then double click "Configure Options".

Once you have the settings how you like double click "Save machine configuration". You can the close out Mame and you should then have a machine specific ini file generated in your Mame folder (possibly the \ini folder). When I did this it was in the Mame root folder where the mame64.exe was located and the file was called channelf.ini. You can then open that file in notepad and make any further and more advanced tweaks as necessary.

I hope this helps you get to where you need it to be.

[mcfilmmakers]

So what I need is actually in the mame.ini file:

I had to change this:

#
# BGFX POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
bgfx_path                 bgfx
bgfx_backend              auto
bgfx_debug                0
bgfx_screen_chains        default
bgfx_shadow_mask          slot-mask.png
bgfx_avi_name             auto

to this:

#
# BGFX POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
bgfx_path                 bgfx
bgfx_backend              auto
bgfx_debug                0
bgfx_screen_chains        hq4x
bgfx_shadow_mask          slot-mask.png
bgfx_avi_name             auto

And that did the trick.

so since it is safe to assume I wont want that setting for all platforms, I saved mame.ini as channelf.ini into the ini/presets folder and it seems to do the trick!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I wish MAME was more user friendly or that at least the documentation was more obvious.

[Lordmonkus]

Glad you got it the way you like.

Mame does a lot of stuff so unfortunately the side effect of that is it has to have more options and the more options there are the easier it becomes to get lost in them.

[Zeaede]

I have tried different mess, most mess crashes when i launch it

The mess version that seems to work best to me is mess 0.159, i also have matching bios in the roms folder

But when i launch a game from messui after a minute of gaming screen freezes?

[rcoltrane]

Does anyone here know how to mount MSX1 cartridges in LaunchBox using MAME 0.217 Software Lists? Because my MSX carts are not working when I mount the ROM file straight from the ROMS folder, which seems to be the default LaunchBox behavior. MAME actually has a bug when mounting roms files for some systems without using its software lists (the system boots up but the game won't run).

[harryoke]

1 hour ago, rcoltrane said:

Does anyone here know how to mount MSX1 cartridges in LaunchBox using MAME 0.217 Software Lists? Because my MSX carts are not working when I mount the ROM file straight from the ROMS folder, which seems to be the default LaunchBox behavior. MAME actually has a bug when mounting roms files for some systems without using its software lists (the system boots up but the game won't run).

hb501p -cart1    ......works for me

[rcoltrane]

13 hours ago, harryoke said:

hb501p -cart1    ......works for me

I did this before asking here... unfortunately, the way you are mounting the file does not mean that LaunchBox will actually mount it using MAME's software lists (slot carts). As an example, try to run HERO cartridge (Japan).rom, I will let it attached here so you can grab it and try to run it on your machine. See if it works. Here, I'm using EXPERT11 machine to run my games but when I try to run HERO, if freezes at the EXPERT11 boot screen and won't start the game. However, when mounting the same file straight from DOS command line at the Windows 10 DOS Prompt window, it works fine. So it is clearly a LaunchBox mounting problem, it's using  MAME's file mapper only to mount the rom file and run. This won't work with some specific MSX games anymore because these need to be mounted as slot carts instead, using software lists.

LaunchBox won't even accept mounting MSX files using the msx1_cart option present in latest MAME (02.17). It gives a mounting error and quits the emulation! This command line would be like this: "expert11 msx1_cart:hero" . This command line works fine through Windows 10 DOS prompt, but LaunchBox is not recognizing it as a valid parameter.

Edited January 5, 2020 by rcoltrane
Please do not post copyrighted files.

[JoeViking245]

@rcoltrane  In the future, please don't be so quick to blame LaunchBox.  It's only doing what you told it to do.

If you wish to use that particular command line (expert11 msx1_cart:hero), you have to edit your MAME emulator and check the box that says "No space before ROM".   But that kinda screws up any other Platforms you have associated with MAME.

Instead, use this as your Default Command-Line Parameters under Associated Platforms for your 'Expert 11' (or whatever name you gave it) Platform.

expert11 -cart1

If you wish to verify through the Windows 10 DOS prompt, try:

mame64.exe expert11 -cart1 hero

Note the space and no : (colon) before the game_name (hero).

[rcoltrane]

JoeViking245, I didn't want to be rude when talking about LaunchBox not working as expected. I'm sorry about that.

With that said, everything you said I tried. None of these options you mentioned works through LaunchBox (despite the fact that these parameters work through Windows 10 Command Prompt indeed). If you want to give it a try, download the rom file I attached to one of my previous messages and try to launch it using the latest MAME version (0.217) via LaunchBox. Use the expert11 driver or any other MAME MSX driver you want. You will see that it won't work because LaunchBox is mounting the rom file using the 'old' file mapper, which passes the full path where the rom file is located together with the physical name of the rom itself (this string will work with most part of the MSX games but some of them won't work this way anymore, a MAMEdev told me this (Haze)). Instead, it should be mounted as a slot cart, which I still didn't figure out how to do in LaunchBox.

LaunchBox screen showing the file being mounted with the old file mapper and not finding the game: 

Tested both methods of mounting the cart as software list on the Windows 10 DOS prompt and both worked fine:

And here is my full command line parameters for this system/game which I'm using into another frontend without any issues:

-bgfx_backend opengl -bgfx_screen_chains -bgfx_shadow_mask -noreadconfig -writeconfig -nofilter -triplebuffer -pause_brightness 1.00000000 -nocoin_lockout -ui_active -cheat -nonvram_save -plugin hiscore -skip_gameinfo -noui_mouse -hashpath "C:\RCS\Games\UME\hash" -inipath "C:\RCS\Games\UME\ini" -rompath "C:\RCS\GAMES\UME\roms" -samplepath "C:\RCS\Games\UME\samples" -record expert11.inp -nosnapbilinear -nounevenstretch -video d3d -output console expert11 -cart1 msx1_cart:hero:cart

 

 

 

[JoeViking245]

No worries.

Can you run from inside MAME itself?  (vs from the command prompt.)  And be sure your using the copy of MAME that you're using for LaunchBox. (C:\Temp... vs C:\RCS...)

Kind of where I'm going with this is I see in your full command line parameters it has  -rompath ...  in it.   That (as well as a lot of the parameters in there) would only need to be there if MAME isn't fully setup properly.  I guess another way is....  in your mame.ini file that [should be] located in your MAME's root folder, does the rompath point to where your game roms and device (bios) roms are located?

I see your screen shot shows you're in C:\Temp\UME   but in your full command line, the rompath parameter points to  C:\RCS\GAMES\UME\roms

 

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by JoeViking245

[rcoltrane]

It's not a path problem, I use MAME since version 0.14 so I know how to set it up properly. The thing with the paths is that I have two setups in my computer, one is my official MAME (c:\rcs\games\UME)and the other (c:\temp\UME) is my temporary MAME folder I'm currently using to test LaunchBox to see if it's a viable solution. Both installations have the roms directory with the correct roms inside them, so true that I can run the game via DOS prompt command line with no problems at all. If the files were not in the correct paths, I would not be able to run the game through the DOS prompt command line as well. The internal MAME UI is useless and full of bugs, I won't count that as a valid test.

However, as a proof of faith, I did create a new mame.ini in my c:\temp\UME folder (MAME root folder) with the roms path in it just like yours and it didn't help either. 

As I said, It's a rom mounting problem. Grab the rom I posted here and try to run it in your machine. You will see that it does not work through LaunchBox unless you do something I didn't figure out yet.

[mcfilmmakers]

1 hour ago, rcoltrane said:

Grab the rom I posted here and try to run it in your machine. You will see that it does not work through LaunchBox unless you do something I didn't figure out yet.

You keep saying this but not once did you realize that the file you attached was removed for breaking forum rules.

[rcoltrane]

9 minutes ago, mcfilmmakers said:

You keep saying this but not once did you realize that the file you attached was removed for breaking forum rules.

Didn't notice that. Any chance of someone download this file from other sources on the internet and post the results here?

Edited January 6, 2020 by rcoltrane

[JoeViking245]

I wasn't sure about your familiarity with MAME, and sounds like that not an issue. ?

You're not allowed to post copyrighted materials (roms) here.  That's why the moderators removed the link. That said, I already had it, and that's how I know it does work in LaunchBox.  And so, I am determined to get it to work for you too.  

This brings it down to how it's set up in LaunchBox.  Since you're using MAME 0.217, the default Command line parameter -keyboardprovider dinput is not an issue.  Also, having your mame.ini in MAME's root folder (vs in it's ../ini  folder, which is another common issue) is taken care of.  And your rom/device_files/bios_files are all inside folders that are included in the "rompath" line inside mame.ini.

Let's look at some basics, then go from there...

In the Edit Game, Launcher tab, you have it pointing to a copy of "hero.zip" that's included in mame.ini 'rompath'?In the emulation tab, it's pointing to MAME (or however you called it)Click "Edit..."The exe file shown is the same one that has the rom path set for the selected game (above).  

What about the check boxes?  Mine's setup (see below) such that even for Software List Platforms, the "Don't use..." and "Use file name..." can both stay checked (just like MAME Arcade Machines).  You may need to uncheck those depending on how your Software Lists are setup.

Now under the Associated Platforms tabCheck for the Platform that you have H.E.R.O. in inside LaunchBox.  For me, it's " MSX1 cartridges".  Set the Default Command-Line Parameters to 

expert11 -cart1

And check that it is the Default Emulator.  "OK" your way back to the LaunchBox main ui.  That's what's working for me.

 

A note on Software List file locations.  If you're planning to install several or many, what seems to work best (at least for me)...

Create a sub folder in MAME called "software"   (D:\Emulators\Mame\software)

In that new folder, place the Software List folders for each console/computer you're installing using the exact same name as the hash.xml file_name for the folder_name.   (D:\Emulators\Mame\software\msx1_cart)

So for, the game in question would be located:  D:\Emulators\Mame\software\msx1_cart\hero.zip

I place all the console/computer bios and device files directly in "software".  They probably could just as well be in their corresponding sub_folder, but for whatever reason, I did it this way and it's working.

Thus I have the file expert11 located:  D:\Emulators\Mame\software\expert11.zip

With these file locations, all you need to add in the mame.ini "rompath" line is "software

#
# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
homepath                  .
rompath                   roms;software

MAME will know to look for expert11.zip and hero.zip under "software\" and under "software\msx1_cart\", respectively.