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

[rcoltrane]

Thanks a LOT for your detailed guide JoeViking245!! With that guide I could nail the problem(s) I was having here... let's begin:

1) It will only work with the "Use file name only without file extension or folder path" enabled

2) The rom cartridge must have the short name on it equal to the short name present in MAME's  software lists (hero) in a zip file as you have it. If you try to mount the rom with MAME's software list full name "h.e.r.o. (japan).rom" it won't work.

After these steps, the game is now running as it should be!

As a suggestion to developers: 

1) I would consider a revision at the file mounting system to make it more robust. Such as try to get the full rom name present in MAME software lists and automatically convert it to its respective short name as found in the software lists as well, while mounting the command line to run the system. Since both "short" and "long/correct" names are in there, it should not be very difficult to do.

2) If a system does not work, please make an option to generate a .log file somewhere or at least leave the console screen open, so we can see what's wrong at our command lines. The console output screen closes very quickly after a system crash, so we can't see what's wrong.

What do you think of these suggestions?

Edited January 6, 2020 by rcoltrane

[DOS76]

Good luck with any changes to this. Software List aren't officially supported in LB and support for them got very little attention on the last poll. Thankfully @JoeViking245 's excellent SoftwareList importer plugin exists to make them usable for us.

[JoeViking245]

@DOS76 beat me to the Submit Reply button...

Suggestion #1:  I'm not really clear on what you'er saying.  But I think what you want is to be able to import into LaunchBox MAME Software Lists so that the game's proper Title shows in your Platform collection, while the game's rom_name can stay intact (zipped) so MAME can launch it.  Just like it does when importing MAME Arcade Machines.

If that is the case, LaunchBox does not currently accommodate MAME Software Lists (in that regards) as it does for MAME Arcade Machines.  There is however a plugin that some guy wrote for the LB community that can help with that.

Suggestion #2...  That can be tricky as not all emulators open a console window.  Also, it's probably actually easier just to ask here on the forums.  There is a mass amount of knowledgeable people that are willing to help right here at your fingertips.

[rcoltrane]

20 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Suggestion #1:  I'm not really clear on what you'er saying.  But I think what you want is to be able to import into LaunchBox MAME Software Lists so that the game's proper Title shows in your Platform collection, while the game's rom_name can stay intact (zipped) so MAME can launch it.  Just like it does when importing MAME Arcade Machines.

I will try to make it more clear: I said that the software itself has a file name, the name of the uncompressed rom file (in this case the rom file is "h.e.r.o. (japan).rom"). This would be the "long name", the name of the rom file itself as MAME standardized it when MSX software list was created, to avoid bad rom dumps floating around all over the internet. When this MSX software list was created, they gave rom files a "short name" (or nickname if you prefer), in this case, just "hero". This would be the "short name".

My suggestion was to allow LaunchBox to mount the "long name" with the software picker (ex: c:\temp\UME\roms\EXPERT11\hero (japan).rom) and automatically get its "short name" to compose the command line parameter with the short name, so the command line would be like this: mame64 expert11 -cart1 hero.

Today, the way LaunchBox operates, this is not happening. LB mounts the command line with the string that comes straight from the software picker. In this case, the command line comes like this: mame64 expert11 -cart1 c:\temp\UME\roms\EXPERT11\hero (japan).rom , which MAME does not accept as a valid command line parameter. So you have to zip this file with the "short name" (hero.zip) to make it to work. If you have a small amount of MSX roms in your collection, you can zip one by one manually to make LB to work. Now imagine if you have hundreds, or even thousands of MSX games in your collection, all of them unzipped. There's no way you are going to zip one by one with their respective short names.

More clear now or did I screw this up for good? lol

Edited January 7, 2020 by rcoltrane

[mcfilmmakers]

But there are no rules for long name nomenclature which means it is impossible to tell launchbox how to take a long name and find the short name equivalent. The best solution would be to guess which would undoubtedly lead to way too many false matches.

[JoeViking245]

@rcoltrane  Gotch'ya.  I get what you're asking now.  But I'm going to take a wild (but somewhat educated) guess that that's never going to happen.  

Just curious, do you store all your MAME roms extracted? 

Here's a little caveat... You obtain MAME's Software List "MSX2 cartridges" [long name] aka "msx1_cart" [short name].  In there you have "hero.zip" [short] which holds "h.e.r.o. (japan).rom" [long].  The long name is of course a lot more descriptive of the actual game.  And that [long] is how you have it stored on your computer. (no .zip file)

In that same set you have "1942.zip" [short] which per the hash file, its 'description' is "1942 (Jpn)" and  it's 'rom file' is "1942 (japan).rom".  But the actual zip file contains "nc81820-g30 japan 8649" (at least mine does).  Which one is MAME's standardized long name?  Do you extract to rom from the zip file and rename it?  And the only way to verify a good/bad dump is through a hash check (crc, sha1...).  The name can only get you close.

Caveat 2: the zip file is actually a culmination of multiple rom files.  i.e. Arcade Machine "1942.zip"  It contains 27 'rom files'.

Now if you have in your collection roms from days afore, and by chance they happen to have the same naming convention MAME ended up using in their hash file 'rom file' name, That's pretty impressive and a rarity of it's own.  I'm sure.  But again, only for ones that have a single 'rom file'.

Most, if not all people will get the emulatable roms directly from MAME's Software List collection.  Which of course stores the files zipped with MAME's short naming convention and is what the MAME emu looks for.  Again, just as is done for their Arcade Machines.  (which I know you know this)  

[rcoltrane]

Yes, you are correct. It is better and simpler to use everything zipped the way you download them from the internet instead of using uncompressed roms for computers/consoles the way I was using. Fortunately (to me) I don't have many games in my collection, so now I have every rom zipped with their official names and everything is working fine!

Thank you JoeViking245 for your support (and patience)!! And thanks to the LaunchBox team for this great frontend!