Help with mame

[DOS76]

Easier is better some times and most of those systems on that list are simple to run in either stand alones or in RA so why anyone would want to spend time to get them working instead of just playing them I won't ever understand. There must be a dozen NES emulators you could set up just by adding the .exe to LB and then the games and just clicking on the game it will load with no settings, no BIOS files and no command line parameters. I could see using MAME/MESS for a system like CD-I because of your lack of choices but to use it for platforms that have multiple choices that are much easier to implement and run with at minimum the same if not better quality is a no brainer to me. RetroArch is amazing but at the same time I don't use it to emulate every system it can. I don't use it for MAME, Saturn (I use it for A.M.O.K. becuase its the only emulator that it works on) PSP or PS1. Also most if not all of these posts are biased by the individual users preferences and I see very little empirical evidence of why anyone should switch away from what they already prefer to use including my own post. I just know that the pros of using other emulators over MAME for every system personally outweighs the cons of using it for that purpose. Good luck with whatever you decide to move forward with.

[Antropus]

This is like the fourth time I see someone asking for help on how to make something work and the thread become a silly emulator war with fanboys on each side :) The thing that I find funny is that some of the favorite cores on RA, like the Sega Genesis one, are based on the core driver developed by Charles MacDonald, one of the Mame programmers ;) Back on topic, I didn't know you could keep CHD files zipped and they would work. I wonder if that happens with the CD-i because each game has only one CHD file, unlike arcade games, where you get multiple CHD files per game sometimes. The Mess documentation might be old, but they specifically say to keep CHDs unzipped and in folders, same with Mame, but again, good to know it works with CD-i!

[DOS76]

I feel like your trying to censor my post by shaming me for having an opinion that MESS isn't worth spending time on especially for systems that have other means of emulation and no one is having an emulator war here people are just expressing themselves with an opinion that is obviously contrary to yours.

[Antropus]

Feelings are a funny thing. People feel different things that just might not ring truth to someone else. You are still off topic even after the original poster asked people to stay on topic repeatedly. I get that some people are moved by drama :) Can't believe people take this stuff so seriously. It's about emulators, FREE emulators for anyone to use. Judging why and how people use whatever they please while using shaming tactics of their own doesn't seem the best way to approach any thread like this, but sure enough seems like there's a little army always up for the task around this forum. Go on, derail the guy's thread some more :)

[fromlostdays]

You shouldn't download a mame bios pack. You should use the bios present in the romset. Other than that, download the bios for a specific system one at a time and try them until you find one that works. I have mame working for all those systems. You guys can point out which emulators are better at what.... meanwhile I'm making sure I have ALL emulators working and I can use RL and/or LaunchBox to switch which emulator is launching which game any time I have a problem. :D

[Lordmonkus]

I'm smelling a troll here in @Wolf_.

[Antropus]

Here are the status for the systems I'm emulating through Mame, which include the systems you want to emulate. Notice that Mame's team main objective is 100% accuracy, even if the speed suffers at times, so if the system is marked as "Good", that means that all aspects of the emulation were fulfilled and the system is fully emulated and accurate. "Imperfect" can mean many things, but in general, if it's not accurate, it will be marked as "Imperfect". In my experience, I've been playing arcade games which were marked by Mame as "Imperfect" for many years now, without even noticing anything wrong with those games. For all accounts and purposes, the games run at full speed with no noticeable glitches, but again, since the Mame Team strives for absolute accuracy, if there's a tiny little piece missing, the game will remain marked as "imperfect". The same is true for the Software Lists: I've been playing those systems without any noticeable glitches at all, but they are still marked as "imperfect". Mame is pretty clear about that and that's why they keep the nag screens in place, so everybody knows the REAL status of those drivers. Other emulators on the other hand might claim 100% accuracy, but quite frankly, other than Higan/BSNes, I don't know many emulators that you can really call perfectly accurate. Since there's no nag screen to disclaim what's going on under the hood, anything goes, including the blatant use of speed up hacks, which are absolutely a no no when it comes to Mame. Mame Status: Accurate Emulation Atari 2600 = Perfect Atari 5200 = Perfect Atari 7800 = Perfect Atari Lynx = Perfect ColecoVision = Perfect Commodore 64 = Perfect Vectrex = Perfect Intellivision = Perfect MSX1 Cartridges = Perfect MSX2 Cartridges = Perfect Nintendo Gameboy = Perfect Sega GameGear = Perfect Sega Master System = Perfect Sega Genesis/Megadrive = Perfect Sega SG-1000 = Perfect Sega SG-1000 Mark II = Perfect SNK Neo Geo Pocket = Perfect SNK Pocket Color = Perfect SNK Neo Geo = Perfect SNK Neo Geo CD = Perfect Watara Supervision = Perfect Sound not 100% emulated, but still fully playable NEC PC-Engine = Imperfect Sound NEC Supergrafx = Imperfect Sound NEC Turbografx 16 = Imperfect Sound Bandai's Wonderswan = Imperfect Sound Bandai Wonderswan Color = Imperfect Sound Graphics not 100% emulated, but still fully playable Atari XEGS = Imperfect Graphics Magnavox Odyssey 2 = Imperfect Graphics Nintendo NES = Imperfect Graphics Nintendo Gameboy Color = Imperfect Graphics Sharp X68000 = Imperfect Graphics Sound and Graphics not 100% emulated, but still fully playable Philips CD-i = Imperfect Sound/Graphics Nintendo Gameboy Advance = Imperfect Sound/Graphics Nintendo SNES = Imperfect Sound/Graphics -Kris

[weltall]

Rather than troll, it is just that some people see hostility from the wrong places. Be it because of mood or because of personality, one person can read the same phrase in a different way. Afar from that opinions always collide, since it is just impossible for everyone in the world to prefer pasta over meat (shame on you). Also it is not drama really, as much as an argument (hopefully a good one). After all arguments that are good, might help people gain something out of it. I mean the answer for the post has been given and in great detail, so the OP and anyone else that will want to know how, will definitely know the answer if they will stumble upon it. But I feel it would be better, if this conversation had it's own thread, rather than this one.

[locvez]

On the topic of keeping chd files as 7z archives, I would say don't. I noticed absoloutely no space saving in the majority of games yet load time of mame was upwards of 2 minutes at times due to LB having to extract the rom (this was in a setup where rom files are stored on a network share) so imho there is nothing gained from .7z'ing your chd files

[weltall]

This is why at least I mentioned CD-i. CD-i do compress a bit, but if I remember well CHDs do not compress because they are already in a compressed form? Off topic: Although there can be a merit for me personally to keep even CHDs in at least a zip file, so they will get uncompressed to the temporary folder. Thanks to CADScott I learned how to move my temporary folder to my main SSD disc, which helps with load times when plays games... oh those load times...

[Antropus]

Yeah, since the Mame/Mess documentation mentioned keeping the CHDs in their respective folders and uncompressed, that's why I started using dummy .zip files to run them. They run instantly that way and the dummy files are simply there to help Launchbox to run things, as part of the command line. It works every time, even in those cases where a games uses multiple CHDs in a single folder. Besides, the dummy .zip files use very minimal space in disk, as they are empty "fake" zip files. Talking about disk space, there's something very tempting about using Mame to emulate those systems, especially if you already have a whole collection of Software Lists in your HDD. That way you don't need to download a whole Sega Genesis collection again, TOSEC, Dat-O-Matic or others. Simply use the clean collection present in the Mame software list folder and you should be good to go. Since it's Mame, my parser can collect a lot of metadata for those systems, including: Game Full Name, Release Date, Control Type, Orientation, Resolution, Number of Buttons and in some cases the entire Game Description, if present in History.dat. The most common systems got that covered (Snes, Nes, Genesis etc). -Kris

[Antropus]

Another detail worth mentioning: some drivers are region dependent. If you try to run certain European SNES games using the regular command line "snes -cart" will not do the trick. You will need "snespal -cart" instead (I think this is the reason why I was adding custom command lines per game before).

[Wolf_]

On topic: Massive thank you to @Antropus for that incredibly detailed guide, as well as @weltall I just need a bit more help finding the Default Command-Line Parameter for the TurboGrafx-CD in mame. I tried tg16 (without -cart) and it didn't work. Also I use .cue files for those roms so will that work? Off topic: @weltall about mame cores vs retroarch cores - I never claimed mame was completely perfect, in fact I even pointed out retroarch is able to run several cores that are better than mame without mucking them up (also there are other cores mame doesn't even have). However the systems I listed for mame are from their 100% perfect emulation list as documented by http://nonmame.retrogames.com/ who do extensive testing and reviews. @DOS76 I chose to invest the time into figuring out mame because eventually all the systems currently in retroarch (or anywhere else) and other emulators will be supported by it. Mame is coded by a group of ocd perfectionists and simply has higher manpower, update frequency, and accuracy than anything else out there. I would love to one day only have a single emulator that does everything and mame is the only thing that even comes close right now. It is certainly closing in on RetroArch very rapidly for the cores they both support. In the next couple years it will almost certainly support all but maybe the past 3-4 console generations to near perfection. Also posting about your personal feelings is completely off topic in a "how can I do this" thread. It is like someone asks how to plug a bullet wound and you say "well in my opinion being stabbed is much more preferable". It is completely off topic and not helpful. As is then complaining you are being censored. If you want to talk about what emulator you like... make a thread for it in the relevant forum (not the noob help forum, in a post asking for help). @lordmonkus I'm not a troll, I was just asking for help setting up an emulator and asking people to stay on topic so I could get the help I needed without wasting time in a fanboy war that might take up hours out of my day, make it even harder for actually helpful people to post decent info, and possibly get my thread locked without me getting any help.

[Antropus]

I think I discovered how to make TG16CD work, as well as Saturn and Mega CD. Apparently you need to load a cart and a cdrom in the parameters, informing the bios as the cart and the CHD/Iso as the cdrom. I'll do some tests tonight. -Kris

[Wolf_]

Antropus said I think I discovered how to make TG16CD work, as well as Saturn and Mega CD. Apparently you need to load a cart and a cdrom in the parameters, informing the bios as the cart and the CHD/Iso as the cdrom. I'll do some tests tonight. -Kris

That makes sense! I forgot about the cart required for cds in the turboduo. Interested to see how that is coded.

[Lordmonkus]

Good luck with your project.

[weltall]

You are welcome Wolf. Hope you managed to find what you were looking for. I am not sure to be honest about TurboGrafx-CD and if it works, but the reason you can't find it it is because the CDs are listed under PC Engine along with the Japanese games. That means for the TGCD it is "pce", but honestly I have never really tried it to reassure you. I can though be sure that they are considered cdrm images, cause in the "pcecd" hash file, they are mentioned as such. PS: >.> Try the cart if the cdrm does not work, since I do not really know much about MAME.

[Antropus]

TG16CD works = Confirmed! This is what you need: 1) Google and download this file: "[BIOS] TurboGrafx CD Super System Card (USA) (v3.0).zip" 2) Save the file in some folder that makes sense and keep it zipped 3) Run this Command line: mame64 pce -cart "FULL_PATH_TO_THE_FILE_YOU_JUST_DOWNLOADED\[BIOS] TurboGrafx CD Super System Card (USA) (v3.0).zip" -cdrom GAMENAME It loads super fast and works pretty well as far as I can see :) Enjoy. -Kris

[Antropus]

I just played a little round of R-Type for the PCEngine CD and boy does it run smooth as butter! :D Sega CD runs perfectly as well, as far as I can tell. Tried Ecco and Final Fight. Both ran perfectly. Use these command lines: Mame64 megacdj -cdrom GAMENAME or Mame64 megacd -cdrom GAMENAME or Mame64 segacd -cdrom GAMENAME Depending on the system you are emulating, where "mame64" is the name of your mame.exe file, obviously.

[Antropus]

One more CD system for you to test: Playstation One! Man, Mame came a long way. The emulation is not perfect, but it's pretty damn good! Just played some 2D games: King of The Fighters 99 and Gunbird and they both ran at full FPS, with music and all! I also tried Burnout, which is a 3D game and it ran fullspeed as well. I'm gladly surprised! Command line: mame64 psj -cdrom GAMENAME