gizmo Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 hi i am trying to get my mame games running,uninstalled bitdefender and installed launchbox with no problems i have got a split set of mame 173 with emulator for 173, when i am looking at the LaunchBox Tutorial half way through it says about retroarch , do i need retroarch to play mame games ? as i am trying to follow the video step by step thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 No for MAME games I think it will be easier to get the games running in MAMEUI or MAMEUIFX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 hi thanks for your reply in the Tutorial they are using mame or retroarch but i dont think it says what mame emulator they are using in the video , this is where i might be going wrong as i was advised to get the same version of emulator for the same version of roms , i am trying to see why the games are not running , thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 Yeah MAMEUI and MAMEUIFX should both have a 173 version (Its basically MAME but with a User Interface built in and not all command line like the main version). MAME is updated almost monthly so when there is a new version of MAME there is also a new ROM set having the latest ROM set only provides maximum compatibility but if you had the MAME 173 emulator but the MAME 170 ROM set a large majority of your games would still work fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromlostdays Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 Just a heads up, I read that MAME 173, the emulator, has noticeably worse performance than 172, and I'm guessing this extends to its forks. It may be advantageous to wait for 174. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 many thanks for your replys ok i have imported games with launchbox when i tell launchbox to play the game none will load all though i am using mame 173 split set and mame 173 emulator but the mame emulator is not MAMEUI or MAMEUIFX, i have noticed that mame 174 is out but again would it work as no luck at the moment thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 With either of the UI versions of MAME you can start the UI and then change the settings and set your own directory paths set your video settings its just so much easier. Once you open it will look for all of your games and show you what you have in a list. If you do do get one of the UI versions you will have to set the directory to your ROM folder as it will be set by default to look in the ROMs folder that is located in the emulators folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 many thanks for your reply the one i have found is mameuifx64_0174_1 i hope it will be ok how would i set all the settings up for this emulator to play the games i have got , thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 174 should be fine. Click on Options and choose directories. Then click browse and point it to the folder that has your ROMs in it. After you choose your ROMs folder click ok and then try starting a game from in the games list. Then I would suggest adding MAMEUIFX as your emulator in LB you need to use the -skip_gameinfo -nowindow (or just -now works now too) command for the emulator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 The non UI version of Mame actually does have a UI in it now, it's been there since a couple of versions ago. Now it's not the same UI, it is a more DOSish looking UI and you can change most settings but it isn't quite as easy to use but it is there. My whole opinion of Mame and which version to use is that you really do not need to keep up to date with the latest versions of Mame and here is why. For now you are generally only using Mame to play older games (80s to late 90s) and pretty much any version of Mame that is 151 or newer is going to play all of those games just fine. If you are trying to keep everything up to date to the latest Mame you are spending more time trying to update all your rom sets to match the latest Mame than actually playing. The reason I picked 151 is because that is the easiest to find and download rom set without registering for some site or dealing with a torrent. Personally I have been sticking with 168 version of Mame and until a newer version of Mame implements something really crazy from out of left field that no one expected I won't bother updating just because some random 2000s arcade game no one ever heard of made it off the not playable to the now loadable but not really playable status. Sure, one day Mame will handle all the console stuff as good as Retroarch and other stand alone emulators but that day is not even close to being here yet. You also do not have to exactly match your rom set to the version of Mame you are using. As I said earlier I am using Mame 168 but my rom set is pretty much a 151 rom set with a handful of individual games I updated manually. If your rom set is at least moderately up to date you are fine with just about any Mame that is reasonably close in version number. You will drive yourself insane trying to keep everything up to date and matching. Just my opinion on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 Usually in those Tutorials I will put the suggested emulator first, and a secondary option for people second. I will also generally say which emulator I suggest users to use. That tutorial was pretty meaty and lengthy as was so I didn't include a MAMEUI version. With LaunchBox for the most part regular MAME works fine if you don't want to change too many settings, and even then the menu's in MAME aren't horrible. RetroArch is our generally prefered and recommended emulator, but by no means is it the only one and in a few cases the stand alone emulator is suggested over the RA Core. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 many thanks for your advice , i have imported some games into launchbox if i right click a game it comes up with a error eg: unknown system skip_gameinfo but if i tell the game to open in mame it will play the game , am i using the wrong emulator for mame ? will retroarch play all games eg: amiga , spectrum etc ? can launchbox actually play the games ? thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 That error looks like you got something wrong in your setup. I will post a screen shot in a few minutes of what mine looks like. Mame can emulate all sorts of stuff but it's a real pain in the ass to set it all up. A couple of people here on the forums figured out a lot of it but unless you really feel you need to emulate those old computer systems I would just leave them alone. Launchbox will launch pretty much anything, it's just a front end afterall, it's not running anything directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrloki76 Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 Hi all. I've followed the Tutorial but still having problems. I skipped the RA bit and opted to use MAME (x64) for ease (plus i have a control panel setup so buttons are automaticaly set to MAME defaults). I've imported my MAME ROM's and everything looks fine, but when i double click (or right click and 'Play') a game, it looks like MAME opens and closes immediately (just a flash on my screen). FYI the 'Play Count' in the metadata increases to suggest it loaded and closed. I have added the -skip_gameinfo -nowindow to the command line for the emulator also. Any suggestions? MAME build 0171 (and matching romset), LB V6 (BETA 11 i think - it just updated today) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 Do your roms load when just loading through Mame itself ? Are you using MameUI or the command line version of Mame ? If the game is loading fine through Mame on its own then you have something wrong in your Launchbox setup. If not then check your rom path. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrloki76 Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 Thanks - needed to change ROM directory in MAME itself. I though launchbox pulled in the location of the ROM when they were added to LB... maybe MAME is different. Cheers for the quick reaponse Lord - Much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 Yeah Mame is different that way for some reason but then again Mame is the only emulator I can think of off the top of my head that needs a rom directory path. Glad you got it working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizmo Posted May 29, 2016 Author Share Posted May 29, 2016 many thanks for your reply , i followed the video step by step and even put in skip_gameinfo -nowindow so i dont understand why i am getting this error in launchbox , i have put all the roms in mame rom folder and told mame where they are and what emulator to use i am using mameuifx64_0174_1 emulator with split set 173 roms, what i have done now was to take out skip_gameinfo -nowindow from the emulator rescan roms to mame now they will play from launchbox, but with certain games getting another error or says about missing files allthough it was suppose to be a full split set , now with the pictures how do you get the missing pictures do i have to search google and copy over to des picture folder just woundering as there are over 4,000 games i will have to go through thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amoinz Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 What exactly does the skip game info command do? I saw it in the video but I am not sure it was explained. Than you in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromlostdays Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 When you start a mame game you will get a gameinfo screen and a warning screen (Nag screen). It's no big deal, it'll prompt you to press left then right on the joypad to clear it. I guess you can skip the game info screen via cli command. To skip the nag screen, you have to download a version of mame compiled for no-nag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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