Magnavox Odyssey 2 and Command Line for Mame!

[marcelosofth]

Hello friends, I want to use Odyssey2 with "VOICE" support in Mame, but following some guidelines I found is not working and always gives error, someone can help me, I need a lot to solve this simple problem!

mame.exe odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2 game.bin

Message error:
Error: unknown option: -cart2

Ps. First I need to run the emulator outside the LaunchBox! ?
 

[spycat]

To emulate the Odyssey 2 using MAME, with voice synthesis for games that support it, you will need the machine's romset odyssey2.zip and the voice passthrough cart o2_voice.zip
These two files will usually go into your MAME roms folder.

To run things directly using MAME's command line with no LaunchBox you can use

"full file path to your MAME exe" odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2 "full file path to the game"

The double quotes aren't mandatory, but you will need to use them where a full file path contains spaces

Example:
"C:\Users\Me\Documents\Emulators\MAME\mame64.exe" odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2 "C:\Users\Me\Documents\Emulators\Magnavox Odyssey 2\o2em118win\ROMS\Atlantis (USA, Europe).bin"

By the way, all this is so much easier using LaunchBox!

[marcelosofth]

Hello my friend, I tried to do what I said, but unfortunately I could not, I wonder if you can create a folder with the emulator inside with a .bat and working, because here I can not at all.

See an attached image.

Note: Inside the Roms and Bios folder I put the 2 files:
o2_voice.zip / odyssey2.zip

The games I put in the root of the mame, when I pull out the information -art2 the game loads but without voice!

[spycat]

I've tested this using the command line structure I posted above and it works just fine. Not sure what else to say except that you should use the full file path to the game not just the game name.

Just curious, but is there a reason why you won't use LaunchBox?

[marcelosofth]

Friend, I want to first make it clear that you are my only hope of being able to make it work, in a long time I am looking for a solution and I can not, as you can see in the image that I sent, I can not do it myself, create a folder and inside the emulator working for me to download and test here, I will be eternally grateful.

I do not use LaunchBox because I prefer to use Advmenu Plus ok?

PLEASEEEE HELPMEEEEE!

[spycat]

If the game launches ok for you with the voice -cart2 option removed then maybe you have a problem with o2_voice.zip?
Mine contains the following files
sp0256b-019.bin
spr128-003.bin
spr128-004.bin

or else maybe your version of MAME is old and may not support the Odyssey2 voice?

I can't suggest anything else, except you try the AdvMenu Plus forum over at Arcade Forever.

I can't distribute a folder with MAME or MESS in it, sorry about that.

For what it's worth, with the few Odyssey2 games I've played I've never heard any voices and haven't noticed any sound enhancements either. So maybe just go without voice.

[marcelosofth]

Message error:
Error: unknown option: -cart2

To correct the problem in the error message, just have the directory "hash" folder inside the MAME and inside it 2 files:

odyssey2.hsi
odyssey2.xml

Work fine!!! ????

Edited September 25, 2018 by marcelosofth

[danielsan27]

hi there

experimenting a very bad issue...cannot launch Odyssey2 via mame, it says always :"charset_i8244.bin" not found

Odyssey2.zip in on rom dir...

mame 0.242

please help.. ty

 

[spycat]

It looks like you may be missing the device i8244.zip which contains the file charset_i8244.bin
That device should come with a full MAME romset.

[danielsan27]

17 hours ago, spycat said:

It looks like you may be missing the device i8244.zip which contains the file charset_i8244.bin
That device should come with a full MAME romset.

Damn!!!!! You was RIGHT!! missing another "bios" file....

ahaha IT WORKS, NOW!!

now...testing some game for knowing which keys are used by games (sometimes direction keys, sometimes other...depend by game)

preparing for inserting on LB!! GREATTT

Ty again

P.s. -cart2 not recognized but not important..it works

 

[spycat]

You're welcome.

I use 2 devices, i8244.zip and voice.zip
and my parameters are
odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2

This provides voice synthesis in supported games such as KCs Krazy Chase.
 

[Joe35car]

Old thread but didn't want to start a new one. I tried the above parameters and it doesn't work in LB. I use the command (mame odyssey2 voice -cart2 timelord) in MAME and it works. What command would I use in Launchbox for this to work?

 

Thanks

Edited June 25 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

11 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

Old thread but didn't want to start a new one. I tried the above parameters and it doesn't work in LB. I use the command (mame odyssey2 voice -cart2 timelord) in MAME and it works. What command would I use in Launchbox for this to work?

Thanks

As you know, MAME's softlists need to be in an accessible folder to MAME.  In the case of Odyssey 2, the softlist folder is (by default) videopac.

There is also the BIOS file (odyssey2.zip) and the device file (i8244.zip) that need to be accessible too.

If you have -rompath %romlocation% in your default command-line parameters for the Odyssey 2 platform, be sure those 2 files are in the same folder as your Odyssey 2 ROMs.

Alternately, if you added paths to rompath(s) to mame.ini, have those 2 files in one of the folders listed and also the 'videopac' folder. (Or you can add the videopac folder (or whatever you have them in) to 'rompath'.)

[Joe35car]

Thanks for the reply but my head is spinning what you said lol. My games work fine in Launchbox using MAME for this system. They also work with the command line above for games that support voice module. In a simple explanation what would I use as the commandline in Launchbox? Little confused.

[Joe35car]

Also I use MAME as the emulator but I use no intro roms. Not the software list ones. I do have the most recent MAME set for those. But when I use MAME for console games I use no intro sets. Does this matter? Everything works fine in Launchbox when I do this.

Edited June 25 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Joe35car said:

it doesn't work in LB.

40 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

My games work fine in Launchbox

40 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

They also work with the command line above

Who's confused now??  (Hint, it me. )

 

The "above" command you mentioned at 1st and said didn't work is:

odyssey2 -cart1 voice -cart2

 

(guess I missed this..) The command you said that did work ["in MAME"?   From the Windows Command Prompt??] is:

mame odyssey2 voice -cart2 timelord

 

Interpolating between the 2, I'd say the command-line parameter for you to use in LaunchBox would be

odyssey2 voice -cart2

LaunchBox will add mame to the beginning and timelord (or whatever the ROM filename you're launching is) to the end.

[Joe35car]

thanks I will try. sorry if I was babbling on. I meant the games work fine in Launchbox but they don't use the voice module for games that support it. OK works and it doesn't lol. So the commandline works when using MAME as the default emulator. But I forgot to tell you that I also use Rocketlauncer as the default emulator for this system. The reason I do is because it supports bezels. In rocketlauncher Odyessy2 uses the MAME emulator. So is there a fix for this? Not sure why it would have to do with anything for the MAME module in RL. Plus I have the most recent one and its suppose to support voice. Now I'm sure I confused you again lol.

 

Thanks

Edit: So for a quick fix I just changed the few games that support voice to use MAME as the default emulator and the rest of the games to use RL so the bezels work.

Edited June 25 by Joe35car

[Joe35car]

MAME supports bezels but dosen't launch directly. Example would be I would have to type: mame odyssey2  voice -cart2 ufo -view ufo.

 

How's that for a head scratcher.
 

Edited June 25 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Joe35car said:

I also use Rocketlauncer as the default emulator for this system.

Usually, I ignore any post that has to do with RL.  

1 hour ago, Joe35car said:

The reason I do is because it supports bezels.

So does MAME.  

 

1 hour ago, Joe35car said:

MAME supports bezels but dosen't launch directly. Example would be I would have to type: mame odyssey2  voice -cart2 ufo -view ufo.

How's that for a head scratcher.

I see where you're going with this.  Right concept.  But unless in the 'default.lay' file, the view you want to use is titled "ufo", wrong execution.  On the ones I've seen, the view is called [generically] "Bezel Artwork".  Also, softlist bezels need a little more love and attention.

The default location for MAME bezels is in its /artwork/ subfolder.  Since softlists may have ROM names the same as Arcade, you'll want to place the soflist bezel(s) in its own subfolder below that.  Something like   D:/LaunchBox/Emulators/MAME/artwork/odyssey2/

So for 'timelord', you'll have D:/LaunchBox/Emulators/MAME/artwork/odyssey2/timelord/...    Where ... is (typically) "default.lay" and "Bezel.png".

Not sure why the override is needed, but this is what worked in my test... [from the Window Command Prompt]

mame odyssey2 -override_artwork odyssey2/timelord voice -cart2 timelord

And of course in LB, remove 'mame' and the last 'timelord'

 

Now, if you're on at least LB v13.15-beta-1, the command line parameter could look like this:

odyssey2 -override_artwork odyssey2/%romfilename% voice -cart2

LB will add mame.exe to the beginning, replace %romfilename% with timelord and add timelord to the end.

[Joe35car]

Thanks. Yes I know they have their own file in MAME artwork. I just wish there is a way for games using MAME to boot the proper artwork bezel instead of command-line or hitting tab while in game and then selecting the correct bezel. This is the only reason I still use Rocket launcher with Launchbox. As of now MAME doesn't do this automatically. Maybe one day. Is there an easy fix in LB to make this happen? Also I use Bezel Project.

Edited June 26 by Joe35car