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New to Mame, but all my BIOS files are flaged BAD


Geezerpunk

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Hello All

New to the Mame arena, but tried setting up everything over the last day or so. I am running Mame64 0.205, found a copy of the whole 61.5Gb ROM file 0.202 (Merged) and downloaded it from a respectable source.

I then ran the Mame64.exe -ee  command from within a command window with Administrator privalage and edited the Mame.ini in a text editor to point to the current ROM library location D:\Emulation Setups\ROMs\Mame 0202 (Merged). The Mame software in installed in D:\Emulation Setups\Emulators\Mame 0205 so the program and ROMs are kind of in a parallel tree.

But anytime I tried to run any program, I was getting the standard error about missing the necessary ROM file. I went into the setup options and even the games and BIOS files that are listed as being parents, are being flagged as being BAD on the ROM audit. Yet if I download a file sepratly and look at the files the byte sizes and such all seem to match.  So I  am not really sure where to go from here.

After further testing, I am now even more confused. For testing I renamed the Mame.ini file to Old_Mame.ini (just so I could play around with the files without jumping around so much) and copied Marble Madness into the ROMs directory. and as expected, It was a Parent, and the file was still bad. But on a whim, I uncompressed the file; and suddenly Marble Madness now works. So it appearently now works if the files are taken out of the .ZIP files. But I am not sure I want to do that to every file in my library.

 

Geezerpunk

Edited by Geezerpunk
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10 minutes ago, Geezerpunk said:

Hello All

New to the Mame arena, but tried setting up everything over the last day or so. I am running Mame64 0.205, found a copy of the whole 61.5Gb ROM file 0.202 (Merged) and downloaded it from a respectable source.

I then ran the Mame64.exe -ee  command from within a command window with Administrator privalage and edited the Mame.ini in a text editor to point to the current ROM library location D:\Emulation Setups\ROMs\Mame 0202 (Merged). The Mame software in installed in D:\Emulation Setups\Emulators\Mame 0205 so the program and ROMs are kind of in a parallel tree.

But anytime I tried to run any program, I was getting the standard error about missing the necessary ROM file. I went into the setup options and even the games and BIOS files that are listed as being parents, are being flagged as being BAD on the ROM audit. Yet if I download a file sepratly and look at the files the byte sizes and such all seem to match.  So I  am not really sure where to go from here.

Geezerpunk

This could be several things. 

First do you actually have all the bios files, they are not included in all the romset types, they are in the non-merged set but i'm not to sure about the merged pack. Also the romsets and the emulator are versioned for a reason, so if you have a 0.202 merged romset then you should really be using version 0.202 of the MAME emulator along side it as this can cause incompatibilitys (rom zips and the emulator can change from version to version, and a game that worked in a previous version can be broken in a current version and vice versa). Thirdly what games are you testing? Some games also need a CHD file as well as the rom zip in order to work, CHD's are essentially CD images compressed to the CHD format and some games need them. Killer Instinct 1 and 2, Street Fighter 3 and it's sequels for example all need bios, gamename.zip and CHD. 

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Hello Neil9000,

Everything I am testing is having this problem. Even just trying to startup the Amiga emulator enough to run workbench is giving me the problem. But as what I was just saying in my update, after further testing, is that the files work if I unzip the files which is the exact opposite of the way that it is supposed to be, if I understand it correctly. At least now testing both marble madness and the Amiga file that are parents and both giving BAD Audits when zipped, but GOOD when they are unzipped.

 

Geezerpunk

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OK now i'm confused, are you running Amiga through MAME as well? If so you likely need the kickstarts for that, but im not even sure if that works in MAME, or if it does i dont know anyone who uses it, they use dedicated Amiga emulators. As for Arcade roms working when you unzip them that makes no sense at all, MAME roms should be loaded in a compressed format, you will just get a error if you load a unzipped rom to MAME, are you sure you actually have correct pack and not the Software List pack for MAME which contains old computer systems and a handful of consoles?

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software list contains much more than a handful of consoles its easily over 400 systems that have SWL in MAME and that doesn't include the ones in the SWL CHD. Not all of these systems are playable of course but its a pretty massive amount of software they have covered there

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All I know that if nothing else. let's forget about every other software i've mentioned!

I download Marble.zip, a parent copy of Marble Madness, GalagaMW.zip, a parent copy of Galaga, and Paperboy.zip, a parent copy of the game Paperboy. I disable every other file in my ROM library by loading only these files into the ROM directory in the Mame directory. The Right panel of Mame64.exe says all three files are in fact parent files and that all files FAIL on the audit. I try to run them and get the standard message that the selected machine is missing one or more required ROM or CHD files.

If I go into the ROM directory and then proceed to unzip each of the zip files with WinRAR, and then go back and start MAME64.exe. All three of those machines are still considered parents, but they all PASS  the audit and I can run all three games. Pleas forget I said anything about any other files, roms, computers, or any thing else. Let's just focus on these three well known and long used games that are all arcade games of the early 80's. 

My Chronic pain is in full effect and I have not sleep for three days, so I am sorry if I am sounding a little short or terse. I am just trying to figure it out, and it is behaving exactly opposite of  they way that I am understanding that it is supposed to be functioning. If we need to I can star-up my screen recorder and I can throw everything I just talked about up on Youtube so that you can see it for yourseself.

 

Respectfully,

Geezerpunk

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