HELP! Trouble Adding Specific MAME Game (Chaos Heat) To Launchbox...

[MayorQwert]

I'm having an odd issue with Launchbox. In general had no problems but this specific game (Chaos Heat) will not work in Launchbox no matter what. It works without a problem in MAME when the application is used directly, but when the CHD (this is a CHD-only game) is imported to Launchbox, a couple of key things go wrong. First, the metadata does not get properly configured. The game is in LaunchBoxDB, but it is not recognized as a valid game and the name does not even set properly (screenshots below). I can manually go in and set the name and import the metadata after the fact, but this does not fix the second, primary issue. The game will not launch through Launchbox no matter what I do. This cannot be overstated, no matter what settings I play with I cannot get this game to work. I have several other CHD-only games that all function in Launchbox without a problem and there is virtually nothing I can find that is unique about this game's case to point to in this case. I have other games on Taito's G-NET System that all work and are running identical configurations (and in fact Super Puzzle Bobble is a G-NET game that also CHD-Only, and this game works without issue!). I am drawing blanks here and pulling my hair out over this game, so I wanted to post over here and see if anyone has any idea. I will include a detailed walkthrough of my setup below so you all can get an idea of what I am running to (hopefully) spot something that can help.

First, the configuration of the specific MAME build I am using for G-NET games (Chaos Heat included):
I use this config setup for all of my MAME games in general, and have had no issue before.

Here is the listing in the import wizard. Usually it would list the game properly, such as listing "Chaos Heat" instead of rom name "chaosheat". This is the first oddity I notice when importing.

When I click "Finish" and let it import, here's what the finished product has for metadata (nothing):
A few oddities here. First, it does list that it is grabbing the images when importing, but goes way too fast and doesn't show any when finished. Also, you can see it does link to the correct LaunchboxDB item, but as shown it doesn't correctly grab the name for some reason? The metadata is at least there for this game, as inaccurate as it is.

Once I manually import the pictures, the next thing is to try to play the game. When I try to do this Launchbox does the same thing that it would do if a game was missing a rom file or something similar: it displays the loading screen and then immediately quits back to the game list. No error messages or anything. Problem is, there are no errors for me to troubleshoot in this case since the game functions completely fine when I launch it directly through MAME, and it plays without any issue! This is a great game and it pains me that it is being so troublesome to set up. If anyone has anything they can suggest to try or at least if anyone can verify that the game works fine for them it would be greatly appreciated!

Feel free to let me know if anyone needs more information on this and I would be happy to help, I just want my Chaos Heat! ?

 

Here's a screenshot showing the game is indeed working for me through MAME directly:

[spycat]

As far as I know you can't point LaunchBox directly to a chd file when using MAME.
You need to point LaunchBox to the folder containng the chd, in this case chaoshea
That's what I do and I have no problems launching games that don't have a working rom such as Chaos Heat and XII Stag to name just a couple.

[Retro808]

Launchbox does have trouble sometimes scraping the name of a chd file so it would have scraped it fine if in the "Ready to Import" screen you have changed the name to "Chaos Heat". When you edit the game just change the name there and rescrape. It should pull all the meta and images. 

You can point directly to a chd. I have it pointed directly to the chd file and it runs fine in LB/BB.

It may not be working since Mame would traditionally look for the chd to be in the correct named folder. In this case yours is showing simply in your game folder. Mame would normally look for it in \chaoshea\chaosheat.chd format. Try putting it in that structure and see if it plays through LB. 

[MayorQwert]

19 hours ago, Retro808 said:

Launchbox does have trouble sometimes scraping the name of a chd file so it would have scraped it fine if in the "Ready to Import" screen you have changed the name to "Chaos Heat". When you edit the game just change the name there and rescrape. It should pull all the meta and images. 

You can point directly to a chd. I have it pointed directly to the chd file and it runs fine in LB/BB.

It may not be working since Mame would traditionally look for the chd to be in the correct named folder. In this case yours is showing simply in your game folder. Mame would normally look for it in \chaoshea\chaosheat.chd format. Try putting it in that structure and see if it plays through LB. 

Well the issue is like I said I can manually change the name to "Chaos Heat" and import images fine and all, but for some reason it won't launch from Launchbox. Also as I said I do have another Taito G-NET game "Super Puzzle Bobble" that is CHD only and that game works without any trouble in Launchbox, so I am not sure if the CHD specifically is the issue, or if it is I am not sure why it would be in this case but not the other...

19 hours ago, spycat said:

As far as I know you can't point LaunchBox directly to a chd file when using MAME.
You need to point LaunchBox to the folder containng the chd, in this case chaoshea
That's what I do and I have no problems launching games that don't have a working rom such as Chaos Heat and XII Stag to name just a couple.

XII Stag and Super Puzzle Bomber both work great for me without a problem and I have those just sitting loose in my Games/Arcade directory. However I will give putting the Chaos Heat CHD into its own folder a try just in case..

[MayorQwert]

Okay, so I tried putting Chaos Heat in its own folder but I did not make any difference at all. As a reminder, the game works fine when I launch through MAME directly, just not through Launchbox. But literally every other game works without a problem.

Edited December 17, 2019 by MayorQwert

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, MayorQwert said:

Well the issue is like I said I can manually change the name to "Chaos Heat" and import images fine and all, but for some reason it won't launch from Launchbox. Also as I said I do have another Taito G-NET game "Super Puzzle Bobble" that is CHD only and that game works without any trouble in Launchbox, so I am not sure if the CHD specifically is the issue, or if it is I am not sure why it would be in this case but not the other...

Yes, well aware of what you said which is why I was pointing out I have seen LB have issues scraping against a chd file name. So this would be one of those odd cases we have to use a workaround.

1 hour ago, MayorQwert said:

Okay, so I tried putting Chaos Heat in its own folder but I did not make any difference at all.

That should be named "chaoshea".

Can you show what the rom path is Mame is pointed at? A screen cap from Mame would be helpful.

[MayorQwert]

5 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

Yes, well aware of what you said which is why I was pointing out I have seen LB have issues scraping against a chd file name. So this would be one of those odd cases we have to use a workaround.

The folder should be named "chaoshea".

Can you show what the rom path is Mame is pointed at? A screen cap from Mame would be helpful.

I am not sure what you mean by rom path exactly. Is this screencap what you are referencing?

As for the folder, I realized my mistake right after my post but it made no difference. Here is the path I am pointing to in Launchbox at the moment:

[MayorQwert]

Wow. Okay so I got this working now and this is stupid! So the issue was fixed from me renaming "chaosheat.chd" to "chaoshea.chd". That's it. Now it works without a problem.

 

Odd thing here is that all locations online have the rom name as "chaosheat.chd" so this is weird that this is a case of the rom being incorrectly name universally? I am not sure which spelling is technically correct for the rom set but all that matters is I got it working now!

 

Thanks for trying to help @Retro808!

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, MayorQwert said:

Wow. Okay so I got this working now and this is stupid! So the issue was fixed from me renaming "chaosheat.chd" to "chaoshea.chd". That's it. Now it works without a problem.

 

Odd thing here is that all locations online have the rom name as "chaosheat.chd" so this is weird that this is a case of the rom being incorrectly name universally? I am not sure which spelling is technically correct for the rom set but all that matters is I got it working now!

 

Thanks for trying to help @Retro808!

 

45 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

The folder should be named "chaoshea".

Yep, thats what he said earlier.

[Retro808]

12 minutes ago, MayorQwert said:

Wow. Okay so I got this working now and this is stupid! So the issue was fixed from me renaming "chaosheat.chd" to "chaoshea.chd". That's it. Now it works without a problem.

 

Odd thing here is that all locations online have the rom name as "chaosheat.chd" so this is weird that this is a case of the rom being incorrectly name universally? I am not sure which spelling is technically correct for the rom set but all that matters is I got it working now!

 

Thanks for trying to help @Retro808!

Cool. Glad you got it working. 

[MayorQwert]

14 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

 

Yep, thats what he said earlier.

Well putting it in a "chaoshea" folder did not fix it, as the rom itself had to be renamed to "chaoshea.chd". When I put it in a "chaoshea" folder or ZIP file, it still did not work while the rom was named "chaosheat.chd".

[spycat]

After a bit of testing of some chd games that do not have a working rom I've found that where the chd folder and chd file share the same name (games such as Night Raid and XII Stag) I can launch a game by pointing LaunchBox at the actual chd file.

But where they differ (such as with Chaos Heat and Shanghai Sangokuhai Tougi), then pointing to the chd file will not work for me. I need to either point to the chd folder or else make a dummy zip of the non existing working rom and point to that.

[MayorQwert]

8 minutes ago, spycat said:

After a bit of testing of some chd games that do not have a working rom I've found that where the chd folder and chd file share the same name (games such as Night Raid and XII Stag) I can launch a game by pointing LaunchBox at the actual chd file.

But where they differ (such as with Chaos Heat and Shanghai Sangokuhai Tougi), then pointing to the chd file will not work for me. I need to either point to the chd folder or else make a dummy zip of the non existing working rom and point to that.

My case was odd though. The rom did not work when it was named "chaosheat.chd" for me, regardless of if it is in a folder/zip of being named "chaoshea". The only thing that worked for me was naming the CHD "chaoshea.chd".

[Retro808]

23 minutes ago, spycat said:

After a bit of testing of some chd games that do not have a working rom I've found that where the chd folder and chd file share the same name (games such as Night Raid and XII Stag) I can launch a game by pointing LaunchBox at the actual chd file.

But where they differ (such as with Chaos Heat and Shanghai Sangokuhai Tougi), then pointing to the chd file will not work for me. I need to either point to the chd folder or else make a dummy zip of the non existing working rom and point to that.

Definitely something odd. I have no issues with the folder name and chd name being different. For Chaos Heat my folder name is "chaoshea" and my chd is "chaosheat". It works in Launchbox. While @MayorQwert had a completely different outcome.

[DOS76]

I wonder if you were to uncheck the use filename without zip option in the emulator settings if it would then work. @Retro808do you have that checkboxes unchecked by any chance?

[Retro808]

10 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

I wonder if you were to uncheck the use filename without zip option in the emulator settings if it would then work. @Retro808do you have that checkboxes unchecked by any chance?

I do. My setting always had that off. Completely forgot about that option. Just test though and ticking it had no affect. Game still worked. Going to test one of the other cabinets as I do not have this game on all set-ups. 

[DOS76]

what is weird is LB imported that game for me through the fullset importer and created a dummy zip for it so I guess I don't know why it works under one instant and not another. I don't think I ever made a dummy zip for it as I never play it and wasn't aware that it even was a chd only game.

[spycat]

This is a capture of what I very briefly see before MAME exits when I point LaunchBox to the chaosheat.chd file.

 

 

[DOS76]

I edited mine to point to the chd and it no longer worked then I removed the chd from the path and it does work with pointing just to the folder in my case at least. At that point I don't know why it loaded the USA chd and not the Japanese version but it did.