Entex Adventure Vision in Retroarch

[flatuswalrus]

Finally got this to work! Even though this little thing only had four games for it, I love it. I have wanted to get it working in Retroarch for some time now just to have the overlay of the unit.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Dane

[FuriousPig]

Please would you care to share?

 

[sundogak]

@FuriousPigAll of the RA setups are similar for software (former MESS) MAME games.  Assuming you have MAME working in RA you then setup a separate instance of RA from that used for Arcade and other consoles.  The reason is that for software list MAME games you need to have the "Don't Use Quotes" check box checked.  In my case I called it "Retroarch_Mess" (what you name it doesn't matter). 

"advision -cart \"%romfile%\""

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by sundogak

[FuriousPig]

Thank you @sundogak for taking the time out to answer me, this has been driving me crazy!  However I am a little further back than you here since I haven't been able to get RA to play the Adventure Vision games yet.  I now have it to a point where I crash RA completely which is a step forward from where I was believe it or not.

The problem is I am unsure of the folder structure for the bios in RA & have been using Android tutorials from 2016 (I am on windows).  At the moment I have the following file path:
 

LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch\system\mame\roms\Advision\Advision\advision.zip [Bios]

For some reason the tutorials seem to show the bios 2 folders deep.  Is this correct?

Thanks in advance

[flatuswalrus]

I did not have to setup another instance of RA. I’ll reply after I finish work tonight as I’m just about to go to work.

[sundogak]

I am sure flatuswalrus will lend insight for a RA default install with ROMs in RA directory as far as folder structure.  I do recall the duplicate named folders (one is used to tell RA which software list needed) under ROMs.  Wait for flatuswalrus to show his setup, if you want to keep ROMs in RA directory.

In my case, I use the normal MAME structure outside RA for all ROMs.  I wanted to be able to use normal MAME and RA where desired without duplicate/moving ROMs.  For the ROMs outside RA folder structure method this is what I did.  In MAME RA under Options check on the "Enable Softlists" , "Boot from CLI", and "MAME INI Paths". Then make sure your:

...\Retroarch\system\mame\ini 

points to the location of your MAME roms since not using the default where RA expects ROMs to be.   In my case, I have this pointing to my existing normal MAME directory for the MAME.ini in the RA system folder:

rompath                   G:\Emulators\MAME\roms;G:\Emulators\MAME\roms_chds;G:\Emulators\MAME\software;G:\Emulators\MAME\software_chds

For either method, you MUST have in the Retroarch\system\mame directory are the INI files, the HASH files, and samples. Although the RA Mame INI files has paths to these, changing the INI path for them doesn't work and RA ignores them (basically only ROMs can exist outside RA).  With the above setup and the second instance of RA, then the normal MAME structure is used with MAME\ROMs and MAME\software folders.  Thus it looks into the MAME\software\advision  directory for games and the bios files under the MAME\ROMS folders.  Using this method you do have to have the second instance of RA as noted in prior post since quotes must be turned off to launch.

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by sundogak

[flatuswalrus]

Extract this: 1.zip inside RA's system folder. You can then put your ROMs wherever you want to put them on your computer. Though, make sure the folder your ROMs are in is called advision. Then, rename your ROMs to match the hash files that you will find in the folders you extracted inside RA's system folder. Just look for the file called advision and you will see the names in there that MAME are looking for. This is easy because obviously there are only four games for this platform. For bigger systems you can use @JoeViking245's great MAME Software Lists Import Tool. Then, make sure the Entex Adventure Vision's BIOS file is in the same folder as your game ROMs. Make sure the BIOS file(s) are zipped and the zip file is called advision. I have two bios files in my zip which are b8223__cop411l-kcn_n.u8 and b225__ins8048-11kdp_n.u5 though I believe these can be called anything you want so long as the zip file they are in is called advision. From there, just add it to your LB's instance of RA as per normal, no need to create an additional instance of RA:

I have quickly typed this on my lunch break so hopefully I have not left anything out. If it does not work let me know and we can fault find together, it will be romantic ?

Edited May 26, 2020 by flatuswalrus

[FuriousPig]

I'm afraid that sounds like a date ?  The way you have your structure there is what I initially understood it to be.  I have been around a lot of houses since then but I put it back to how you describe using your hash file (thank you).  However all that happens is RA crashes out completely.  I have tried several different bios files & re-sourced the game roms but the result is the same.

I am starting to wonder if I altered some setting in MAME to get the Philips CDi working.

Any suggestions gratefully received & thank you for the input so far.

[flatuswalrus]

9 hours ago, FuriousPig said:

I'm afraid that sounds like a date ?  The way you have your structure there is what I initially understood it to be.  I have been around a lot of houses since then but I put it back to how you describe using your hash file (thank you).  However all that happens is RA crashes out completely.  I have tried several different bios files & re-sourced the game roms but the result is the same.

I am starting to wonder if I altered some setting in MAME to get the Philips CDi working.

Any suggestions gratefully received & thank you for the input so far.

Besides the PM I just sent you, does you RA setup in LB look like this?:

[FuriousPig]

Thank you once again for your input

My only comfort is that I am not as stupid as I thought.  I tried your 'suggestions' via your PM & yes my LB Emulator setup looks like that but still no joy.  RetroArch just crashes & burns.

I have killed all the RA MAME settings in the Core config file to see if that helped (it didn't).  I also tried all the different MAME cores in RA, the closest being MAME 2016 where I actually see a MAME screen for a brief instance before it crashes.  The earlier versions just say failed to load content & that's possibly because they are before MESS merged with MAME? 

[flatuswalrus]

Gee, I am scratching my head here trying to think of what it may be. I think the things that I have suggested or mentioned already. Let me just repeat myself in checklist form so I can clearly make sure I have not missed anything:

• Inside Retroarch's system folder, there has to be a folder called mame. Inside that folder there has to be a folder called hash. Inside that folder are all you .xml files such as advision.xml.
• The folder your ROMs are in must be called advision. The ROMs must be zipped and named as per what MAME is looking for which in this case is defender, scobra, spacefrc and turtles. Obviously, no need to create dummy files as this is not disk based platform.
• The BIOS file(s) must be in the same folder as your ROMs. There are two BIOS files and they must be in a single zip file together called advision.
• Once the ROMs have been imported in Launchbox they get added to your already existing instance in Retroarch as there is no need to create another instance of Retroarch like you do when using the standalone MAME for non-arcade platforms.

I am not sure if not having everything up to date matters. I keep Retroarch and my cores, in this case mame_libretro, up to date by using @wyzrd's Stellar Retroarch Updater.

 Other than making sure your Retroarch setup in LB mirrors mine as shown above or even trying different option on the details tab (which should not be needed) then I am unfortunately at a loss. I am not trying to insult your intelligence by repeating things but because I am at a loss I thought it may help for me to see something else but it does not seem to have done that.

[DOS76]

is everyone using the official MAME Software List ROMs in this scenario or just random ROMs (both will work but it will effect the settings you may need)

[FuriousPig]

Sadly you reached the same point as me but it was good to go through the check list.  I am a refugee from Hyperspin & seemingly I have a lot of catch up to do, repetition is learning... except in this case.

@DOS76 What settings should I be looking at?  I may have a play around.

Thanks again everyone for your input.

[DOS76]

I can't really say because you didn't answer my question about what type of ROMs you have. It sounds like @flatuswalrushas the official Software List ROMs so if you do also then you would need to use the same settings he has but if you are using some other roms say like no intro then you would need to check some checkboxes in the emulator settings

[FuriousPig]

Ahhhh sorry, I see what you are saying.  Yes I have the same ROMs & Bios as @flatuswalrus

[DOS76]

yeah in that case then I'm not sure what the issue is. To be honest I've never seen anyone be able to run MAME software list Roms in RetroArch without command lines so I'm not sure how he is doing it either. I just use MAME personally.

[flatuswalrus]

On 5/28/2020 at 11:16 AM, DOS76 said:

 To be honest I've never seen anyone be able to run MAME software list Roms in RetroArch without command lines so I'm not sure how he is doing it either.

I am running lots of stuff via the MAME core in Retroarch that are a mix of  software list ROMs and other ROMs that I obtained elsewhere and just renamed off of the hash files. As you can see I have quite a few platforms: with the MAME core

I am stumped with this one because once I ensured I set everything up as I mentioned previously it has all just worked. It did take me some time to get it all working via Retroarch. There was a lot of trail and error. I gave @FuriousPig my hash files as well as some other stuff via a PM so I though with everything else that has been mentioned that surely would do the trick but obviously not.

Edited June 26, 2021 by flatuswalrus

[flatuswalrus]

This should not matter @FuriousPig but is the folder containing your ROMs inside you software list ROMs folder? I have a folder called MAME 0.220 Software List ROMs (split) and inside that is the advision folder containing the ROMs. You probably have tried it but just in case try copying the advision folder outside of your software list folder. I am trying anything I can think of here no matter how seemingly simple and silly.

[FuriousPig]

So between @flatuswalrus we solved the problem & it's quite an important point that probably needs stating here for future reference.

The Philips CDi emulation via the MAME core of RA requires you to disable Softlists.  Every other system needs them enabled.  Despite the CDi tutorial somewhere that assures you disabling them does not matter, it really does!

Thank you to everyone for trying to help.

Edited May 29, 2020 by FuriousPig

[flatuswalrus]

That is fantastic that you figured out what the issue was. Instead of having to manually change the softlists option between using the CDi and everything else and instead of having two instances of Retroarch  can this option for the CDi be saved via saving a directory override? That would make the whole setup so much better than the first two.

On another note, out of curiosity, are you going to use the kickass overlay for the Entex like in the first post in this thread? I absolutely love it and it is just one little step towards feeling like you are actually playing an Entex.

Edited May 30, 2020 by flatuswalrus