Philips CD-i in Launchbox

[stevaside]

Anything I've pulled online trying to get this console to work I have had zero luck.

 

Just tried following what seemed to be the most recent advice &:

Got games as .CHD files,

added them in LB, set MAME as the emu,

put the bios in the folder...

I even found a seperate,individual download of MESS (226) . Tried the same thing with that, but nothing.

 

I never had a CD-i & know they have a bad rep for games, but I do remember them & have always been a little curious about the console. If anyone can offer any more ideas I'd appreciate it

 

[bundangdon]

4 hours ago, stevaside said:

Anything I've pulled online trying to get this console to work I have had zero luck.

 

Just tried following what seemed to be the most recent advice &:

Got games as .CHD files,

added them in LB, set MAME as the emu,

put the bios in the folder...

I even found a seperate,individual download of MESS (226) . Tried the same thing with that, but nothing.

 

I never had a CD-i & know they have a bad rep for games, but I do remember them & have always been a little curious about the console. If anyone can offer any more ideas I'd appreciate it

 

Certainly not an expert on the CD-i in any way, but I managed to get it working after finding some information here and there. If you're using MAME as the emulation (which is the only real option at this point), then you need to put "Phillips CD-i" as an "Associated Platform" of MAME and then add the following to the default command line parameters for that associated platform: cdimono1 -cdrm

[stevaside]

1 hour ago, bundangdon said:

Certainly not an expert on the CD-i in any way, but I managed to get it working after finding some information here and there. If you're using MAME as the emulation (which is the only real option at this point), then you need to put "Phillips CD-i" as an "Associated Platform" of MAME and then add the following to the default command line parameters for that associated platform: cdimono1 -cdrm

Thanks yea I had the associated platforms set, but not the command line paramter. I just tried that as well & still nothing. Tried setting MESS & the window opens for few seconds then shuts down with no error message.  MAME tells me it can't find certain files.

[bundangdon]

1 minute ago, stevaside said:

Thanks yea I had the associated platforms set, but not the command line paramter. I just tried that as well & still nothing. Tried setting MESS & the window opens for few seconds then shuts down with no error message.  MAME tells me it can't find certain files.

Okay, then make sure you have the correct bios in the appropriate folder also. I think it's cdimono1.zip. And MAME is a little picky about folder locations for bios files. In my case "cdimono1.zip" is in the "bios" subdirectory of MAME with the MAME.cfg looking like this:

# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
homepath                  .
rompath                   roms; bios

[stevaside]

14 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

Okay, then make sure you have the correct bios in the appropriate folder also. I think it's cdimono1.zip. And MAME is a little picky about folder locations for bios files. In my case "cdimono1.zip" is in the "bios" subdirectory of MAME with the MAME.cfg looking like this:

# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
homepath                  .
rompath                   roms; bios

I wasn't trying to use MAME as a core in Retroarch for CDi if that's what you mean. I was using the standalone emulators as well as MESS. Anyways I just installed the MAME core, set LB to use that & just a quick black screen

 

the MAME & MESS I was using didn't even have a Bios folder, but from what i read you're supposed to place them in their roms folder which I did. Same with Retroarch but I put bios in the systems folder like all the others

& forgive me not too familiar with MAME.cfg or what you typed after you mentioned it

 

[bundangdon]

6 minutes ago, stevaside said:

I wasn't trying to use MAME as a core in Retroarch for CDi if that's what you mean. I was using the standalone emulators as well as MESS. Anyways I just installed the MAME core, set LB to use that & just a quick black screen

 

the MAME & MESS I was using didn't even have a Bios folder, but from what i read you're supposed to place them in their roms folder which I did. Same with Retroarch but I put bios in the systems folder like all the others

& forgive me not too familiar with MAME.cfg or what you typed after you mentioned it

 

I wasn't referring to the Retroarch core, as I don't use that one for MAME either. In the mame folder, there should be a mame.cfg file which you may or may not have already. If not, look in the "ini" folder and there should be a cdimono1.cfg file which looks like this when opened:

As you can see from the example above, the "bios" folder and games folders are referenced in "rompath" and "swpath". Hope that helps

Edited December 6, 2020 by bundangdon

[stevaside]

11 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

I wasn't referring to the Retroarch core, as I don't use that one for MAME either. In the mame folder, there should be a mame.cfg file which you may or may not have already. If not, look in the "ini" folder and there should be a cdimono1.cfg file which looks like this when opened:

As you can see from the example above, the "bios" folder and games folders are referenced in "rompath" and "swpath". Hope that helps

Ok the conifg was in the .ini folder. It previously had the game folder where the bios was listed, but I erased it & wrote bios;roms

Went to the swpath & replaced the software that was there with the folder path of my CDi games.....now it keeps givng me popup windows that it can't find a game & showing me matches that sound like the game on other consoles over & over to the point I have to exit MAME through task manager.  Actually did this before too BTW

[bundangdon]

The only thing I can think is that the names of the games don't match up somehow, but I think I've run out of ideas. And when that happens, I usually start from scratch and try to find the answers from the very beginning. There's a few tutorials out there, and this one may help:

Philips CD-i - LaunchBox Tutorial - YouTube

It's important to note that (in the video) he mentions "MESS" but MAME can be used in its place. And there's another thread which talks about the same topic in great detail:

CD-i emulation - Emulation - LaunchBox Community Forums (launchbox-app.com)

Edited December 6, 2020 by bundangdon

[stevaside]

1 hour ago, bundangdon said:

The only thing I can think is that the names of the games don't match up somehow, but I think I've run out of ideas. And when that happens, I usually start from scratch and try to find the answers from the very beginning. There's a few tutorials out there, and this one may help:

Philips CD-i - LaunchBox Tutorial - YouTube

It's important to note that (in the video) he mentions "MESS" but MAME can be used in its place. And there's another thread which talks about the same topic in great detail:

CD-i emulation - Emulation - LaunchBox Community Forums (launchbox-app.com)

Yea I've already seen that video, but just rewatched it anyway..Did everything he showed in it aside from using MAME instead of MESS...well actually I found a site with a new MESS standalone & that didn't work either

Same thing. For instance I click on Hotel Mario. 1st a window says "System not found" then when I close that another pops up guessing another game with Hotel in the title, I close that it guesses another & never stops. Won't even let me close out

 

[JoeViking245]

@stevaside  You can use the MAME 0.226 standalone (vs MESS [but will work also]) to run Phillips CD-i.  

For the rompath, what I've found to be the easiest way to this for MAME softlists (aka Software Lists, aka MESS) is... in your MAME main folder, create a new sub-folder called "software" to put all your softlists in.  From here, you'll need to follow certain MAME naming conventions, but it's really not that bad.  Back to that later...

In your "mame.ini" file (not mame.cfg) which you found in the "ini" sub-folder, set the rompath to "roms;software".  The "swpath" I believe is only for softlist images (pictures) and the sort.  But go ahead and set that to "software" as well.  Also double check you don't have a "mame.ini" file in your MAME root folder AND in the ini sub-folder.  (it can happen. just double check ) 

The softlist 'short-name' for Phillips CD-i is simply "cdi".  And the 'short-name' for Hotel Mario is 'hotmario'.  So back to our sub-folders..  for Hotel Mario it will look [something] like (adjust the path to MAME accordingly)

D:\Emulators\MAME\software\cdi\hotmario\hotel mario (1994)(philips)(eu).chd

Because we added "software" to the rompath, MAME knows that if you're launching a softlist rom/game, to 'drill down' in [one of] the rompath folders.  In this case, per the command line (cdmono1 -cdrm), it knows cdimono1 fits into "cdi" so it looks there.  

For soflist bios [and device] files (cdmono1.zip in this case), I like to place those in the 'software' folder.  Thought being keep all the softlist files in one place.

D:\Emulators\MAME\software\cdmono1.zip

You should be good to go now.  1st check that it works in MAME before testing in LB.  Though if I didn't forget anything, it shouldn't be an issue.

NOTES:

When I was testing this, my .chd filename had a "[!]" in it.  My guess I had it from an older MAME softlist set and it's since been renamed.  I removed those 3 characters and it worked fine.  So may want to double check that with yours. Shown above is the correct file_name.chd for Hotel Mario.

The "cdi" folder name comes from the MAME hash files.  (ref:  ../MAME/hash/cdi.xml)

In LB, in your MAME emulator settings, 'check' the boxes for "Don't use quotes..." and "Use filename only..." (which is the default setting for MAME).

CD-i has a bit of a loading time.  You'll get the light blue-ish screen for a bit (you can press/hold the "Insert" key, which is MAME's default Fast-Forward key to 'speed it up').  Then at the main screen click  

[stevaside]

8 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

@stevaside  You can use the MAME 0.226 standalone (vs MESS [but will work also]) to run Phillips CD-i.  

For the rompath, what I've found to be the easiest way to this for MAME softlists (aka Software Lists, aka MESS) is... in your MAME main folder, create a new sub-folder called "software" to put all your softlists in.  From here, you'll need to follow certain MAME naming conventions, but it's really not that bad.  Back to that later...

In your "mame.ini" file (not mame.cfg) which you found in the "ini" sub-folder, set the rompath to "roms;software".  The "swpath" I believe is only for softlist images (pictures) and the sort.  But go ahead and set that to "software" as well.  Also double check you don't have a "mame.ini" file in your MAME root folder AND in the ini sub-folder.  (it can happen. just double check ) 

The softlist 'short-name' for Phillips CD-i is simply "cdi".  And the 'short-name' for Hotel Mario is 'hotmario'.  So back to our sub-folders..  for Hotel Mario it will look [something] like (adjust the path to MAME accordingly)

D:\Emulators\MAME\software\cdi\hotmario\hotel mario (1994)(philips)(eu).chd

Because we added "software" to the rompath, MAME knows that if you're launching a softlist rom/game, to 'drill down' in [one of] the rompath folders.  In this case, per the command line (cdmono1 -cdrm), it knows cdimono1 fits into "cdi" so it looks there.  

For soflist bios [and device] files (cdmono1.zip in this case), I like to place those in the 'software' folder.  Thought being keep all the softlist files in one place.

D:\Emulators\MAME\software\cdmono1.zip

You should be good to go now.  1st check that it works in MAME before testing in LB.  Though if I didn't forget anything, it shouldn't be an issue.

NOTES:

When I was testing this, my .chd filename had a "[!]" in it.  My guess I had it from an older MAME softlist set and it's since been renamed.  I removed those 3 characters and it worked fine.  So may want to double check that with yours. Shown above is the correct file_name.chd for Hotel Mario.

The "cdi" folder name comes from the MAME hash files.  (ref:  ../MAME/hash/cdi.xml)

In LB, in your MAME emulator settings, 'check' the boxes for "Don't use quotes..." and "Use filename only..." (which is the default setting for MAME).

CD-i has a bit of a loading time.  You'll get the light blue-ish screen for a bit (you can press/hold the "Insert" key, which is MAME's default Fast-Forward key to 'speed it up').  Then at the main screen click  

Well I re added my CDI CHDs to the software folder, followed all the steps you gave me. It looked like it was FINALLY about to start up...and then I get the SAME error message I've been getting. Does this mean the bios I have is missing files or outdated??

[spycat]

Your bios cdimono1.zip should contain the following files.
cdi200.rom
cdi220.rom
cdi220b.rom
zx405037p__cdi_servo_2.1__b43t__llek9215.mc68hc705c8a_withtestrom.7201
zx405042p__cdi_slave_2.0__b43t__zzmk9213.mc68hc705c8a_withtestrom.7206

cdimono1.zip was last updated in June 2020.
A current full MAME (0.226) romset should include this bios. If you just want cdimono1.zip then you can source it from Retroroms.

[stevaside]

1 hour ago, spycat said:

Your bios cdimono1.zip should contain the following files.
cdi200.rom
cdi220.rom
cdi220b.rom
zx405037p__cdi_servo_2.1__b43t__llek9215.mc68hc705c8a_withtestrom.7201
zx405042p__cdi_slave_2.0__b43t__zzmk9213.mc68hc705c8a_withtestrom.7206

cdimono1.zip was last updated in June 2020.
A current full MAME (0.226) romset should include this bios. If you just want cdimono1.zip then you can source it from Retroroms.

Ok thanks. I can't figure out how to navigate that site to d/l roms & looks like archive.org had a 0.226 set but it was taken down...Can't seem to find anything else out there. Forgive me if this isn't allowed here, but could you or someone please point me in right direction with a link? All I want is the updated cdimono1.zip so I can FINALLY try this console out in LB

Edited December 7, 2020 by stevaside

[JoeViking245]

What files are in the cdimono1.zip file that you have?  If it has 5 files (the 3 .rom files that spycat shows) and the last 2 are cdic.bin and slave.bin, then your roms are from an older MAME set.  So you need to have the version of mame64.exe that matches your roms.   Never mix rom-set versions and MAME executable versions.

That last MAME revision to use the 5 files [inside cdimono1.zip] I mentioned was revision 0.221.  But again, your best bet is to download the MAME executable from MAMEdEv with the same revision of the roms that you have.

[stevaside]

11 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

What files are in the cdimono1.zip file that you have?  If it has 5 files (the 3 .rom files that spycat shows) and the last 2 are cdic.bin and slave.bin, then your roms are from an older MAME set.  So you need to have the version of mame64.exe that matches your roms.   Never mix rom-set versions and MAME executable versions.

That last MAME revision to use the 5 files [inside cdimono1.zip] I mentioned was revision 0.221.  But again, your best bet is to download the MAME executable from MAMEdEv with the same revision of the roms that you have.

Just 3: cdi200.rom, cdi220.rom & cdi220b.rom

Yes, understand that the bios I have is outdated & missing the other 2 files. I've recently got MAME 0.226 to use for the CDi, but can't find any roms for that version at all. There was a link on archive.org, but it got removed. So I'm still stuck. unable to try the CDi at all. So again, if anyone can PLEASE point me to the updated bios for 0.226 I would greatly appreciate it

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by stevaside

[stevaside]

Okaaay....well I finally got a hold of the updated bios & still can't get this damn console to work. Just about ready to give up. I no longer get the errors about files missing, but I still keep getting these never ending series of popup windows that mention finding a match for the game. I tried to load Hotel Mario & this is what 1st popped up, followed by a sucession of more windows listing games called Marco, Marco Polo all this other crap & after like 5 of those it actually says Hotel Mario, so I click OK & it just skips it & goes to the next window with some other game title that has nothing to do with Mario or CD-i. It will never let me close MAME either, each time it does this I have to go into task manager ??

Edited December 8, 2020 by stevaside

[Headrush69]

The proper name is hotmario.

What version of Mame are you using, a different one from the one from Mamedev.org?

I only ask because I’ve never seen pop up GUI messages from standard Mame before.

 

[JoeViking245]

I agree.  Get the mame64.exe from MAMEDev and use it.  Make sure you edit mame.ini with the rompath as previously mentioned.  Then start mame64.exe and look for:At the bottom of the screen you'll see (verify) that it is the cdimono1 romset.Double click that and look for Hotel Mario 

And again at the bottom you'll see (verify) the romset.  

[stevaside]

On 12/8/2020 at 11:52 AM, Headrush69 said:

The proper name is hotmario.

What version of Mame are you using, a different one from the one from Mamedev.org?

I only ask because I’ve never seen pop up GUI messages from standard Mame before.

 

I was using MAMEUI226

& I already tried renaming it hotmario & still had issues

[stevaside]

On 12/8/2020 at 3:45 PM, JoeViking245 said:

I agree.  Get the mame64.exe from MAMEDev and use it.  Make sure you edit mame.ini with the rompath as previously mentioned.  Then start mame64.exe and look for:At the bottom of the screen you'll see (verify) that it is the cdimono1 romset.Double click that and look for Hotel Mario 

And again at the bottom you'll see (verify) the romset.  

I was previously trying MAMEUI226, but OK I now have the MAME from that site & there doesn't seem to be an mame.ini file , Certainly not in the ini folder. There's only 2 subfolders in there called examples & presets & nothing in those or any other folder called mame.ini

Edited December 18, 2020 by stevaside