Any Assistance with getting a CD-I emulator working in either MAME or Launchbox?

[kigerwolff]

So I tried this tutorial to the letter but I am starting to wonder if it is out of date now. I got RetroArch, downloaded the MAME core that says "MAME - (CURRENT)". And followed all the steps.

Retroarch will launch with a white screen for a few seconds before crashing.

 

So next I downloaded MAME itself and put the CDImono1, and CDImono2 in the ROMS folder.  MAME 0231 absolutely hated cdimono1 and only worked with cdimono2. (not 100% sure how old these zip files were). But whenever I loaded a CHD file, it would just goto a black screen and stay there (As opposed to the blue screen)

 

Does anyone know what's been updated or needs to be done to get this sucker working?

 

[SiriusVI]

3 minutes ago, kigerwolff said:

So I tried this tutorial to the letter but I am starting to wonder if it is out of date now. I got RetroArch, downloaded the MAME core that says "MAME - (CURRENT)". And followed all the steps.

Retroarch will launch with a white screen for a few seconds before crashing.

 

So next I downloaded MAME itself and put the CDImono1, and CDImono2 in the ROMS folder.  MAME 0231 absolutely hated cdimono1 and only worked with cdimono2. (not 100% sure how old these zip files were). But whenever I loaded a CHD file, it would just goto a black screen and stay there (As opposed to the blue screen)

 

Does anyone know what's been updated or needs to be done to get this sucker working?

 

In principal the tutorial should still work. I recently tried it and found that newer versions of mame might cause problems. I'm planning to delve into CD-i emulation again and revising the tutorial, but I wanted to let some time pass, so that mame might solve the issues.

[JoeViking245]

59 minutes ago, kigerwolff said:

MAME 0231 absolutely hated cdimono1 and only worked with cdimono2.

That's probably because of the language your chd files are in.   cdimono1 is for PAL and cdimon2 is for NTSC. 

[kigerwolff]

1 hour ago, SiriusVI said:

In principal the tutorial should still work. I recently tried it and found that newer versions of mame might cause problems. I'm planning to delve into CD-i emulation again and revising the tutorial, but I wanted to let some time pass, so that mame might solve the issues.

If and when you do, please let me know. While I do have my CD-I, the battery is dead and its hard to play long games now    So this would really help out a ton.  Do you have any idea what may have caused this? Is it just the current version of Mame that doesn't have the updated cdi bios?

[kigerwolff]

9 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

That's probably because of the language your chd files are in.   cdimono1 is for PAL and cdimon2 is for NTSC. 

But it won't even load the emulator with cdimono1. If I select it from the emulator list, it says it's missing the slave files associated with cdimon2.

 

[kigerwolff]

11 hours ago, SiriusVI said:

In principal the tutorial should still work. I recently tried it and found that newer versions of mame might cause problems. I'm planning to delve into CD-i emulation again and revising the tutorial, but I wanted to let some time pass, so that mame might solve the issues.

 

 

Out of curiosity - where are you supposed to put the files for MAME? I put my .chd file in the ROMS section, but it still shows empty. Does it have to have a very specific name to be recognized? 

 

 

 

 

 

**EDIT**

 

So I am working on Retroarch again. I turned off all the core settings for MAME, changed the media type to CDRM, and used the dummy files in the same folder as the chd while naming them the same.

 

I now get this screen: 

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by kigerwolff

[IainSA]

I've been working on this for a few hours and managed to get some games running on MAME through Launchbox. My apologies now as this is a bit long and tedious, but it's the only way I can get them to work. If anyone has a better (& quicker) way please let us know. I'm using MAME 0.229 for this but hopefully it'll work on other versions.

These are the Bios files and they can be kept anywhere as long as you point MAME to the folder.

cdibios.zip - I got this from the MAME 0.229 ROMs (bios-devices) set
cdimono1.zip - You'll need to search google for these two if you don't already have them.
cdimono2.zip

I'm not sure if you need both cdimono1+2, but I've got both and it works.

Also if you don't already have it, you need to download and install this plugin, I used the latest version (says 4.02 on the download page but it's 4.01)

 

The CHD's have to be named a specific way or MAME refuses to load them. in your MAME/hash folder there is a file called cdi.xml, in here is the list of games and the names you need to use, they look something like this

Each CHD needs to be put in a folder with the parent rom name and you'll also need to create a dummy zip file with the shortened name for each game. These names are also found in the cdi.xml.

These files can be kept anywhere, they don't have to be in the MAME/roms folder, but keep the CHD folders and dummy zips together 

I'm including the dummy zips for my games, so hopefully that will save people some time with them at least.

Philips CD-i Dummy ZIPS.zip

When everything is named and sorted correctly, load up Launchbox and go to Tools>Import MAME Software List and follow the instructions until you get to this screen

In the top bar browse to the folder with the CHD's & dummy zips

If you want to change the location of the files, browse to the new location in the bottom bar (Bear in mind that this will be copying the files and NOT moving them to the new location so you'll have to delete the originals when the import is finished)
If you are keeping them in the same place just use the same location in the bottom bar and then click next.

 

On this window check "Import only games that exist in the ROM's Source Folder", make sure MAME is selected in the yellow section and then click Copy AND Import
This may take a while depending on the amount of games you have and if you are moving them to a new location.

Once that's finished go to Tools>Manage Emulators and edit the MAME associated  platforms and copy/paste  cdimono1 -skip_gameinfo -cdrm  into the command line parameters for Philips CD-i

 

you can then go and download the media and metadata for the games.

when you load a game you will get an aqua screen that lasts 10-30 seconds (This is normal, just be patient) and then you will see the CD-i bios screen.

use the mouse and click PLAY CD-i and you should be good to go.
if it lasts longer than 40 seconds there might be something wrong with the setup or the game doesn't work.

Sorry for the long spiel and hopefully I haven't missed anything out.

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by IainSA
missed something :)

[kigerwolff]

22 hours ago, IainSA said:

I've been working on this for a few hours and managed to get some games running on MAME through Launchbox. My apologies now as this is a bit long and tedious, but it's the only way I can get them to work. If anyone has a better (& quicker) way please let us know. I'm using MAME 0.229 for this but hopefully it'll work on other versions.

These are the Bios files and they can be kept anywhere as long as you point MAME to the folder.

cdibios.zip - I got this from the MAME 0.229 ROMs (bios-devices) set
cdimono1.zip - You'll need to search google for these two if you don't already have them.
cdimono2.zip

I'm not sure if you need both cdimono1+2, but I've got both and it works.

Also if you don't already have it, you need to download and install this plugin, I used the latest version (says 4.02 on the download page but it's 4.01)

 

The CHD's have to be named a specific way or MAME refuses to load them. in your MAME/hash folder there is a file called cdi.xml, in here is the list of games and the names you need to use, they look something like this

Each CHD needs to be put in a folder with the parent rom name and you'll also need to create a dummy zip file with the shortened name for each game. These names are also found in the cdi.xml.

These files can be kept anywhere, they don't have to be in the MAME/roms folder, but keep the CHD folders and dummy zips together 

I'm including the dummy zips for my games, so hopefully that will save people some time with them at least.

Philips CD-i Dummy ZIPS.zip 6.84 kB · 0 downloads

When everything is named and sorted correctly, load up Launchbox and go to Tools>Import MAME Software List and follow the instructions until you get to this screen

In the top bar browse to the folder with the CHD's & dummy zips

If you want to change the location of the files, browse to the new location in the bottom bar (Bear in mind that this will be copying the files and NOT moving them to the new location so you'll have to delete the originals when the import is finished)
If you are keeping them in the same place just use the same location in the bottom bar and then click next.

 

On this window check "Import only games that exist in the ROM's Source Folder", make sure MAME is selected in the yellow section and then click Copy AND Import
This may take a while depending on the amount of games you have and if you are moving them to a new location.

Once that's finished go to Tools>Manage Emulators and edit the MAME associated  platforms and copy/paste  cdimono1 -skip_gameinfo -cdrm  into the command line parameters for Philips CD-i

 

you can then go and download the media and metadata for the games.

when you load a game you will get an aqua screen that lasts 10-30 seconds (This is normal, just be patient) and then you will see the CD-i bios screen.

use the mouse and click PLAY CD-i and you should be good to go.
if it lasts longer than 40 seconds there might be something wrong with the setup or the game doesn't work.

Sorry for the long spiel and hopefully I haven't missed anything out.

 

 

 

Launchbox crashes upon Initializing. 

So here is exactly what I did.

I got Zombie Dinos from edgeemu. it's just the CHD. file.

I put it in its zombie folder with the zombie.zip.

 

Just to mimic what you did, I even downloaded MAME 229. In the Roms Folder, I got these: 

 

 

Got each bios off WowRoms (I do not know where in the world to find a ROMS SET for Mame. I keep searching and turn up nothing so i hope these bios are also good)

      

 

 

 

I downloaded the Plugin for Launcher, threw that sucker into the plugin folder. 

Renamed the Zombie.chd to the proper name listed in the Hash list under Software

 

 

Followed Launch Box steps (had to add my own Philips CD-I. Was not on the dropdown menu)

 

 

 

(now for some reason, despite having that Zelda game in the folders, only the zombie one shows up?)

 

 

I click play. I get a blacks screen that says "INITITALIZING" before it crashes.

 

That's as far as I get

 

 

***************EDIT**************

 

I told the Launcher to search for more roms and it found me Faces of Evil rom. Imported that and this time, it actually launches MAME and I get this.

 

No idea why Faces of Evil actually launched it but Zombies just crashes.

 

 

 

I also don't know if this helps...but any time I try to launch through MAME itself, and select CDIMono1, any game i select no matter what region gets this error:

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by kigerwolff

[JoeViking245]

3 hours ago, kigerwolff said:

any game i select no matter what region gets this error:

It's saying your cdimono1.zip is missing those 2 files.

[kigerwolff]

12 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

It's saying your cdimono1.zip is missing those 2 files.

You see, I kept thinking this but every tutorial just shows those first 3 files inside cdimono1. I will add the missing files from Cdimono2 into this zip file and hopefully that will fix this specific problem.  Thank you for the clarification. 

[IainSA]

Just checked my bios files and I don't have the slave and servo 2.0 in the cdimono1.zip but I do have the slave 2.0 in the cdibios.zip

checked the zombie dino and t's named the same as mine

So I loaded dino and it did load the intro, but after that it went back to the aqua screen and stayed there.

just noticed this as well, this needs to be checked or the games don't load on mine

Edited May 12, 2021 by IainSA

[kigerwolff]

13 hours ago, IainSA said:

Just checked my bios files and I don't have the slave and servo 2.0 in the cdimono1.zip but I do have the slave 2.0 in the cdibios.zip

checked the zombie dino and t's named the same as mine

So I loaded dino and it did load the intro, but after that it went back to the aqua screen and stayed there.

just noticed this as well, this needs to be checked or the games don't load on mine

 

 

Where can I get a copy of of that CDiBios? Mine is missing that slave file. You mentioned getting it from a ROM/Bios set?

[IainSA]

it looks like my cdibios is just a copy of cdimono1 with a couple of files missing.

Instead of downloading a full set for 1 zip, go back to edgeemu and search for CD-i 910

grab that zip and move it to same place as your cdimono1.zip

Between the two zips you should now have the 5 files

Edited May 13, 2021 by IainSA

[kigerwolff]

12 hours ago, IainSA said:

it looks like my cdibios is just a copy of cdimono1 with a couple of files missing.

Instead of downloading a full set for 1 zip, go back to edgeemu and search for CD-i 910

grab that zip and move it to same place as your cdimono1.zip

Between the two zips you should now have the 5 files

 

Okay - Launchbox doesn't work but going through MAME actually did something!

 

I went to "START EMPTY", and got to the PHILIPS CDI screen.

I hit TAB, Select Files, and chose my CHD for ZELDA

It loaded, the opening animation played, opening map showed, but when I get to the play screen - it starts stuttering and stays like this:

 

Zombie Dinos crashes after the opening cutscene like yours did, and Link also stutters when starting the first map. But at least we're getting somewhere!! 

 

This is one of the warnings that popped up though:

 

I have not seen the warning about not being correctly dumped. Is this a GAME.CHD issue, or BIOS issue?

Edited May 13, 2021 by kigerwolff

[IainSA]

Yeah unfortunately Zelda - Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamalon are the same with me, works perfect until the actual gameplay.

The only Zelda game that's worked well for me so far is Zelda's Adventure.

The dump warning is for the servo and the slave, if you load it through the command line, it shows a bit more info.

I've looked about online but there isn't much info that I could find. There may not be a proper dump for the bios yet but I could be wrong.

[kigerwolff]

1 hour ago, IainSA said:

Yeah unfortunately Zelda - Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamalon are the same with me, works perfect until the actual gameplay.

The only Zelda game that's worked well for me so far is Zelda's Adventure.

The dump warning is for the servo and the slave, if you load it through the command line, it shows a bit more info.

I've looked about online but there isn't much info that I could find. There may not be a proper dump for the bios yet but I could be wrong.

Alrighty! So it looks like we got as far as we can! The emulator "works" XD 

That's a start.

[IainSA]

At the moment, Yeah. I've only just recently started looking into CD-i emulation, so I'm still learning a lot about it myself.

If I come across anything useful I'll let you know.

[kigerwolff]

1 hour ago, IainSA said:

Yeah unfortunately Zelda - Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamalon are the same with me, works perfect until the actual gameplay.

The only Zelda game that's worked well for me so far is Zelda's Adventure.

The dump warning is for the servo and the slave, if you load it through the command line, it shows a bit more info.

I've looked about online but there isn't much info that I could find. There may not be a proper dump for the bios yet but I could be wrong.

I also got the Zelda games working.

I run them through MESS64. For Zelda and Link, you need to hold down the attack button when doing cutscenes (like the cartoon characters) for a few seconds then release. Then the cutscene plays.

 

 

 

BTW! I got Zombie Dinos to work!

I used MESS64.

 

Edited May 14, 2021 by kigerwolff

[IainSA]

5 minutes ago, kigerwolff said:

BTW! I got Zombie Dinos to work!

Ah good to know, I'll try that out now and see how it goes.