MAME Emulation - LB (Windows) & Android.

[MapleLeaf]

I have a MAME 0.194 ROMs (non-merged) set. Just wondering what would be the best emulator for both LaunchBox (Windows) and Android (Nvidia Shield)? For Android I'm thinking something from RetroArch or maybe MAME4Droid from the Play Store? Ideally, I don't want to muck around with this for long to get it working but I'm aware that MAME software and ROM sets can be a bit of a pain. 

[neil9000]

3 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

I have a MAME 0.194 ROMs (non-merged) set. Just wondering what would be the best emulator for both LaunchBox (Windows) and Android (Nvidia Shield)? For Android I'm thinking something from RetroArch or maybe MAME4Droid from the Play Store? Ideally, I don't want to muck around with this for long to get it working but I'm aware that MAME software and ROM sets can be a bit of a pain. 

MAME 0.194, always match versions.

[MapleLeaf]

I just want to verify some things about MAME since I haven't used it in a number of years now and I've forgotten certain steps and don't wanna botch anything when setting it up in LB. 

1.) Your CHD files are in folders. These folders are dropped into the MAME "Roms" folder.

2.)  Your ROM bios-devices are in zip files and these go into the MAME "Roms" folder. 

I'll use a (non-merged) Street Fighter 3: Third Strike as an example:

a.) sfiii3.zip goes into the Roms folder and stays zipped. 
b.) sfiii3 CHD folder contains: cap-33s-1.chd & cap-33s-2. The folder containing these CHD files goes into the Roms folder.
c.) qsound.zip stays zipped and goes into the Roms folder.  (of course, if you're using a non-merged set, it would already be with the roms set).

Am I forgetting anything else?

[neil9000]

5 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

1.) Your CHD files are in folders. These folders are dropped into the MAME "Roms" folder.

Yes they need to be in folders, you can put them anywhere as long as you tell MAME the path.

5 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

2.)  Your ROM bios-devices are in zip files and these go into the MAME "Roms" folder. 

Yes, bios files usually come with the romset anyway so no user input needed.

5 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

a.) sfiii3.zip goes into the Roms folder and stays zipped. 
b.) sfiii3 CHD folder contains: cap-33s-1.chd & cap-33s-2. The folder containing these CHD files goes into the Roms folder.
c.) qsound.zip stays zipped and goes into the Roms folder.  (of course, if you're using a non-merged set, it would already be with the roms set).

If you are using non-merged then the bios and qsound are in the sfiii3 zip, thats the whole point of having a non-merged set and it taking up all that extra space, each game zip contains all the needed files including bios files, hence the size difference as you will for example have hundreds of copies of the qsound file in a non-merged romset, every game that needs it will have it in the rom zip.

[MapleLeaf]

I have a merged set and a split-set as well, so maybe I downloaded bios-devices for that reason, I can't remember as it was years ago. 

If the CHD files don't need to be in the MAME ROMs folder, then I suppose the ROMs don't either as long as you path to both if say they're on an external HDD. 

I've seen people talk about unzipping the game ROMs to include the CHD file(s), then zip it back up, but I don't know why anyone would want to do that even if it does work, just seems like extra hassle. 

While this may seem picky, isn't it slightly misleading to say that "each game zip contains all the needed files" ? Because these game zips don't contain CHD's as is the case for SF3: Third Strike and Killer Instinct to name a few, so those game zips don't contain all the needed files to function. 

Last few questions I'm wondering that you might know...and I think this is accurate.


-MAME 2003 works with 0.78 ROMs?
I've heard this is a popular set. Any other popular sets you can think of? 

Thanks for your time.