Supermodel Won't Launch via Launchbox

[Rik3Rr]

Hi all,

I must be doing something wrong as I've read elsewhere on this form that others don't have trouble launching Supermodel games (i.e. Sega Model 3).

Supermodel is setup correctly, and I can launch games from the command prompt; however, when I try to launch the same games from Launchbox, it refuses to work.

I think that what's happening is that Supermodel isn't receiving the correct information from Launchbox to know where the games are located. Launchbox is connected to the actual rom paths. 

Thanks for any help provided!

[sundogak]

6 hours ago, Rik3Rr said:

Hi all,

I must be doing something wrong as I've read elsewhere on this form that others don't have trouble launching Supermodel games (i.e. Sega Model 3).

Supermodel is setup correctly, and I can launch games from the command prompt; however, when I try to launch the same games from Launchbox, it refuses to work.

I think that what's happening is that Supermodel isn't receiving the correct information from Launchbox to know where the games are located. Launchbox is connected to the actual rom paths. 

Thanks for any help provided!

Here are my settings, there isn't anything particularly unique on Supermodel. The majority of settings should come from your Supermodel.ini in the Config folder.  So as long as your Supermodel folder is setup to normal/default this should work below:

Might double check your platform matches name in Associated Platform 

Then it just points to the ROM/Zip file (this is The Lost World).  

[Rik3Rr]

8 hours ago, sundogak said:

Here are my settings, there isn't anything particularly unique on Supermodel. The majority of settings should come from your Supermodel.ini in the Config folder.  So as long as your Supermodel folder is setup to normal/default this should work below:

Might double check your platform matches name in Associated Platform 

Then it just points to the ROM/Zip file (this is The Lost World).  

Thank you for the reply, and the help offered!

All of my settings match yours.

I've noticed that if I place the Supermodel.exe inside of my MAME folder with its thousands of ROMs, and inform Launchbox that I've moved the Supermodel executable, then everything launches. The Supermodel.exe has to be in the same folder with the ROMs. But, if I leave the Supermodel.exe in its usual folder separate from the ROMs, then even if LB knows where the ROMs and Supermodel.exe are located, it cannot launch the ROMs. 

I think that I'm missing a setting within Supermodel that tells it where the ROMs are located, or something else I'm missing. Within the Supermodel folder, I have added the path to my ROMs within the ROMs "dir.txt" file. But, no joy.

I may just have to find the Supermodel ROMs, extract them from the MAME folder, and then place all of them in the same folder with the Supermodel.exe to get everything to work, but I'd like to avoid removing ROMs from my MAME set, if at all possible.

Any further advice? Thanks again.

[JoeViking245]

15 minutes ago, Rik3Rr said:

moved the Supermodel executable, then everything launches.

You sure you don't have any of the boxes checked in your emulator settings?

From the way it acting (it works when supermodel.exe is moved in with the roms), you have the 2 left boxes checked.  Verify none of these are checked.

Supermodel doesn't have a "setting" for 'where the roms are located'.  You simply give it the full path to the rom.

[sundogak]

11 hours ago, Rik3Rr said:

Thank you for the reply, and the help offered!

All of my settings match yours.

I've noticed that if I place the Supermodel.exe inside of my MAME folder with its thousands of ROMs, and inform Launchbox that I've moved the Supermodel executable, then everything launches. The Supermodel.exe has to be in the same folder with the ROMs. But, if I leave the Supermodel.exe in its usual folder separate from the ROMs, then even if LB knows where the ROMs and Supermodel.exe are located, it cannot launch the ROMs. 

I think that I'm missing a setting within Supermodel that tells it where the ROMs are located, or something else I'm missing. Within the Supermodel folder, I have added the path to my ROMs within the ROMs "dir.txt" file. But, no joy.

I may just have to find the Supermodel ROMs, extract them from the MAME folder, and then place all of them in the same folder with the Supermodel.exe to get everything to work, but I'd like to avoid removing ROMs from my MAME set, if at all possible.

Any further advice? Thanks again.

Your comment about "dir.txt": that is a simple readme file that says put XYZ in that folder. But it has no function in MAME nor Supermodel and neither look to that file for anything.  So modifying the text file does nothing.

I found it best to not try to use a common MAME and Sega Model 3 rom folder if using SuperModel.  The Supermodel emulator needs specific rom sets identified in the Games.xml file (inside the CONFIG folder) which can lag the MAME rom sets depending on how frequently you update MAME rom set and what version of Supermodel you have.  

For Supermodel the main files need to be in this path/configuration (Roms can be wherever) 

..\Sega Model 3\    << your Supermodel.exe and its install files here in root of this folder

      ..\CONFIG\  << has your Supermodel.ini and your Games.XML      Your Supermodel.ini should have an entry called GAMEXMLFile=Config/Games.xml      if you use the standard setup.  

      ..\NVRAM << nvram files for Supermodel  

     ..\Saves << save folder  

     ..\ROMS  << you can name this whatever, and it can be located somewhere else (like a common rom folder with MAME if choose to go that way).  As JoeViking245 said, you are pointing to the full path to the ROM when doing via command or within LB so Supermodel doesn't care. 

 

Like JoeViking245 said, if you got the above and pointed LB emulator to the EXE and have the path to the roms there isn't much else setting wise (within LB).  

To be able to tell anything further, we would to see some screenshots of an example game and your emulator setup screen to see what is going on.  

Edited September 26, 2021 by sundogak

[Headrush69]

Check the Supermodel.log file after a failed launch and check what parameters are being passed to the emulator.

You should see something like this:

Quote

[Info]  Supermodel Version 0.3a-WIP
[Info]  Started as:
[Info]    argv[0] = C:\Users\ARCADEPC\LaunchBox\Emulators\SuperModel3\supermodel.exe
[Info]    argv[1] = C:\Users\ARCADEPC\LaunchBox\Games\Sega Model 3\lostwsga.zip
[Info]  Opened C:\Users\ARCADEPC\LaunchBox\Games\Sega Model 3\lostwsga.zip.
[Info]  lostwsga:

This will tell us where the issue might be.

[Rik3Rr]

OK, I'm attaching 4 screenshots: Supermodel emulator settings; associated platforms page (yes, platform name here matches the actual platform list); Supermodel folder layout; and an example error log after trying to launch a game via the Supermodel UI.

Why am I launching a game with the SM UI? Because when I try to launch a game with LB, it doesn't generate anything in the error log for some strange reason.

But, maybe this observation is helpful. All of my MAME Roms are 7z and not zip, and Supermodel seems determined to open .zip files; HOWEVER, maybe that's just Supermodel UI's doing. I have the ROMs correctly linked inside of LB.

So, then I tried using a swtrilgy.zip file I have and linking that inside of LB and then trying to launch SM, but no joy. So, it doesn't seem to be specific to the whole .7z file thing. I think it's just Supermodel UI which seems determined on naming all files with a .zip extension.

Well, I'm at a complete loss. Anything someone can point out would be most appreciated! Thank you all very much for your time.

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Rik3Rr

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

8 hours ago, Rik3Rr said:

Why am I launching a game with the SM UI? Because when I try to launch a game with LB, it doesn't generate anything in the error log for some strange reason.

In your screenshots the paths for the Emulator Application Path in LaunchBox and your Sega Model 3 folder don't match? I don't know if your Z drive is a network drive, but I know some people experience problems with LaunchBox and network drives.

*Edit*

I just converted one of my Model 3 games from .zip to .7z and the .7z won't launch. Like I suggested, in LaunchBox first check your path to Supermodel.exe and then convert a game from .7z to .zip > change the rom path for your game in LaunchBox and see if your game will launch.

*Edit 2*

After posting the above comment I remembered responding too an earlier thread from you about setting up Supermodel. In that thread you wrote you got Supermodel working with zips. So I'm pretty sure your problem is about Supermodel not being able to handle .7z.

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Koroth

[Rik3Rr]

OK, so good news: I got everything working!

Once I changed the "relative path" LB provided to the Supermodel .exe and instead listed the full path within the emulator's config page to the .exe, everything worked. Plus, I needed to point Supermodel only to .zip and NOT .7z files.

17 hours ago, sundogak said:

I found it best to not try to use a common MAME and Sega Model 3 rom folder if using SuperModel.  The Supermodel emulator needs specific rom sets identified in the Games.xml file (inside the CONFIG folder) which can lag the MAME rom sets depending on how frequently you update MAME rom set and what version of Supermodel you have.  

Question: It was said earlier by Sundogak that I should use only specific MAME Roms with Supermodel; however, I can't see where to determine what MAME Romset to use. I looked in the Games.xml file, but I don't know what I'm looking for. Any direction here is appreciated.

Other than that, everything is working well now! I very much appreciate everyone's assistance with this. Be well, and take care.

[sundogak]

36 minutes ago, Rik3Rr said:

OK, so good news: I got everything working!

Once I changed the "relative path" LB provided to the Supermodel .exe and instead listed the full path within the emulator's config page to the .exe, everything worked. Plus, I needed to point Supermodel only to .zip and NOT .7z files.

Question: It was said earlier by Sundogak that I should use only specific MAME Roms with Supermodel; however, I can't see where to determine what MAME Romset to use. I looked in the Games.xml file, but I don't know what I'm looking for. Any direction here is appreciated.

Other than that, everything is working well now! I very much appreciate everyone's assistance with this. Be well, and take care.

If it is working for you now I would likely lean towards not messing with anything you have.  Just be aware that if the MAME set at some point changes/renames the Sega Model 3 roms and Supermodel isn't updated yet the game may break (easy fix just restore the older version).  

But if you look in the Games.XML file you will see entry like which gives you zip name of clone (getbassdx.zip) and parent (bassdx.zip) it wants to see (assuming you have split or non-merged MAME set):

  <game name="getbassdx" parent="bassdx">
    <identity>
      <title>Get Bass: Sega Bass Fishing</title>
      <version>Japan, Deluxe</version>
      <manufacturer>Sega</manufacturer>
      <year>1997</year>
    </identity>
    <hardware>
      <platform>Sega Model 3</platform>
      <stepping>1.0</stepping>
      <pci_bridge>MPC106</pci_bridge>
      <inputs>
        <input type="common" />
        <input type="fishing" />
      </inputs>
    </hardware>
    <roms>
      <region name="crom" stride="8" chunk_size="2" byte_swap="true">
        <file offset="0" name="epr-20837.20" crc32="0x66FC2084" />
        <file offset="2" name="epr-20836.19" crc32="0xF8E8EF57" />
        <file offset="4" name="epr-20835.18" crc32="0xF8F19BB2" />
        <file offset="6" name="epr-20834.17" crc32="0x17F466A6" />
      </region>
    </roms>
  </game>

Supermodel is hardcoded to look for these rom names and CRCs of files within the zip.  The developer of Supermodel does update the emulator to manage newer ROM sets but if you are one that updates your MAME set on each monthly cycle then potential for Supermodel to lag until it is updated. I think when I set up originally, I didn't find a DAT so just did it the brute force approach.  I looked at the XML, copied the MAME zip to separate folder, tested each game to see if it would launch in Supermodel and if didn't opened up Games.XML look at what CRCs it wanted.  Most time is tended to be a version older MAME set wise where Supermodel hadn't yet been updated. I am sure there is more elegant approach but there isn't that many Sega Model 3 games to deal with in end.

Basically, if your games all work now, you don't tend to mess with your MAME rom set often, then wouldn't worry too much about it as long as you may a mental note of "why is this not working when it did before!" to first look and see if a Sega Mode 3 rom was updated somewhere along line. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by sundogak

[Rik3Rr]

Sundogak, very helpful! Thank you so much.

I'm downloading a new Model 3 romset dated 3 years ago. I'm sure it will be fine. I plan to just separate out my SM3 roms from the rest of my MAME Romset, thereby avoiding this whole issue. There are only a few SM3 games I like playing (and that work!), so this is a very minor thing in the end. As long as those games run fine (or close to fine), then I'm happy.

Again, thanks to everyone who helped me solve this rather confusing riddle! I knew in the end that it was something easy/stupid that I was overlooking. Take care.