BothEyesShut Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 Hi, LB beautiful brilliant people! Thanks in advance. My current MAME is .224 and I can't get a couple games to work. However, I have my current setup pretty dialed-in and everything I *have to* have I do have working. I'd like to play around with a new MAME setup using .240 and a 2021 or '22 ROM set, but I'm terrified I'll not like it and need to redo everything that took me about a month to work out. Tl;dr: how can I protect my current MAME setup and ideally my BigBox/LB setup, too, and try a whole new setup somewhere else on my computer? Is that a possibility? Any suggestions? Or do I just have to close my eyes and push the button? Cheers to you all. —Both Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 10 hours ago, BothEyesShut said: My current MAME is .224 and I can't get a couple games to work. With your setup pretty well dialed in and all [but a couple of] games are working, that says there's an issue with those couple of games. Assuming your MAME executable (mame.exe) and the rom set you're using are both release 0.224 and the 'few' games are noted as being able to actually run in MAME (and all other games do work), chances are you're missing a BIOS and/or Device file(s) for them. You shouldn't need to totally revamp your emulator settings nor have to do anything special or drastic in LaunchBox/BigBox for a couple of errant games. 11 hours ago, BothEyesShut said: a new MAME setup using .240 and a 2021 or '22 ROM set You really shouldn't be mixing release versions of the executable and rom sets. Many times, things will still work between them. But when they don't, you have no idea if it's because you're mismatching them, or something else. a.k.a. Never mix MAME releases and rom sets! 11 hours ago, BothEyesShut said: how can I protect my current MAME setup and ideally my BigBox/LB setup, too, and try a whole new setup Without trying to figure out why "a couple games" aren't working first, you could just install MAME 0.240 into a separate folder (i.e. D:\Emulators\MAME0.204\) and place your 0.240 rom set in that new setups' /roms/ subfolder. Now start MAME (mame.exe) from within /MAME0.240/, search for the game(s) in question and run it/them. Once you know they all work via the emulator itself, THEN bring them into LB/BB. 11 hours ago, BothEyesShut said: Any suggestions? 1st Determine if the 'couple games' are supposed to be able to run in 0.224. And if so, figure out why they're not. That all said, what games are causing you issues? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BothEyesShut Posted February 11, 2022 Author Share Posted February 11, 2022 (edited) Hi again Mr. JoeV, On 2/10/2022 at 5:14 AM, JoeViking245 said: With your setup pretty well dialed in and all [but a couple of] games are working, that says there's an issue with those couple of games ... chances are you're missing a BIOS and/or Device file(s) for them ... You shouldn't need to totally revamp your emulator settings nor have to do anything special or drastic in LaunchBox/BigBox for a couple of errant games. Yessir, you were right on this score. I kept working on the roms I wanted and did get them working with a couple added device files. Thank you very much. Qsound via DL-1425.bin was key, apparently a very common problem. [For those who may come later, I had to obtain the DL-1425.BIN file, extract my rom zips, add the .bin to the resulting folders, then import the folders as roms in LaunchBox.] On 2/10/2022 at 5:14 AM, JoeViking245 said: You really shouldn't be mixing release versions of the executable and rom sets. Many times, things will still work between them. But when they don't, you have no idea if it's because you're mismatching them, or something else. a.k.a. Never mix MAME releases and rom sets! Thank you, yes, I've learned that. I thought MAME .240 was the most recent so presumed it was consistent with the 2020-2021 rom fullsets, but I suppose I stand corrected! On 2/10/2022 at 5:14 AM, JoeViking245 said: Without trying to figure out why "a couple games" aren't working first, you could just install MAME 0.240 into a separate folder (i.e. D:\Emulators\MAME0.204\) and place your 0.240 rom set in that new setups' /roms/ subfolder. Now start MAME (mame.exe) from within /MAME0.240/, search for the game(s) in question and run it/them. Once you know they all work via the emulator itself, THEN bring them into LB/BB. 1st Determine if the 'couple games' are supposed to be able to run in 0.224. And if so, figure out why they're not. Excellent advice, thank you. I forget that MAME is so portable because I only ever use it to fix my gamepad mapping, anymore, now that I've got my beautiful LB BigBox humming away. I *did* use this method to troubleshoot one of my white whales, Street Fighter II, which I learned only belongs to the LB metadata database in a couple later versions. The one I ended up using was Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which imported flawlessly after I added the Qsound file described above. Let me ask this, though: presuming a friend were to purchase LB BigBox and a EmuMovies sub, would there be any way for me to archive my setup and send it so he could skip all the tinkering I've had to do? I realize it's a complex problem, but just in case it were easily answered... On 2/10/2022 at 5:14 AM, JoeViking245 said: That all said, what games are causing you issues? Besides SF2, I had complications with Gauntlet, Berzerk, and 19XX: The Infinity War or whatever, all of which I got running, thank you. The only one I've had to give up on altogether is Ikaruga, which I own and imported as a Steam version, but I was really hoping to compete with my brothers and sisters using the new MAME high score charts. The MAME high score charts are, IMHO, the most important thing to have happened in video gaming in decades. All of my base belong to hi2txt and whoever is responsible for that majestic accomplishment. You're the best, JoeV, thank you ever so much for your help once more. —BothES, Long Beach, Calif. Edited February 11, 2022 by BothEyesShut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 36 minutes ago, BothEyesShut said: would there be any way for me to archive my setup and send it so he could skip all the tinkering I've had to do? I realize it's a complex problem, but just in case it were easily answered... Yes. LaunchBox is designed to be portable (just like MAME is 😎). With some minor caveats: A proper installation of .NET Core is required. Some emulators are not portable. (They need to actually be 'installed' in Windows.) Drive letter and folder/file locations. And possibly some other minor stuff. If you use the LaunchBox installer on the other computer, this will ensure the proper installation of .NET Core. Then you should be able to do a copy and paste and have him place his LB/BB license according to the instructions he receives. 1 hour ago, BothEyesShut said: The only one I've had to give up on altogether is Ikaruga That one shows as "Preliminary" in MAME. So you might be able to get it to load (per se), but it may not run. I have no idea as I typically don't mess with MAME chd's. If you wish to put one last good-faith-effort into it, make sure you have all 6 files it needs. Also, this game unfortunately is not in hi2txt's arsenal. So you'd have to resort to screen captures to say "See!! I got a better score than you!" (if it even does actually run) 1 hour ago, BothEyesShut said: All of my base belong to hi2txt and whoever is responsible for that majestic accomplishment. That majestic accomplishment was done by @GreatStone as inspired by Fyrecrypts hitotext utility. 👍 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatStone Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 5 hours ago, BothEyesShut said: The MAME high score charts are, IMHO, the most important thing to have happened in video gaming in decades. All of my base belong to hi2txt and whoever is responsible for that majestic accomplishment. @BothEyesShut As the author of hi2txt, how to not appreciate such kind words ? And having @JoeViking245 tagging me here sounds like a challenge to support ikaruga: so, I am able to launch the game with mame, it is very very (very) slow, but I managed to make a hiscore and the nvram/sram content generated seems to be easy to decode! Is it playable for somebody on a powerful machine? Does it worth to support it in hi2txt with such mame status? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 40 minutes ago, GreatStone said: tagging me here sounds like a challenge to support ikaruga lol. No! Not a challenge in any sense of the word. I just wanted to give credit where credit is due, and the adoration of the project is deserved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatStone Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 @JoeViking245 Challenge or not, ikaruga is now part of hi2txt 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BothEyesShut Posted February 16, 2022 Author Share Posted February 16, 2022 On 2/12/2022 at 10:00 AM, GreatStone said: @JoeViking245 Challenge or not, ikaruga is now part of hi2txt Holy ... wow! Holy wow! Well now I need to double my efforts and see if I can get Ikaruga running at speed! I'll go back and see what I can do to get 'er up. Maybe I can get 1st place before everyone notices it's there :D. I'm not running .240 MAME though so might not work for me. ... Which is fine. Happy to see it went places for posterity. You guys are just the best. Can't believe the quality of enthusiasm, conviviality and straight-up helpfulness in here. Goddamn, I wish I'd found LaunchBox years ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BothEyesShut Posted February 16, 2022 Author Share Posted February 16, 2022 On 2/11/2022 at 10:56 AM, JoeViking245 said: If you wish to put one last good-faith-effort into it ... Yup! Got it! Pretty great to get the red screen of death — "THIS DOES NOT WORK. GIVE UP AND WAIT." — followed by what seems to be a perfectly working Ikaruga game to me. But yeah, like @GreatStone said: On 2/11/2022 at 2:01 PM, GreatStone said: it is very very (very) slow Mine isn't at a crawl, but it's definitely too slow to make any high score I might achieve legitimate. I'm basically Neo dodging bullets in slow motion. Nevertheless, really satisfying to get it running . Thank you, gentlemen. I fkn LOVE it here! Upgraded to forever license this week, btw. Because of course I had to. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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