Mame Romset games not working

[jeffycool]

Hello, likely a very noob question here, but when I install Mame .240, and download the merged 240 romset, it seems like half the games at least don't work.

All files are in the same directory etc.

I am getting the romset from what I believe is a reliable source.   (Not sure if I can post the link here?)

The most frustrating part is that some games (Such as PUNISHER) worked fine in .239, but since the update they don't work at all.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the help.

 

[neil9000]

8 minutes ago, jeffycool said:

Hello, likely a very noob question here, but when I install Mame .240, and download the merged 240 romset, it seems like half the games at least don't work.

All files are in the same directory etc.

I am getting the romset from what I believe is a reliable source.   (Not sure if I can post the link here?)

The most frustrating part is that some games (Such as PUNISHER) worked fine in .239, but since the update they don't work at all.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the help.

 

If you have a 0.240 romset, and the 0.240 emulator and games are not working then you have something wrong with your romset, unless one of two issues. 1. The games you are testing do not actually work in MAME ( there are hundreds, if not thousands of these in a full MAME romset) or 2. the games you tested need the CHD file which are not included in the normal romset.

MAME is designed to only work with the correct romset and emulator, hence them being versioned. So mixing say a 0.180 romset with a 0.240 emulator version will absolutely have broken games in it, games are only ever guaranteed to work with the respective versions, so when even that isnt the issue then you have something seriously funky going on.

[jeffycool]

Ok, let me see if I understand this correctly.

The .240 merged romset that I downloaded may include games that are not compatible with .240?   I just assumed that all the games in the set would have been tested.

I understand the idea that .239 roms may not work in .240 - I just assumed all the roms in the romset would have been updated.

Also - is it better to d/l merged or non-merged sets?

Thanks for the help,

 

Jeff

 

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, jeffycool said:

The .240 merged romset that I downloaded may include games that are not compatible with .240?   I just assumed that all the games in the set would have been tested.

A MAME romset will contain all Arcade games that have been dumped ( as well as a ton of shit that isn't games and you don't really want) regardless of whether or not MAME can currently actually run them yet, or not, they are their in the hope that they become playable with the MAME emulator in the future. in total out of a full romset only around 2900 are considered working games.

 

3 minutes ago, jeffycool said:

Also - is it better to d/l merged or non-merged sets?

Doesn't matter as far as Launchbox is concerned, however if you want to break a romset down and just pull out the games you want, then you MUST use a Non-Merged set, pulling out, or deleting games from the other sets will break completely unrelated games due to the way they are packaged, which is why Non-Merged is by far the biggest pack, each individual game zip has all needed files in it, hence the size increase as something like say the NeoGeo.zip which is a needed bios file, is now in that pack several hundred times, whereas it is only in a split, or merged set once.

 

[jeffycool]

Excellent summary - thanks for the help Neil9000.

[jeffycool]

Sorry - one more follow up ..

For example, if I have "Punisher" rom version .239, but am running MAME version .240 .. and it doesn't run.

Are  you suggesting I have multiple versions of MAME on my PC?   

JB

[Retro808]

33 minutes ago, jeffycool said:

Sorry - one more follow up ..

For example, if I have "Punisher" rom version .239, but am running MAME version .240 .. and it doesn't run.

Are  you suggesting I have multiple versions of MAME on my PC?   

JB

Should work fine. I have .238 roms and Punisher works in .240. Nothing was changed that would have affected CPS roms. I typically do not update my romset unless the Mame notes show something major changed in the What's New txt file. However, ensuring the rom set matches the mame version is always a best practice.

[2ndWind]

On 2/15/2022 at 8:05 AM, jeffycool said:

Hello, likely a very noob question here, but when I install Mame .240, and download the merged 240 romset, it seems like half the games at least don't work.

All files are in the same directory etc.

I am getting the romset from what I believe is a reliable source.   (Not sure if I can post the link here?)

The most frustrating part is that some games (Such as PUNISHER) worked fine in .239, but since the update they don't work at all.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the help.

 

I am sorry to say but since an update sumtime in the summer MAME doesn't work anymore AT ALL. I honestly don't think it's you at all NOR do I think it's MAME's fault that MS f'ks up with stuff.  They don't want us doing things offline and haven't really since Windows 8. They'd be all too happy for us to be forced to have a cloud subscription once enough of the 'dumb' cloud gaming generation grows up and doesn't know any better they WILL enforce it most likely with Windows 12 or whatever their next big Windows is.  Already when you factory restore 10 they by default have you store things on the 'One Cloud' unless you always manually change each download you do to other location. For me its one of my 2 Elements Drives. 

I unfortunately have to give up on MAME it's LAME.  It's like giving up your favorite pet that you know has some disease or problem where it's likely to die soon so you can choose to put it to sleep or let it live (it may survive 5 more years) but be in agony during so.  There's no way for you as a human to know and nothing you or I can do to fix it.   I factory restored Windows 10 which now my steering wheel works and is recognized on most things now that didn't work before so I'm going to assume an update broke MAME. 

Edited December 31, 2022 by 2ndWind

[2ndWind]

On 2/15/2022 at 8:37 AM, neil9000 said:

A MAME romset will contain all Arcade games that have been dumped ( as well as a ton of shit that isn't games and you don't really want) regardless of whether or not MAME can currently actually run them yet, or not, they are their in the hope that they become playable with the MAME emulator in the future. in total out of a full romset only around 2900 are considered working games.

 

Doesn't matter as far as Launchbox is concerned, however if you want to break a romset down and just pull out the games you want, then you MUST use a Non-Merged set, pulling out, or deleting games from the other sets will break completely unrelated games due to the way they are packaged, which is why Non-Merged is by far the biggest pack, each individual game zip has all needed files in it, hence the size increase as something like say the NeoGeo.zip which is a needed bios file, is now in that pack several hundred times, whereas it is only in a split, or merged set once.

 

Sadly the only site that hosts MAME romsets have merged only files. 

[2ndWind]

On 2/15/2022 at 8:26 AM, jeffycool said:

Ok, let me see if I understand this correctly.

The .240 merged romset that I downloaded may include games that are not compatible with .240?   I just assumed that all the games in the set would have been tested.

I understand the idea that .239 roms may not work in .240 - I just assumed all the roms in the romset would have been updated.

Also - is it better to d/l merged or non-merged sets?

Thanks for the help,

 

Jeff

 

I think you are getting it from the same source I am and that site isn't really known for testing things before they upload.  They also deleted older romsets sadly.  You can't get em anymore at least on my end. Maybe I'm on some government crap list so I'm externally blocked.

[Lordmonkus]

23 minutes ago, 2ndWind said:

I am sorry to say but since an update sumtime in the summer MAME doesn't work anymore AT ALL. I honestly don't think it's you at all NOR do I think it's MAME's fault that MS f'ks up with stuff.  They don't want us doing things offline and haven't really since Windows 8. They'd be all too happy for us to be forced to have a cloud subscription once enough of the 'dumb' cloud gaming generation grows up and doesn't know any better they WILL enforce it most likely with Windows 12 or whatever their next big Windows is.  Already when you factory restore 10 they by default have you store things on the 'One Cloud' unless you always manually change each download you do to other location. For me its one of my 2 Elements Drives. 

I unfortunately have to give up on MAME it's LAME.  It's like giving up your favorite pet that you know has some disease or problem where it's likely to die soon so you can choose to put it to sleep or let it live (it may survive 5 more years) but be in agony during so.  There's no way for you as a human to know and nothing you or I can do to fix it.   I factory restored Windows 10 which now my steering wheel works and is recognized on most things now that didn't work before so I'm going to assume an update broke MAME.

This is just all sorts of no.

22 minutes ago, 2ndWind said:

Sadly the only site that hosts MAME romsets have merged only files.

The proper site "pleasuredome git io" has all 3 sets, up to date and working.

 

[tkssitch]

Here's a couple things to double check.  Where are your Mame roms located? are the in your Mame 0.239 "Roms" folder, are they in a separate file or drive location, or did you move them into the Mame 0.240 "Roms" folder after you downloaded them.  If you didn't move your Mame romset into the 0.240 "Roms" folder, then check your Mame.Ini file and see if you have the rompath set to your roms location.  Mine for example looks something like this.

"rompath      D:/Mame041"   mine is on a separate drive.  yours by default unless you changed it should look something like "rompath     roms" 

And if you already done all this, I recommend check all this again see if it your rompath was saved.

Another solution just scrap your romset and get a non-merged one. Use Launchbox to filter out just the roms you want to play and export those to a new folder. Then delete the rest. That will leave you with a curative list for your needs and free up alot of memory the romset once had. 

[2ndWind]

On 2/15/2022 at 8:05 AM, jeffycool said:

Hello, likely a very noob question here, but when I install Mame .240, and download the merged 240 romset, it seems like half the games at least don't work.

All files are in the same directory etc.

I am getting the romset from what I believe is a reliable source.   (Not sure if I can post the link here?)

The most frustrating part is that some games (Such as PUNISHER) worked fine in .239, but since the update they don't work at all.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the help.

 

All the games but Cruis n Exotica seems to turn on. Exotica says some kind of boot rom is not there but no references anywhere online to such a file. 

[2ndWind]

On 12/30/2022 at 7:02 PM, Lordmonkus said:

This is just all sorts of no.

The proper site "pleasuredome git io" has all 3 sets, up to date and working.

 

Pleasuredome you need to upload files or they ban you without question according to their policy.  I think they are invite only too but that part was years ago so maybe not anymore? I'll check to see.

EdIT:

Okay it appears this isn't the standard Pleasure Dome page which is a good sign so far. 

Edited January 16, 2023 by 2ndWind

[2ndWind]

On 12/30/2022 at 7:02 PM, Lordmonkus said:

This is just all sorts of no.

The proper site "pleasuredome git io" has all 3 sets, up to date and working.

 

Your the one that is no.  I did a factory reset and it fixed a lot of issues I had with MAME among other stuff including recognizing controllers. Now my controllers work properly and is recognized when I install them.  We can sit and argue all day but I am not going to so you have fun on your Android or whatever.  Windows DOES give hell.  I think your a paid MS employee since you just want to knock me down everywhere.  That's the problem with all forums lately all the good stuff is old/dead and salty people are all that's left trying to say 'YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG YOUR WRONG!'.  They might as well just come out in the open and say that.  

Edited January 16, 2023 by 2ndWind

[2ndWind]

On 12/30/2022 at 7:02 PM, Lordmonkus said:

This is just all sorts of no.

The proper site "pleasuredome git io" has all 3 sets, up to date and working.

 

Requires a torrent. I don't do that shady stuff Dad warned me about torrents a long time ago and I didn't believe him till I payed the price the hard way and now I'm going a lot better without that crap installed   I prefer Jdownloader 2 (third party download tool) which I use on Archive and download direct and gotten a lot of old emulation stuff that way but the latest MAME is funky there but as long as at least most of the games work I'll accept and give it a C (pass) but not a B or A.

Edited January 16, 2023 by 2ndWind

[neil9000]

30 minutes ago, 2ndWind said:

All the games but Cruis n Exotica seems to turn on. Exotica says some kind of boot rom is not there but no references anywhere online to such a file. 

That game runs fine, if you are missing files then you have a old out of date rom and are using with a current version of the emulator, which is a big no no.

 

21 minutes ago, 2ndWind said:

Requires a torrent. I don't do that shady stuff Dad warned me about torrents a long time ago and I didn't believe him till I payed the price the hard way and now I'm going a lot better without that crap installed   I prefer Jdownloader 2 (third party download tool) which I use on Archive and download direct and gotten a lot of old emulation stuff that way but the latest MAME is funky there but as long as at least most of the games work I'll accept and give it a C (pass) but not a B or A.

lol, and your dad is a expert on everything and should be trusted on all advice given, even if inacurate? Torrents are totally fine, lots of legitimate companys also distribute software via torrents, ever heard of Linux? Yeah nearly every Linux distrubution has a direct download from their website as well as a tottent. Its not torrents that are bad it is what you download in them that can be, just like any download on the internet, any download manager is no safer than a torrent, its what you download with them that can be unsafe, so if you are downloading shady torrents then yeah thats a risk, but so is downloading a file directly from a shady website with a download manager, there is literally ZERO difference.

Sounds to me like you are just lacking some lnowledge on certain things, but rather than learning about those things you took the word of one person, who also lacks knowledge on the subject, and use that as a excuse for why the random things you are downloading from the internet do not work correctly for you. The pleasuredome github needs no membership, it is open to everyone and is the official place to get mame romsets from. The fact that you would rather get those files from the internet archive that are uploaded by a random user that you do not know or trust is far far more dangerous than downloading the official torrent from the official site.