Retroarch Current Mame-core - where to put bios-files?

[Pineappleking]

Hello,

for my setup, I will try to get Mame fully work within retroarch, for all my systems, which will only work with mame/mess.
It should be possible, or not?

My arcade-games run fine, with the mame-core.

But, for example, the system "Bally Astrocade".
It will run fine with mame (standalone). It will work fine with the following command-line: "astrocde -cart".

When I start a Bally Astrocade Game with the current mame-core within retroarch, it will show up the game-banner and after that, not more than a black sceen. No crash, no sound, no... nothing.
I think the problem is the bios file. I don´t know, were to put it in.
I´ve tried it in retroarch/rom, retroarch/system, retroarch/system/rom, retroarch/system/mame, retroarch/system/mame/rom.

Nothing worked for me.


Can someone help me?

 

[Lordmonkus]

Running console and computer games with Retroarch and the Mame core is a massive pain in the ass. It can be done and there is a thread somewhere here on the forums to do it but I would highly suggest sticking to stand alone Mame for non arcade emulation.

[Pineappleking]

10 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

Running console and computer games with Retroarch and the Mame core is a massive pain in the ass. It can be done and there is a thread somewhere here on the forums to do it but I would highly suggest sticking to stand alone Mame for non arcade emulation.

Thanks a lot. I´ve searched, but didn´t found that thread.

[bundangdon]

As Lordmonkus mentioned, it's definitely better to use the stand-alone version of Mame than the Retroarch one. However, if you plan to use the Retroarch core, I believe that the bios files need to be in the same folder where your roms-games are located in order for it to run properly.

Update: A few minutes ago, I just tried that (above) and it didn't work for me. There are certainly ways to get other systems like Astrocade and several others to work within the Retroarch Mame core, but it's a somewhat tricky process that requires "Software" files. Not impossible by any means, but not really worth the effort unless you're really stuck with using Retroarch. The stand-alone version of Mame is a lot more simple to use

Edited March 19, 2022 by bundangdon

[Lordmonkus]

Here is the thread about it:

 

And here is a post I made in the thread after setting it, I mention a couple of things I found to make it a tad easier to get working:

 

[SiriusVI]

8 hours ago, Pineappleking said:

Hello,

for my setup, I will try to get Mame fully work within retroarch, for all my systems, which will only work with mame/mess.
It should be possible, or not?

My arcade-games run fine, with the mame-core.

But, for example, the system "Bally Astrocade".
It will run fine with mame (standalone). It will work fine with the following command-line: "astrocde -cart".

When I start a Bally Astrocade Game with the current mame-core within retroarch, it will show up the game-banner and after that, not more than a black sceen. No crash, no sound, no... nothing.
I think the problem is the bios file. I don´t know, were to put it in.
I´ve tried it in retroarch/rom, retroarch/system, retroarch/system/rom, retroarch/system/mame, retroarch/system/mame/rom.

Nothing worked for me.


Can someone help me?

 

It's possible and I'm doing it, but it IS really hard to set up at first and a lot can go wrong if you don't know anything about command lines, which I didn't and still don't really.

First things first: Save yourself a lot of trouble by keeping all Mame roms, CHDs, and Software Lists organized in a single folder, so you know that if something doesn't work, it's not because some files are missing or in the wrong place.

I keep all my mame roms in "Launchbox\Games\Arcade"

So your folder structure should look something like this:

Arcade/dommy.zip (an arcade rom)
Arcade/gameboy.zip (a system bios file for gameboy)
Arcade/gameboy/sml.zip (super mario land for gameboy)
Arcade/nes/smb.zip (super mario bros for NES)

Having all mame roms organized like this, you can now use command lines to always point to the Arcade folder for your roms, which include bios files. You can still use rom sets outside of mame software lists in separate folders, such as "Launchbox\Games\Apple IIGS\" and import these rom files.

Here is an example command line for my AppleIIGS TOSEC rom set that works with retroarch's Mame Core:

"apple2gs -rp \"L:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\" -flop3 \"%romfile%\""

It will Launch Apple IIGS roms from my "Launchbox\Games\Apple IIGS\" folder, but it will look for all the relevant bios files in "Launchbox\Games\Arcade"

Edited March 19, 2022 by SiriusVI

[Pineappleking]

Thanks a lot, I will try it 🙂