Error Setting up MAME

[BabyBillyFreeman]

I'm fairly new to Launchbox, emulation, and MAME in general, only about 3 weeks into this at the moment.

 

A week ago I setup MAME on one machine with LB with no problem, I was happy to see how automated the process is. This time I tried again on another machine, and I'm coming across this error that stops the entire process of setting up MAME in LB:

 

I have no idea what causes this or how to solve it, hoping someone here can share some insight into this error?

[BabyBillyFreeman]

As a work around for now, I created a new emulator in LB from scratch and imported my entire Games/MAME/Roms directory as ROMS in LB, I have them showing up in my LB library, but when I try to run them nothing happens. I can run games no problem within MAME itself, but of course I need them to launch from LB and Big Box.

 

Here's a screen of my emulator settings, maybe there's a box ticked or unticked that is wrong? I'm not sure and I'm coming up empty on google searches. I would use the full MAME importer (worked perfect a week or so ago) but since the error from my previous post blocks the process, I'm trying to avoid the auto MAME importer method and just manually import my MAME roms like NES, Genesis, Saturn, etc.

 

 

 

Something else that's really weird is that when I imported the ROMS manually, it asked me to create the typical MAME playlists; although it created them, they are all empty.....

 

I know I'm making some newbie mistakes, I just can't figure out what, but I bet it's something obvious! Appreciate the help everyone!

[JoeViking245]

11 hours ago, BabyBillyFreeman said:

when I try to run them nothing happens. I can run games no problem within MAME itself

I see you're using an older version of MAME.  Try removing the Default Command-Line Parameters and see if that works.

[BabyBillyFreeman]

Thanks @JoeViking245 removing that command line allowed MAME to launch! The only minor issue is that my gamepad stopped working, but I fixed that by setting the input buttons again inside MAME itself.

 

Side note; since I'm stubborn and am one of those people that stays up all night until I solve a technical problem (habit I built from my day job lol) I found another work around- I ended up finding that retroarch can play MAME games (out of all the cores, only the MAME 2010 libretro core works for me! As usual, there's always a downside- the resolution with retroarch looks really bad compared to using MAME itself. Below are some screen shot comparisons for fun:

Here is retroarch:
 

 

Here is MAME:

 

 

I read that retroarch can allow for internal resolution changes if you go to the core options, but when I checked there were no options available from what I can see; you can only save or load configs. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?

If I can, I think it'd be more ideal to have retroarch play my MAME games, I prefer retroarch as I'm sure a lot of others do too!

 

Anyways, since I got into all this emulation stuff a few weeks ago (thanks to a friend that intro'd me to it) it's been a lot of fun. Definitely some bang your head on the wall moments, but all the problem solving is super gratifying and setting up your dream arcade/retro setup in LB is a ton of fun! I'm planning on building a whole arcade machine for our game room in the next 1-2 weeks, I'm thinking of going with a DIY kit from these guys: Home - Game Room Solutions

[JoeViking245]

Glad it was a simple fix.  The caveat to removing that Command-Line is that (I think this is how it goes) you can't use the controller in the LaunchBox Pause Menu.  The fix for that is to get an updated romset and its corresponding revision of MAME, then put the Custom Command-Line back in.

Regarding standalone MAME vs Retroarch+core, standalone MAME is what's recommended.  When using Retroarch, you're essentially using an emulator [core] to emulate an emulator [MAME] to play a game.  That's what's going on with the text in the 2 menus you see.  The differences you see in your gameplay images is the use of (or lack of) shaders and other thingy's I personally don't mess with.  For most any other Platform, Retroarch is your friend.

Welcome to the world of emulation.  And when you're staying up all night solving technical problems, don't forget to spend some of those nights staying up playing video games. 

[BabyBillyFreeman]

1 hour ago, JoeViking245 said:

Glad it was a simple fix.  The caveat to removing that Command-Line is that (I think this is how it goes) you can't use the controller in the LaunchBox Pause Menu.  The fix for that is to get an updated romset and its corresponding revision of MAME, then put the Custom Command-Line back in.

Regarding standalone MAME vs Retroarch+core, standalone MAME is what's recommended.  When using Retroarch, you're essentially using an emulator [core] to emulate an emulator [MAME] to play a game.  That's what's going on with the text in the 2 menus you see.  The differences you see in your gameplay images is the use of (or lack of) shaders and other thingy's I personally don't mess with.  For most any other Platform, Retroarch is your friend.

Welcome to the world of emulation.  And when you're staying up all night solving technical problems, don't forget to spend some of those nights staying up playing video games. 

HA!! Man these days I have almost no time to play any games- the irony is I make games in my day job!!! Games are what got me into a game dev career; I was obsessed with NES, Genesis, etc when I was a kid, my parents hated it and always told me it would rot my brain. Now making games is my career, and yes I still enjoy sticking it to them and rubbing it in to this day LOL

 

Gonna go ahead and order one of the pedestal kits from GRS today, gonna be epic!