Help with MAME Neo Geo

[Special T]

Hello, I have the full MAME 0.289 ROM & CHD set that I imported into LaunchBox.  All the CHD are in the correct folders in the same directory as the roms.

LaunchBox created a playlist of SNK NEO GEO MVS and those games work fine without any issues. 

Is there a way I can use those same roms without having to duplicate them to make a new "SNK Neo Geo AES" platform that I can be displayed in the consoles section? I would like them to launch the AES version instead of MVS but I'm not sure how to accomplish this. I assume I would need to duplicate the MAME emulator and enter a special command line parameter I'm just not sure what it would be.

Also, if possible, I'd prefer not to have to pick through the thousands of files to find the Neo Geo specific ones to import. I assume there is some easy way of doing this that I'm not aware of. I want to automate it as much as possible so when I update my sets I don't have to redo everything.

[JoeViking245]

46 minutes ago, Special T said:

Also, if possible, I'd prefer not to have to pick through the thousands of files to find the Neo Geo specific ones to import. I assume there is some easy way of doing this that I'm not aware of. I want to automate it as much as possible so when I update my sets I don't have to redo everything.

One way, though may not "look" easy (but really, it is) is to:

• Select your SNK NEO GEO MVS playlist
• Select all games in that playlist (click one, then press Ctrl+A)
• Tools < File Management < Export/Copy ROM Files from Selected Games to New Folder...
• Copy them to a new (temp) location
• Import those ROMs into a new Platform "SNK NEO GEO AES"
• Once done, 
  • Select the new platform
  • Select all games
  • Tools < File Management < Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games...
  • Select the original ROMs folder
• You can now delete the temp folder/files you created

Now edit your MAME emulator (in LaunchBox) and under Associated Platforms, add the new platform and put in the Default Command line Parameters to start those games as AES (which off hand, I don't know what they are. But should give you a good start towards your endeavors).

[Special T]

Thank you @JoeViking245 I appreciate your help!

I was unsure how to get the roms to boot into AES mode. After doing some research, here's what I did, I don't know if these are the correct steps but it's kind of working for me now. If some of these steps are unnecessary so others don't need to complete them please let me know.

• I followed the steps you outlined above
• I opened the mame.ini file and replaced "rompath roms" with "rompath E:\Games_Backup\Arcade\MAME\MAME ROMs (merged);roms"
• I copied the aes.zip and neogeo.zip files into the following folder "C:\_LaunchBox\_Emulators\MAME 0.289\roms\"
  • NOTE: both of those zip files are still in my mame directory as well so I just made a copy of them and placed it in my mame/roms folder
• I made a copy of my MAME emulator in LaunchBox and added the following command line parameters "aes %romfile% -bios usa"

After doing all that, the games load in AES mode but I get an error message (see screenshot)

Any idea what I did wrong or how to fix it?

Edited 5 hours ago by Special T