"how to" mame beginners

drewpie1895

@rbaker i followed the guide i believe , i downloaded folders from the reference set on [Link Redacted] 0.78 zip 2003 set , i copied those into the arcade folder using the go/connect option , when i turn on the raspberry pi 3 only three games show up and won't let me enter , used the run command menu also to make sure the 0.78 are with ir name 2003.

caver01

@drewpie1895 forum rules: Don't post details about where to obtain ROMs.

drewpie1895

@caver01 mate honestly if you want to earn an easy £100 come round to mine and sort it please. thanks

caver01

@drewpie1895 Sounds like you will have to also pay for my flight from Portland, Oregon USA, cuz I am not taking a boat. Besides, you are off to a great start! You will be much better off in the long run understanding what you have, and how to leverage the possible ways to launch games in MAME. You asked what the challenges were, and if you can understand MAME ROMs, the rest is cake.

mediamogul

@drewpie1895

While that organization was granted exemption from DMCA in America, this is an international forum. ROM links are not allowed.

drewpie1895

@caver01 apologies but this is half the problem.

caver01

@drewpie1895 said in "how to" name beginners:

@caver01 apologies but this is half the problem.

The good news is that the Raspberry Pi is a learning/educational platform. It was built for the purpose of technology education. The fact that you are learning is the other half. RetroPie makes it easier, but it is not supposed to be "easy", rather it is "possible" and you are asking good questions. The documentation is also very good, and you can always reformat and start again and again.

rbaker

@drewpie1895

i downloaded folders from the reference set

But did you unzip the archive to reveal a full reference set of MAME roms, each being a zipped file?

go/connect option

I have never heard of this

when i turn on the raspberry pi 3 only three games show up

Don't you mean emulators? Emulators show up only when you add roms. Sounds to me like you copied over zipped archives as opposed to zipped romsets. What are the names of these files you transferred? Honestly, if you followed the guide, there is not a lot that can go wrong.

used the run command menu also to make sure the 0.78 are with ir name 2003.

Put them in the Arcade folder.

mitu

@drewpie1895 You need to copy the .zip files from inside the ROM folder you downloaded to the arcade ROM folder. The zip files must be directly copied in that folder on your retropie. After you copied them, restart Emulationstation and check the Arcade system again.

rbaker

@drewpie1895 It would help if you described exactly what you did in order as asked previously. Leave out no detail.

drewpie1895

@caver01 not supposed to be this difficult

rbaker

@drewpie1895 said in "how to" name beginners:

not supposed to be this difficult

It's not. Get a rom, place it in the arcade folder, reboot, play. You are missing something obvious. Something that is probably related to the transfer process.

caver01

@drewpie1895 said in "how to" name beginners:

@caver01 not supposed to be this difficult

Hmm. It is what it is. Difficulty is subjective. I don't think it is that tough, but I have been using MAME for a very long time. Either you learn what you need to learn in order to do it, or you turn your attention toward a different project. There is no shame in that, but there is also no requirement that any of this should be easier than it is. It is not like a commercial product with guaranteed expectations. Either you pickup and run with it having a LOT of complicated stuff already worked out for you by developer/volunteers as they have, or not. Nobody is forcing you to build a RetroPie system.

drewpie1895

@rbaker where does it say in the guide about unzipping files? elsewhere it says raspberry pi expects files to be zipped.

caver01

@drewpie1895 said in "how to" name beginners:

@rbaker where does it say in the guide about unzipping files? elsewhere it says raspberry pi expects files to be zipped.

Yeah, there is some ambiguity here. The individual game ROMs are zipped and they need to stay zipped, but the entire set of these games usually comes in a giant zip file (zips inside of zips). That big file needs to be unzipped so that the thousands of games can come out if it and into your Arcade folder. Those game files stay zipped.

rbaker

@drewpie1895 This is a fact that has nothing to do with retropie. Most commonly, on the internet, files are archived - just like the image that you downloaded. To get the image, I unzip the archive. It's just what you do. Unless you use etcher - you do not need to unzip first. If I email photos, I zip them first. The documentation is referring to the fact that once you have you roms, you leave them zipped. For example, invders.zip. I place it in the Arcade folder and I play it.

drewpie1895

@rbaker honestly i appreciate your help but this is stupid, i'll find another way or somebody else who can show me , usually youtube is good for this kind of thing but obviously not this specific topic. maybe in the future i will make a video for complete mongs who are new to this and not experienced people like yourselves , happy gaming.

caver01

@drewpie1895 You are only like one file in a folder away from getting this working. Once you do, you will know how to move forward. You can do this.

rbaker

@drewpie1895 You still haven't described what you did and in what order, we are still guessing. I feel though that we have found the possible issue. Are you ready to name the files you transferred yet so that we can verify our theory?

jonnykesh

@caver01 I hate to see people give up. I think he's just frustrated to be honest. Sometimes walking away for a while and coming back fresh can sort things.