Anyone know why Tournament Arkanoid isn't showing up in MAME?

SpudsMcToole

The ROMset (arkatour) is listed as compatible with just about every version of MAME supported by Retropie, but it won't show up in my ROMs list. Scratching my head here.

lostless

@SpudsMcToole 1. Did you reboot EmulationStation?
2. Did you rename the zip file? Don't do that for arcade roms.
3. You using the right romset? Sometimes arcade rom names
change and you might a version that is not compatible.

SpudsMcToole

Yes, I always reboot ES when adding new ROMs. No, I didn't change the name from "arkatour". Yes, it's the right ROMset. It'd still show up if it wasn't, it just wouldn't work.

It may be relevant that Tournament Arkanoid, I note, no longer shows up in EmuLoader on my PC.

mitu

Are you sure you don't have the 'Parge Gamelists Only' option active ?
I just tested with an ES installation and the arkatour.zip file is shown - even if it's just an empty file:

SpudsMcToole

@mitu

"Are you sure you don't have the 'Parge Gamelists Only' option active ?"

Does who have the what WHERE now?

Anyway, I solved the problem just by manually adding a complete entry in the GAMELIST.XML file. But Tournament Arkanoid definitely seems to have fallen off the official support list.

mitu

@SpudsMcToole said in Anyone know why Tournament Arkanoid isn't showing up in MAME?:

Does who have the what WHERE now?

Sorry, I meant Parse Gamelists Only option:

But Tournament Arkanoid definitely seems to have fallen off the official support list.

I don't know what that means ?

SpudsMcToole

@mitu What else would it parse other than gamelists?

mitu

What else would it parse other than gamelists?

The files on disk.

Emulationstation has a list of configured folders for each system/platform and each folder having has a list of file extensions assigned (/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg), so it knows which files represent games/roms.
For instance, the arcade folder has the .zip extension among the ones that it recognises as game, so you copy arkatour.zip to that folder, restart ES and you see the game show up in the list. When exiting, ES writes back to the gamelist file (gamelist.xml) the .zip file entry and the corresponding metadata (artwork path, # of players, etc.) - except if you've disabled the Save Metadata on Exit option (see the screenshot posted).

Now, if you toggle Parse Gamelists Only, ES will no longer scan the folder for .zip entries, but instead show only the entries it finds in the gamelist.xml file for the arcade folder - without checking on disk for the existence of the files (added or deleted from the arcade folder).
Hence, if you have this option enabled, if you add a new .zip file in the arcade folder, you game list in the front-end will not include this new file.

SpudsMcToole

@mitu Aha. No, I didn't have that selected, ES recognises any new compatible ROM files I add to the folder.

mitu

@SpudsMcToole said in Anyone know why Tournament Arkanoid isn't showing up in MAME?:

ES recognises any new compatible ROM files I add to the folder.

Compatible with what ? ES doesn't have that notion - it merely looks at the file extension and doesn't care about the contents.
What version of Emulationstation are you using ?

SpudsMcToole

@mitu You know what I mean - any file with one of the extensions listed in ES_SYSTEMS.CFG.

mitu

The default es_systems.cfg hasn't removed any extensions for arcade related ROMs and .zip is one of the supported file extensions - seeing that almost all arcade ROMs are distributed as .zip archives.
You can look at the source here.

Clyde

@SpudsMcToole Maybe the file permissions of arkatour.zip aren't correct. Please show us the output of this command, entered in Retropie's console which you land in after pressing F4 in Emulation Station:

ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/arkatour.zip

The -l is a small L, not the number 1. If you're using another directory than mame-libretro for your MAME games (e.g. arcade), change the path above accordingly.

You can return to Emulation Station by entering exit in the console.

SpudsMcToole

@mitu I know. Like I say, it works now anyway. I'm just a bit puzzled why it didn't show until I forced it to.

Clyde

@SpudsMcToole And I know that it works, I just wanted to help you solving the puzzle in retrospective. 🔍🙂