How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?
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However, I find there are large gaps in my collection from the Mame 0.78 and the most current release. For example, I don't have games like Mad Dog McGee, Mortal Kombat 4, Space Invaders and many others in this set. And those are some of my essentials. I tried bringing over the games from the new sets, but again, they fail to load.
space invaders is in 0.78 (invaders.zip), mad dog mcree no, mk4 no.
I tried bringing over the games from the new sets, but again, they fail to load.
of course. anything not in the 0.78 romset will not work, ever :) if you want to use later games, then you need to find out which of the supported MAMEs (or fbneo) supports them (check the gamelists or DATs), acquire the relevant set, transfer to your pi, and install and associate the relevant emulator with the rom via https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand
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Just to follow-up on this after some research. I was able to find a few more roms in my existing set that helps fill in the gaps, but I'm still a bit confused on one thing.
I have listed the roms below that are not present in the older rom set that is required to run on the default core for Retroarch. Are we saying that these games are 100% not available to play on any core version currently availabe for the Retropie? Or is there a rom set version + custom core setting that will make them at least load (I do not care of they are choppy or almost unplayable, just as long as they load somewhat). As of now they just crash back to the select menu, which is what I'm trying to fix.
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@alphabetapie which set are those from? you can see the sets that emulators in retropie support in the first table here (and of course finalburnneo has its own romset), so if it's one that's in this list then you'll have your answer.
a quick scan down your list i can see several that are definitely supported by lr-fbneo (sdiii3u, sf2hfu), but of course you will need the versions from the appropriate set.
the majority of the others are 3d later-period arcade games that are likely to be unplayable on a pi, but you could presumably boot them with later versions of mame and the appropriate romset - lr-mame2016 or mame standalone should have them all, but i'm guessing without knowing the romset version you're looking at.
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@dankcushions said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
lr-mame2016
Thanks for the info. I believe the set above is from around .225 (but don't quote me on that). The other version is .173.
Sounds like I should be able to at least get them to load if I match the right set+core. With the hopes that later hardware upgrades or Pi versions might make them playable.
One quick question on the alternative mame cores. For example, does lr-mame2016 perform as well as say the default core? If I remember correctly, it's under the optional or perhaps even the experimental packages. If I get it working on some of these missing roms, can I use it as my default across the board (providing I match up the rest of the sets)? Or would that drop my performance overall? I like the idea of having all my games under one core, but if that might hurt performance in other areas, I'll do different ones for different games if I must. Is that a good or bad idea?
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@alphabetapie said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
@dankcushions said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
lr-mame2016
Thanks for the info. I believe the set above is from around .225 (but don't quote me on that). The other version is .173.
Sounds like I should be able to at least get them to load if I match the right set+core. With the hopes that later hardware upgrades or Pi versions might make them playable.
One quick question on the alternative mame cores. For example, does lr-mame2016 perform as well as say the default core?
unlikely to. like say, the recommended cores are chosen because of good performance and because they're mature, feature-rich libretro cores. later mame versions have more sophisticated emulation which means the games that they have in common with the earlier cores will only ever run slower, and the newly supported games will likely be far too slow anyway. there are certain games that will only be viable on the later cores, and are still playable, but you'll have to experiment to find out what those are, but i would always recommend the ...recommended... cores for the titles they support.
If I remember correctly, it's under the optional or perhaps even the experimental packages. If I get it working on some of these missing roms, can I use it as my default across the board (providing I match up the rest of the sets)? Or would that drop my performance overall? I like the idea of having all my games under one core, but if that might hurt performance in other areas, I'll do different ones for different games if I must. Is that a good or bad idea?
you can, but yeah, it's a bad idea because of the above reasons.
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@dankcushions Thanks for the help/info as awlays. I'm still chipping away, trying to run down these older sets. But turns out, it's harder than anticipated. Most of the communities I'm in seem to have pruned older sets or ones that are not that active anymore.
However, I did find set 0.173, which has a huge chunk of my missing roms. But in the Retropie doc, I can't find any core that specifically says it supports this set. But it supports both older and younger ones that are almost identical (like lr-mame2016, which does support 0.174). I'm SOOO close lol. Am I missing something regarding a core that would run these, or is it just that specific that it won't work otherwise? If so, I'll just keep hunting...
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@alphabetapie the ones in the recommended list are very easy to find, seriously. i can't give any advice but i would struggle to figure out to google for something related to that list that wouldn't turn them up to be honest. obviously search for the complete set and not individual roms.
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@dankcushions said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
@alphabetapie the ones in the recommended list are very easy to find, seriously. i can't give any advice but i would struggle to figure out to google for something related to that list that wouldn't turn them up to be honest. obviously search for the complete set and not individual roms.
Yeah, but I always was a little leary of downloading things outside an established community who are typically more careful with what they upload (as to avoid virus and other malicious things that can infect you). However, after poking around on the internet archive and a few other safe sites, I did find a working set of MAME 2010. And it has virtually everything I was missing! After installing that core from the experimental packages, I'm much further along now and ready to just call it good. So I do appreciate the help.
One thing did leave me scratching my head. There are still a few games (like Street Fighter 3 for example), where I pulled the rom from the 2010 set + used the 2010 core on Retroarch, that still crash back to the main menu. Most games that don't run very well, will just be super slow or lock up at the rom check screen for example. But they will always load, they won't crash. Any idea why that might still be happening? Doesn't make sense to me, since they are both matching core+rom.
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@alphabetapie i’m not sure - i use the recommended emulators only, so i use lr-fbneo for sf3 which works great. a verbose log should show the error in 2010
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@alphabetapie said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
One thing did leave me scratching my head. There are still a few games (like Street Fighter 3 for example), where I pulled the rom from the 2010 set + used the 2010 core on Retroarch, that still crash back to the main menu.
According to my rom list info, SF3 requires a CHD file. Chances are a verbose log would confirm this. The CHDs for MAME2010 are out there, but they were not included in the romset I found at first. They got broken into two sets I guess.
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Yup, there were a few missing, and I'm still experimenting. But I'm using a combination of .78 and 2010, which gets me very close to what I need. Thanks all! Will follow up if i have any more issues.
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Damn it. Just when I thought I'm out, I get pulled back in!
So I just went to test a few more of my games that I found in either the 2010 set or the 2016 (of the ones I was missing). Turns out, several of these are the Japanese versions of the game. Star Wars Arcade and Virtual Cop being two examples, where they only have one version in the rom.zip file I can find, and both say they are for Japan only. Is it common for some of these titles from the older sets to only have non-US versions available? Or am I missing something?
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@alphabetapie do these 3d games you're trying to run on your pi actually run with any performance? Many of them have console ports that should run much better.
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@quicksilver said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
@alphabetapie do these 3d games you're trying to run on your pi actually run with any performance? Many of them have console ports that should run much better.
Only a few. Plus it's more about completing my collection of "wanted" games that I used to play int he arcades when I was a kid. I don't really care of they play well. Just so they load (for later down the line, if upgrades make them playable).
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@alphabetapie said in How to Fill in the Gaps of Mame 0.78?:
Damn it. Just when I thought I'm out, I get pulled back in!
So I just went to test a few more of my games that I found in either the 2010 set or the 2016 (of the ones I was missing). Turns out, several of these are the Japanese versions of the game. Star Wars Arcade and Virtual Cop being two examples, where they only have one version in the rom.zip file I can find, and both say they are for Japan only. Is it common for some of these titles from the older sets to only have non-US versions available? Or am I missing something?
it depends on how your romset was built. if it's a merged set, you may have to rename the rom.zip to the clone you want (consult the dat file). if it's a non-merged set, the clone you want may be in the collection under a different name.
OR it might be that all languages use the same rom, but you have to select the desired language via dip switches or service mode. i don't know to access those in non-recommended arcade emulators.
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@dankcushions would you happen to know off hand if most/all the mame roms in the .78 romset (default for the 2003 core) are US or at least in English? Just trying to get a good jumping off point before I start narrowing things down.
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@alphabetapie i doubt it’s going to be different to what I describe above for the roms you’ve described above - matter of selecting the right clone or options within. that said, for the games i play on 2003 i’ve never had to set a language for games that have english versions.
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Normally arcade ROMs are in the language of the region they were released in. Some ROMs have multilanguage versions, other have separate ROMs. I'm not sure what the question is. I think it's safe to say that Japanese pachinko games do not have English versions. Emulation is replication of hardware in software.
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Here is a great example. Virtual Cop plays OK in most cores. Not great, but can get it to load. I have only ever found one version of it (meaning I don't think I'm missing a clone or parent rom). The copyright screen says something to the effect of "This game is intended for use in Japan markets only..." And the text is in Japanese in the game.
Seems pretty clear cut this is not a dip switch issue, but rather a release issue. Seems strange that no US version of Virtual Cop is available. Unless, I'm missing something? I'm always willing to learn. Has anyone seen a US version floating around in another set?
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@alphabetapie most of the dat files for the supported MAME emulators in retropie are available in the docs: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/MAME/
so from there you can see how many versions of a given game there are. on latest mame i can see 2 versions of vcop and vcopa (revision A). these don't seem to be language designations.
doing some research: http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/dettaglio_mame.php?game_name=vcop
0.155: Changed 'Virtua Cop (Revision A)' from a parent set to clone.
so it might be that rev a was the japanese version and from 0.155 the parent is USA language, or it could be a system menu thing. but without logs or any kind of diagnostic info we're just guessing.
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