Utterly lost newbie

Folly

Rome wasn't build in a day you know.
Be patient and take your time to figure it out.

If you have uppercase filenames try changing them to lowercase filenames.
With normal use, mame emulators, use a software list database.
This search method is case sensitive.
In other words, the rom that you run, is checked in a database.
If the name exists then it will see inside the zip file if it can find all the roms required.
Try using lr-mame2003 first.

Perhaps you will have luck as there is some overlap in rom versions.

In this post under Arcade you can find some legally downloadable roms :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10918/where-to-legally-acquire-content-to-play-on-retropie

I suggest you start with that.
circus.zip should run.

When you start a rom, you can press a key.
If you do this you can select other emulators for example.
In this same menu you can also select : launch with verbose mode
If you select this a /dev/shm/runcommand.log file is created.
In there you can see the loading process and what roms are found and what is missing.
This way you can solve problems.

Lister of Smeg

@pietdummie
broadly speaking you have two options
1 - learn how to use clrmamepro and dat files to build romsets for any arcade emulator
You would need to have the latest Mame romset and a rollback romset - it's a steepish learning curve but means you don't have to redownload gigs of roms when/if you update the emulator

2 - quick and dirty - find the latest fbneo romset and bung it on your sd card

the roms you already have could have been redumped many times since '98 as methods and tools improved over the years / new chips added etc - I would just forget about them
just checked the crc's - none of the 0.31 puckman roms exist anymore in the latest dats / they've certainly been redumped at some stage

JimmyFromTheBay

@pietdummie: We can't give you links to ROMs. But what you're looking for is a MAME2003 REFERENCE SET.

pietdummie

Thanks for your replies guys. I managed to get another set of ROMs (.zip files) and these new ones DO work with lr-mame2003. So a number of these new ROMs have the same name eg PUCKMAN.ZIP (ignore case) but different contents than the PUCKMAN.ZIP I tried before.

The thing that confuses me is that I assumed that the ROM's are simply the exact images of the ROMs as they were present in the actual arcade machines. So for example someone has an old 1980 PacMan arcade system, opens the system, manages to get the ROMs out, read them and then has the binary images. Those images - in my perception - should never change. They are the undisputable source. That's why I don't understand the need for and existence of different ROM sets.

How about the following analogy: ROM set is book, emulators = translations into different languages; no matter what language I would want the book translated to, the source - the book itself - would not change. However, here, in emulator land, it seems that the book itself has different contents depending on what language it's translated to. The PUCKMAN.ZIP file for mame 0.31 has different contents than the PUCKMAN.ZIP file for mame 0.122 (which happens to be the version used in that new set of ROMs I got). That part I still don't understand and would love to understand why. There was a link provided above but that didn't really make it clear to me.

dankcushions

@pietdummie romsets change for many different reasons so there’s no single answer, but there’s an attempt here:
https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/aboutromsets.html#troubleshooting-your-rom-sets-and-the-history-of-roms

jamrom2

@pietdummie maybe I can help a little. I found after over nearly 25 years of playing with MAME and romsets, the best way to handle ROMS is to choose what emulator version you want to run and build from there. So if you are going with lr-mame2003 then you will need the MAME .78 romsets which is readily available by doing a Google search. Start there. Then as you find more games that you are missing move up to other versions of MAME and their specific romsets. lr-mame2010 uses MAME .139... Etc. Many games work better on 2010 than 2003, some work better on 2003 plus..etc. you have to experiment.

Puckman is what's called a "parent rom". It's actually the original Pac-Man as it was named before it came to the US/EU market. So it's required to be in your ROMs directory in order for Pac-Man and several other versions to work. You can actually unzip the Puckman ROM and dump its contents into the Pac-Man set and it should work. That's more or less what clrmame does. It cleans up romsets for each version of MAME. For you. But if you only want to run let's say 100 or so specific games, you can target the errors and correct the yourself if need be.

Use the "arcade" folder. It's the best option because you can load whatever version of MAME you want and it will see the roms in that folder. If you use the MAME specific ROM folders, you will have a MAME listing for every version in you ES menu.

Google is your friend for all of this. But start with a romsets like .78 or .139 and go from there. You can try the FB emulator as well. That's a good one too. But start simple and learn where all the samples and roms go, and what they work best with.

Example: Astro Blaster uses the .78 rom, but works really well with lr-MAME2010 (.139). The sounds are evenly attenuated in the 2010 version.

It takes a lot of experimentation, but you'll get it.

Clyde

@jamrom2 said in Utterly lost newbie:

Puckman is what's called a "parent rom". It's actually the original Pac-Man as it was named before it came to the US/EU market. So it's required to be in your ROMs directory in order for Pac-Man and several other versions to work.

To be precise, that's only true for "split" romsets. It doesn't apply to "merged" and "non-merged" romsets. The differences are explained here (link more for @pietdummie than for you, as I presume that you know this already).

Not trying to be nitpicky here, but if we try to explain the mystical art of romset-fu to a total newbee, we should be as accurate as possible. 😇

jamrom2

@clyde lol. I was getting there. Hence the clrmame mention. I've found that tip about loading MAME on a PC and running the games always helped me as well. The failed roms will tell you what's missing. In the past, I would just wait for a new complete MAME release and then just pull down a new romset dump. I'm still waiting for a fully functional Space Guerilla...they've almost got it in the latest set.

But in the end, it is about matching romsets to versions first, then tweaking from there. Maybe a YouTube video is in order?

Clyde

@jamrom2 There seem to be quite a few already. Or what else do you have in mind?

pietdummie

Thanks guys, it's all clear to me now. I got myself a .37b5, a .78, a .139 and a .159 set. For now I will stick to the .139 set on my Pi 4.

jamrom2

@clyde not for clrmame. I was thinking for setting up romsets to mame versions on RetroPie. Its probably done already, I just never checked.