Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

jamrom2

@folly got it working... your BIOS file list there helped. From there I did a little more searching to find what I needed which was the answer. I needed to create two more .zip files with the names dragon32.zip and dragon_fdc.zip with the files in it listed like this...

dragon32.zip -- contains d32.rom, and ddos10.rom
dragon64.zip -- contains d64_1.rom , d64_2.rom , and ddos10.rom
dragon_fdc.zip -- contains ddos10.rom

This little list might need to be added to docs at some point. I know a lot of these Emus are very finicky as to what they need for BIOS files and how they need to be named.

I created the dragon32.zip file with what is listed above and it boots to a DragonDOS prompt. But no games run.

so... how do the games play? I have a ton of CAS based files. All that happens it the emulator goes to DOS.

Thanks for the help!

JamR

JimmyFromTheBay

@jamrom2

I created the dragon32.zip file with what is listed above and it boots to a DragonDOS prompt. But no games run.

so... how do the games play? I have a ton of CAS based files. All that happens it the emulator goes to DOS.

Thanks for the help!

With a .CAS file you need to load it. Most games will be in machine code so you need to type CLOADM. If you get an "FM ERROR" it was in BASIC, so you'd type CLOAD instead.

Most will autorun on loading, but if they don't you need to type EXEC for machine-code games or RUN for BASIC ones.

HOWEVER, if you're working from a Dragon DOS prompt you may find that games appear to have loaded but then don't run properly. That's because lots and lots of them really don't like the DDOS BIOS. The solution is to edit your EMULATORS.CFG to include this line:

lr-mess-system-dragon32-cass = "/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/run_mess.sh /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so /opt/retropie/configs/dragon32/retroarch.cfg \dragon32 /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame -autoframeskip -ui_active -ext ram -cass %ROM%"

and run it from that. That should boot from the standard Dragon OS, not the disk one, and your games should work.

Folly

@jamrom2 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly got it working... your BIOS file list there helped.

Nice !

I created the dragon32.zip file with what is listed above and it boots to a DragonDOS prompt. But no games run.

so... how do the games play? I have a ton of CAS based files. All that happens it the emulator goes to DOS.

With mame and lr-mess you have to know how the computer works.
There isn't an autoboot by default. (although there are options that can be added into the commandline)
Read post one from this thread and look at @dmmarti 's google sheet, there you should find how to load the cas files.
And there are other posts on the forum on how to do it.
If you can't work it out then let me know, then I will look for it.
EDIT: Jimmy has already made a post for you.
Remember that the emulators.cfg line he proposes uses the BIOS/mame directory.
And... , as said earlier, you can just install that line from the front-end.
That way you have all emulators.cfg line including the mame and the lr-mess game-specific ones ;-)

I think mine is booting into basic and from there I insert the commands.
Sometimes you have to use the scroll-lock button to go into game-focus-mode.
Otherwise the keys will act as hotkeys.

Thanks for the help!

JamR

Your welcome.
Please upvote post 1, if you think this is a good project ;-)

JimmyFromTheBay

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@jimmyfromthebay

Have you sent the originals, not resized or something like that ?

I got both of them from the artwork files on Mr Do's page.

Folly

@isidoro80

I just tested apfm1000 for you.
For me it was the first time and it worked out the box with both lr-mess and mame.
I didn't even need a game.
I just created a dummy file rocketp.zip as a game file and it booted a rocket game by default.
So it should work.
Maybe you have wrong bios files.
I use this one :
pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame $ sha1sum apfm*
87fd4de8f8b3d2dbb65eb0d89f43e02a0543d743 apfm1000.zip
But looking at the mame log it seems I have a wrong bios file.
I wants this one within the zip :
apf_4000.rom SHA1(1110a234bcad99bd0894ad44c591389d16376ca4)

Folly

@jimmyfromthebay said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@jimmyfromthebay

Have you sent the originals, not resized or something like that ?

I got both of them from the artwork files on Mr Do's page.

Thanks,

I have tried with the warp transformation with better results.
But I tried lr-mame2003 and after testing my leds are gone, no idea why.
I will try something different, if I have the time.

Folly

@jamrom2 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

This little list might need to be added to docs at some point. I know a lot of these Emus are very finicky as to what they need for BIOS files and how they need to be named.

Basically, when you download the correct mame bios files the are already named that way.
And... the runcommand.log will give you the "names" of the zip files it's looking for.
You can also use the command mame to list which bios files it needs with, for example :

pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame $ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listroms dragon32
ROMs required for driver "dragon32".
Name                                   Size Checksum
d32.rom                               16384 CRC(e3879310) SHA1(f2dab125673e653995a83bf6b793e3390ec7f65a)
ddos10.rom                             8192 CRC(b44536f6) SHA1(a8918c71d319237c1e3155bb38620acb114a80bc)

isidoro80

@folly i have only apfm1000.zip. i use rom.zip it's wrong?

isidoro80

This post is deleted!

isidoro80

@folly now all right. The bios wrong. I have two questions. where do i find the mess gui commands? i can't navigate mess gui. apfm1000 only works with lr-mess cmd while with lr-mess basename it doesn't work. When should the different mess start options be used?

DTEAM

@isidoro80
Try "select" and "Y" on your game pad (sometime it works for lr-mess).

Folly

@isidoro80 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly now all right. The bios wrong. I have two questions. where do i find the mess gui commands? i can't navigate mess gui. apfm1000 only works with lr-mess cmd while with lr-mess basename it doesn't work. When should the different mess start options be used?

Do you mean that you have apfm1000 running now because earlier you had a wrong bios file ?

Basically the cmd and basename lines are for running filenames that match the mame_softlists.
The cmdline can also load a text-file that contains a manual command.

The other options are for loading the media directly without checking the softlist database, sort of speak.
With the game specific option you are running media directly and it will store mame/mess configs per game if the mame/mess gui is used.

To get into the GUI @DTEAM made a suggestion for using the gamepad.
You can also use TAB from your keyboard.
If the TAB key doesn't work you have use SCROLL-LOCK to switch game-focus back and forth.

isidoro80

@folly 552 / 5000
Risultati della traduzione
I had two problems. corrupted bios file. furthermore, the apfm1000 bios file must be placed inside the folder where the roms are and not in / home / pi / RetroPie / roms / bios. I don't know why in my case it works like this but I used the same configuration for emerson arcadia and it works. I am able to enter mess gui and with the tab key to move in the different menu frames. I can't find a button to confirm the choices and move between the different items in the boxes.

Folly

@isidoro80 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly 552 / 5000
Risultati della traduzione
I had two problems. corrupted bios file. furthermore, the apfm1000 bios file must be placed inside the folder where the roms are and not in / home / pi / RetroPie / roms / bios. I don't know why in my case it works like this but I used the same configuration for emerson arcadia and it works. I am able to enter mess gui and with the tab key to move in the different menu frames. I can't find a button to confirm the choices and move between the different items in the boxes.

Placing the bios in the rom directory can indeed work.
We did that also years ago running Philips CDI the first time when the scripts weren't there yet.
Read the comments in this script, and you learn a lot about the structure on how you are using it now :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/retropie-philips-cdi-tools/blob/master/retropie_philips_cdi_setup.sh

Trouble is though, lr-mess and mame will check the directory structure for system names and will run to the softlist database accordingly.
If there is just 1 thing that is missing or changed it won't work and it's very hard to get a solution.
That is why we focus here more on running the media directly VS running them using the softlists.

I noticed that you have a very old mame running, it's ancient !
I already run mame 0.233.
If everything is that old, including retropie, you should make a new image and try everything again.
Your problems could just depend on the software being just too old.
Also, you should not get into the screen you posted.
You should be able to run directly into a system.

I also suggest you read post 1 of this thread thoroughly.
This will help you on how everything works.
If you can, also try to read the script, i have placed many comments in the script. that should make you aware of how everything works.

Be cheerful, in time you will get it.

isidoro80

@folly 337 / 5000

hello not the picture is taken from the internet. i have the latest version of retropie, retroarch and mess. I can move from the left square to the bottom one (not seen in the image). I don't know how to scroll through the items in the left menu and then confirm to enter the items. example I don't know how to enter the year menu on the left. thank you so much for your help

jamrom2

@jimmyfromthebay said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

lr-mess-system-dragon32-cass = "/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/run_mess.sh /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so /opt/retropie/configs/dragon32/retroarch.cfg \dragon32 /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame -autoframeskip -ui_active -ext ram -cass %ROM%"

Thank you for this! Worked great. I was typing in those commands, but because I was booting into DDOS10, they were unrcognized. This line helped solve that. I can now load the games. Maybe that line needs to be added by default as the CASS command rather than what's there. Without you posting that, I would never have figured that out. I think this project is outstanding, however, you definately need a little more knowledge and skill with these more "complicated" PC style emulators.

Please keep up the good work!

jamrom2

@folly Thank you very much. I will do that, and as I stated in the previous post, I think this project is outstanding. It's great to have so many more options to add-in to the list of working systems from a time long gone.

I never owned a Dragon32 or Tandy TRS-80 , but I wanted to add them just for the sake of having so many running on my unit like a museum so to speak.

Up vote I definitely will!

jamrom2

@folly Hiya again...

Major issues now. First let me say what does work, works good.

I originally loaded the first "version" of this project almost a year ago whereas I had to source compile the MESS build, then it gave me a list of lr-mess-xxx options to choose from. I picked each, it loaded, I had to dump the BIOS files in the main BIOS folder, then all was good.

What I am doing now is moving over to this new build, as it seems better because its supported and using the latest versions of MESS/MAME. BUT>> I'm having issues getting the emulators to run. So here is what I am seeing.

I follow the RetroPie Setup menu to configuration/tools and eventually pick the emulator. Let's use Astrocade as the example. It builds the file structure, all is good. I then move my previously installed BIOS files that I know worked in the previous MESS build from \home\pi\Retropie\BIOS to \home\pi\Retropie\mame. Now I lost the Astrocade logo and game list in my ES menu. No matter what I do, nothing displays. Same for Apple IIe, Apple IIgs, and Philips CDi.

What I find odd is that this process worked fine with Dragon32 and Super Cassette Vision. They are listed and load/play no problem.

Any thoughts where I am going wrong with this. Seemed simple enough but other than those two, I've lost all the other MESS based cores I had loaded.

Thanks

*** update... I realized this is BIOS issues. I've gotten some to work now. SCV and CDi. So what version of MESS is running? That would give me an idea what to look for.

Folly

@jamrom2

I read that you have found some solutions that is great.

Did you realize ?
Backups are important, I have had that lesson too ;-(.
Next time you should make a new image before messing with a good working image, don't you agree ;-)

Perhaps I don't have to mention but you should use \home\pi\Retropie\BIOS\mame instead of \home\pi\Retropie\mame .
You forgot the BIOS part.

Now I lost the Astrocade logo and game list in my ES menu.

Did you move the games files from \home\pi\Retropie\roms\astrocade to some other directory ?
If you did that then they aren't displayed anymore in the ES menu.

*** update... I realized this is BIOS issues. I've gotten some to work now. SCV and CDi. So what version of MESS is running? That would give me an idea what to look for.

Indeed the new mame and lr-mess will sometimes need newer bios files.
I know with Philips CDI you definitely need more roms inside the zip file.
Don't worry, we have all been there before ;-)

I use mame 0.233 and lr-mess 0.231 (or 0.232)

Search the web for mame-0.231-merged

jamrom2

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@jamrom2

I read that you have found some solutions that is great.

Did you realize ?
Backups are important, I have had that lesson too ;-(.
Next time you should make a new image before messing with a good working image, don't you agree ;-)

Perhaps I don't have to mention but you should use \home\pi\Retropie\BIOS\mame instead of \home\pi\Retropie\mame .
You forgot the BIOS part.

Now I lost the Astrocade logo and game list in my ES menu.

Did you move the games files from \home\pi\Retropie\roms\astrocade to some other directory ?
If you did that then they aren't displayed anymore in the ES menu.

*** update... I realized this is BIOS issues. I've gotten some to work now. SCV and CDi. So what version of MESS is running? That would give me an idea what to look for.

Indeed the new mame and lr-mess will sometimes need newer bios files.
I know with Philips CDI you definitely need more roms inside the zip file.
Don't worry, we have all been there before ;-)

I use mame 0.233 and lr-mess 0.231 (or 0.232)

Search the web for mame-0.231-merged

OK, I'm back to working condition. I had to fall back to previous emulator settings for a few like Apple II, Astrocade and Apple IIgs. For whatever reason, this build did not like anything I threw at it as far as BIOS files.

What was really tough was the Apple series. I could not get the Apple II to use the Apple II emulator. I never listed it in the emulators.cfg using this build. Only the Appple IIgsr1 model was listed. So the games would load, but used the Apple IIgs BIOS. Even more troubling was that I could not get the actual Apple IIgs to show. I had to fall back to my original package and use that. Once I did that for both, I was back to where I was, but now using the latest lr-mess build with new BIOS files.

No worries. I'm happy with what I have, just took all day to get it there. And NOW I'll do a backup. LOL. But you're right, I should have done that first before playing around.

Best

JamR