issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame

Red_Trev

hi all,

I have a Raspbery Pi 4 (8GB) with latest version of Retropie & lr-mame installed from latest binary.

I have been trying to play MAME(0.198) ROMs via lr-mame emulator.

I have been able to play 2D games, such as The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match HERO (kof98umh.zip), while the only 3D game I could get working was Tekken 3 (tekken3.zip).

Almost every other game I have tried has shown a "Loading 97%" screen and then at the bottom of the screen appears:
“Error: required files are missing, the game cannot be run."

ROMs I have are below:

This has happened on games that dont require a BIOS (mk4.zip) & also on games that do require a BIOS (sfex.zip) .

BIOS are below:

I have read else where that alot of ROMs will load in MAME but will not actually play, this is especially true in 3D games.

Is there a compatibility list for MAME(0.198) available anywhere ?

I have found this but it does not say which ROM set was used for testing: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rq4shU1RUSdcc7cTVWeORMD-mcO6BwXwQ7TGw8f5_zw/edit#gid=0

thanks in advance !

dankcushions

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I have been trying to play MAME(0.198) ROMs via lr-mame emulator.

well, lr-mame is currently 0.238 so that would be your issue, depending on when you last updated. 0.198 was current in 2018 :)

Red_Trev

@dankcushions said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I have been trying to play MAME(0.198) ROMs via lr-mame emulator.

well, lr-mame is currently 0.238 so that would be your issue, depending on when you last updated. 0.198 was current in 2018 :)

thanks for the reply ! Which Retropie emulator would you recommend instead ?
Or is there a way of converting my 0.198 ROMs / BIOSs into 0.238 ?

dankcushions

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

@dankcushions said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I have been trying to play MAME(0.198) ROMs via lr-mame emulator.

well, lr-mame is currently 0.238 so that would be your issue, depending on when you last updated. 0.198 was current in 2018 :)

thanks for the reply ! Which Retropie emulator would you recommend instead ?

you can see what versions of MAME are supported here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/MAME/#emulators

none support 0.198

Or is there a way of converting my 0.198 ROMs / BIOSs into 0.238 ?

you can rebuild romsets, however you can't effectively 'roll forward' an older romset. see note 1. besides, it's infinitely easier to just acquire the romset you need for the emulator you want to use, rather than try and rebuild what you have.

that said, if the outcome you're seeking is 3d MAME games on a pi4, i would say it's probably not worth the effort. even if you get it working performance is going to be bad.

Red_Trev

@dankcushions I am having same issues with MAME 0.226 ROM set, I guess alot of games simply dont work properly

G30FF

@red_trev MAME romsets are tied to a specific version of the emulator. That's because MAME recognizes which roms are supported by storing the checksums of the various rom files, and will not run the game if any of the required files are missing or invalid. In some cases, better dumps of the games are found/created, or missing data that was not dumped previously is found or extracted, and newer versions of MAME will be updated to support these new and/or updated files, meaning that the previous roms will no longer be acknowledged. Sometimes older roms work in a newer version of MAME because the romsets for those games did not change between the version the rom was built for and the newer release of MAME, but those are often the exception, not the rule. You need to make sure your MAME roms match the version of the emulator you're using, and in lr-mame's case, it's going to match whatever the most recent version of MAME standalone is, which as @dankcushions said, is now 0.238.

Also as they said, if you want to play 3D games on the Pi 4, you're probably going to be SOL. Current MAME already requires beefier PC specs than the Pi 4 offers, and even some older games will run slower due to more accurate emulation in the newer MAME releases, which requires more computing power. For example, Tekken, Time Crisis, and Rival Schools in your list may run, but will be so slow that they're unplayable. In those cases you may be better served with the PS1 ports, as they will be infinitely more playable. A good rule of thumb for MAME on the Pi 4 is that if the game requires a .chd file to play, it's usually not worth trying, because these games require virtual hard drives to run, and the Pi 4 cannot emulate these virtual drives fast enough to be playable.

dankcushions

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I am having same issues with MAME 0.226 ROM set,

0.226 is still not right:

@dankcushions said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

well, lr-mame is currently 0.238

@g30ff said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

A good rule of thumb for MAME on the Pi 4 is that if the game requires a .chd file to play, it's usually not worth trying, because these games require virtual hard drives to run, and the Pi 4 cannot emulate these virtual drives fast enough to be playable.

i'm with you apart from this point :) CHD games tend not to work well because they're latter period arcade games which are 3d or otherwise complex. however the hard-drive part is not the issue - several simpler CHD games can perform ok, eg beatmania, street fighter III, and so on. at least, on older mame cores (probably not current MAME, which may struggle on the pi with many simple titles). indeed several console (dreamcast, psx, etc) cores support CHD files, with no additional performance hit.

barbudreadmon

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I guess alot of games simply dont work properly

While that's true (i'm not even sure a third of MAME supported romsets are "playable" - let alone "bug-free" - and most of them are 2D), make sure you always have the romsets AND bioses matching exactly your arcade emulator version. Clrmamepro is your best friend for doing that.

G30FF

@dankcushions said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

i'm with you apart from this point :)

Hence why I said "usually"! ;) I've actually got some games, like Area 51 and Maximum Force, working on mine with CHDs (lr-mame2016), not to mention Naomi games in flycast. And I've compressed all of my disc based games as CHDs to save space, and it's incredibly convenient. I just remember reading some old discussions about games like Killer Instinct, where the emulated speed of the drive was one of the cited reasons for it not working at full speed.

Red_Trev

@barbudreadmon said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I guess alot of games simply dont work properly

While that's true (i'm not even sure a third of MAME supported romsets are "playable" - let alone "bug-free" - and most of them are 2D), make sure you always have the romsets AND bioses matching exactly your arcade emulator version. Clrmamepro is your best friend for doing that.

I have seen the exact same issue on Arcana Heart across 3 different MAME versions, so I think its the ROM rather than the emulator. Also I cannot find any YouTube footage of it working on MAME. However I will give Clrmamepro a try:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating%2C-Rebuilding%2C-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/

dankcushions

@g30ff said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I just remember reading some old discussions about games like Killer Instinct, where the emulated speed of the drive was one of the cited reasons for it not working at full speed.

yeah i just i don’t agree with that! emulating the entire n64 (sort of) architecture on a single low power ARM core is the issue. a hard drive from 1994 is not :)

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I have seen the exact same issue on Arcana Heart across 3 different MAME versions, so I think its the ROM rather than the emulator.

unless it’s the same romset version and MAME version there’s no reason to expect it to work.

but still, a fighting game from 2005 is not going to be playable. it may not even boot depending on memory demands.

barbudreadmon

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I think its the ROM rather than the emulator.

You think wrong :

as i told you, clrmamepro is your friend, so you are supposed to know if you are using the right rom or not, no need to think here, as long as you don't skip the step of verifying your romset, there'll never be a "rom problem" in arcade emulators
http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/dettaglio_mame.php?game_name=acheart => that game isn't playable in MAME, even including latest version

Red_Trev

@barbudreadmon said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

@red_trev said in issues with MAME(0.198) ROMs on lr-mame:

I think its the ROM rather than the emulator.

You think wrong :

as i told you, clrmamepro is your friend, so you are supposed to know if you are using the right rom or not, no need to think here, as long as you don't skip the step of verifying your romset, there'll never be a "rom problem" in arcade emulators

http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/dettaglio_mame.php?game_name=acheart => that game isn't playable in MAME, even including latest version

thank you for the link ! I will check the few games I am looking to play if they work in MAME , I have everything else I need already working in FBNeo

Riverstorm

As the name implies it's basically CHDs (Compressed Hunks of Data) are typically any type of "rotating media" of the day, like a CD/DVD/Laser Disc/Hard Disk. Basically an image that is used along with the ROMs. I think the MAME core folks developed the CHD format.

They are just games that have more detailed graphics, more audio, better processing, better whatever...streaming graphics, streaming audio, etc. requiring more space than a ROM chip can hold. I think Killer Instinct used FMVs (one of the 1st?) and Carnevil streams a good amount of the game as it was digitized footage. I imagine it's more about a particular games "demands/requirements" and less about it being CHD based. I don't think the overhead of accessing the image alone is making it "unplayable".