How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide
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@Floob is there any chance to compile wolfmame on rpi3?
No matter wich version i think 106-139 could be great.
Thanks. -
For using Romlister or filtering mame roms.
Once you create your list, what do you do create a .dat file and just put that in the directory. How does this translate to a list or .xml that Retropie can read and filter?
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@Twitch0815 There are a few ways to cut this, but once I have my list I create/export to a batch file. This batch file can be quickly configured in romlister to copy the relevant roms from your main set to a new/custom location.
Then if you like you can get clrmamepro to generate a .dat based on your new romsets.
RetroPie doesnt really care about reading .dat/.xml or anything as long as the .zip files originated from the correct romset versions.Mini guide: http://blog.petrockblock.com/forums/topic/mame-versions-and-romsets-on-retropie/#post-93597
I’m not sure I do this in the most efficient way, but I export from Romlister as a batch file that copies the romsets into a new folder.
– Get your filtered list in Romlister
– Choose “Batch File” in the export list
– Click “Save list to file”
– Type a name for the batch file, for example “createfilteredroms.bat”
– Click Save
– The dialog box says “copy %ROM%.zip c:\mame\roms” that directory should be the one you want to create the new smaller romset list into. So change it as appropriate.
– Then click “Ok” takes a few seconds, then quit out of romlister.
– Move the created batch file into your original rom directory, and double click it to run it
– This will copy your selected roms into that new directory which you can then copy across to the PiYou can optionally create a new .dat file for this filtered directory with clrmamepro using its Dir2Dat function. That could be useful if you need to build it from scratch, or hand the list to someone else.
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Cool thanks that will help alot
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Hello to all,
I have RPi3 + Retropie4.
Yesterday I tried to play Arcade games (dnd, kof, msug), but none of them are worked : (
I spent about 3 hours: try some different bios's, different roms and different emulators (lr-mame2003, lr-mame4all),
after that I googled that lr-mame2003 and lr-mame4all are too old and I should use more modern - mame2010.
I've found that lr-mame2010 is already exists in the RetroPi-Setup and just installed it and used it as a default arcade emulator.
After that all roms are worked fine.
That was too long quest for me. I think lr-mame2010 should be used as default emulator instead of mame2003.Please tell me, why Retropie "out of the box" have two old versions of mame, instead of worked mame2010? Is there any reason for this?
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@k0st1x said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
I spent about 3 hours: try some different bios's, different roms and different emulators (lr-mame2003, lr-mame4all),
These hours would be better spent reading the first post of this topic and the RetroPie's Managing ROMs wiki page. :-)
I think lr-mame2010 should be used as default emulator instead of mame2003.
You think it because you have the romset that works in lr-mame2010 (0.139). This is not the case for everyone.
Please tell me, why Retropie "out of the box" have two old versions of mame, instead of worked mame2010? Is there any reason for this?
Yes. The reasons are detailed on the first post of this topic and in the wiki page.
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@k0st1x said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
Hello to all,
I have RPi3 + Retropie4.
Yesterday I tried to play Arcade games (dnd, kof, msug), but none of them are worked : (
I spent about 3 hours: try some different bios's, different roms and different emulators (lr-mame2003, lr-mame4all),
after that I googled that lr-mame2003 and lr-mame4all are too old and I should use more modern - mame2010.
I've found that lr-mame2010 is already exists in the RetroPi-Setup and just installed it and used it as a default arcade emulator.
After that all roms are worked fine.
That was too long quest for me. I think lr-mame2010 should be used as default emulator instead of mame2003.simply, you had a 0.139 romset (or closer) so mame2010 was the only one that was ever going to work for you. but if users are going to ignore the documentation and just download a random romset, rather than the one appropriate to the mame emulator they want to use (eg, mame2003 is 0.78), then what's the point of us setting a default? :)
Please tell me, why Retropie "out of the box" have two old versions of mame, instead of worked mame2010? Is there any reason for this?
yes, because mame2010 (and later versions of mame) have more accurate emulation that means games perform worse than in older versions of mame. the pi2 and 3 are best suited to mame2003, and pi1/0 to mame4all.
aside from that, the mame2010 core is incredibly experimental and misses many important features. it only supports 2 players, for example.
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@meleu said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
These hours would be better spent reading the first post of this topic and the RetroPie's Managing ROMs wiki page. :-)
As far as I know, very few people read the documentation first. it would be convenient to have more games to work "out of the box" (meaning mame2010).
You think it because you have the romset that works in lr-mame2010 (0.139). This is not the case for everyone.
...
...so mame2010 was the only one that was ever going to work for you.This is true. and I also want to think like the majority - for example MetalSlug - this is a major game got NeoGeo arcade and it is not working out-of-the-box : ( .
if I was doing something non-standard (for example, to write a new emulator and have tried to register it in the RetroPie-Setup script), I would not have come to this forum.
I came here with the end-user scenario, which I have encountered.then what's the point of us setting a default?
More games may be running by default. This can be the improvement for the major version of RetroPie - modern soft used by the defaults, but older soft can be installed manually.
mame2010 (and later versions of mame) have more accurate emulation that means games perform worse than in older versions of mame....
aside from that, the mame2010 core is incredibly experimental and misses many important features. it only supports 2 players, for example.thank you for really detailed and clear description!
and pi1/0 to mame4all
Guys who support the RetroPie, why to support pi0/pi1 in the new versions of retropie? users with pi0/pi1 can install prev version of retropie and all default settings will be optimized for them.
I don't want to holy-war here, I just want to understand the direction of development and product support.
what is your opinion about it? -
@k0st1x you're missing my point. you happened to download a 0.139 set (which would only work in mame2010), but someone else could happen to download a 0.78 set (only works in mame2003), or someone else could download a 0.56 set (works in nothing in retropie), etc. if people are randomly downloading sets, how can we support that?
Guys who support the RetroPie, why to support pi0/pi1 in the new versions of retropie? users with pi0/pi1 can install prev version of retropie and all default settings will be optimized for them.
why not? there are separate image downloads for pi0/pi1 and pi2/3 so different defaults can be used. i don't see any negative in supporting more systems...
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you happened to download a 0.139 set (which would only work in mame2010), but someone else could happen to download a 0.78 set (only works in mame2003), or someone else could download a 0.56 set (works in nothing in retropie), etc. if people are randomly downloading sets, how can we support that?
I thought that mame2010 is fully backward compatible with mame2003 games. even if it has 95% backward compatibility, mame2003 can be replaced by mame2010.
@dankcushions can you confirm that mame2010 is not compatible with some mame2003-games? -
@k0st1x said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
you happened to download a 0.139 set (which would only work in mame2010), but someone else could happen to download a 0.78 set (only works in mame2003), or someone else could download a 0.56 set (works in nothing in retropie), etc. if people are randomly downloading sets, how can we support that?
I thought that mame2010 is fully backward compatible with mame2003 games. even if it has 95% backward compatibility, mame2003 can be replaced by mame2010.
@dankcushions can you confirm that mame2010 is not compatible with some mame2003-games?no it's not. i'd say it's likely to be compatible with closer to zero mame2003 games.
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@k0st1x said:
I thought that mame2010 is fully backward compatible with mame2003 games. even if it has 95% backward compatibility, mame2003 can be replaced by mame2010.
@dankcushions can you confirm that mame2010 is not compatible with some mame2003-games?No, no MAME version is written to be backwards compatible.
A given ROM definition may change completely, slightly, or not at all from version to version. The change may be a filename within the ROM, a checksum of a file within the ROM, a re-arranging of the ROM contents into less/more files, or a complete re-ordering of the parent/clone relationship within a game.
Using 0.139 ROMs in 0.78, you are relying on sheer luck that a ROM hasn't changed between versions. For some games this may work, but for many games it will fail.
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@dankcushions and @suprjami ,
and again, really thank you for the detailed descriptions -
@k0st1x said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
As far as I know, very few people read the documentation first. it would be convenient to have more games to work "out of the box"
As far as I know.....come on. The documentation is detailed, updated, accurate and easy to follow. I used it to get a full arcade bartop working from nothing and I only ever had to ask one question and that turned out to be a bug that got solved by @meleu . To come on here and make these statements having not read it is just bonkers. When you say more games to work "out of the box" - it's meaningless. Games can never work out of the box because the developers do not know what games you have got that you want to get working on which emulator. It's up to you get the correct set of roms in the first instance by reading the instructions before becoming the 65535th person to post "Hey I got roms but none work". I mean, you have actually posted it at the end of @Floob's help guide. Surely you read this thread before typing and must have thought, hey I can't be typing this, i'll look crazy. But you did type it. How?
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Quite interesting: @Floob invests time in writing this help guide (that I think will be really useful for new retropie users) to avoid people asking same questions all the time...
and he gets people asking those questions in this 3D !It is true that Retropie is not easy to use at the beginning because you have to configure different things to make it work the way you want (and you do need to document yourself on how to do it)
BUT this is also Retropie's strenght point: it gives you some many possibilities to create the exact configuration YOU like.
And what about the satisfaction you get when you make things work finally :-)
To me customizing it is a major part of the fun of using Retropie.Not forgetting the kindness and will to help of the people in this forum.
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@rbaker said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
Games can never work out of the box because the developers do not know what games you have got that you want to get working on which emulator.
but retropie has specific emulators set in "basic setup".
in my opinion, each platforms has its "top games" and it will be great if retropie as end-user-platform (not for developers who will build applications with "make") will support most valuable games out-of-the-box.
so it is possible to get list of emulators and its "top-games".I did not come to complain (I have already passed this quest), but said that a set of arcade emulators could be updated. I do not expect that people just do as I want.
let it be the response for statistics and when it is aggregated enough then you can think to update the mame emulator. -
@k0st1x what we are trying to say is that MAME is complex. It will never work out-of-the-box in any platform (unless those pirated copies with emulators AND the correct romset in the same package, but RetroPie doesn't come with pirated ROMs and we do NOT share links to download them here).
You would understand why it is complex by simply reading the first post of this very same forum topic.
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@k0st1x said in How to use MAME with RetroPie - Help Guide:
will support most valuable games out-of-the-box
Ok, think of it this way. You want support for popular games out of the box. You have it right now. You first select the game. You then acquire the correct romset according to the retropie wiki. You then install the correct emulator for your choices. You drop in the roms and you are good to go. You stated earlier that you "spent about 3 hours: try some different bios's, different roms and different emulators (lr-mame2003, lr-mame4all)", why did you do this? It lead you to frustration and then come on here to say that retropie is out of date. You still think it doesn't work out of the box. As I said, it can never truly work in this way but in my opinion, it is virtually working completely out of the box. Have you read this: http://choccyhobnob.com/articles/demystifying-mame-roms/ It's great. If you do, you will understand more.
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@k0st1x On other hand the guys who spend their time writing and sharing their knowledge to help the newbies may not become too glad when someone asks questions immediately below the answers.
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