Which platform is it?

infocorn

Damn. I was afraid you were gonna say that. I'm scared to death I'm gonna screw mame up so I haven't even attempted it yet.

mediamogul

@infocorn

There's nothing to be scared of. All you really have to do is two things:

Choose a version of MAME to use (lr-mame2003 has the best general support on RetroPie)
Make sure any ROMs you add are from the ROM set intended for the version of MAME you chose (The 0.78 ROM set correlates with lr-mame2003 for example)

Almost all MAME problems you read about on this forum are related to users adopting a "trial and error" approach where ROMs are blindly downloaded from various locations without any regard to the ROM set version they came from.

infocorn

@mediamogul

So basically, I find something somewhere that says "Romset 0.78" and offers like, for instance, a zip or a torrent option for that group it's just a boatload of those Roms? Note, I am speaking strictly in theoreticals here, NOT seeking a source. I know that's a no-no.
Those in hand, I load 'em onto the Pi with the tutorial on where the roms and such go from the github. They're showing when I load Emulation Station. I load a rom and it starts. Mine is set to bring up the setup and emuatlor chooser when I press my gamepad's X, so I do that as it loads to choose lr-2003?
lr-2003...is the list of sets it works well with on the Github?

mrbwa1

@infocorn that's about right. You do have to watch out for any dependancies or "parent" roms. In those cases, you may need the parent in order for the child to work (for instance, Pacman is basically a localization of Puckman so you usually need the Puckman parent ROMor else Pacman won't start and gets errors).

If you have a full romset, then you don't tend to have issues as long as it's the right version. It's people trying to pick and choose a couple individual roms that often run into trouble (there are ways to properly build these from a full romset which is linked in the Wiki page for Retropie MAME)

mediamogul

@mrbwa1 said in Which platform is it?:

You do have to watch out for any dependancies or "parent" roms.

Very good point and an important 3rd criteria to a successful MAME setup that I neglected to mention.

If you have a full romset, then you don't tend to have issues as long as it's the right version.

Everyone has their preferences and many times space is an issue, but installing a full ROM set is the best option in my opinion as well.

caver01

This post is deleted!

caver01

@infocorn I would be remiss if I did not make a suggestion about using AdvanceMAME 1.4 for these games. AdvanceMAME has a big advantage when it comes to vector games (both Tempest and Star Wars are vector games) in that it can be configured to run at a higher resolution than lr-mame2003. This may not be a big deal for most games, but for vector, you typically want the "laser" lines to be as smooth as possible--and by that I mean, as smooth as your display is capable. For me, that means very sharp lines at 1280x1024 pixels, and for others using HDTVs it is even higher/smoother. I use lr-mame2003 for almost everything else, but it currently displays vector games at 640x480 which looks very jaggy.

Take a look at this post for a lot of details and some screenshots comparing two versions of mame. This first images are showing Asteroids Deluxe, but the idea is the same.

Finally, you should know up front that both Tempest and Star Wars used analog controls. For Tempest it is a spinner and Star Wars uses a yoke/steering setup. Using a joystick instead does affect the experience a lot.

infocorn

@caver01 said in Which platform is it?:

@infocorn I would be remiss if I did not make a suggestion about using AdvanceMAME 1.4

Is this a separate download or is it on the more recent R-pie images? Not a big deal, just asking.

Finally, you should know up front that both Tempest and Star Wars used analog controls. For Tempest it is a spinner and Star Wars uses a yoke/steering setup. Using a joystick instead does affect the experience a lot.

A fair point. TBH I'm far from a purist and, if my raspberry adventures to date have proven nothing else, I've sucked at video games way longer than I thought. So it's more a dog chasing cars than hunting frisbees at this point.

mediamogul

@infocorn said in Which platform is it?:

it's more a dog chasing cars than hunting frisbees

I love that! Fair warning; If you happen to see me stealing it in the future, I'm going to deny having ever met you.

caver01

@infocorn said in Which platform is it?:

Is this a separate download or is it on the more recent R-pie images? Not a big deal, just asking.

You can simply add the AdvanceMAME binaries through the RetroPie config screens. ROMs for AdvanceMAME go into a different folder mame-advancemame or you can use the arcade folder and choose your emulator using the runcommand menu (the screen that flashes briefly when you launch a game).

To get the benefit of clean vector lines, you'll need to edit the configuration file (/opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame/advmame-1.4.rc) as described in the post I linked to above, because the default display resolution is 640x480, so it won't look any different until you increase this value to match your display's resolution. Of course, if you don't run any higher video resolution, it won't matter.

Oh, and AdvanceMAME 1.4 requires the 1.06 MAME ROMset. (as opposed to .78 for lr-mame2003). You can try the older ROMs, but if they don't launch in AdvanceMAME, you need to hunt down the 1.06 version of the ROMs and any parent ROMs, etc.

It's the ROM confusion and all of the versions that usually scares people about MAME, but you can't really break anything--especially if you can't get it to work!

infocorn

@mediamogul

Have at it. I stole the heart of it from Heath Ledger's Joker.