Mame2003 / mame4all / FBA - unique roms list?
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Has anyone compiled a list of roms that only work on a specific emulator?
E.G. Defender seems to only work if you have the FBA one, the Mame2003 version is borked.
is there a master list of just unique roms?
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@joelf Sorry to say it, but your conclusions are misguided. Click Docs at the top of this page and then click Arcade for all of the details you need on this topic. In short, each emulator REQUIRES a specific ROMset. In other words, the ROMs differ between arcade emulators. This is not an easy concept to wrap your mind around at first, but think of it this way: When arcade emulators were first getting written, ROMs were created from original game hardware. Later, as the emulator software got better, they realized that the ROMs they had were incomplete, so they went back to the original hardware and added more elements, thus improving a ROM one game at a time.
As new versions of MAME were released, they required new versions of the ROMs. ROMsets and Emulator versions remain in-step, so you cannot take a given ROM (say dkong.zip) from a recent version and try to use it on an early version of MAME. They MIGHT be the same, but many ROMs have been updated over the years.
As you can imagine, it is crucial that you know exactly what ROMset your ROM comes from. If you don't, you then have only trial and error to guide you, and you should expect some versions of MAME or FBA to fail with the ROM you have.
That said, Defender works great in lr-mame2003, provided the ROM comes from a version .078 ROMset. The same goes for all of the other versions of MAME and FBA. You can see in the Docs what emulator requires what version of the ROMs. Yep. It's confusing, and downright messy. Just know that a random ROM you might find online should really only be good for that version of the emulator.
There are utilities like CLRMAMEPRO to help you verify ROM versions, or to reconstruct one ROMset out of another, but this is way beyond the scope (and time) of this response.
There is much to learn. You are just hitting the tip of the iceberg.
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Weird. I used a mame .78 set called "MAME 2003 Reference Set: MAME 0.78 ROMs, CHDs, and Samples" and the light MAME 0.78 DAT File found on the github for retropie to rebuild it as a non merged set and verified it. Defender wasn't a part of that dat file, so I am guessing it never worked for that version. Defender isn't listed in the compatibility list for 2003, either.
I also grabbed the FBA v0.2.97.39 reference set from the same site, verified it and Defender, pac-man, armored warriors, etc. worked, where their versions in the 78 set didn't.
So my question is: has anyone compiled a list of unique roms for the main 3 libretro emulators that work on the retropie? If I am wrong in thinking that there is no game that won't work in all emulators, I am sorry.
Thanks!
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@caver01 I just reread what I said. It sounds snarky. I did not intend that - this is just the process I used to get the games on the pie, and it was surprising to me that some games worked in some set and others didn't.
Maybe my process for getting the roms is flawed? Is that set I found actually from 2003? Can I take a new .184 or .185 set and force it to work as a .78?
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@joelf said in Mame2003 / mame4all / FBA - unique roms list?:
Defender isn't listed in the compatibility list for 2003, either.
Sure it is. Row 964, "Defender (Red label)". There are also clones. <EDIT> Looks like people messing with the spreadsheet have added a filtered list. Make sure you are looking at the right tab in that workbook. It is impossible to maintain that document while allowing public contributions. Perhaps you were looking at a bogus tab.
Are you running into the problem with some Williams games (like Joust) where you have to let the game boot up once, create a NVRAM file, then when you reset it it boots normally every time?
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@joelf said in Mame2003 / mame4all / FBA - unique roms list?:
@caver01 I just reread what I said. It sounds snarky. I did not intend that - this is just the process I used to get the games on the pie, and it was surprising to me that some games worked in some set and others didn't.
Maybe my process for getting the roms is flawed? Is that set I found actually from 2003? Can I take a new .184 or .185 set and force it to work as a .78?
Look, you can't force anything to work if it is incorrect. The zip file won't just behave differently because you want it to. (heh, now that's snarky!).
No, seriously though, if a ROM hasn't changed from version to version--and for some intervals there are many that haven't--you can get away with using the wrong version with a given emulator. The actual binary ROM chip dumps may simply be identical because they haven not been updated, and the files inside the zip are named the same--so MAME cannot tell a difference (because there is none). This is why many folks who don't take the time to understand ROMsets end up with a handful of random ROMs of unknown origin that work, but others that fail and they have no idea why.
Clearly from your followup, you understand more than I thought you did in your original post. I think you are on the right track. I can't explain why a reference set might not be what it says it is, but there you go.
I happen to use the Arcade folder for all of my arcade ROMs, and as you can probably imagine, the zip files in there are a jumble of many different ROMsets because I am launching each one with a specific emulator--well, one of four for the most part. I have to keep track of which ROMset I am using for each game and which emulator I am using. I will admit (but don't tell anybody) that when I add a title, I usually pull it from one set first and I try it on my preferred emulator, even though it may be a mis-match. If it works, I just note the details and move on, as it was probably one of the ROMs that did not change from one version to the next.
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@caver01 said in Mame2003 / mame4all / FBA - unique roms list?:
when I add a title, I usually pull it from one set first and I try it on my preferred emulator, even though it may be a mis-match.
This is what I have been doing too. I did rebuild the roms from the reference set I had, based on the dat file for mame-light i which was supposed to be a "all killer, no filler parents only awesome stuff only" set of instructions. But pivotal games like pac-man, defender etc. weren't included.
@caver01, I need your expertise: If I found a reference set for 185, and a dat file for .78, can I feed them both through CLRMAMEPRO and end up with a more accurate/complete/better working set than if I used the 78 reference set? Is this how roms work - you take the latest sets, and rebuild them to work on your old emulator?
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@joelf I would advise against that route. Using the reference set as is should be exactly what you're looking for. Unfortunately I have no scientific basis to justify that other than my personal experience, but given that some ROMS are different across sets you can't ensure that you will be able to generate the complete older 0.78 set from a newer one, as some specific ROM files might have changed our been redumped, making that even if you'd get the same names, there CRC could end up being as mismatch.
I think you have the right set, if some ROMS don't run I'd check the runcommand log but it might be because you're missing a BIOS ROM or a parent ROM on occasion. And then it's easy to just look for that particular missing bit.
Hope it helps.
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@joelf there are no updated roms for 0.78. the only set that will work is the 0.78 set. if you get a newer set, and rebuild to 0.78 (which won't work unless you have the reverse pack or whatever it's called) you will only end up with an identicle 0.78 set
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@dankcushions @joelf It's called the "rollback" set. There is usually one for every ROMset, but it may be worse than that, as a rollback may only allow rolling back to the previous set--unless rollbacks always contain the complete rollback history to the beginning of MAME (which would get pretty big). I don't have the experience with using the utility, as I never could get it to do what I wanted (probably because of a combination of bad/incomplete source files and not knowing what I was doing). It might be that you need every rollback set all the way to the version you are trying to rebuild for a perfect conversion.
<EDIT> I did a quick search and it looks like rollback sets are supposed to contain all of the changed files from previous sets. So, armed with a recent, complete set and its corresponding rollback, you should be able to rebuild any previous set if you have a DAT file for it.
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@joelf So, it is my understanding that you can select multiple input sets along with the DAT for the desired output. You would select your .185 and the rollback set(s), plus the .78 DAT and if everything is perfect (and you carefully recite the proper incantations) you could get a .78 set. That's the theory anyway. I have never made it work correctly.
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If you can't find a rollback, you might be able to chip away at a set if you can find an earlier one. Straddling both the past and the future of a given set, you could feed CLRMAMEPRO most of the files it needs. Who wants all of those Mah Jong clones anyway!
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Hey now, each mahjong clone is a beautiful and unique snowflake.
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@caver01 I had joust 1 & 2 working fine on mame2003. I didn't see the other unfiltered tab on the workbook though. My thinking was wrong - I thought some games worked in one emu, but not in another. It's more likely that the dat files and compatibility lists I am using are the ones that need updating.
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I use romlister to knock out unwanted roms.
I also make my arcade set to have the best versions of the 3 main libretro cores, I'm pretty anal about having it right. Lol
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@will I just discovered lightspeed lister. It's so nice.
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Where can I get the roms for the mame2003 at ? And also I wanna know where can I install the Capcom play system 1 thru 3 on a retropie ? I been trying to figure out what emulator to is it working on to.
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@SKIIERFOX86 Please don't ask where to acquire ROMs. That is the one piece of help you will not get here. CPS games are just part of the general MAME ROM sets.
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@SKIIERFOX86 the first part of the question is not something you would ask or get an answer for here. Please read the forum rules.
As for the CPS question, I use FBA with considerable success.
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Okay what's the right Mame to used for Capcom play system to run ? And what's all the steps to get it running?
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