Some hopefully not too difficult Retropie, Mame and arcade questions

melbmatt50

I recently set up retropie on a raspberry pi 3 model 3b+. I have installed mame4all and updated from source to the latest version. Some games work ok but with others i get the required files missing error. I tried transferring the roms to the arcade folder and then using the arcade emulator including selecting an emulator through the setup menu in it. Although this works for some, for others rather than getting the error message, it goes straight back to the game selection screen. I have tried several versions of the game but usually without success. I am not sure if it is a compatibility issue or if there are indeed missing files or settings i need to change.

The second issue i have is that since scraping cover art for the arcade games one game I mistakenly picked the wron covert art for. I have tried deleting the rom and reinstalling it then trying to reacrape it but it just loads the same wrong art and won't let me rescrape it.

Since updating the packages from source when the system starts up it asks for a login and password. Although I have found this information I would still prefer to be able to start the system automatically without having to go through this process.

I know with Mame there's a hotkey which allows you to quickly exit a game. I am just wondering if there's a simular option for the arcade emulator and the c64 emulator vice or if its an addon that needs to be put in and if so how to do it.

I am hoping people can help with these issues as although I am greatly enjoying retropie and the various emulators, there's a few niggling issues which spoil its enjoyment.

mitu

@melbmatt50 said in Some hopefully not too difficult Retropie, Mame and arcade questions:

I recently set up retropie on a raspberry pi 3 model 3b+. I have installed mame4all and updated from source to the latest version. Some games work ok but with others i get the required files missing error. I tried transferring the roms to the arcade folder and then using the arcade emulator including selecting an emulator through the setup menu in it. Although this works for some, for others rather than getting the error message, it goes straight back to the game selection screen. I have tried several versions of the game but usually without success. I am not sure if it is a compatibility issue or if there are indeed missing files or settings i need to change.

Mame4all is recommended for pi1/0 for performance reasons, you should be using a more recent (well, all's relative) arcade emulator like lr-fbalpha, lr-mame2003, advmame. Before starting up with arcade games emulation, please read carefully the Docs, they'll explain why the games don't work. This is a path well trodden and well documented, so take your time to understand the requirements before copying ROMs nilly-willy.

The second issue i have is that since scraping cover art for the arcade games one game I mistakenly picked the wron covert art for. I have tried deleting the rom and reinstalling it then trying to reacrape it but it just loads the same wrong art and won't let me rescrape it.

You don't need to delete the game, just re-scrape.

Since updating the packages from source when the system starts up it asks for a login and password. Although I have found this information I would still prefer to be able to start the system automatically without having to go through this process.

Re-configure the auto-start options and you won't be asked again to login - use the RetroPie script and go to Configuration / Tools and from the autologin entry enable again Emulationstation to be automatically started.

I know with Mame there's a hotkey which allows you to quickly exit a game. I am just wondering if there's a simular option for the arcade emulator and the c64 emulator vice or if its an addon that needs to be put in and if so how to do it.

I don't know about vice, maybe others can chime in, but start from the Docs page and see if you can find the information there.

dudleydes

@melbmatt50 I found this video useful in setting up my controller to exit VICE as well as to bring up the virtual keyboard, swap joysticks, attach a new disk and toggle warp mode. Skip to the 3 minute mark for instructions on configuring a controller.

Remember if you are using lr-vice, then you can use hotkey+start to exit.

rbaker

@melbmatt50 said in Some hopefully not too difficult Retropie, Mame and arcade questions:

using the arcade emulator

So you need to read the docs because Arcade is a folder. You then select emulators to run the roms that you placed in it.

it goes straight back to the game selection screen

one of the the most common questions on this board - answered in the docs. You have the wrong romset for the emulator you are trying to launch it on.

Read this

steptoe

You will have some fun installed aracde/MAME. Its VERY version specific. You NEED the correct ROMs and samples for that specific version because each major update of MAME added extra things or ROMS that are needed to run some games plus fixed games that were previously not working to now working. earlier versions didn't have these so causes big headaches for a lot of people

I've been a fan of MAME since basically v0.1 when it was written to run very very simple games such as PacMan, and I still struggled to get it to work on the PI3. Once its running, it will run perfectly

Most people that want to play 'classic' games and not too much modern go for 0.37b5, for the full set that may push the PI too far use MAME 0.126 or even AdvMame for better support of newer games and CHD based games

AdvMame tend to go for speed of gameplay so some games thatw on't play on MAME or run sluggish run fine on AdvMame. MAME has been written to get as close as possible to 100% game accuracy. This accuracy means the hardware has to work more and also MAME tend sto avoid hacks to get games to run, where AdvMame doesn't mind. Speed and running the game as best a spossible is what matters

Just found this link that might make it a lot easier to grasp MAME and how to use it

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2859/how-to-use-mame-with-retropie-help-guide

melbmatt50

@mitu I went into the Setup menu and I selected Configuration/Tools which I believe had an option to automatically start the system. I rebooted the system and it seems to boot up without asking for a login so all good.

melbmatt50

@mitu with regards to the information which you said has the details of requirements to run the roms, is this something that is contained in something like a text file that is in the rom zip or where would i find that information?

Some of the games that I have attempted to scrape artwork for, I haven't been able to find artwork on the site that it uses. I have seen that there are Youtube videos which allow you to create it manually but these seem to involve many steps and I was just wondering if there's an easier way to do it.