Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS

brimys

Hi all -

New to this, but enjoying it (when it works!). I successfully got Discs of Tron running on advmame1.4. The ROM for that (as part of the full 0.106 set) is the Upright version (dotron), with no speech from Sark.

I'd love to get the speech version running, which I understand to be the Environmental version of the ROM (dotrone). A few questions:

Does advmame1.4 support the Environmental version (dotrone) - ? Or do I need to run that version on another emulator?
I know I need to get the ROM for the Environmental version (dotrone), which is a child of (dotron). Do I just drop this ROM in with the other ROMS, or do I need to put it anywhere special to have it function as a child?

Any other help is appreciated, as always.

Thanks!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pi Model or other hardware: 3B+
Power Supply used: Forgot to check, sorry!
RetroPie Version Used: retropie-4.4-rpi2_rpi3.img
Built From: Pre-made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: TurboTwist High/Low spinner, and an IPAC2 with the following connected: joystick + 6 buttons, minigrip w/ 2 buttons (thumb + trigger) + 6 buttons, (2x)coin, (2x)start
Controller used: None (I just use sticks/buttons above)
Emulator: advmame1.4

mitu

I can't say much about the support in Advmame for the ROM (dotrone), but it's enough to drop the child ROM alongside the parent ROM and the emulator should be able to find the parent. So just copy the dotrone.zip in the same ROM folder as the parent, restart Emulationstation and check if it works.

brimys

@mitu I'll give it a shot! Thanks!

brimys

Does anyone know if the version of Discs of Tron I need to use to get speech is dotrone.zip, or dotrona.zip? I've tried a few, but none seem to work. Thanks!

markwkidd

The arcadeitalia database is very handy for these kinds of questions -- according to my very brief look at their records, dotrone seems to be the romset with speech: http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/dettaglio_mame.php?game_name=dotrone&lang=en

brimys

@markwkidd I tried to take a look, but got an error ("An internal server error occurred. Please try again later."), so... I'll try again later!

brimys

I am unable to locate a 0.106 (advmame1.4 compatible) version of dotrone.zip. If I have a different/later version of the zip, is it possible to convert it to work with my 0.106 version of dotron.zip, to get speech in the game?

I know I’ve read a few things that seem to suggest yes, but I’m not 100% sure where to begin.

Thanks!

mediamogul

@brimys said in Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS:

I am unable to locate a 0.106 (advmame1.4 compatible) version of dotrone.zip.

You're not likely to find the individual ROM out in the wild. The set however, is easy to come by.

If I have a different/later version of the zip, is it possible to convert it to work with my 0.106 version of dotron.zip, to get speech in the game?
I know I’ve read a few things that seem to suggest yes, but I’m not 100% sure where to begin.

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating,-Rebuilding,-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/

brimys

So... I was able to get a full 0.106 non-merged romset, and loaded dotrone.zip onto my pie. A few weird things...

When I run the game, it won’t let me play in 1-player mode. I press the coin button giving me one credit, and pressing p1start does not start the game... it does nothing. If I insert a second coin, and then press p1start, the game will run in 2-player mode. I have all my buttons mapped correctly. Any thoughts?

Second weird thing is that when the game plays, I do hear speech, but so far have only heard Sark’s laugh when I die, and “You’ll regret this!” a few times, as well. No other speech has been heard.

Can anyone tell me what other speech should exist, and when or where it should play?

Getting closer, but not there yet!

THANKS!

mediamogul

@brimys said in Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS:

When I run the game, it won’t let me play in 1-player mode. I press the coin button giving me one credit, and pressing p1start does not start the game... it does nothing. If I insert a second coin, and then press p1start, the game will run in 2-player mode. I have all my buttons mapped correctly. Any thoughts?

It sounds like you simply have the 'player 2 start' mapped to the control device you're trying to use for player one. I would double and triple check that.

Second weird thing is that when the game plays, I do hear speech, but so far have only heard Sark’s laugh when I die, and “You’ll regret this!” a few times, as well. No other speech has been heard.

The game doesn't have much speech, or rather it has a lot by 1983 standards, depending on how you look at it. I believe Sark also has a yell and maybe one or two more lines of dialogue, but for the first several stages, he pretty much just laughs or says nothing at all.

brimys

@mediamogul said in Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS:

It sounds like you simply have the 'player 2 start' mapped to the control device you're trying to use for player one. I would double and triple check that.

Hmmm... how would I check that? It seemed to work in the other games? If you could point me in the right direction, I’ll take a look

Thanks!

mediamogul

@brimys said in Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS:

how would I check that?

By default, the 'Tab' key opens the configuration menu. From there, you have the option to set controls globally or just for 'this game'. I would double check both, but if all other games are working correctly, it may just be set incorrectly for dote.

brimys

@mediamogul So I double-checked my button mappings and looked in advmame-1.4.cfg, and DOTRONE is still behaving like that. 1 credit in, and none of the Start buttons work. Add a second coin, and pressing P1 Start OR P2 Start begins a 2-player game.

Any other thoughts, or things to check? Seems to only happen in this game, one of my all-time favs.

Thanks in advance!

mediamogul

@brimys said in Discs of Tron - environmental, speech, and parent/child ROMS:

Any other thoughts, or things to check?

Can you post the contents of your advmame.rc to pastebin.com?

brimys

First time using Pastebin, so hopefully this works! Here is my advmame-1.4.rc:

https://pastebin.com/V5GRXMMf

brimys

Was unable to launch Galaga, error log pointed out that I had a dupe of the following:

input_map[p1_dialx] mouse[0,x] mouse[1,x] mouse[2,x]
input_map[p1_dialy] mouse[0,y] mouse[1,y] mouse[2,y]

...but this was introduced AFTER and separately than the DOTRONE weirdness.

markwkidd

I'm sorry to ask it at this late stage, but have you tried dotrone with mame2003-plus, or even just mame2003? I know that dotrone at least boots and runs in mame2003-plus although I don't know about the speech.

Based on the driver history, the mame2003-plus does seem like it should have the speech.

brimys

@markwkidd i’m happy to try anything to get this running! Do I install maime 2003+ from the optional packages? I’m not at my pie at the moment… I can give it a shot. I know that it did not run in regular mame 2003, but I can try 2003- Plus

mitu

@brimys mame2003-plus is in the experimental packages section, you can install it from there.

brimys

@mitu great, will try tonight. Does mame2003-plus runnthe same 0.78 romset as regular mame2003?