Having trouble with donkey kong (black screen) but pacman works (arcade .78)

[traveler]

Having trouble with donkey kong (black screen) but pacman works (arcade .78)
Pacman, frogger, joust work.

I have downloaded the full 10 gig set of .78 roms. It looks like these are supposed to work with lr-mame2003.
My pi installation is the default image from retro pi.
Running on Pi3 model b+

Pi Model or other hardware: (B, B+, 2 B, 3, X86 PC etc..)
Power Supply used: (If using a Pi) oem samsung cell phone charger
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest): 4.5.1 (lastest from 1 week ago)
Built From: (Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website, Berryboot, or on top of existing OS etc.. - please provide the filename of any image used): premade sd imade on retropie website, looks like 4.5.1
USB Devices connected:logitech wireless keyboard, usb stick
Controller used:Nintendo NES controller
Error messages received:black screen
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant):
Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame2003/mame2003_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mame2003/dkong.zip" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg

Guide used: (Mention if you followed a guide):retropi online doc
File: (File with issue - with FULL path):
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mame2003/kong.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/mame2003/kong.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/kong.zip

Emulator: (Name of emulator - if applicable) arcade
Attachment of config files: (PLEASE USE PASTEBIN.COM FOR LARGE LOGS): didn't manually modify any config files.

How to replicate the problem:
just launch donkey kong

From these roms, I chose frogger, pacman, joust, donkey kong, qbert, space invaders.
Each of these roms I placed in the /roms/arcade folder.

I have the following 3 working:

Working:
frogger, pacman, joust

not working (black screen when launcing)
space invaders, donkey kong, qbert

I tried moving the donkey kong rom to the /mame2013 folder but it is still not working. (rebooted each time after moving the roms)
also moved the non-working roms to
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mame2003/
and
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/mame2003/
and
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/

I have read the wiki on arcade and retro pi multiple times.

The contents of the dev/shm/runcomand.log for donkey kong shows:

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame2003/mame2003_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mame2003/dkong.zip" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg

In addition I have tried copying in all the samples in the .78 10gig download into the samples folder. One suggestion I have read is that you should place the bios in the bios folder but it looked like by using the .zip's from "Full Non-Merged Romsets", each zip should contain everything it needs to run.

Any thoughts?
Do I need to mess with finding the bios files?
Is there any other documentation I should read?
Should I try another emulator? Which one?
I was excited to have pac man running as I have attempted many times in the past and given up. This retro pi install started 2 weeks ago with a new image from the website.

thanks,

traveler

[mitu]

None of the ROMs you listed need a BIOS file. If you've got a Non-Merged set, then all you need is in the .zip file. Samples are not mandatory, but if you got them, they should go into the BIOS/mam2003/samples folder.

Can you list the contents of your dkong.zip file and post the result ?

EDIT: A phone charger is not an appropriate power source for the Pi, get a proper power source for your system.

[traveler]

Thanks for the really fast reply and the tip. After recopying the kong.zip file(s) it's running perfectly now. As far as I can tell everything is good now.
For some reason there were only 3 wav files inside that zip.
When I copied kong.zip (numerous files) from the archive it started working. I've never seen donkey kong 3 before.

I've spent 3 years off an on trying to get PacMan to run. I finally started researching until I got everything working. It was a lot of reading but not it all seems to make sense now.

For these types of games, how many buttons would you suggest in building a cabinet? (bar top size hanging on wall). I've got a bunch but don't want to add them if they won't be used.

Also, do you think a retro pi image for the pi 4 is coming out any time soon? or is it worth going down a path of trying to make the 4 run the current version?

thanks again,

traveler

[mitu]

Hm, so it looks like the ROM didn't get copied correctly.

For these types of games, how many buttons would you suggest in building a cabinet? (bar top size hanging on wall). I've got a bunch but don't want to add them if they won't be used.

Depends on what games you intend to play. I'm not an expert in cabinets, you might want to post another topic and ask for advice or look at the various projects in the Projects and Ideas category - there are some really nice builds.

Also, do you think a retro pi image for the pi 4 is coming out any time soon? or is it worth going down a path of trying to make the 4 run the current version?

If you're just a newcomer to Linux, then trying to get the Pi4 running with the current development branch of RetroPie it's not going to be easy and you should either wait for a release - don't know when this will happen - or just use a Pi3 B+ model for your cabinet.

[barbudreadmon]

@traveler said in Having trouble with donkey kong (black screen) but pacman works (arcade .78):

For some reason there were only 3 wav files inside that zip.

You probably swapped your samples file with your roms file.

@traveler said in Having trouble with donkey kong (black screen) but pacman works (arcade .78):

As far as I can tell everything is good now.

Might as well mention it even if some people prefer it that way or don't care : dkong colors are wrong in mame2003, as an example the red stages are supposed to be pink like this :

If you are interested in getting the game to run with real colors, they are fixed in the recent mame cores (2015 onwards) and the FBNeo core.