What's inside MAME Romset 0.78?

sastremarti

Hi,

I'm trying to play arcade games in my brand new Raspberry Pi. I'm planning to use lr-mame2003 and so I've downloaded the corresponding romset (version 0.78). Everyting seems to be pretty simple...but it's not and I still have some questions I hope you'll be able to answers. I'll try them to be pretty stright forward...there I go!

The romset 0.78 includes "all the classic" arcade games right?
Does it include roms from CPS1?
Does it include roms from CPS2?
Does it include Neo Geo roms?
CPS3 roms are not included in this romset right?

Regarding questions 1 and 2..yesterday I downloaded CPS1 and CPS2 roms from a website (not the 0.78 romset I was refering before). One thing that seems to answer "yes" to questions 2 and 3 is that, for instance I can see a game called "armwar.zip" inside the romset 0.78. But then I see that one is 16,5MB while the other is 15,6MB.

I'm a bit lost...what do you think?

Sorry if these questions are a little basic but I'm not an expert at all :-(

barbudreadmon

@sastremarti yeah, mame2003 can emulate cps1, cps2 (no cps3), most neogeo (maybe not the newer games), and most "classics". However keep in mind that this is a 17 years old emulator, any newer arcade emulator will most likely result into better emulation (less glitches, overall behavior closer to real arcade hardware, ...).

dankcushions

@sastremarti said in What's inside MAME Romset 0.78?:

Hi,

I'm trying to play arcade games in my brand new Raspberry Pi. I'm planning to use lr-mame2003 and so I've downloaded the corresponding romset (version 0.78). Everyting seems to be pretty simple...but it's not and I still have some questions I hope you'll be able to answers. I'll try them to be pretty stright forward...there I go!

The romset 0.78 includes "all the classic" arcade games right?

a complete 0.78 romset includes all the games that MAME could emulate (perhaps not always perfectly) in 2003. that doesn't not include ALL classic games (not sure how you would define that, anyway), but probably most 2d titles you'd want to play from the 80s/90s.

Does it include roms from CPS1?

yes

Does it include roms from CPS2?

yes

Does it include Neo Geo roms?

yes

CPS3 roms are not included in this romset right?

no

note for 2-5, you're probably better off with lr-fbneo and corresponding romset, as it's an actively developed emulator that has more of a focus on fighting games and shooters from that era. however it may not be as comprehensive on the 'classic' games of the 80s (not sure if that's still the case - fbn's library is ever expanding)

you can see what games are supported by a given MAME version by checking the corresponding DAT file.

Regarding questions 1 and 2..yesterday I downloaded CPS1 and CPS2 roms from a website (not the 0.78 romset I was refering before). One thing that seems to answer "yes" to questions 2 and 3 is that, for instance I can see a game called "armwar.zip" inside the romset 0.78. But then I see that one is 16,5MB while the other is 15,6MB.

i have no idea what romset you're comparing to but it's normal for romsets from different MAME versions and how they're formatted

btw, your random romset almost certainly won't work on the emulator you choose as it has to be the specific version for that emulator. eg mame2003 - 0.78

Sorry if these questions are a little basic but I'm not an expert at all :-(

we have a tutorial here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Arcade/

sastremarti

Many thanks for your answers.

I just chose MAME2003 because I read somewhere It was older than the other emulators an so more experienced (compared to FBA for instance).

So I can emulate "the classics" with mame2003 and then Neo-Geo+CPSX with FBA.

Nice approach...I'll think about this ;-)

Many thanks to all of you for your patience an help!

barbudreadmon

@sastremarti said in What's inside MAME Romset 0.78?:

I just chose MAME2003 because I read somewhere It was older than the other emulators an so more experienced (compared to FBA for instance).

Whoever said that should keep his own delusions to himself, technically a 6 years old emulator like mame2003 (from 1997 to 2003) can't have more "experience" than any newer version of mame, and FBNeo (latest version of FBA) also has more than 20 years of "experience". Or maybe he was comparing current MAME with current FBNeo, in which case it would be arguably true : there are still a few edge cases where FBNeo's emulation is better, or simply older (if that's what "experience" means), than current MAME.

dankcushions

i think one could argue that lr-mame2003 is more 'mature' than later lr-mame cores (as much of those have received a quick libretro fork and then mostly abandoned, so have lots of issues), but yeah lr-fbneo is still more mature in both emulation quality and as an libreto core than lr-mame2003, in my opinion. however they don't share the exact same romset so using both is generally recommended for pi 2-4 users.

barbudreadmon

@dankcushions yeah, from a libretro implementation POV, but afaik lr-mame2003-plus would still be a far better choice than lr-mame2003 if libretro features are what you are looking for.