Moon Patrol Missing file

Haemogoblin

Hi there chaps

I'll try and hopefully not make a fool of myself here.
I'm running a Rpi 2b and trying to get "mpatrol.zip" to work with Mame4all using romset "MAME 0.37b5.dat".

However I seem to be hitting some sort of brick wall, firstly it tells me the zip is missing file "2a". This is a 256kb file that I believe is used to run parent roms. I've had absolutely no luck in tracking down a copy of the archive containing the missing "2a" file, it would seem every one has the same file as everyone else.

I found this page which suggests renaming the files, (http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=64623&page=11) after doing what is suggested i did get the rom to boot but Mame4all reports a CRC error before loading. After which point the blue Moon Patrol text appears on the screen in black instead of blue. So I'm guessing this method is not fixing the problem as desired.

I've run the mpatrol.zip through clrmamepro and it doesn't come up with any errors, yet if you look at the scan results it says file "2a" is missing.

I'm now getting a little bit confuzzled and would appreciate the input of some more seasoned Mame users.

Many thanks

AlexMurphy

@Haemogoblin Are you sure it is 256 kb? Seems a bit big to me. I had a look at the ROM out of curiosity and in the 0.78 ROM set both mpatrol.zip and mpatrolw.zip contain the file 2a which is 256 bytes. I'm not sure if this would work if dropped into your ROM but it wouldn't do any harm to give it a go.

Haemogoblin

Sorry I meant 256 bytes! DOH! I'm so used to working in KBs that by brain just types it automatically.

I'm thus far been unable to locate a rom of mpatrol.zip that contains the 2a file.

I did a little more reading and found this online
"ROM name changes don't matter. Only the name of the Romset needs to be correct because MAME loads ROMs by CRC. In .79 Moon Patrol's 2a (CRC 0f193a50) was replaced by mpc-4.2a (CRC 07f99284)"

Using that information I unzipped the mpatrol archive, duplicated the mpc-4.2a file and renamed it 2a. Mame4all runs it, but does get upset about the CRC mismatch, lr-mame2003 runs is fullscreen without a single issue. I'm not sure if I can sort out the error in mame4all, but given that lr-mame2003 runs it better, i'm inclinded not to really be bothered. Still i wouldn't mind having the correct rom for moon patrol, one that doesn't flag up issues.

AlexMurphy

@Haemogoblin Yeah, it just seems really odd to talk about files in terms of bytes theses days. Did you try my suggestion? If as your research shows the file changed in 0.79 then using the actual 2a from the 0.78 set should theoretically work in the 0.37b5 set.

AlexMurphy

@Haemogoblin If you are having trouble finding the 0.78 set you should search for mame 0.78 reference set. It should be the top result. This is over 4000 individual zip files so you only need to grab what you want instead of the full set. This is really as much as I can do for you without breaking the rules of the forum in relation to ROM links and sites.

Haemogoblin

@AlexMurphy Thank you for your help, I spent much of last night until 3am on this and didn't want to post on the forum without exhausting every avenue. Didn't want my post to be another "why isn't this working, I dont know what I'm doing."

While a good bit of mame emulation is still a little fuzzy, i do understand that the emulator is governed by the DAT file which tells it what files should be in each archive. Hence the problem i was having, my romset didn't match with the availible mpatrol archive. I'm guessing newer versions of mame are probably updated to run with this different archive.

Btw i tried the file you suggested and it works a charm in both emulators! :D gives a high five

AlexMurphy

@Haemogoblin Glad I could help. On the subject of Moon Patrol, I assume you have played Horizon. Also from IREM, released in 1985. It's a sequel really. Basically the same idea but you can move between 3 horizontal planes as your vehicle travels along. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend it.