Bubble Bobble on Retropie

sasadangelo

@mediamogul said in Bubble Bobble on Retropie:

Believe it or not, the ROMs actually do change depending on which version of MAME you use. As you fill out all of the information above (you never know what will be important), pay special care to note which version of MAME you were using previously and which ROM set the games you mentioned came from.

Hi yes that's the point. I tried to do some troubleshooting. Retropie doc and other posts suggest to use clearmame but I really do not understand it. It says to create a profile and ask for exe emulator. But my emulator is on raspberry not windows. Is there a way to give simply in input the rom files and get the romset version? Once I know this info the next one is to know which one are supported by different emulator (I read something on Retropie doc).

Are you suggesting that now Retropie use a different version of MAME and this is the reason why it didn't work anymore?

If so for me is impossible to know the old MAME version since the SD Card is broken.

mediamogul

@sasadangelo

Are you suggesting that now Retropie use a different version of MAME and this is the reason why it didn't work anymore?
If so for me is impossible to know the old MAME version since the SD Card is broken.

You listed only four ROMs that you had installed previously . If those are indeed all you're interested in, the path of least resistance here might simply be to pick an emulator to run on your new setup and obtain the appropriate ROMs to match.

caver01

@sasadangelo I think there is a fundamental challenge you will need to overcome. You need to know where your ROMs sit in the long evolution of MAME romsets. Even if you want to use CLRMAMEPRO, you need some sense of what you have, especially if you are trying to build a complete set.

If you don't know, or just downloaded ROMs from wherever you could find them and there's no indication about what romset they came from, that is a problem. Every arcade emulator that uses MAME roms specifies which set is required (which version of the romset is compatible). Sure, some individual roms will not change from set to set, but you really do need to know where you stand, or admit you don't know, and go find roms from a known set and a version that is listed as compatible with one of the emulators.

For example, if you want to use AdvanceMAME 1.4 or 3, you need roms from romset .106. If you want to use lr-mame2003, they need to be from romset .78. Got it? You can't just take a random collection of ROMs and say "all possible emulators", because when a rom fails, the only answer we can give you is make sure you are using the correct rom (from the right version of the romsets) for the emulator you are trying to use.

dankcushions

@sasadangelo said in Bubble Bobble on Retropie:

Emulator: all possible.

this isn't good enough for me to diagnose. i want to know what mame emulator you are using, the specific rom name you are using (and the romset it is from, for mame).

sasadangelo

Hi All,
As someone already reported here the problem is:

which version of romset I have
which emulator I have installed
which romset the point 2 support
check the match between 1 and 3

that is clear to me. For step 1 the problem is: how I do that? Clearmame? I am not able to use it, it is confusing. Other idea?
For step 2 I already explained I installed Retropie two days ago, so I used default installation (I reported the procedure and guide used) so I expect in this forum there are Retropie developers that know what they ship. If my assumption is wrong, how I can determine the version? I only have on my default installation two folders: mame4all and mame-libretro I tried to put my old roms there and for the 4 above it didn't work.

Any help is appreciate to answer to point 1 and 2.

dankcushions

@sasadangelo you should download the set you want rather than try and find out what set it is after the fact. clrmamepro is never really needed.

on current retropie, mame4all folder is romset 0.37b5, mame-libretro folder default emulator is lr-mame2003 (romset = mame 0.78)

buddyscott

@sasadangelo said in Bubble Bobble on Retropie:

which emulator I have installed

you should read the documentation on this site. it clearly goes through how to install emulators and you can follow that to see which you have installed.

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/

caver01

@sasadangelo I echo what dankcushions said above. If you already have ROMs and you don't know the set they came from, you are kinda stuck on your step 1. It's frustrating because you feel like you already obtained a ROM, but unless you paid attention to where you got it and noted the romset it came from (if it even said) you have a rom without any information about it. The only value in that is trial and error. Clearly, trial has shown some of your roms work, but error leaves you in your current situation--unable to troubleshoot with a failing rom because you don't know its origin.

It is better to attack the situation like this: "What MAME emulator do I want to use and why? Well, I think I will try to use lr-mame2003, because that version of mame has the best combination of supported games I like and features. It is also a libretro core so I can enjoy the CRT shader which makes the games look awesome/retro (scanlines etc) on an LCD without a performance hit. So. . . I will need romset .78." Then, you go about trying to find THOSE roms, or the entire set of .78 ROMs. They should mostly work, and I say mostly because even the correct roms may have compatibility issues which is why we have the compatibility list.

Like a lot of us, you eventually conclude that one MAME won't solve every need. For example, I don't like vector games on lr-mame2003. They look way better using AdvanceMAME, so for those, I needed to find a version .106 romset.

It can get confusing, but it is far easier to configure with known elements than to troubleshoot the unknown.

sasadangelo

Thanks caver01. What you said make perfectly sense. How I can know the romset version for each emulator in Retropie? So far I know:
mame4all is 0.37b5
lr-mame2003 is 0.78
AdvancedMAME 1.4 or 3 is 0.106

Are there any other mame emulator to use?

Yesterday I found that moon patrol and street fighter roms I have works fine with lr-mame2010 (I installed this optional package). Which romset this emulator supports?

Now I am investigating to have Bubble Bobble and Mortal Kombat 4 working. But now I'll use caver01 approach that is more easy.

mediamogul

@sasadangelo

Are there any other mame emulator to use?

Most every version of MAME currently available in RetroPie is listed here:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/MAME

I believe the only hold out is lr-mame2014. lr-mame2003 is by far the best supported in RetroPie and is highly recommended for general use and especially for those new to MAME. Quite honestly, the only other one that I would ever personally recommend is Advance Mame, as it will play vector games beautifully, as well as several titles that can't be run through lr-mame2003. However, the learning curve in setting it up is steeper and I wouldn't recommend it to someone just starting out.

caver01

@sasadangelo in addition to mediamogul's comments, you could also look at Final Burn Alpha (FBA). There are a couple different vesrsions of FBA you can install on RetroPie. Think of it as an arcade game emulator alternative to MAME that uses the same kind of roms as MAME, but of course, depending on which FBA, the roms required must come from a specific romset version. Use the wiki to find out more.

So, you may be thinking, why do I want to use FBA at all? It is a good question, but conventional wisdom here is usually based on the idea that MAME is developed for the grand purpose of preserving arcade games. Performance and playability is considered a "side benefit". That said, we obviously have a lot of success on the Pi using MAME to play the games, but you probably noticed that the versions of MAME that work best are more than a decade old. Should you try a more recent MAME, performance will suffer at the benefit of more accurate emulation--as odd as that sounds.

Anyway, FBA appears to take a different approach with an emphasis on playability. Not all roms work on it, but the thinking is that gameplay is better (smoother, faster) in FBA than in MAME for some games. These include many of the fighter games, like the Street Fighter series, as well as other Konami, Capcom, NEOGEO, and a handful of other arcade hardware platforms. So, while many of us standardize on lr-mame2003, some folks try to eek a little extra performance out of specific titles by running them with FBA.

Here again, however, you need to keep track of yet another romset. In some cases, like in different versions of MAME, a rom will work across all of these emulators, but if it doesn't, you will need to hunt down the right romset anyway.

So, that about does it. lr-mame2003, AdvanceMAME (vector and games that don't work on 2003), FBA for fighters and NeoGeo. That's my setup.

sasadangelo

Ok guys, thanks a lot. Caver01 thanks for your last message. I understand now about FBA. In fact it was confusing. However, before thinking to play ability I first need to have all roms working. Thanks again for all comments. I'll keep you updated on progress.

I have built a small TV box that I have next to my TV with RAspberry + HD. It is based on OSMC. I use it to watch TV, TV Series, Streaming, as small NAS, to keep photos, retrogame platform, TV Live, PVR, Torrent machine and it works perfectly fine. I am writing a series of posts on my blog (this is a thing for personal use and now I am writing for public). I'll write also everything I did for Games. For the moment I have the following articles:

http://sasadangelo.altervista.org/raspberry-media-center/
http://sasadangelo.altervista.org/how-to-configure-kodi-media-center/
http://sasadangelo.altervista.org/kodi-box-media-library/
http://sasadangelo.altervista.org/how-to-turn-your-kodi-media-center-torrent-machine/
http://sasadangelo.altervista.org/how-to-install-youtube-kodi/

next articles, will be about I manage my photos, music, tv live, a dropbox like platform and gaming. If you want to give a watch it would be for me an honor. I know there are tons of tutorial about KODI but I think at the end I'll publish something really different by other sites because I really use it every day.
Thanks again.

sasadangelo

Hi All,
I found a bubble bobble for libretro 2010 that I installed optionally.
Now the problem is that I am able to run it only in Arcade folder. However. I do not like the Arcade folder approach because every time you have to remember the emulator to use and select it. I prefer have my game in the correct emulator folder and then from graphical interface select the emulator and see the game available.
The problem is that on filesystem I only see mame4all and libretro/mame2003. Where is mame2010 roms folder?
Thanks in advance.

caver01

@sasadangelo You have it wrong about Arcade. You don't have to remember anything. That's the beauty of Runcommand. You set it for THIS ROM and forget it. It remembers what emulator you picked and you never need to set it again.

Are you perhaps changing the default every time? Don't do that. Pick a default emulator for the Arcade folder and run most of your roms with the default. Then, when you want to use a different mame, or fba, use runcommand to select an alternate emulator for that rom only (don't change the default) and it will remember that you want to run that rom with the emulator you selected.

Once configured, you can even disable the prompt about runcommand to make launching cleaner and it still remembers your per-rom selections. RetroPie tracks the roms where you deviate from the default.

sasadangelo

Ah now I understand. This sound very good. I'll give it a try. Now everything is clear. At this point I only need an Arcade menu without any Mame anymore. I agree this is easier.

However, can you confirm there is no folder for lr-mame2010/roms. This is now an optional package and I installed it. I expected to find in Retropie folder in /home/osmc a folder like this to put roms. This is just curiosity, I understand now how Arcade option menu works.

dankcushions

@sasadangelo the /mame-libretro/ folder is for lr-mame2010, and all the other libretro (lr-) mame cores. it just defaults to lr-mame2003, so you'd have to change it using the runcommand.

please see https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/MAME (table at top)

sasadangelo

Yes I read that doc but I still do not understand how it works. Let me explain. Under libretro I only find lr-mame2003, there is no mention for 2010 (I mean no folders).
However, even if I installed it I only see two Mame emulators in menu: one for mame4all, another for 2003. Now it's clear how to use Arcade menu to bypass all the confusing old way.
But suppose I want to understand how the old way still work today, how 2010 is still used now? I mean, suppose I want 3 menu options:

for mame4all
for mame2003
for mame2010

is this possible?

dankcushions

@sasadangelo said in Bubble Bobble on Retropie:

Yes I read that doc but I still do not understand how it works. Let me explain. Under libretro I only find lr-mame2003, there is no mention for 2010 (I mean no folders).

the /libretro-mame/mame2003/ subfolder is not for roms, it's just for some support files for lr-mame2003. it doesn't matter that there isn't a /libretro-mame/mame2010/ folder. both lr-mame2010 and lr-mame2003 have their roms placed in /libretro-mame directly.

However, even if I installed it I only see two Mame emulators in menu: one for mame4all, another for 2003.

in what menu?

Now it's clear how to use Arcade menu to bypass all the confusing old way.
But suppose I want to understand how the old way still work today, how 2010 is still used now? I mean, suppose I want 3 menu options:

for mame4all

for mame2003

for mame2010

is this possible?

in what menu?

caver01

@sasadangelo You mentioned that you understand how Arcade works. Well, the mame-libretro folder works exactly the same way. You put any roms in there that you want to launch with lr-mameXXXX and when a game launches, you press a button to invoke runcommand--just like ARCADE, and you pick which lr- emulator you want to use for that rom, for default, etc.

This concept applies broadly across many systems supported by RetroPie that can use more than one emulator. You install that optional emulator, and often there is no need for another roms folder because one already exists for that system. You simply use Runcommand to pick which of the installed emulators you want to use.

sasadangelo

Ok I understand now. Thank you very much you really helped me.