[RESOLVED] UME (MESS) Software List Woes

[gamepimp]

I am using UME (a combo of MAME and MESS) to emulate quite a few systems in my cab. The reason I use UME instead of other more advanced emulators is that I prefer the scanline effect filter with my larger format monitor. The scanlines on most other emulators are really thick and obvious. The scanline filter in UME is way more subtle. Up until now, I was running Good or No-Intro roms. However, in order to use the cheat system for UME, the roms have to be in the software list format. The problem with that is a) the games show up by their software list abbreviated name in the GameEx menu and all my artwork was named using the old Good or No Intro rom names and not the software list name. And the download service utility for EmuMovies can't really match too well off the software list name.

To work around issue "a", I actually created a custom map file that had the software list name along with a corresponding No Intro name. This worked great the first time I ran GameEx. All the games showed up by their full names. But on subsequent runs, the program rebuilt the map file and now I'm back to the software list names in the menu. Is there a way to prevent GameEx from updating the map file? Or should a custom map file be placed somewhere other than the "DATA" folder?

To work around issue "b", I used a batch file to rename all the roms back to No Intro format. And then I used the download service utility to download all the artwork for those roms. I created another batch file to rename all the artwork to the software list name. This works great for GameEx. All the artwork shows up when I select a game. However, I'm using marquee magician to display the box and title artwork for games and it seems that the system gets hung up trying to find the proper images prior to launching the game, and then the game never loads. I looked at the information in the "runitgame.bat" file and it appears that MM tries to match the artwork based off the name of the rom inside the zip file and not the name of the actual zip file itself. Any thoughts on how I can remedy this issue? The only thing I can think of would be to have one set of artwork for GameEx to display that is named the same way as the zip files and then have another set of artwork with the names of the actual roms inside the zip files.

I feel like this is "mission impossible", but as the old saying goes "where there's a will, there's a way". LOL!

[fRequEnCy]

When making a custom map file then it is best to rename it from default because it will for sure be overwritten. As far as location, it doesn't really matter where you put it.

[gamepimp]

Ok. I just realized that u have to specify the location of the custom map file in the setup wizard. So I renamed the file to something unique and then told GameEx where to look for it. So all is good there.

Now I realized a new issue. The typical command line when using UME with games in the software list is "ume64 pce -cart acrush" where pce is the system being emulated (pc engine in this case), -cart is the format of the software, and acrush is the name of the zip file containing the rom. The actual rom inside the archive would be "alien crush (japan).pce". I need GameEx to pass the name of the zip file (minus the extension) in the command line so that UME can associate the cheat with it. Is this possible? Right mow, the actual name of the rom is being passed according to runitgame.bat. It would seem that GameEx does this for MAME as that's how cheats are associated to those games. Thoughts?

[nullPointer]

Having a look at your emulator config would help to determine the exact adjustment that needs to be made, but GameEx does have functionality to pass the ROM name minus extension.

[ROMFILE] will pass the the full ROM file name with extension

[ROM] will pass the ROM name without the file extension.

See how that goes for you. If that doesn't work please provide a copy of your emulator config and your runitgame.bat (maybe your log too, but these first two items should be enough to go on).

[gamepimp]

So I played around with some variations in the command line. I tried "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]", [ROM], "[ROMPATH]\[ROM]", and "[ROM]". The commands that contained "[ROMPATH] caused the system to unzip the rom first. The only functioning command was "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" which had the roms full file name alien crush (japan).pce. The [ROM] command just passed the file name of the rom inside of the archive minus the extension. So in this case, it was alien crush (japan). The .7z file that contains the rom is called acrush. I need the system to pass this name in the command line so that it will appear to UME as ume64.exe pce -cart acrush -joy -now. I've included the various runitgame.bat files and my cfg file.

ROM.txt

ROMquotes.txt

ROMPATH-ROM.txt

ROMPATH-ROMFILE.txt

GameEx.txt

[nullPointer]

Hmm ... someone with more experience using UME may have to step in here. Does UME require that games are unzipped prior to loading or does it support running zipped ROMS? If it supports the use of zipped ROMs, then you may want to change this setting:

emu_3_gamesin7zips=True

Are your ROMs stored with a bunch of individual ROMs in one zip, or does each zip only contain one ROM? That may also have some bearing on the above suggestion.

[gamepimp]

Yup, that did the trick. Changed that value to "false" and now I'm passing the name of the zip file (minus extension) by using this command: ume64.exe pce -cart [ROM] -joy -now. UME does not require unzipping of the archive to run the game. So this works like a charm. GameEx and Marquee Magician will both display the correct artwork as long as it matches the software list name of the rom. Unfortunately, there's no "easy" way for getting the Download Service Utility to recognize the software list name when matching up the artwork. But I have a relatively easy way of converting the games to the name of the actual rom file inside the archive for matching purposes and then converting them back when I have all the art downloaded. Thx Frequency and Null for ur help w/ this issue. I greatly appreciate it!

BTW, my sets are "non-merged" so they only contain all the roms necessary to play that particular game (which is typically just a single rom).

[nullPointer]

Awesome! So glad to hear you got it all sorted out gamepimp. It sounds like you've got a method to get the Download Service to cooperate with your UME sets, and that your PC Engine games are running satisfactorily. I'm going to mark this one as resolved.

Edited November 24, 2012 by nullPointer
This thread is now closed. If the problem re-occurs, please start a new thread.