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Every game (in any emulator) crashes as soon as its launched

Chango

By Chango
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Chango Member

Chango

Posted
Posted

So I finally got GameEx configured properly enough to see all the artwork and ROMs I have present in my collection.

Just as soon as I fixed everything up, a new problem presented itself.

I have CPWizard enabled and when a game starts up, it hangs on the button display until I hit ESC. Is there supposed to be another way to pass this screen?

After I hit ESC it just drops right back to the list of games.

I thought the problem was CPWizard so I disabled it.

But it turns out that CPWizard wasn't the problem after all.

No matter what game or what emulator I choose, whenever I launch the game, it starts the emulator up but IMMEDIATELY closes the emulator and drops back to GameEx. Now when I use MAME or MESS it at least shows a split second of display, enough to see that MAME/MESS has actually started. But like I said, its just for a split second - before the ROM can even finish loading, its already dropped back to GameEx.

Anyone have any ideas?

GameEx.ini

log.txt

Chango Member

Chango

Posted
  • Author
Posted

So I turned on debug mode and saw this:

F:\Gaming\GameEx>chcp 65001
Active code page: 65001

F:\Gaming\GameEx>F:

F:\Gaming\GameEx>CD "F:\GAMING\EMULATORS\MESS"

ECHO is on.


mess.exe a2600 -cart "f:\gaming\EMULATORS\ROMS\Atari 2600\Roms\Air Raiders (USA)
.7z" -joy -now

ECHO is on.


F:\GAMING\EMULATORS\MESS>PAUSE
Press any key to continue . . .

At that point I pressed a key, then everything happens so quickly I can't really confirm EXACTLY what the output is but it seems to enter the same mess.exe launch game command again.

At this point MESS loads up, it starts loading the game, and again it closes itself out immediately and returns to the GameEx game select menu.

I use MESS for this example but it does this will all emulators for all games.

Any ideas?

Chango Member

Chango

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Okay UPDATE -

It seems like any emulator besides MAME and MESS launch and operate just fine.

MAME and MESS are the only offenders for some reason.

I saw it get as far as actually completing the loading of the game, it said "LOADING COMPLETE"

That's the point where it crashes.

Maybe crash is the wrong word - It doesn't crash per-se, it just acts as if I had hit ESC and it drops back to the GameEx menu...

Any idea why these two emulators would do this and none others?

Its so odd, MAME was working just fine until I did UPDATE LIST - It pulled all the titles and then downloaded artwork and all that, but for some reason this issue has popped up now...

DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

This may be an obvious question (or not) but do your rom sets match your MAME/MESS versions EXACTLY? It's important with MAME (not sure about about MESS but i will assume yes) that you have the right rom set for your program version. Roms can change drastically between versions. Have you tried running mame with cmd.exe using a simple command? If there is anything wrong with your rom set MAME will output the reasons in the cmd window.

Chango Member

Chango

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Interesting advice.

I recently was using MameUI64.exe with .153. I recently updated the set with the supplemental .154 set. At that point I updated MAME64/MAMEUI64 to .154 and they seem to have possibly stopped functioning around then.

I had previously enabled ADAVANCEMame support as a feature, that version is drastically behind version .154.

But then I disabled the use of it and still neither mame64.exe or mame6ui.exe for .154 launch these ROMs through GameEx without crashing.

Do you happen to know how to force cmd.exe to stay open after it stops the executable so I can see what the output was?

DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

Interesting advice.

I recently was using MameUI64.exe with .153. I recently updated the set with the supplemental .154 set. At that point I updated MAME64/MAMEUI64 to .154 and they seem to have possibly stopped functioning around then.

I had previously enabled ADAVANCEMame support as a feature, that version is drastically behind version .154.

But then I disabled the use of it and still neither mame64.exe or mame6ui.exe for .154 launch these ROMs through GameEx without crashing.

Do you happen to know how to force cmd.exe to stay open after it stops the executable so I can see what the output was?

Make sure a MAME game is the last thing you try to load. Quit GameEx then find runitgame.bat in ...\GameEx\DATA. Right-click it, choose Edit and make a new line at the end with PAUSE, save then double click the file to run it. Using my own as an example:

@ECHO OFF

chcp 65001

U:

CD "U:\-[GAMES]\MAME"

mame64.exe raidenb -rompath "U:\-[GAMES]\MAME\roms" -nowindow -joy -skip_gameinfo -nocheat -video ddraw

PAUSE

  • Like 1
Chango Member

Chango

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Oh wow, interesting output...

Active code page: 65001
1346b.cpu-u25 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5092.prom-u1 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5093.prom-u2 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5094.prom-u3 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5095.prom-u4 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5096.prom-u5 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5097.prom-u6 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5098.prom-u7 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5099.prom-u8 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5100.prom-u9 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5101.prom-u10 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5102.prom-u11 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5103.prom-u12 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5104.prom-u13 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5105.prom-u14 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5106.prom-u15 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5107.prom-u16 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5108.prom-u17 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5109.prom-u18 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5110.prom-u19 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
5111.prom-u20 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
epr-1286.sound-16 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
6331.sound-u8 NOT FOUND (tried in 005 005)
FATALERROR: Required files are missing, the game cannot be run.
Press any key to continue . . .

That's as basic as user error as it possibly gets.. but check my GameEx.ini, ROM paths are set as they should be?

nullPointer GameEx God (Top Rank)

nullPointer

Posted
Posted

I don't believe this error is complaining that it can't find the game itself, (otherwise it would simply be raidenb.zip that was missing (or whatever)). This error appears to be saying that it can't find the constituent parts of raidenb.zip. So for instance if you opened up raidenb.zip you would find that it consists of several smaller files many of which reflect specific hardware components from the original arcade board.

I'm thinking more and more that this looks like an issue in which the version of your ROM set is not a match to your version of MAME. It would be a worthwhile exercise to audit your set using ClrMamePro, ROM Center, or similar in order to verify.

  • Like 1
DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

That's as basic as user error as it possibly gets.. but check my GameEx.ini, ROM paths are set as they should be?

Actually everything is right in your setup ;) It's MAME that needs sorting in this case so you did everything right where GE is concerned. Here's what i suspect happened:

You had a full .153 set and wanted to upgrade to .154 so you acquired all the update (missing) roms and added them to your .153 set. You then went and upgraded your MAME version to .154. Am i on the right track?

If so then i have some bad news - unfortunately with MAME (again i will assume with MESS too) it's not that simple. With each revision of MAME, roms and all their supporting files get shuffled around, renamed, altered etc. This is why MAME can't find the files it needs to run your roms. Fortunately all is not lost!

You have 2 choices to go forward: acquire yourself a full .154 romset and start fresh OR audit your existing romset to fix it. I would choose the latter, as would my buddy nullPointer who just ninja'd me! :D WB man!

The reason i say this is because learning a rom auditing tool will give you very usefull skills not just for keeping MAME up to date and running, but many other emulator sets and lists too. You can do some pretty cool stuff with them once you get some practice in ;)

I personally use RomCenter and feel it is by far the easiest to get to grips with as a newbie. ClrMamePro is the other top dog, however it is command line only so much harder to learn, but also makes it a bit faster than RC.

Whichever route you choose, don't hesitate to call back for further assistance :)

  • Like 1
tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

Another (albeit small) possibliy is if you udated your set via clrmampro (I've not used romcenter much) did you re-zip them after rebuild?

If this is the case, it could be files that are shared between folders, aren't being found. <edit> resulting in the same problem Dazzle is describing, but for a different reason.

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DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

I agree, something is awry with the romset, i suspect because of mixed versions, but yes an audit will (should) fix it.

An FYI, RomCenter will re-zip all your roms during the fix if you choose it to, although it does a fine job without that option :)

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