4 Player List under MAME

[teebo2345]

Hi Guys,

Under the separate simultaenous 4 player list for MAME I am only showing 65 titles. It used to show many more (For example even TMNT does not show up), can someone please clarify how this list is populated?

I have verified the paths under the GameEx MAME settings. Also I updated my nplayers.ini file to match my version of MAME. After I updated the MAME game list it did increase from 65-69 titles so something helped. Does anyone know what to check? I have a complete ROM set and am running MAME 0.149 with the latest version of GameEx.

[B2K24]

I have 257 games listed, but no TMNT, Simpsons, or XMEN, so I have no idea how it fetches that information.

[Draco1962]

You may want to provide us with copies of your gameex.ini and log.txt (Click here for additional information on how to find these files and others that may be required). Thanks!

[teebo2345]

I have attached the files as requested. Also it looks like a few other people are having the same issue. Does anyone know how the 4 player, etc MAME lists are created? It seems that they are refreshed when you "Update list" under mame because my total 4 player simultaneous games increased from 65-69 after a mame update.

Update: I just installed a fresh copy of Gameex and the latest mame binary on another PC. I copied just a few test ROMS to my ROM folder and did an "Update List". Curiously it shows thousands of games (Presumably since I did not check only show Roms on my hard disk) but is also only shows the 69 4 player games still.

What should I do to troubleshoot because my nplayers.ini file shows hundreds of 4-players games. Also it matches my MAME version so that should not be the issue. When I "Update list" I can see it including nplayers.ini in the game list creation. "nplayers.ini" in the DATA folder of gamex is referenced in the documentation as the place for number of players to be pulled.

GameEx.ini

log.txt

[nullPointer]

As you mentioned, there have been issues reported in the past regarding some 4 Player games (most notably TMNT, and The Simpsons) not being displayed in GameEx. In one specific case, it was due to the fact that the 4 Player version is considered to be the parent set and the 2 Player version is considered a clone ... but in that situation the user was trying to get the 2 Player version(s) to display. All the same, I'm wondering if parent/clone relationships are having an impact here. Have you tried disabling No Clones and updating your list again? It may be a long shot, but I'm genuinely curious.

[DazzleHP]

if all else fails, you can add the 4 Player roms to the exclude filter in MAME settings.

[teebo2345]

I tried disabling "No Clones" and updated. My 4-player list jumped slightly to 79 titles. We are still missing something here, there should be hundreds. Does anyone know how this list and the other lists are generated? None of them seem to be accurate.

DazzleHP - I am not sure what you mean by adding 4 player roms to exclude filter. Wouldn't that just make the list smaller?

[teebo2345]

Here is what I get with a fresh install with the latest MAME on a brand new PC.

I am getting similar results even on a vanilla install.

[DazzleHP]

Hi, first things first, you still have "Japan" in your filter - that will disable MANY clones! Many clones are in the Japan category, and many parents are too, so as my first port of call i would get rid of that. (then do a fresh Update List)

Secondly, when i say "let it through the filter" or "add roms to exclude filter" what i mean is, load the GE Setup Wizard, Go to MAME Settings, scroll down a little bit, find "Don't Filter These ROMS". You can add your roms here to make sure they don't get filtered, but it is hardly an ideal solution, and to be honest we should really be trying to find out why your list is not populating properly first.

[tthurman]

Just curious, with no filtering at all, do they show up? I know I too have read about this 4 player game issue (with some games at least) more than once popping up, and to some degree it seems adding them to favorites may be a more attractive alternative than the automatic filtering, while at the same time a little less maddening than trying to figure out exactly why certain games don't seem to play nice with the filtering feature. Perhaps a even better option is to setup your fav MAME games via Daz's guide to custom MAME lists .

I'll be the first to admit I haven't played with all the options available within GameEx, but the nice thing is there are lots of them available regardless. This hobby seems to invoke a lot of creative "out of the box" type thinking and tinkering, and so it stands to reason not everything always works exactly as it seems it would. When there's a will, there's a way though!

[B2K24]

My system has always had 0 filtering showing clones, mature, etc.

Anyway, the problem seems to be in the actual nplayers.ini itself. Just like with the history.dat issue where removing all instances of *|* allowed it to go past carnevil, there's something about newer nplayers.ini that GameEX doesn't like.

I replaced my nplayers.ini with the 0.140 version and updated list. Now I get 337 games and it shows TMNT, XMEN, Simpsons, etc.

Archive can be downloaded here ---> http://nplayers.arcadebelgium.be/files/nplayers_older.zip

Now to find out exactly at which version breaks GameEX functionality and why it happens.

I'm willing to bet if only the 4 player sets are listed in the file (example aafbb=4P sim) similar to a .map file then GameEX will show everything flawlessly.

[Draco1962]

If I am not mistaken (and I probably am) it started with 0.150.

[teebo2345]

B2K24 - Wow that looks very promising! I will give it a try when I get home. What a great community we have.

[B2K24]

I think it probably started at 0.143u2 when mass amounts of Casino/Fruit Machine sets were added.

Anyway, I used Notepad++ and removed most everything that was 2P or an entry not needed from the 0.154 nplayers.ini

I get 403 games listed when using this modified nplayers.ini

If anyone wants to try I've attached it and make sure you switch it out at the root of your MAME path as well as GameEx\DATA location

Enjoy!

nplayers.ini

[teebo2345]

Awesome - this will be really useful over the weekend when the family is over. While we are on the subject of 4-player games what are some of the best competitive titles? I have found a few but am always looking for new ones to try.

[B2K24]

Hit The Ice

Gauntlet

NBA Jam/NBA Jam/TE

NFL Blitz

Trog

Bomber Man games

[Adultery]

There's another option/alternative as well but it may be a little more involved...

If you load up the configuration for the mame commander plugin you can search all games for 4 player ones and click the button to add them to the 'do not filter' list in GameEx. At least I'm pretty sure you can search by number of players...

That way you don't even need to know the ROM name. You can also see mame status and clone info in the results window.

You can never have too many options.

[teebo2345]

Just to confirm, both solutions presented above work. B2K24's file optimizes the 4P list but leaves out the 2P stuff so the MAME multiplayer list does not fully populate. It is much easier to read though. Thanks guys!

[B2K24]

Just to confirm, both solutions presented above work. B2K24's file optimizes the 4P list but leaves out the 2P stuff so the MAME multiplayer list does not fully populate. It is much easier to read though. Thanks guys!

Ahhh bummer. I totally forgot about the multiplayer tab, so sorry about that. I'm gonna prepare another file that does not strip out any 2P or 4P information and give that a test.

I think I can quickly remove the mass amounts of Casino/Fruit Machines and all will be well

There is a bunch of garbage in the 154 files and I think maybe the combination of 4p in the set names possibly fowls things up among other things

m4pick=???m4pitfal=???m4pitfala=???m4pitfalb=???m4pitfalc=???m4placbt__0=???m4placbt__1=???m4placbt__2=???m4placbt__3=???m4placbt__4=???m4placbt__5=???m4placbt__6=???m4placbt__7=???m4placbt__8=???m4placbt__9=???m4placbt__a=???m4placbt__aa=???m4placbt__ab=???

Stay Tuned.....

[B2K24]

OK got it done

Only removed ???, Pinball if bunches were grouped together & some marked Device. No 2P entries were touched.

4192 multiplayer games listed

403 4 player games listed

See attached and Enjoy!

nplayers.ini

[tthurman]

OK got it done

Only removed ???, Pinball if bunches were grouped together & some marked Device. No 2P entries were touched.

4192 multiplayer games listed

403 4 player games listed

See attached and Enjoy!

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage of trying this stuff out right now, but I will at some point.

You have provided some great content to the gaming community in general, and continue to do so! I know I've benefited from your work more than once! Thanks!

[Kenpachi]

Thanks so much for the new nplayers ini file, worked like a charm! Recently came back to GameEX after trying out HS for a long time and love all the changes and new features!

[MoggFanatic]

1. Is this also possible for Lightgun-Games and Driving-Games?

2. Can i make a own category?

When i set the category Lightgun in GameEx only half of my Mame-Lightgun-Games show up. The Driving-Games category is unusable because you have to choose a view type (1.st Person view, rear ,etc.) and shows all in all half of the games i have. I want to have all Driving-Games in one category.

[B2K24]

It shows 320 light gun games here on my end.

I'm not sure about your other questions.

[EDIT] what happens if you pick a random Driving game like Daytona then there's a selection named More: Driving. If I click that it shows 422 (Racing) games

Edited November 6, 2014 by B2K24

[MoggFanatic]

It shows 320 light gun games here on my end.

I'm not sure about your other questions.

[EDIT] what happens if you pick a random Driving game like Daytona then there's a selection named More: Driving. If I click that it shows 422 (Racing) games

Thanks for the quick reply.

Under mame:

When i select "shooter / gun" in the category selection, suddenly all mame light gun games do show up! So this is fine even if i dunno why it is correct now :-)

When i select "Driving in the category selection in mame there is only APB and Roadblaster showing up and not the rest of the driving games, i assume it is not a base category where all driving games show up (Driving /1.Person, Driving /chase, etc.), only those who are labeled "Driving".

When i go to a mame driving game and select it and then select "more driving" a huge list is showing up with hundreds of games from all sort of console and arcade roms. Is there a option to only show the Mame roms then? It's to confusing else and maybe there is no real solution to it.