Jump to content
SpesoftPinballXConvert-It

All my products and services are free. All my costs are met by donations I receive from my users. If you enjoy using any of my products, please donate to support me. My bare hosting costs are currently not met so please consider donating by either clicking this text or the Patreon link on the right.

Patreon

Advice for new MAME setup

stigzler

By stigzler
in General

 Share

Recommended Posts

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
Posted

Problems of years of building and tinkering is that you never get round to doing some important things properly. One of those is  a mame setup.

Now I read Felix's guide and it said to ensure you match your romset version with your mame.exe version. So, I've now got V0.198 on both

I already have a mame installation on my cab. The roms are going to go into the same location as the older set. The mame.exe path will be different. My question is this: what's the best way to ensuring the best 'clean' setup of mame in gameex? Do I need to be deleting any files/databases etc?

Reason I'm updating is that I recall having problems with this mame/GEx installation - sometimes the roms and descriptions would not match. The launch was sometimes hit and miss. Overall, it all just felt a bit janky. 

So, how do I flush my present GEx config for mame (not the others!) and make it ready for a new mame/romset installation?

Do I also have to update assets or anything? Mame always feels so complicated!

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted

I update every major revision. I just assure I have all the assets in order (catver.ini, history.dat, etc) since the support files need updating too. Then I run the Update List option in GameEx and let it do it's thing.

I use the Verify ROMs option, no clones unless better, no pr0n, and no mahjong. Then I wait for a while.

I've never had to clear anything out between updates, it's usually pretty accurate for my needs. I've seen people post about missing games, but I've never had that issue really (at least not for games I actually play). It also usually takes me a while to find and manually strip out the gambling games, man I hate those!

Hope that helps!

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Adultery said:

I update every major revision.

 

What's the determining factor for "major"?

 

I usually settle on a set for a good bit for my rig, but keep a perpetual set separately

If you use the "Extras" built by community regulars, then the assets are close enough to work as long as you are one or two releases within the current.

0.199 will be out Wednesday BTW

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Adultery said:

Well generally, I don't update to any 'u' builds. If that's still even a thing anymore. ;)

So 0.196, 0.197, 0.198, etc. And apparently 0.199 this week. Lol

Woah, I quoted myself somehow.. Intense!

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
  • Author
Posted
15 hours ago, Adultery said:

I just assure I have all the assets in order (catver.ini, history.dat, etc) since the support files need updating too

Cheers chaps. A - where are these gotten from? are they in the mame download? Sorry - newb questions I know, but wanna get it right this time. 

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Adultery said:

Woah, I quoted myself somehow.. Intense!

The "U" releases went away several years ago with the monthly (last Wednesday of each) release schedule was implemented.  I rarely bothered with them either.

 

1 hour ago, stigzler said:

Cheers chaps. A - where are these gotten from? are they in the mame download? Sorry - newb questions I know, but wanna get it right this time. 

What, are you yanking our chain with this thread?  A man of your experience suddenly posting this after all these years of building and coding!

 

Spoiler

http://www.progettosnaps.net/support/

 

 

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
  • Author
Posted
41 minutes ago, tthurman said:

What, are you yanking our chain with this thread?  A man of your experience suddenly posting this after all these years of building and coding!

Lol - yeah - I'm being serious. Have you ever muddled through something each time you get to it, but only done half a job without understanding what you're doing? Aside from my day job, this is what I've been doing with MAME!

So presently, I have mame 0.198 and a 0.198 set and 0.198 bios-devices. What do I need form that site and where do I stick them (no rude answers, please). Also do the bios-devices have to be in the roms folder or can you point GE to that individually?

Thanks for your forbearance, fellows. 

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

BIOS devices are for the software lists which GameEx currently does not support.  Look for this feature support in EVO, but even then the BIOS devices are only required by certain systems.  I'm still green on the software lists myself, and just now venturing into that realm.

All you need to provide GameEx with is the files with fields in the Advance MAME section down towards the bottom.   There have been some setup wizard changes since I last looked at this myself, but I wouldn't imagine it's changed that drastically if at all here.

 

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted

In addition to what Todd said, MameWorld has a link to most, if not all of the asset files on their front page.

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Cheers chaps - it did turn into a little bit of a hunt especially for controls.dat, but got them all in the end. 

So all done as directed, but not launching from GE. :(

Launch fine from MAME directly, also from lifted command line form log.txt. HOwever, when launched from GE, just tries an returns immediately to GE. No clues that I can see in the log either...

On a positive note - game descriptions are now right (albeit all now prefixed with "a ## year old game" - that gameex or one of the dat files?)

Any advice appreciated! I think Mame is my nemesis weirdly...

 

log.txt

GameEx.ini

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted

Any chance it launches from runitgame.bat? I feel like it might be an issue with one of those command-line switches if it runs ok without them outside of GameEx.

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, stigzler said:

P.S. Found this whilst looking for something else. Ben's pulled them all the mame dat files together:

https://gameex.info/forums/files/category/38-data-files/

 

There have to be files in the repository in order for the downloader to work in the setup wizard.   

That's not intended to be a negative comment, and the plan may be to keep these current moving forward, but you'll notice in the link that I provided that many of them will update with each Mame release.  

 

At the same time, some rarely do.

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
  • Author
Posted
On 6/26/2018 at 9:42 PM, stigzler said:

So all done as directed, but not launching from GE. :(

Launch fine from MAME directly, also from lifted command line form log.txt. HOwever, when launched from GE, just tries an returns immediately to GE. No clues that I can see in the log either...

Sorry chaps - think I've taken my own thread off track! Any ideas on the above. Files here:

 

 

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted

I'll take another look at your files tonight after I get home and see if your CL works for me.

I'll holla back. :)

tthurman GameEx God (Top Rank)

tthurman

Posted
Posted

Path issue? 

 

Quote

21:35:03.72  26/06/2018:  Cannot find the ROM path: X:\Mame\MAME 0.198 ROMs (split)


21:35:03.72  26/06/2018:  ROM Paths are: X:\Mame\MAME_0.198_ROMs_(split)

 

 

stigzler GameEx God (Top Rank)

stigzler

Posted
  • Author
Posted

That was a great spot, T. I had the path with spaces and the amended path with underscores. Changed it to just the operational path with underscores. Still no joy. :(

Interestingly, following A's query, tried running runitgame.bat. When launched individually, it doesn't launch the game. However, if I follow its component lines in cmd prompt it does. This is annoying...

Here's runitgame.bat:

Spoiler


@ECHO OFF
chcp 65001

C:
CD "C:\Arcade\Systems\MultiSystem\Emulators\MAME\mame0198b_64bit"
mame64.exe 1942 -rompath "X:\Mame\MAME_0.198_ROMs_(split)" -joy -skip_gameinfo -video d3d -noswitchres –triplebuffer

ideas?

log.txt

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

Posted
Posted

Is your X drive a mapped network drive? What happens if you use the UNC path in your runitgame.bat?

Just a hunch, I use UNC paths for everything nowadays. My GameEx  install never had a problem with mapped drives before I made the switch, but I'd still try that to see if it makes any difference.

DazzleHP GameEx God (Top Rank)

DazzleHP

Posted
Posted

Hey Stigz,

Any particular reason you have 2 entries for the rompath in your .ini?

Quote

GameEx.ini:

rompath=X:\Mame\MAME 0.198 ROMs (split);X:\Mame\MAME_0.198_ROMs_(split)

One of them is an imposter :ph34r:

It's probably nothing but i notice these things and they niggle at me :P

simbamame GameEx God (Top Rank)

simbamame

Posted
Posted

IVE NEVER Updated any mame stuff TBH ive no idea what set? i have, all i know is ive got version 0.179 of Mame and god only knows what rom set ive got, ive just download loads from different places and it works for me, plays the games i wont...so my question is

Do i actually need to match mame verstion with ROM versions??

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...