[Resolved] Noob.. so lost trying to set up MAME

[MrGrynch]

I recently embarked on my dream of building a sweet combo vpin and retro arcade machine.  I can fairly easily get my pinball tables to run ( I do have some issues but thats for another day).  What is really driving me nuts is getting MAME to work within PinballX.  I have about 100 ROMS and they all run standalone in MAME.  In the PinballX settings app, I provided all the information for MAME in "Other Systems".  However, when Iaunch PinballX I don't see a MAME option anywhere. It goes straight to on of my pinball tables.

Searching through the forums and see similar issues.  One solution said I need to create some XML files by configuring a different front-end (gameex) and copying the xmls files from there?!  That seems really klunky to me.  I dont want to configure a different front-end.  I tried going to the Game Manager.  I selected the MAME list and tried to add a game and its only showing me the contents of my tables folder.

I tried looking through the latest PinballX documentation but that wasnt helpful.  That documentation assumes way too much prerequisite knowledge/experience that I do not yet have, and in any case, other than mentioning an XML file at the very end, did not provide much info on how to create it.

Can someone please point me in the right direction to getting my MAME games recognized by Pinball X without configuring GameEx.

Thank you!

 

PinballX.ini

[Draco1962]

Using GameEx' integrated MAME generated xmls may seem clunky but is easier than you may think and something to consider as MAME updates take place and updated XMLs are required.

That said, if you dig deeper into the forums you can find several threads related:

 

 

[MrGrynch]

13 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

Using GameEx' integrated MAME generated xmls may seem clunky but is easier than you may think and something to consider as MAME updates take place and updated XMLs are required.

That said, if you dig deeper into the forums you can find several threads related:

 

 

Thanks!  I did come across some of these.  Somehow I didn't think threads that were 4+ years old would still be relevant.

[MrGrynch]

Ok, I muddled my way through setting up MAME on GameEx.  I can see my ROMS (most of them), and I can launch games.  There are 101 ROMS but it's only showing me 95 of them.  That's a problem for another time.  I ran the "Update Lists" but I can't find the XML file(s) I need.  Am I supposed to do something else to generate them?  In this thread, it says they will be generated in DATA\PinballX but I don't have the emulator installed through GameEx, and it did not create the directory for the file.  I did a file system search and did not find a MAME.XML file.

 

[Draco1962]

You may need to identify the ROMs that are missing and identify them in the Do Not Exclude settings of the Setup Wizard.

As for the XML files, look within the \gameex\data path. There should be three files for MAME - vertical, horizontal, and all.

 

[MrGrynch]

I don't see it.  I've attached a directory listing.

 

dir_list.txt

[Draco1962]

I stand corrected - here is my view under \GameEx Arcade Edition\DATA\PINBALLX showing the four (not three as originally noted):

Apologies as I was away from my PC and omitted a folder. I am not sure why it is not showing when using GameEx. You may want to try GameEx Arcade Edition if GameEx is not working for you.

If you don't mind, can you please attach copies of your gameex.ini and log.txt files in reply? If GameEx is not creating the files, then Tom will need to address it.

Below I have attached my XML files as a reference. If you choose to use any of them, you will have to edit them to remove the ROMS you do not wish to have displayed. I find Notepad++ works great when doing manual work.

MAME.XML VERTICAL.XML ALL.XML HORIZONTAL.XML

[MrGrynch]

As requested, see attached.  I'm running on Windows 10

 

GameEx.ini log.txt

[MrGrynch]

UPDATE:

Using your "ALL" file, I was able to get MAME running on my PinballX.  So that's definitely the problem.  Now just to figure out why GameEx isn't creating them for me.

I appreciate your patience and assistance.

 

[Draco1962]

@Tom SpeirsThe files I provided were generated within the latest version of GameEx Arcade Edition.

@MrGrynchcan you try downloading GameEx Arcade Edition using your MAME settings from your GameEx setup to confirm it works for you?

 

[MrGrynch]

I installed the GameEx Arcade edition and everything worked as expected.  I have all the generated MAME xml files

 

[Draco1962]

1 hour ago, MrGrynch said:

I installed the GameEx Arcade edition and everything worked as expected.  I have all the generated MAME xml files

 

Thanks for your confirmation! Looks like there may be an issue with GameEx generating the files.

[MrGrynch]

UPDATE:  I noticed the game count wasn't right after using GameEx Arcade Edition to generate the XML files, so I dug a little deeper and here's what I found:

Missing from XML files:
bnjm.zip (Bump 'n' Jump)
bublbobl.zip (Bubble Bobble)
junglek.zip (Jungle King)
mach3.zip (Mach 3)
punchout.zip (Punchout!)

Wrong in XML files:
splatter (Splatter House, mame ROM not present)

I have no idea why Splatter House was added to the list.  I do not have that rom in the set I used to generate the list.  As for the missing games, the ROMS are there and I confirmed those games are not in ANY list generated by GameEx.    Getting the classification wrong for HORIZ and VERT lists is understandable, but I don't know why games would be missing from the ALL list.  The only clone in that list is Pac Man, and it found that one no problem.  The rest are all parent ROMS

UPDATE2:

A comment made in another thread got me thinking there was some default filtering happening in GameEx, so I went back and took a look at the advanced MAME settings.  Sure enough, I noticed two things.  There were a bunch of things in the "Filter" list, one of which was games from Japan.  This will result in games being excluded even if they are in English and play perfectly fine, but have the word "Japan" somewhere in their title/description.  Since I am only adding ROMS I already know I want, I don't need filters, so I cleared them.  That got the missing games to appear in the list.

I than noticed there was a field that said "Don't filter these ROMS" and it included PacMan and Splatter House.  I thought that was a HUGE coincidence since I mention both of those above.  To test this, I removed the PacMan rom and regenerated the lists.  Sure enough, Pacman was there even though the ROM was not.  In my opinion this is a bug.  That field should do a further check to ensure the ROM is actually there.  I cleared that field and Splatter is now gone.  PacMan is still there because I want it to be

Based on the generated output, I see no reason (other than developers' time/interest) why this can't be a standalone program.  This would not hurt GameEx and would benefit PinbalX by not requiring the use of one front end to configure another.  It would require the two programs to stay in step with the schema for the list though

Out of curiosity, where does the metadata for the games come from (manufacturer, full name, date, screen res, etc.)?

 

[MrGrynch]

I'm going to mark this as resolved.  Thanks again for the help!  I can work around any little glitches for now.

 

 

[Draco1962]

On 3/8/2022 at 12:32 PM, MrGrynch said:

Out of curiosity, where does the metadata for the games come from (manufacturer, full name, date, screen res, etc.)?

Dat files is where it's at...

https://easyemu.mameworld.info/mameguide/additional_media/datfiles.html