Help with using pi 2 to boot into single mame rom

[aldub516]

 hey guys first off I would like to say thank you for reading this and Any help I get.  I'm coming over from the arcade side to find some help on a new project. I am absolutely brand-new to the raspberry pi and Linux World. I've spent quite a few hours in the last few days just familiarizing myself with terms and different things about the pi.  My current goal is to build a dedicated game machine out of An icade  for one of my friends. Running just one single mame rom, such as robotron or mr do. Through my research I've come across a lot of different things and now I'm coming here to try to help whittle down the information and see where I'm at.  I bought a raspberry pi two model B as well as the 10 inch LCD monitor. I started doing research on the operating system and retro pie and other things. I did not get far enough to actually try ,that's for today.  I don't  expect a step-by-step walk-through by any means but sometimes spending time researching something in the wrong direction can be very wasteful. Here are a couple questions I have and even just liner notes on the subject would help point me in the right direction. Of course if someone has a link or process for doing what I want that would be great as well.   

Running raspberry pi 2 model b, with lcd Hdmi screen. Have a wifi dongle, power supply and all that, and will be using an ipac2 although learning about gmio pins sounds fun.. and my goal is to be able to boot right into one single game. That's it. Plug in pi, boot to robotron, shut down pi

Here's some off the top questions.

 Do I actually need retro pie or any front endd if I am booting into one single game. Is there some kind of command line or something that I can use to do this
I'm
I also understand not all games will work on a raspberry pie and that I may need an old rom set or ROM version to get it properly playing. In this instance it will be Robotron but eventually I would like to do other builds. . Can someone give me a very simple breakdown of the theory behind ROM sets and what does and doesn't work with the pi.. I also understand not all games will work on a raspberry pie and that I may need an older versions.  In this instance it will be Robotron but eventually I would like to build lot more.

 Given my specific and particular goal how would you go about achieving this. I don't have time to spend learning everytttthing about the pi to find out I didn't even need that info. I will be of course having many more
Questions but I'm looking for some more "broad" answers to at least eliminate a bunch of things I don't have to google and read about.

[JDFan]

Try PMing 2084 - he has done just that on several wall mounted units -- Here is his thread with pics of the builds ( http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,141265.msg1461909.html#msg1461909 ) and IIRC almost all of them use the PI and boot directly to the game they play so he should be able to help.

[aldub516]

 Thank you for the advice and I will. It's hard doing the research on this because you pick up bits and pieces but nothing directly relating to what I need to do. As I said I don't want to spend a week learning about Linux so some forum guy can come by with a 2 step process lol. What I'm trying to achieve is fairly simple. It was funny because I did preliminary research and went out and bought the pi 2 and the first thing I read when I came back home and started looking ino  other areas the first things I started to read were that the pi is piss poor for Mame how it sucks how it's terrible how it's garbage. And all of a sudden I'm sitting there like LOL OK this sucks. But after even more and more reading I am somewhat confident I can run an old mame game dedicated to just that use. I am going to email him shortly thank you

[JDFan]

I haven't personally used the Pi or Pi2 so can't really say how they perform but if all you are wanting is something that will run some of the older classic games it should be fine - those that complain about it are the ones trying to run the newest games that need a high powered system to run the emulation properly. I think one of the main problems with the Pi is that there are not many newer versions of Mame translated to the format so you wind up having to use some of the older versions which also means not having some of the newest additions and that many of the front ends are also not available so you don't get ll the bells and whistles in the front end and graphic effects. As long as you go into it knowing some of the limitations it should be fine for what you are planning.

But like I said I haven't actually tried it so can't be of much help in that area but there are several members here that have used them and seem to be just fine with the performance.

[Slippyblade]

JDFan was correct to an extent.  The PI is effectively running a cell phone CPU.  The newest MAME will compile on it, but it runs lame dog slow.  There are older versions that work just fine for the ROMset supported.  Also, no need to use an IPac, the GPIO is easy enough to use.

[aldub516]

I will look into the gpio, purely if not for the education and challenge. I guess more or less its just like an encoder? Attach wire to corresponding pin.. then set said pin to the key i want.. in a nutshell?

and yea, im only going to be running old games. Im waiting for a response from the man himself. Thanks so far for the input!

[DaOld Man]

I am learning about the GPIO. Looks like arcade controls wired to it may be simple, but like I said, Im still learning.

[aldub516]

Glad to see someone else jumping into this new. It's so funny how just having an arcade love has led to me self educating myself on so many thing.. And yea as far as I can tell the gpio is more or less, an ipac. I found a tutorial the other day which maps out the pins and how to change their input. Fun stuff. Sadly enough I have yet to get the pinto even load. Haven't had much time but thus far in stuck at rainbow screen. Tomorrow is my big day of pi'ing. Have made no progress in the single mame game thing tho

[DaOld Man]

Let me offer some advice that has proven to be worth while to me. Back up your SD card. Especially after you have made some lead way.
Backing up the Pi to your PC is easy using win32diskimager or similar program, and a SD card reader on your PC.
If you screw something up and Pi dont like it, you can revert back to what you had a lot easier than re-doing all the things you are doing now.

[aldub516]

I haven't got far at all, but I will absolutely remember that for every time I make progress. I guess just not knowing the fundamentals is where the learning curve is. I actually had to read up on if I'm supposed to install rasbian before anything or retropie includes it.but thus far even just copying the N00bs distribution isn't loading for me. As I said today's my big work day so I wouldn't worry just yet.

[keilmillerjr]

Portable MAME-PI v2.0 is a distro that can boot to a single game. I can't tell you where to find it, saint's note - so please don't hint either

[aldub516]

I shall dig deeper.. thank you for your input 

[southpaw13]

Any info on booting to a single game with portablemame 2.0?  I am in the same stage as you 😀

[aldub516]

yea man, ive done hours of work thus far and made a lot of progress..im not home at the moment but ill give u the closest instructions until i do get home..

its a very simple setting. In a new command window type and enter the following

sudo rwenable
sudo nano /etc/rc.local

go down a bit to where you see i see the mame4all settings.. youll see a command that looks like /home/pi && /home/pi/mame

right after "mame" at the end, just  put a space and enter a rom name.. such as  "/home/pi && /home/pi/mame robotron"

thats it. it should boot right into the game. press esc to exit, then ctrl alt f4 to go back to command mode

[southpaw13]

I will try it very soon!!!  And good luck😀