Newbie help with roms?

[Chochi_ca]

Hello everyone.   I just picked up a Mame arcade.    It has been set up with atomic as its front end.  I tried adding some new roms to the roms folder and only a few worked.   The ones that don't work I c the game name in the game menu but here is no graphic "no snapshot".  And the game will not load.   Is this a problem with the compatibility to the atomic software? Or the rom itself?  Should I change my front end software?  Any help appreciated. 

[Malenko]

Find out what version of MAME its running, and match the rom name to the name MAME is expecting.

[Phreakwars]

What Malenko said.. You more then likely loaded a ROM meant for a different version of MAME. AtomicFE is pretty straight forward. Your problem has to more then likely be the MAME version.

[Chochi_ca]

So does that mean I need to update my version of atomic ? Or is there a way of telling the compatibility of a rom to what software?

[Phreakwars]

No, you don't need to update Atomic, just your mame version. Just search in the file explorer, right click on the MAME executable, then "PROPERTIES" then "DETAILS", and you'll be able to see what version you are using.



As for identifying which version of mame you need for the rom, that really depends on where you got the rom and what version it says it's for.

[Chochi_ca]

Ok will look into it thanx for the detailed explanation

[magus424]

It's also possible that you're simply missing a required file such as a BIOS or sound chip; you can check if that's the case by running "mame.exe -verifyroms romname" (ex: mame.exe -verifyroms raiden2)

Any missing files will be printed out so you could grab them.

[Locke141]

Out of curiosity and if you don't mind me asking, what did you pay for your setup?It is often a topick of discussion.