Are ROMS tailored to fit different versions of MAME???

[liche]

Just a few questions regarding ROMS.  My original understanding was that ROMS are ROMS and the actual ROMS do not change from revision levels of MAME.

But it seems that there are an awful lots of ROMS which work on earlier versions of MAME i have but the new versions of MAME cannot run them.

Is this an incompatibility issue with the emulator itself, or do the ROMS actually have a rev-level associated with them as newer and newer versions of MAME and other emulators are released.

The problem is, i can run almost all games i have on my arcade cabinet, except for the ones which are my most favorite such as:

FROGGER
PACMAN
MS.PACMAN
GALAXIAN
etc...

[Howard_Casto]

Roms are sometimes redumped and thus you should always have the latest version of the rom and latest version of the emulator, or else you will have to match your rom collection up with the emulator version your are running, which can sometimes be difficult.  Usually roms are never updated, but sometimes the original transfer wasn't perfect and a better copy is made later on.  Also sometimes the roms are re-named to make more sense.  

BUT.... The games you mentioned as examples haven't been changed in a looong time. I would suggest you check your settings and perhaps make a new mame.ini with the -cc option.

[liche]

What does the -cc option do???

Thanks

[Dink]

What does the -cc option do???

Short for -createconfig.  Creates mame.ini.

In the MAME FAQ, http://www.mame.net/mamefaq.html

S10. How can I be sure I have the right ROMs?  

MAME checks to be sure you have the right ROMs before emulation begins. If you see incorrect checksum or other error messages, your ROMs are not those tested to work properly with MAME. You will need to obtain a correct set of ROMs through legal methods.

You can also use the -verifyroms parameter to verify your ROMs' integrity. For example:

mame rastan -verifyroms
...checks your ROMs for the game Rastan and displays the results on the screen.
mame * -verifyroms >list.txt
...checks the validity of ALL the ROMs in your ROMS directory, and writes the results to a textfile called list.txt. (This is a good idea when checking multiple ROM sets - otherwise, the results will flash by on your screen faster than you can read them.)

[hyiu]

but I think there's more to it.... (or am I playing too much video games and gone crazy ?!?!?!....)

because I have a few games that is running no problem in .58,  while in .61, the audit all games checked out ok, but running is a problem.

So, I am thinking... is it because something changed in some part of that "rom's driver" maybe ??...

a couple of games are "paint roller" (is that the name ??)
this will not run at all.... and alien syndrome..... (this one... sound is messed up...)

Thanks...

[Mike]

You need to download and run romcenter. A rom may have changed names or something. It will take the current roms you have and get them up to date or tell you which one is bad and why.

[SirPoonga]

You need to download and run romcenter. A rom may have changed names or something. It will take the current roms you have and get them up to date or tell you which one is bad and why.

Or http://www.clrmame.com  It seems a little more thorough than romcenter but romcenter is more user friendly:)

[Lilwolf]

Also, sometimes emulate more of the board, and require more roms dumped.  

for instance when they started using the proms.  The roms that contained the color coding.  Before that, they where hacked to be a close enough color.

Many times you see one extra roms added.