Roms compatability with different versions of MAME

[upprc04]

I have a handful of roms for MAME 0.114 and was wondering if roms are tied to specific MAME versions.  If I update MAME will all roms that work in 0.114 work in future versions (or are suppose to)?

[NOP]

this type of question comes up a lot.

the answer is no one really knows if a rom set today will work tomorrow.


Here's the deal: A guy with an arcade board dumps all the roms on his boards and sends them to a mame developer.

Mame developer writes the code to emulate the roms, gets the game working, everyone is happy, a mame version is released that supports that game at that time.

sometime in the future...


it is discovered for whatever reason, that one of the roms dumped by the original guy was corrupt, or tweaked somehow, or possibly even missing altogether.    A new dump of it is obtained, and all the internal MAME checksums are updated and a new MAME release it sent out.  Your old rom collection is now out of date with the new mame. 


Or, someone realizes that "hey, the color palette of this game is actually controlled by this device over in the corner of the original board".  no one dumped that bit of logic, so now something is missing from the rom set that that game needs.  Mame is updated, your rom set is now out of date again. 


I've seen games be stable across dozens of releases of mame, then a new MAME is released and all of the classics, which you'd think were "done" suddenly don't run until you update 1 tiny file in all of them. 
mame will tell you what's wrong, you find that one file, and then you're set again for the next few years.  After you locate the new rom set, you may not even ever notice a difference in gameplay, but behind the scenes, the game is more *accurate* than it was before, and that's the important part.

As we learn more about how the original hardware was used, the mame code has to evolve with it.   it's a moving target.

Luckily, there are programs like CMPRO which can help rebuild sets of roms and match whatever it can against MAME's internal database of needed roms.  If you also stay on top of keeping your collection up to date when there are new releases, it's not that much work.

[upprc04]

Thank you for the response.  I'll keep this bookmarked and check out CMPRO down the road.  Trying not to start playing games too much until I at least get started on my cab.  I know if I start playing I'll talk myself out of actually making the cab or it will take forever to get started/finished.

Adding link to CMPro, so I don't forget it later - http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/

[WhereEaglesDare]

....why not get a newer set???

[nitz]

Just curious - what's your reason for wanting to upgrade? Unless you're into mahjong, gambling games, or some pretty obscure games, I can't imagine there being much that's been added since then that you would really want to play.

I used to get a little ocd about keeping up so that the emulation could be as close to perfect as possible, but now I just kinda feel...meh. All the games I want to play seem to work just fine, and 99.9% of everything I would ever want to play has been working in mame for years. And sometimes upgrading can acutally break stuff - mame 0136 comes to mind. Of course, upgrading is a pain for me because of a sucky internet connection, but if you have a great connection you can go nuts. But personally, I'm just gonna pick a solid mame version and stick with it. If something major happens with a game I care about or if a non-working game I care about starts working, I'll upgrade for those games only and still use my old version for everything else. Trying to keep up can drive a person nuts!

[upprc04]

Just curious - what's your reason for wanting to upgrade? Unless you're into mahjong, gambling games, or some pretty obscure games, I can't imagine there being much that's been added since then that you would really want to play.

No real reason to upgrade and your comments basically reassured me.  I just kept reading about people updating their mame versions, but it seemed like it was more than just improving mame itself.  It sounded like for a small set of games per new release will "improve" their emulation to be closer to actual hardware, and adding new games.  I will be sticking with the version I have now unless I run in to a case where a specific game I really enjoy has a major change like you said.

[Hoopz]

I will be sticking with the version I have now unless I run in to a case where a specific game I really enjoy has a major change like you said.

Bingo.  Unless something changes to make you ***NEED*** to upgrade, I would say don't.  There's nothing magical about having the latest set unless it adds a feature that you want.  So if a game gets updated or a game gets added that you want to play, then upgrade. 

And if that happens, you can run multiple versions of Mame.  You would use .114 for all the normal stuff and then .1XX for your new game.  Fairly easy to setup and accomplishes what you need (older stuff working fine and adding new game).  Bingo, bango, bongo!

[taylormadelv]

...AND as the newer versions of mame are released, they generally use more and more CPU and graphics power to run the same games at full speed. A boat anchor comp will run old roms of Tempest great but if you want dual, independent spinner controls for a cocktail; you need a newer version of mame, a newer Tempest rom and a much faster computer to run the game at full speed.

[Mugzilla]

So, if I have roms from .74 (circa 2003), what should I do?  I notice a BUNCH of the games I like no longer load.

I want to run them on the old hardware (That used to run them just fine...), so getting a new set of ROMs is not the best option.  The BEST option would be to find a decent frontend that uses MAME v.74.

Can anyone recommend a frontend that uses whatever mame version you toss into it?




(I figured the board would be appreciative if I just jumped onto an existing thread instead of starting a new one...)

[Hoopz]

So, if I have roms from .74 (circa 2003), what should I do?  I notice a BUNCH of the games I like no longer load.

I want to run them on the old hardware (That used to run them just fine...), so getting a new set of ROMs is not the best option.  The BEST option would be to find a decent frontend that uses MAME v.74.

Can anyone recommend a frontend that uses whatever mame version you toss into it?




(I figured the board would be appreciative if I just jumped onto an existing thread instead of starting a new one...)

It sounds like your roms don't match your Mame version.  If you have Mame .74, then you need the roms to match them.  You need to downgrade your roms from whatever version you have down to .74.  The front end has nothing to do with it.  You need to either find version .74 of roms (doubtful) or downgrade your set to that version using clrmamepro.  It's not hard to do even though clrmamepro is a pain in the ass.

[Mugzilla]

So, if I have roms from .74 (circa 2003), what should I do?  I notice a BUNCH of the games I like no longer load.

I want to run them on the old hardware (That used to run them just fine...), so getting a new set of ROMs is not the best option.  The BEST option would be to find a decent frontend that uses MAME v.74.

Can anyone recommend a frontend that uses whatever mame version you toss into it?




(I figured the board would be appreciative if I just jumped onto an existing thread instead of starting a new one...)

It sounds like your roms don't match your Mame version.  If you have Mame .74, then you need the roms to match them.  You need to downgrade your roms from whatever version you have down to .74.  The front end has nothing to do with it.  You need to either find version .74 of roms (doubtful) or downgrade your set to that version using clrmamepro.  It's not hard to do even though clrmamepro is a pain in the ass.

I don't HAVE a version of MAME. Getting a copy of v.74 will take me 5 minutes.    WHAT I NEED to find a frontend that EITHER has v.74 built into it, or a frontend that I can stick v.74 into it.

I COULD get a new set of ROMs, but then I'd have to build a new computer that can power the newest version of MAME.  I liked the way everything ran with 0.74 on my Athlon XP 2200.  I just wish I'd kept a frontend from that era that used 0.74...

[nitz]

You should be able to run 0.74 from a frontend. You may be getting tripped up by the fact that mame didn't generate the xml info files until 0.85 I believe - so using an older version could be a problem for generating gamelists. The fix is to download mame 0.85, generate its xml file, then put that file in your mame 0.74 folder. There may be the odd game that shows up wrong (or not at all) if it had its rom name changed between 0.74 and 0.85, but I don't think there'd be too many games like that and once you spot them, you could fix them by manually editing the xml file.

[Mugzilla]

You should be able to run 0.74 from a frontend.

OK, GREAT. 

WHAT FRONTEND can actually RUN MAME v.74?!?!?!??!?!?!

[Hoopz]

Any Front end can run Mame.  That is EXACTLY what they are designed to do.   

[Mugzilla]

Any Front end can run Mame.  That is EXACTLY what they are designed to do.   

The frontends I looked at appeared to already have MAME installed inside of them.  I realize their version number does not refer to a version of mame installed inside of them...

[TOK]

I can tell you MALA will work with pretty much anything... The newest version of MAME I use is .99!
It sounds like you're getting the Windows version with the interface built in (MAME32 or MAME UI?) You just need the Windows Command Line version.

[WhereEaglesDare]

Any Front end can run Mame.  That is EXACTLY what they are designed to do.   

The frontends I looked at appeared to already have MAME installed inside of them.  I realize their version number does not refer to a version of mame installed inside of them...

What frontend has MAME installed in it?

[TOK]

Any Front end can run Mame.  That is EXACTLY what they are designed to do.   

The frontends I looked at appeared to already have MAME installed inside of them.  I realize their version number does not refer to a version of mame installed inside of them...

What frontend has MAME installed in it?

MAMEui, though its more like the other way around -a version of MAME with a simple front end installed in it.