missing files on most of the games we want to run

[JoeStrout]

My boys and I have our "Co-Op Legends" cabinet nearly working.  It's running on an older Mac Mini with sdlmame 0.140 (we also have sdlmame 0.139, and might be able to get some newer versions to work, although it's a pretty old Mac running an old version of OS X, so our options may be limited).

We have a list of about 10 games we want to install, and a few of them (Gauntlet, Rampage, D&D Shadows over Mystara) work fine.  The others all complain about missing files.

For example, Gauntlet 2 gives us:

OpenGL: FBO not supported
74s472-136037-101.7u NOT FOUND
74s472-136037-102.5l NOT FOUND
74s287-136037-103.4r NOT FOUND
ERROR: required files are missing, the game cannot be run.

I don't think the OpenGL error is a problem, as games that work fine say the same thing.  But the missing files are a bigger deal.

Similarly we're apparently missing simpsons.nv, tmnt2_uaa.nv, and three files inside goldnaxe.

Now I know I can't ask where to download files, and I'm not asking that.  I'm looking for better understanding of how all this works so I can have a better chance of solving it myself.  I'm baffled by all the different versions of MAME and ROMs and what works with what.

For example, I have what is supposedly a complete dump of all the "MAME 0.37b5 ROMs," but how MAME 0.37b5 relates to sdlmame 0.140, I have no idea.

Are these missing files things that I should expect to find in a ROM file somewhere?  If so, would they be a different version of a ROM I already have (e.g. gaunt2), or are they an additional ROM file with a different name, that needs to be in the same folder?

Would I be able to find this by zip-listing all of the ROM files I have, and looking for a corresponding file name?  Or is there a better way?

Or, do these missing files refer to things that should be built into MAME itself?  In that case, is my only resource to find a newer version of MAME?  Or might I be able to find an older version of the ROM that doesn't require them?  (I mean, surely these ROMs I have worked at some point for somebody, right?)

Thanks for any advice...

- Joe

[Malenko]

ok start with trying to fix 1 game at a time.

For all the games complaining about missing files, open the zip/rom folder and see if the files are in there.  If they are not, you have to redump or redownload the rom files.  Romsets can change between MAME releases, so Im pretty sure youre using a set of ROMs that dont match your MAME version.

as for the NV files, those are created when you run the game then hit F2 and F3 (on a PC) to reinitialize the NV Ram. I remember it being an issue with MAME .137, if the game doesnt run, Im not sure of a fix, especially on a Mac.

Hope this at least gets you pointed in the right direction.

[BadMouth]

Those are individual files inside the rom zip file.

Sometimes between versions, MAME devs will rename or reorganize these.
Usually they are renamed or separated out into a different zip file.
An example would be where a bunch of games all use the same sound board or bios.
In some cases it's simpler to just create a separate rom that all the games can share rather than maintaining all of them separately.
This is on a per-game or per-driver basis.  The changes are listed in the what's new file with each mame release.

Usually 99% of roms will work from one version to the next, but over time these differences pile up.
So the older your romset, the more problems you're going to have if using a newer version of MAME.

Version .37b5 is friggin ancient.  The reason you can still find full romsets is because a lot of cell phone/tablet versions of MAME use it due to their low cpu power.

EDIT:  I looked it up out of curiosity. 
.37 is from 2000. 
.140 is from 2010

So your roms are from 10 years before the version of MAME you are using.  A lot of changes can pile up in 10 years of development.
My advice is to get roms from some place that tells you which version of MAME they are for and then download the matching version of MAME from mamedev.org
You could download the version to match your current roms, but a lot of games have been added or improved since then.

[JoeStrout]

Thanks guys, that is quite helpful.

I'll put my 0.37b5 ROMs into storage (except for the ones that happen to be working great already), and look for some newer ROMs.

[BadMouth]

There is also a program called clrmamepro that can update or roll back your roms.
It will require the newer files to build a newer set though, so you might as well just download a new set.

IMO, it's probably more work than you want to get into but if you were to have a set of current roms and a set of "rollback roms",
clrmamepro can create a set of roms for any version of MAME you wish to use.
There is the time sink of the learning curve though, which is why I think you're better off just finding a matching set.