mess, mamewah and bat files

[btoddkelley]

I am trying to set up mamewah to use mess for coleco and Atari 7800 games and I have made a foolish mistake.
Here is my bat file for coleco:

start /wait C:\Emulators\mess\mess.exe a7800 -cart %1
exit

And atari 7800:

start /wait C:\Emulators\mess\mess.exe a7800 -cart %1
exit


When i try to start a game  a box opens and closes very quickly and I am back to the game select screen.
Any idea where my mistake is in the dat files?

Thanks
Todd

[Minwah]

Firstly your commandlines are both the same  I guess that's just a mistake in your post but could cause problems if you're trying to load a coleco rom with a7800 hardware...

Set Show DOS Box to Yes, and right-click the batch files' properties and uncheck 'Close on Exit'.  Then when you try to launch a game the DOS box which pops up should remain visible so you can read what it says...

[btoddkelley]

Yea the first bat file reads:
start /wait C:\Emulators\mess\mess.exe coleco -cart %1
exit
I do not have a "close on exit" tab when I right click on properties. I have a general and compatability tab. niether contain that box. Am I looking in the wrong place???

Thanks
Todd

[Minwah]

Yea the first bat file reads:
start /wait C:\Emulators\mess\mess.exe coleco -cart %1
exit
I do not have a "close on exit" tab when I right click on properties. I have a general and compatability tab. niether contain that box. Am I looking in the wrong place???

No my mistake I think, maybe you only get the 'Close on Exit' tickbox for DOS programs and not batch files  

OK Another thing you could check is the debug.log file (in the MAMEWAH folder).  It is re-written each time you launch a game - you should be able to use it to identify what is wrong with the commandline MAMEWAH is using...

[btoddkelley]

The log just shows what I thought was the correct command line and the rom name. I am starting to think the problem is with mess. The version I downloaded includes the mess gui. I cannot seem to find a version that does not have the gui. Does the gui version not work with mame wah?


Thanks
Todd

[Minwah]

The log just shows what I thought was the correct command line and the rom name. I am starting to think the problem is with mess. The version I downloaded includes the mess gui. I cannot seem to find a version that does not have the gui. Does the gui version not work with mame wah?

I don't know, I don't use MESS personally...

Try running the commandline string from debug.log from a command prompt to see what happens.  I believe you can get the normal commandline version from http://www.mess.org/download.html

[btoddkelley]

Thanks for your help min. I got it working by creating a new config file.

Todd