FIXED (XML2INFO problem) - ArcadeOS 2.52 + AdvanceMame87 = No Games

[MonitorGuru]

Fixed... see 4th post below with updated info. Hope this helps someone.  Now if I could get back 7 hours of configuring!


Okay, admittedly I am stupid when it comes to some of these programs and their configs (And I write software for a living and can tell you how horrible these things are lacking in doc)

Anyway, I really want to get ArcadeOS working with AdvanceMame87.

I have all the video mode stuff working so I can launch any game with Advmame. That's not the issue.

I loaded ArcadeOS 2.52 and have xml2info loaded as well. It appeared to generate a complete MAME.RMS? file (it appeared to have game names in it).  When I chose to select a different rom set, the first listing shows 2253 roms (the total # of zip's I have in the folder). and the rest of the filters show 0 games. I select the first one.

Anyway, the program however doesn't show a single game in any of the lists saying "Error: No games"

What piece am I missing to get it to show a list of games.  I have worked on this for about 5 hours and got past everything else (not having xml2info, configuring AdvMame, etc..)  and now just can't get past this and it's annoying as heck.

Thanks in advance if you can tell me why no games show up when I've pathed out to everything and it says I should have them as it shows the correct number.

Thanks

[dabone]

Try changing your rom dir to roms.


Worked for me.


Later,
dabone

[MonitorGuru]

I tried that thinking that may be the problem. My folders look like this:

C:\ADVMAME\
C:\ADVMAME\ROM    (have 2000+ roms in here)
C:\ADVMAME\ROMS  (copied 20 or so roms into here)
C:\ARCADEOS\

Pathed everything out correctly in both the ADVMAME.RC and the ARCADEOS.CFG files.

I will need to doublecheck how many games it counted, to see if it combined the ROM and ROMS folder. (it was 22xx something).

Here's one of the better config pages I found. It really helped me understand configuring AdvMame and got that figured out, but it's lacking in ArcadeOS discussion:
http://members.cox.net/mame1/software.htm


Does ARCADEOS need to be in the same folder as the roms/ADVMAME? Nothing in the doc led me to believe that and that web page describing setup didn't really touch on it, and appeared to possibly be in a different folder which is what I have (since you tell it paths to mame anyway)

[MonitorGuru]

Okay, I started over and even named the dirs differently and updated the configs:
C:\MAME
C:\MAME\ROMS
C:\AOS

I even tried to just put an UNZIPPED rom, under a folder (e.g. C:\MAME\ROMS\BTIME).

Here's the deal: If I tell ArcadeOS to show "Unknown=1" in its' config, then it shows a count of 2311 rom files in the list selector, but no games show up in the actual menus.  If I change Unknown = 0 then the count shows 0 and still no games.

I can launch advmame by hand still and everything works there perfectly to PC monitor or arcade monitor.

But I cannot to save my life, get any games listed in ArcadeOS no matter what I configure.  It's also not like it's not seeing advmame.exe cause it builds the list of games correctly (the RMS is generated with Unknown=1).

What setting is wrong? I've started over using the original files in the latest distributions.  I'm thoroughly confused.

[MonitorGuru]

FIXED !!

The problem isn't the config or the paths to the rom files at all.

The whole problem lies in "XML2INFO.EXE".

You *MUST* download this from a DOS MAME BINARY distribution.  

The easiset way to tell if this is your problem is to run "xml2info.exe" at the command prompt in dos. If it reports "This programm cannot be run in DOS mode" then you have pulled the wrong version.

I went to Mame.net and downloaded Mame86b_dos.zip and copied it's xml2info file over and sure enough, it generated my list of games... FINALLY!

Hope this helps someone.

[SirPeale]

Heck, I didn't know you didn't have it, or I would have recommended it.

[MonitorGuru]

I had it (I posted above that I did), but unfortunately I pulled it from a Mame32 install on my main system.  Didnt even think that would not run in dos mode.

I searched this forum and saw at least 4 other posts from people with what seemed to be the same problem appearing around mame 83 when XML was changed.

Running ArcadeOS fails to report the error of the routine and looked like it worked when in fact it didn't. I ran it separately and saw the error.


BTW--You can cycle through the rotate attributes... I know what most of them, but didn't know what X meant?

(H = horizontal, R = Rotate Right, L = Rotate Left, X = , D = Disable[hide])

 Just curious what's that used for.


Also, I cant seem to get the snapshots to work.. have to read some more docs on how to get them working

[SirPeale]

The snapshots can't be zipped.

I had read above that you had xml2info but didn't realize that you had the Windows version.  I should have known better.  *slaps self*

[MonitorGuru]

It's worse than that... they can't be over a certain size and/or color depth it seems.

I havn't found the exact specs, but none of them that i tried unzipping out of the zip worked.  

I even tried to snapshot a few out of a few games while running advmame (f12). MOST did not work. Only a handful did.  e.g.

Joust, Jungle Hunt, Pole Position, PP2, Mario Bros worked while Bubble Bobble, Tempest, Popeye, moonpatrol, 5-in-1 did not.

I therefore believe it is both color depth and size that affects the ability for ArcadeOS to show them.

I am going to try the latest version of AdvanceMenu again tonight and see if I can live with it.  I don't care for it as much, but if it's faster (gotta be) and more intuitive to set up and actually works without tons of extra work, I'll use it.

I so wish GameLauncher or that new one everyones talking about (derived from ArcadeOS) supported arcade video modes.


Oh, also I still cannot get sound to work (SBPCI64  ESS1370 chip). Downloaded the DOS drivers from a mame site and configured it to take IRQ 11 instead of 5, and Advancemame either doesn't play or locks up, or ArcadeOS won't launch when sound is turned on.


BTW--any clue on what the "X" option is?

[lolitsdaelan]

Perhaps I'm confused here, but on mame.net, the newest version of mame for dos is 0.50, so how are you downloading mame86b_dos, when it only offers the windows binaries?

[Thenasty]

Last time I played with AOS, it does not display pics that is more than 256 in colors. You must have 256 or less for AOS to display snapshot.

Thats when I decided to use Advmenu.

[SirPeale]

Perhaps I'm confused here, but on mame.net, the newest version of mame for dos is 0.50, so how are you downloading mame86b_dos, when it only offers the windows binaries?

I've got .96 running in my Galaxian conversion, so I know it went above that.  Not sure where to download it though.