How do get CHD games to run.

[DrewKaree]

Here, since "a picture won't do much good".

Look at the attached picture.

Know what it tells everyone here?  MORE than you've given us.

• What my directory structure is
• How MY CHD's are set up
• What's in MY Roms folder
• What FORMAT my Roms are in, and an icon from the program associating itself with them
• IF I'm missing something (such as a FOLDER) that is causing the problem

If I didn't even TYPE the words above telling you what the picture tells everyone, the people you are asking for help would have still been able to figure that stuff out, and HELP me.  Others may even be able to interpret the possible range of the MAME version I'm using - imagine that!  All without me putting a single letter on the page! 

Have you NEVER heard the phrase "A picture says a thousand words"?

[GGKoul]

Theres not much more a picture could do...

....said the person unable to solve this problem and clearly stated to us that all his ROMS were in rar format (regardless of the fact that MAME doesn't use rar files

[the3eyedblindman]

The reason I thought they were rar files was because they have the rar icons...maybe im absolutely stupid to think they are rar files if they have the rar icons? b lue purple and green book stacked on top of eachother....
What I was trying to say is if you see a picture of an icon with a rar icon that says "Area 51" CHD File" 582 mb" or whatever, it would be the same as me typing it, and this may be easier for me. What I was saying is If I cant get screenshots somehow i will type exactly everything so you guys have an idea. So for all of you trying to help me..

1. Stop, think to yourselves, this kid isn't a computer geek, he is just trying to set up an arcade machine.
2. Maybe I shouldnt treat him like he's stupid, because I guess if he sees an icon with a winrar icon he's going to think its a .rar file.
3. Maybe we shouldn't be so impatient with him, as we know he has had problems in the past that we thought were easy but were solved later on by us helping him.

Alright , goodbye.

[SirPeale]

The WinRAR icon is just to signify what program the archive will open with.  WinRAR will do zip, rar, ace, tgz, tar and a bunch of other archives.

So when you see the WinRAR icon on a file, it could be any one of those.  You won't know which until you turn on 'show extentions for known file types' in the explorer menu.

Go to "Tools --> Folder Options" and select the 'View" tab.   Then uncheck what I show you here.

[GGKoul]

The reason I thought they were rar files was because they have the rar icons...maybe im absolutely stupid to think they are rar files if they have the rar icons? b lue purple and green book stacked on top of eachother....
What I was trying to say is if you see a picture of an icon with a rar icon that says "Area 51" CHD File" 582 mb" or whatever, it would be the same as me typing it, and this may be easier for me. What I was saying is If I cant get screenshots somehow i will type exactly everything so you guys have an idea. So for all of you trying to help me..

1. Stop, think to yourselves, this kid isn't a computer geek, he is just trying to set up an arcade machine.
2. Maybe I shouldnt treat him like he's stupid, because I guess if he sees an icon with a winrar icon he's going to think its a .rar file.
3. Maybe we shouldn't be so impatient with him, as we know he has had problems in the past that we thought were easy but were solved later on by us helping him.

Alright , goodbye.

If you want people to help you.. you should read there responses, try them and report back.

[lucindrea]

all the icon tells you is what program will be opened when you double click the file , it tells you NOTHING about the file it's self.

For future reference, if you right-click the file and select properties.  That'll tell you if the file is a RAR or ZIP archive.

this is a common mistake made all the time and i can tell you it drives help desk guys insane and worst part is the XP does NOT tell you the extension when you right click a file , just what it's assocation is (gee thanks M$) ... you need to uncheck that box shown in the picture a few posts before this.
all his zip files will say rar file in the properties because rar is assocaited with zip , but they are zips , so right clicking will not help.

as for being a computer geek , belive me when i say this is not geek stuff .. .think of it as asking if a car is an automatic or a manual , yes their are allot of people who would not know , but most would .. now asking what your spark plug gaps are , thats geek 

tell you the truth i just thought of a great way to do this that wouldnt involve screen shots , unfortunaly it does involve command console , and i may make this a bit more complex by posting this , but it should help if you willing to give it a try.


assuming your mame is in d:\mame32  ( just replace this with where your mame is )


click start->run
type cmd     press enter
type d:        press enter
type cd mame32    press enter
type  dir /s  > d:\mame.txt   press enter

now when you open mycomputer and double click the d: drive (like i said before , replace the D with where your mame is )  , their should be a file their called mame with the notepad icon , stick that in a post here and it will solve 10000 problems.

[SirPeale]

Actually, if I do properties it says 'WinRAR ZIP Archive'

[GGKoul]

Actually, if I do properties it says 'WinRAR ZIP Archive'

Yes, that means its a ZIP compress file.

If it was a RAR compress file, then the properties would say "WinRAR archive"

[lucindrea]

didnt know rar did that , most programs dont , just happen to find one thats the exception 

[SirPeale]

Actually, if I do properties it says 'WinRAR ZIP Archive'

Yes, that means its a ZIP compress file.

If it was a RAR compress file, then the properties would say "WinRAR archive"

I know that.  The poster above said there wasn't a way to tell from doing 'properties'.