How to run mame w/ROMS on a network share?

[MartyNg]

I am building a cabinet and for now, I only have a spare laptop with not much hard drive space free. I thought I could load mame on it and run ROMS that were on a network share on my media server. I have configured the .ini, and it tries to start the roms, but then shows an error that it can't find a bunch of file names (the files that it can't find are right inside the .zip files, and these same zip files run fine when loading from my local machine.)

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'm wondering if it's because they are zip files, they don't like to be uncompressed and run from a different machine. Thanks for any help!

Also, are there any special considerations I must make in my MAME configuration since I will be using a laptop through my arcade monitor (with a J-PAC).

[Brad]

Have you mapped the drive to a letter? Do that and then make sure that the drive letter itself is the path rather than a full UNC path. I know it works that way though it may be a little slower to load at first.

Brad

[MartyNg]

Have you mapped the drive to a letter? Do that and then make sure that the drive letter itself is the path rather than a full UNC path. I know it works that way though it may be a little slower to load at first.

Brad

Yes, I have it mapped to a letter, so in my mame.ini file, the ROM location is  "Z:\"  MameWAH is able to populate the games list from there, but cannot actually load any of the games.  (Both of my machines are WinXP Home)

[MartyNg]

The exact error is "ERROR: required files are missing, the game cannot be run."

[fatfingers]

Can you run the games from the command line (no mamewah)

[MartyNg]

Can you run the games from the command line (no mamewah)

No, the indicated error is from the command line. Of course, with this not set up right, MAMEWAH won't work either. That just does nothing when I select a game....just stays in the menu.

[fatfingers]

I know you say the location is "Z:", but I just want to make sure it is not something more like "Z:\my mame roms" (i.e. something with spaces in the path name).

[MartyNg]

I know you say the location is "Z:", but I just want to make sure it is not something more like "Z:\my mame roms" (i.e. something with spaces in the path name).

I've tried it both ways. I've had the drive letter mapped to the root, like "Z:\", and I've also tried it like "Z:\roms". Whatever way I share it, same error. Do you agree that it's likely a problem with how .zip files are handled across a share....perhaps where the archive is temporarily unzipped? Because it definitely finds the .zip file, but just isn't able to get to the files inside.

[Brad]

Sounds like a familiar problem. I think it could be due to having split roms. If you had merged roms (not recommended) then I reckon it would work?

Brad

[fatfingers]

I know you say the location is "Z:", but I just want to make sure it is not something more like "Z:\my mame roms" (i.e. something with spaces in the path name).

I've tried it both ways. I've had the drive letter mapped to the root, like "Z:\", and I've also tried it like "Z:\roms". Whatever way I share it, same error. Do you agree that it's likely a problem with how .zip files are handled across a share....perhaps where the archive is temporarily unzipped? Because it definitely finds the .zip file, but just isn't able to get to the files inside.

*shrug*  I was just mostly guessing based on issues I've had with windows before, but not this one.  Good luck!

[u_rebelscum]

Have you tried going to the folder in the commandline?  Sounds like you have, but if not, type:

z:[enter]
dir[enter]

If z: is set up like it sounds you want it to be, you'll get a list of all the ROM zip files.  If not, you'll  get somthing else.


I just share-mapped my roms from my other computer the the Y: drive on my laptop, and works fine.  I typed "mame -rp y: pacman"  (-rp is the same as -rompath)  WinXP home & mame 0.107 on my laptop.