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MAMEWAH not booting roms from menu - Getting stressed!!

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Turnarcades:
Hope someone can help me with this; I'm getting really wound up with MAMEWAH but I wanted to get into this as everyone reckons it's the best bootable frontend for arcade cabinets. This is a lengthy post as I'm trying to give you all the details I can to hopefully get this solved quickly, as all the advice I have scoured through elsewhere relates to old versions of MAME and MAMEWAH.

The problem is like this:

I have a complete list of roms showing when I boot MAMEWAH, yet when I try to launch a game, the message box crops up (the one that says 'loading rom') for a second or two, then nothing happens. It just stays on the MAMEWAH menu and nothing happens. It doesn't freeze, it just doesn't actually launch the game.

I have installed the command line version of MAME 0.107b in c:\mame folder. I have installed MAMEWAH 1.61 in it's own folder in my documents. MAMEWAH has been set up correctly (as far as I know) to identify the correct rom path and mame.exe file. MAMEWAH boots and I have managed to generate a rom list (which was at first problematic, but now works). I have tested MAME and run it from the command line successfully. The roms are all complete and ClrMAMEpro verified, all are zip files, unmerged.

I tried to use MAMEWAH 0.97 and also with the 'MAMEWAH Setup Tool' but I kept getting error messages when I tried to compile a game list, so gave up. The only documentation I have found with people having the same problem on the 'net is help with older versions of MAMEWAH, but this is no good as the config/file/ini structure is different in the newer versions. Even those people had trouble finding help.

Ideally someone else who is running MAMEWAH succesfully in their cabinet can help me by comparing my setup and actual config/ini files to theirs. If nothing else, I could re-write mine to match theirs and tweak it for my own needs. It may even help if someone could send me the EXACT files/MAME package/MAMEWAH install package they use, in case the ones I got were bad. They shouldn't be, as they were downloaded straight from their homepages. Maybe their are other files I need that are missing? One file was dodgy so I've already replaced that! What's strange is that it did load a game from the menu - once, but never again since. Maybe I changed something and didn't realise, but I've uninstalled and re-installed loads of times.

Here's what I have:

MAME folder (c:\mame\) contents:
mame.exe
mame.dat (empty)
mame.ini
jedutil
chdman
romcmp
xml2info (downloaded from the 'net. Wouldn't generate rom list without it)
+all the other MAME folders; roms, artwork etc....

The mame.ini reads as follows:
### mame.ini ###

### Frontend Related ###
clones                  1

### Windows path and directory options ###
rompath                 roms
samplepath              samples
inipath                 .;ini
cfg_directory           cfg
nvram_directory         nvram
memcard_directory       memcard
input_directory         inp
hiscore_directory       hi
state_directory         sta
artwork_directory       artwork
snapshot_directory      snap
diff_directory          diff
cheat_file              cheat.dat
history_file            history.dat
mameinfo_file           mameinfo.dat
ctrlr_directory         ctrlr

### Windows video options ###
autoframeskip           1
frameskip               0
waitvsync               0
triplebuffer            1
window                  0
ddraw                   1
hwstretch               1
resolution              800x600x16
refresh                 0
scanlines               0
switchres               1
switchbpp               1
maximize                1
keepaspect              1
matchrefresh            0
syncrefresh             0
throttle                1
full_screen_brightness   0.000000
frames_to_run           0
effect                  none
screen_aspect           4:3
sleep                   1

### Input device options ###
mouse                   1
joystick                0
lightgun                0
steadykey               0
keyboard_leds           1
a2d_deadzone            0.300000
ctrlr                   slikstik

### Mame CORE video options ###
norotate                0
ror                     0
rol                     0
flipx                   0
flipy                   0
debug_resolution        auto
gamma                   1.000000
brightness              1.000000

### Mame CORE vector game options ###
antialias               1
translucency            1
beam                    1.000000
flicker                 0.000000
intensity               1.500000

### Mame CORE sound options ###
samplerate              44100
samples                 1
resamplefilter          1
sound                   1
volume                  0

### Mame CORE misc options ###
artwork                 1
use_backdrops           1
use_overlays            1
use_bezels              1
artwork_crop            0
artwork_resolution      0
cheat                   0
debug                   0
# playback              <NULL> (not set)
# record                <NULL> (not set)
log                     0

### Configuration options ###
readconfig              1
verbose                 0

The MAMEWAH folder (c:\documents and settings\Turner's documents\MAMEWAH\) has:
ctrlr (folder)
docs (folder)
files (folder)
ini (folder)
mamewah.exe
mamewah.ini
mamewah layout designer.exe
transparent (cursor file)
xml2info (same as MAME folder one. Not sure why, but list wouldn't generate without it. Read somewhere to add this to make it work.)

The ini folder contains 3 files - mame,mame-0 and mame-1, all .ini files.
mame.ini reads as follows:
### mame.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

emulator_title                            M.A.M.E.

### List Generation Settings ###
rom_path                                  c:\mame\roms
rom_extension                             zip
dat_file                                 
nms_file                                 
catver_ini_file                           
list_generation_method                    rom_folder_vs_listxml

### Execution Settings ###
emulator_executable                       c:\mame\mame.exe
commandline_format                        [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_1                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_2                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
game_specific_config_path                 

### Artwork Locations ###
artwork_1_image_path                      c:\mame\snap
artwork_2_image_path                      c:\mame\marquees
artwork_3_image_path                      c:\mame\flyers
artwork_4_image_path                      c:\mame\marquees
artwork_5_image_path                     
artwork_6_image_path                     
artwork_7_image_path                     
artwork_8_image_path                     
artwork_9_image_path                     
artwork_10_image_path                     
movie_preview_path                       
movie_artwork_no                          1

### Screen-Saver Settings ###
enable_music_in_screensaver               1
saver_type                                slideshow
movie_path                               
movie_fullscreen                          1
quit_delay                                30
wrapper_executable                       
wrapper_commandline_format                [name]{nodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
scr_file                                 

### External Application Settings ###
ipc_file_or_path                         
app_1_executable                         
app_1_commandline_format                 
app_2_executable                         
app_2_commandline_format                 
app_3_executable                         
app_3_commandline_format                 
auto_launch_apps                         

### Additional Settings ###
music_path                               
lcd_display_file_path                     
lcd_fe_text                               

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_list                              0

mame-0.ini reads as follows:
### mame-0.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

list_title                                All Games

### Games List Settings ###
cycle_list                                1

### Execution Settings ###
commandline_format                       
alt_commandline_format_1                 
alt_commandline_format_2                 

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_game                              1

mame-1.ini reads as follows:
### mame-1.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

list_title                                Filtered

### Games List Settings ###
cycle_list                                1
list_type                                 normal
display_clone_info                        0
max_favorites                             0

### Execution Settings ###
commandline_format                       
alt_commandline_format_1                 
alt_commandline_format_2                 

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_game                              1

The mamewah.ini reads as follows:
### mamewah.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

### (Global) Screen-Saver Options ###
delay                       300
slide_duration              3

### Audio Options ###
enable_sounds               1
sound_volume                100
music_path                 
enable_music                1
music_volume                100

### Movie Options ###
intro_movie_file           
exit_movie_file             
keep_movie_preview_aspect   game_aspect
delay_before_movie_preview  2
music_movie_mix             mute_movies
movie_volume                100

### Misc Options ###
layout                      Custom1
ctrlr                       default
wrap_list                   0
remember_current_game       1
keep_image_aspect           1
refresh_images              0
correct_orientations        horizontal
safe_mode                   0
show_cursor                 0
keyboard_led_states         -,-,-
winipac_file               
mamewah_ipc_file           
lcd_com_port                1
lcd_settings               
exit_action                 choice
app_to_run_on_exit         

### Settings used by MAMEWAH ###
current_emulator            mame
locked                      0
last_ipc                   


SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME OUT!!!!! I'd love to use this frontend in my cabinet, but I can't get it to work. Other frontends just don't cut it, and as I've never used command line MAME before (I've always used MAME32) I may be doing something wrong.

Even if it's not perfect for how I want it, if someone can send me links to the files they used to install theirs it may help! I've tried loads of other forums but just can't get an answer for the newer software or old! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :timebomb: :timebomb:

2600:
I believe you need to use the latest beta MAMEWAH release, available on the MAMEWAH forums, with the later versions of MAME. MAMEWAH sends out the romname in all caps and the later versions of MAME doesn't like that if I recall.

Turnarcades:
I've tried MAMEWAH 1.61 with older versions of MAME though. My romset is actually a complete 0.78b set. I've tried loads of versions (0.78, 0.84. 0.93 and others) but it doesn't seem to make a difference. MAMEWAH 1.62 is mentioned a lot of places, but it isn't available from the MAMEWAH site and reports suggest it's a bit unstable, which will upset matters more.

Someone out there must be running MAMEWAH efficiently!

Throw me a bone someone!

MiKman:
I had a similar problem except I was using mame32. click on the rom, it would start to load then nothing just woudln't run.  It was fustrating, and was after I upp'ed from 106 to 107.  Deleted the default.cfg file and blew away all my settings (reset to default). then it worked.

Long sory short, try deleting the default.cfg file (back it up first).

Turnarcades:
You mean the default.cfg file inside the 'cfg' folder in MAME? You really need to specify cos this file just appears to not have much info in it.....

Do  you mean the .ini file or what? From what I read, new versions of MAMEWAH don't work with MAME32 anyway. I certainly couldn't get it to work with MAME32 (wouldn't generate a gamelist) and it was supposed to run really slow when it did work on older versions.....

Let me know, before I lob the thing out the window!

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