Two Mame32 questions......

[modessitt]

Okay, first off, My original Mame32 file I got was for ver. .77 or something.  All the games ran fine.  I recently decided to upgrade to the new .114 or whatever and found that most of the games don't work.  Keeps giving me errors about game files not being found.  Someone told me about ClrMamePro, so I ran that, did the rename and everything.  Now - games still don't work.  I got the new DAT file you're supposed to get - still doesn't work.  Even simple games like 10-Yard Fight or Moon Patrol keep giving me errors about missing files.  Any suggestions?   Starting to wonder whether I should have even upgraded....

Secondly, when it was working, I had the problem of games playing too fast.  Some searching found information about the throttle.  When I changed the throttle setting in Mame32, the games flew so fast you couldn't play.  When I changed it back, it was still too fast.  Games like Asteroids and Pole Position are noticeably faster than the original arcade versions.  Anything I can do to slow it down even more?

Thanks for your help....

[hbm*rais]

About the speed, see if you have "sync to monitor refresh" (under Option -> Default game options -> Advanced) enabled. If you do, disable it.

About the roms, I don't know if I can help, I never got the hang of it. I usually download the complete new set of roms when I update mame.

But I think you're missing something: Yes, clrMAME renames some roms and modify (?) others, but there are some changes that are beyond its abilities. For those you need to download the diff files (not just the DAT) with the new roms and the ones that have been modified. Then clrMAME will merge those with you existing base.

[tomsurfnj]

From what I undersdtand of mame32 is that you should match the mame32 version with the roms "set" version. I can't put my .031 mame roms from april 1998 into my .100u mame32 directory and have them work. If you wanted to get a newer version of mame32 working. Try to match the rom set with the mame32 version. I hope this makes sense. I've been downloading .112 rom set of mame for a few weeks. I'm going to put thoes roms into a mame32 ver .112 directory after I have them all. I hope it all works out. You could try to find a rom burner and get the same version of mame32.

[Tiger-Heli]

From what I undersdtand of mame32 is that you should match the mame32 version with the roms "set" version. I can't put my .031 mame roms from april 1998 into my .100u mame32 directory and have them work. If you wanted to get a newer version of mame32 working.

Almost correct.  A few MAME roms change every MAME revision.  Chances are some of your .031 roms have not changed and would work with 0.100u, but most would not.

[ahofle]

I just added this frequently asked question to the wiki (I hope I didn't screw anything up!):

MAME WIKI

[modessitt]

I don't understand why the ROMs would change.  Aren't they simply a program that is run by the emulator?

This would be like playing solitaire on XP and then upgrading to Vista and finding out you need to D/L a new version to play solitaire again.  Since this isn't the case, I find it interesting that MAME32 can't be updated without screwing everything up.  If 10-Yard Fight works with version .077, I can't imagine the game code itself has changed to not make it work with the new version.  Or is it MAME devs trying to change access coding to improve performance, thus breaking the ROM files up into different size chunks than were previously used???

Maybe I should read this FAQ on Wiki.  I originally got the update because I thought it would be necessary  in order to add new games that aren't listed on my version.  Or is it possible to use ClrMamePro to add a newer game to an older version?

[ahofle]

The game code itself doesn't change of course, it's the ROM dumps that change.  Apparently dumping ROMs is not as easy a task as one would think.  There are frequently 'bad dumps' or ROMs that were erroneously skipped during the original dump only to be discovered later (and the other reasons listed in the wiki).  So really the dumps become more 'accurate' over time until they theoretically represent the original PCB.

[Tiger-Heli]

I don't understand why the ROMs would change.  Aren't they simply a program that is run by the emulator?

Typically it is the names that are changed.  For example - (not necessarily a real example).

Tigerh is the main game for Tiger-Heli in MAME.  MameDev learns that the version that they previously used is a bootleg, and the real game has a couple more chips in it.  What happens is:

Tigerh gets renamed as tigerhbl, and the new rom becomes tigerh.

This ensures that tigherh is the most current version of the game, and makes it easy to tell the games from the rom names.  It also means that neither previous version works in the new MAME.  (Technically - tigerhbl might work in the new version, b/c MAME usually searches all the roms and would find the right ones in the tigerh set - I think).

What MAMEdev could do instead is:

tigerh rom stays the same, but mames description changes to "Tiger-Heli Bootleg".  New rom becomes tigerhof (official) and description becomes "Tiger-Heli (official)".

Advantage - tigerh works in all versions, but it will confuse people since the new game description is way different than the old one.

This would be like playing solitaire on XP and then upgrading to Vista and finding out you need to D/L a new version to play solitaire again.  Since this isn't the case, I find it interesting that MAME32 can't be updated without screwing everything up. 

Apples and oranges.

If 10-Yard Fight works with version .077, I can't imagine the game code itself has changed to not make it work with the new version.

Different roms are what keeps it from working, not the game code changes.

Or is it MAME devs trying to change access coding to improve performance, thus breaking the ROM files up into different size chunks than were previously used???

No.

Maybe I should read this FAQ on Wiki. 

Yep.

I originally got the update because I thought it would be necessary  in order to add new games that aren't listed on my version.  Or is it possible to use ClrMamePro to add a newer game to an older version?

Nope, you need the update and the new roms to play the newer games.

[Tiger-Heli]

The game code itself doesn't change of course, it's the ROM dumps that change.  Apparently dumping ROMs is not as easy a task as one would think.  There are frequently 'bad dumps' or ROMs that were erroneously skipped during the original dump only to be discovered later (and the other reasons listed in the wiki).

True, but it's more complicated than you make it sound - Your explanation reads like "Oops, we forgot to dump the 5th rom chip out of 27 on the board, let's get another board from www.arcadeboardsrus.com and re-dump it".

Remember, the boards are 30 some years old now - and they don't have the PCB's labelled as CPU, Game Memory, Video Memory, etc.  In fact, sometimes the roms are encased in Epoxy, either to keep them protected or to prevent reverse-engineering them when the games were just going on location.

Here's an example from mameinfo.dat regarding Fire One:

Here is a (real) story what true emulator freaks can do to help preserving old arcade games, and to document the arcade games' history. The fellow who dumped the roms of Fire One had to drive 5 hours (each way) to get the board from a leaky garage which had been used by cats as a litter box. Half of the eproms had corroded pins and the smell was probably very disgusting (Maybe he should mail the board to IDSA *evil grin* - http://www.idsa.org/. He got the roms dumped, and then the newest addition to MAME team, Olivier Galibert, started furiously working on the game. As a nice side effect, Star Fire also works much better (with trails though). Still no sound in either of these games, and it seems very unlikely that the samples could be extracted from that non-functioning board...

[ahofle]

Hmmm, not sure how:

dumping ROMs is not as easy a task as one would think.

translates into 'Oh, we forgot a rom, let's get another at www.arcadeboardsrus.com' but OK. 

[Tiger-Heli]

 

[turbo6]

Another thing that may help some of your old roms work again would be to get newer versions of the Bios Roms. I updated Mame recently and had a bunch of games missing, then I downloaded the newer Bios roms and alot of the games work now... not all but many.

[modessitt]

By the way, I would have really like it if www.arcadeboardsrus.com was a real site...          

Well, I guess I'm going to have to delete every rom that won't work and re-download them.  I guess the one advantage is that I can download ONLY the games I like and skip all that Japanese Mahjjong crap...   

[markt]

Almost correct.  A few MAME roms change every MAME revision.  Chances are some of your .031 roms have not changed and would work with 0.100u, but most would not.
[/quote]

So how do you tell what version of mame the rom you are downloading is for?

[Tiger-Heli]

So how do you tell what version of mame the rom you are downloading is for?

We're kindof in a gray area with the site rules here, so I'm going to word this vaguely, but it might get deleted anyway.

Most sites only support the current version (or maybe the previous version) - right now probably 0.112-0.114.

Some sites have "rollback" sets which will allow you to take a current set back to an earlier one.

Some burners offer complete sets from previous revisions.

Generally, this is okay - b/c if MAME 0.36 tigerh rom had roms a.u32, b.u54, c.u36, and MAME0.114 moved a.u32 to tigerhb.zip and left b.u54, c.u36 and new prom.u26 in tigerh - you can download ClrMAMEPro and if you have tigerh and tigerhb from MAME 0.112, it will make a 0.36 rom for you.

SIMPLER EXPLANATION:  Generally, either new roms are added or existing roms are renamed.  Rarely are existing roms removed or deleted.  So using a new set with an older MAME version will work much better than trying to use an old set with a newer MAME version.  (ClrMAME can locate and re-group and rename sets for you, but it can't add files that you don't have).

Where you run into problems is with roms that were intentionally deleted (Monaco GP, for example) or samples or previous version artwork - and basically, you're on your own here unless you find friends who happen to have them, or some non-mainstream websites.

[shorthair]

I don't know about that with Monaco GP. From what I found out, it wasn't a rom, but logic gates, which is why it isn't in Mame, but MisfitMame. As for clrmame pro an all, I thought all one had to do was create a dat (this is done by typing in something like mame.xxx = listinfo - mamexxx ...something like that, in a notepade document and naming it to makedat.bat) then locating this in cmpro and rebuilding the sets. I think it worked, when rolling back. But it didn't seem to work when rolling up. Is that what was said, above?

[Tiger-Heli]

I don't know about that with Monaco GP. From what I found out, it wasn't a rom, but logic gates, which is why it isn't in Mame, but MisfitMame.

I believe you had to have a ROM for it to work, though.

I think it worked, when rolling back. But it didn't seem to work when rolling up. Is that what was said, above?

Yes, basically.