Some Games (like Galaga) Work in Older Mame32 but Not in New One...?

[RoninEditor]

This is so weird, I'm not sure what's going on.  Basically, I used to use the older Mame (v 0.72.1.0) and now recently updated it with MameUI32 0.122u8 as well as the FX version, both have the same issue while trying to play Galaga (and I'm not sure how many other games are affected by this). 

Basically, when I click the game using the new Mames, error messages appear after 6% loading saying I'm missing various files.  However, when I go to the older version, it plays perfectly.

Has anyone experienced this or could maybe explain...?  I'm afraid I'm going to have to downgrade my Mame.  If so, does anyone know where to find the older versions? 

Thanks!

[TheShanMan]

You need to make sure you have a matching set of roms for the version of mame you're running. Sounds like galaga roms have changed between the 2 versions.

[RoninEditor]

I have the same ROM folder referenced in both Mames... same ROM files.  Does that affect anything? 

(I actually moved all the ROMs into the new Mame's folder and then referenced them with the old Mame, and they still work in the older version.)

Hmm...

[SparkyGoBlue]

You need separate rom sets for each version of mame.  Some of the older roms may work in the newer version of mame, but you'll find quite a few that won't.

[u_rebelscum]

What others said.  Also, you can check maws to see if and when a romset was last changed; the romset galaga.zip changed twice since 0.53 (last change(s) .119u3 .112u1), and clones of it changed at different versions.

I find it easier to think "Romsets can change between versions of mame," and each zip as the set of roms.  A bad dump rom can be corrected, an undumped rom can dumped, a romset can be renamed, and romsets can be regrouped to contain the correct roms.

You only separate romsets for different version only for those that changed.  I do this with one shared rom folder for all common romsets, and a separate folder listed first in mame.ini for the differing romsets.

[RoninEditor]

Okay, this makes more sense.  Now I just have to figure out how the ROMs are dated and all that good stuff.

[TheShanMan]

You can't really ask a rom what version(s) of mame it's for but you can find out which roms are invalid for a particular version of mame with either mame itself or clrmamepro.

[RoninEditor]

I checked this out, I'll give it a shot.  I'm a bit vague on all of its capabilities... can it 'tweak' older ROMs to work in the new MameUI?  (So far, the only game I can't play on the new version of Mame is all of Galaga, my favorite game of course )  I might have to downgrade until I find a version that works with it. 

Also, aside from the above-mentioned games like MK4 and Tekken (can't remember which version, but one players perfectly though), regarding the infamous 'stutter' (he said games that used to play perfectly are now stuttering), I saw someone with a fairly similar question and he'd hear something about tweaking the "mame.ini" file to make it 'faster'.  Nobody answered him though, regarding the mame.ini file... I have no idea what this does anyway, let alone how to tweak it, has anyone heard of this or how to do it?

[u_rebelscum]

I checked this out, I'll give it a shot.  I'm a bit vague on all of its capabilities... can it 'tweak' older ROMs to work in the new MameUI?  (So far, the only game I can't play on the new version of Mame is all of Galaga, my favorite game of course )  I might have to downgrade until I find a version that works with it. 

Clrmamepro can rename roms and romsets, move or copy roms from or between romsets, merge or separate romsets, and remove incorrect roms.  It can't create a missing rom out of nowhere.

Also, aside from the above-mentioned games like MK4 and Tekken (can't remember which version, but one players perfectly though), regarding the infamous 'stutter' (he said games that used to play perfectly are now stuttering), I saw someone with a fairly similar question and he'd hear something about tweaking the "mame.ini" file to make it 'faster'.  Nobody answered him though, regarding the mame.ini file... I have no idea what this does anyway, let alone how to tweak it, has anyone heard of this or how to do it?

If it's not due to a too slow CPU, try enabling -refreshspeed.  This will cause the game to run faster/slower then original, but should correct sound problems if they're due to a different PC refresh rate than the original game.  This is a fairly common problem & fix.

If the above doesn't help, mame has 118 options, and there are thousands of different computer systems and ~7000 rom sets.  Different systems may need different settings on different games to tweak the fastest.  There is no simple, one fixes all problems on all games, solution.  More info on the problem, computer and settings are needed.

[RoninEditor]

Still haven't tried that Rom-rebuilding program, will have to get on it... in the meantime, it's an HP Pavilion P4 2.8ghz, originally 512mb RAM, just bought another gig but haven't installed yet, so 1.5 gb RAM as of tomorrow, and it's an ATI 9800 Radeon Pro, 128mb.  It's not the same to compare, but in the PC world, this played Far Cry at almost maxed out frame rates and COD2 at about half of its 'ideal' settings, it was also able to run my Avid editing software on it, well, the pro-sumer version of Avid.  Used to be a decent little computer for its day, but I had to retire it to the Mame-world

Also, I heard of CHD files...?  The heck are those...?  I heard they make beefy games play faster, like it's a cab 'hard drive translator'... never heard of these before though. 

[philby85]

Hi Guy's,

Having a similar issue. Upgraded to 0123u4 with no nag diff. Compiled ok and works fine. When I ran galaga it just quit. I have romset 108 i think
So i got an updated galaga rom set. It now starts but a message flashes reset due to watchdog, it then continues and freezes at rom ok.

cheers

Philby