I can't figure out MAME and Roms...PLEASE help!!

[Crushpuppy]

Ok, I just recently downloaded the newest version of MAMEUI64. It opens, and the game list comes up. I looked at the info tab at the top and it is showing as the newest version (0.143u9) This is good...NOW, when I try to go download roms for them, only some of them work. I even went to the download page on this site (I am a premium member) and downloaded roms for version .143. Some work, but some do not. Usually it gives me that all too common error "Some of your files are missing" blah blah blah. I have the roms in the roms folder and when I try CHD's I put them in a folder (UNZIPPED) that is the same name as the zipped rom...I have spent tons of time getting my cabinet ready and am falling short on the actual software side. PLEASE someone help me! I am willing to get on ventrilo or teamspeak to talk about the issues I am having. CLRmamepro is completely above my head. SOMEONE SAVE ME!!! I JUST WANT TO PLAY ARCADE GAMES FOREVER AND EVER

[Hot Trout]

Hello and welcome,

Fear not the guys on here will have you gaming in no time. I must confess to not being that up to date with mame compared to the other members.

One thing to check is that you have the BIOS installed for the machine you wish to emulate. Maybe post exactly which games you are trying to run as well so that the others can be specific with their support.

Hold tight and we will have you up to speed asap.

[stinow]

Hi lad,

You are on the right path I think. Clr is a bit on a high league (I also don't understand most of the tool).
But I think you have to look for corrupted or incomplete files (or fileheaders).

Hope that helps a little.

[laughing_lunatic]

Sorry to necro-post, but maybe this info will be useful to members who see this thread and think "Hey, that's MY issue too..."

The devs at MAME are really good at keeping us addicts informed. A valuable source of info is the devwiki:

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http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/Main_Page

the very first section says it all:

"This section has been set up to provide some gory details about why so many of the games in MAME don't actually work"

Also the "what's new" in the release notes are always worth a look. For instance, 0.143u8 (the last major update for 0.143), has, at the end of the section a part that says:

New games marked as GAME_NOT_WORKING
------------------------------------
Unknown TMS9980 Poker Game [Roberto Fresca, Team Europe]
Junai 2 - White Love Story [alien_mame, The Dumping Union]
Namco Stars [Yasuhiro Ogawa]
Sega's Golden Poker Series "Joker's Wild" [Yasuhiro Ogawa]
Real Puncher [Phil Bennett, Chris Hardy]
Speed Driver [XingXing]
Racing Jam DX [Tomas Dahlgren]

Also, even though it sounds obvious, it's worth scouring the MAME dev site and reading the FAQ's.

For instance, under the ROM FAQ's:

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http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/FAQ:ROMs

you'll find:

"Why does MAME report "missing files" even if I have the ROMs?

There can be several reasons for this:

It is not unusual for the ROMs to change for a game between releases of MAME. Why would this happen? Oftentimes, better or more complete ROM dumps are made, or errors are found in the way the ROMs were previously defined. Early versions of MAME were not as meticulous about this issue, but more recent MAME builds are. Additionally, there can be more features of a game emulated in a later release of MAME than an earlier release, requiring more ROM code to run."

So, yeah, even without digging into the esoteric world of CLRmamepro, you can often find out exactly what's going on, or not as the case may be.