Attract-Mode Support Forum

Attract-Mode Support => General => Topic started by: Autotec on January 06, 2019, 05:33:00 PM

Title: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 06, 2019, 05:33:00 PM
Hello everybody. I'm new this this so please be easy on me. I've been searching and reading for 2 days without any resolution. This is my first Arcade build, and I'm running into some issues with Attract Mode. I'll start with MAME runs fine, all of the controls work and the games play well. The correct names come up in the simple GUI and I can select them.

I installed Attract Mode and all I get is a Pac Man video with games on the left side. The names aren't correct though. Plus I can't select any of them.

There is one difference in the instructions I've been reading and what I'm seeing in the AM configuration menu, and that would be the "Working Directory". What should that be pointed at? My thought is that is why I'm having issues. Attached is the image from the main screen and my configuration screen.

Like I said, I've searched and I'm sorry if these questions have been asked before. But I couldn't find any answers. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you, Justin

Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: progets on January 06, 2019, 05:52:42 PM
1. why is you MAME exe called "mae64.exe"? Looks like a typo.
2. add your rompath to the mame.ini (in MAME emulator folder)
Code: [Select]
rompath                   roms;D:\MAME\roms
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 06, 2019, 06:07:10 PM
Sorry, I attached the wrong picture. I noticed that after I took the first image. All of the wording is correct now. Good eye, you made me double check.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: progets on January 06, 2019, 06:34:15 PM
What about your mame.ini file that I mention in #2?
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: keilmillerjr on January 06, 2019, 07:27:23 PM
I assume mae64 isn’t the official mame binary. Sometimes people share their modified „arcade only“ binaries, and I have seen instance where generating xml does not work on them. Can you manually generate a proper xml from the binary? If not, use an official binary to generate an xml. I think mame is now hosting the file pre-generated too.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 05:05:20 AM
No, it actually is “mame.exe”. It was a typo on my own part that I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That has been fixed, but nothing has changed. And that I find kinda strange.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: keilmillerjr on January 07, 2019, 05:20:04 AM
No, it actually is “mame.exe”. It was a typo on my own part that I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That has been fixed, but nothing has changed. And that I find kinda strange.

Did you try what I asked? Can you generate the xml manually?
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 05:43:46 AM
No, it actually is “mame.exe”. It was a typo on my own part that I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That has been fixed, but nothing has changed. And that I find kinda strange.

Did you try what I asked? Can you generate the xml manually?

I’m going to sound dumb, but how would I attempt to do that? This is the part of this build where I’m out of my comfort zone.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: keilmillerjr on January 07, 2019, 05:54:19 AM
No, it actually is “mame.exe”. It was a typo on my own part that I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That has been fixed, but nothing has changed. And that I find kinda strange.

Did you try what I asked? Can you generate the xml manually?

I’m going to sound dumb, but how would I attempt to do that? This is the part of this build where I’m out of my comfort zone.


For you, open cmd and type the following:

D:/MAME/MAME v.204/mame.exe mame -listxml >D:/MAME/MAME v.204/mame.xml

Let me know if it’s generated. It should be a large file measured in mb.

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: zpaolo11x on January 07, 2019, 05:58:52 AM
Very basic doubt here: have you generated the romlist from attract mode UI?
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 06:46:14 AM
Thank you, I will try as soon as I get home from work. Like I said, this is my weakest point in this build, but I’m learning a ton.

As for the rom list, it shows it created it during the setup process.

Thanks again guys.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Bgoulette on January 07, 2019, 06:54:52 AM
Hey Autotec,

It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot. (Should be under attract/emulators/mame.txt, or something close to that.) I have a relatively small subset of games (no full romsets), so it wasn't too bad for me to go in and manually delete the offending lines. You can always comment out anything suspicious with a pound sign if you're not sure what it is.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: zpaolo11x on January 07, 2019, 07:16:01 AM
It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot.

Good point! I remember when I set up my MAME + AM system I put all the actual game roms in one folder and all the devices, bioses etc in another folder. Then MAME settings point to both folders, while AM ROM folder setting only points to the "actual games" ROM folder. In this way you should clean up the romlist from drivers etc
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 07:47:02 AM
Gives me something else to look at. I don’t set the pc up, one of my friends did that for me. How can I tell the difference between a game rom and the other info?
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: zpaolo11x on January 07, 2019, 08:14:08 AM
I'm not sure I can post such links here but if you google for mame roms bios devices you should find a page from internet archive that has a list of them for MAME 0.185. Don't know for newer versions
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Bgoulette on January 07, 2019, 11:03:55 AM
It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot.

Good point! I remember when I set up my MAME + AM system I put all the actual game roms in one folder and all the devices, bioses etc in another folder. Then MAME settings point to both folders, while AM ROM folder setting only points to the "actual games" ROM folder. In this way you should clean up the romlist from drivers etc

This is such a great idea, I'm ashamed I didn't consider it! Probably because I'm not sure how. I'm relatively new to mucking with mame.ini: is that where you point to the drivers, etc.? (in addition to the roms themselves?)

Autotec,

zpaolo11's suggestion sounds a lot less labor-intensive, but because I started with a small number of roms, it was a small matter to remove the items I recognized as devices/drivers and test anything else on a per-"rom" basis. With a full set...yeah, I wouldn't want to deal with that, either! I'd pursue zpaolo11's idea!
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 03:57:47 PM
No, it actually is “mame.exe”. It was a typo on my own part that I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That has been fixed, but nothing has changed. And that I find kinda strange.

Did you try what I asked? Can you generate the xml manually?

I’m going to sound dumb, but how would I attempt to do that? This is the part of this build where I’m out of my comfort zone.


For you, open cmd and type the following:

D:/MAME/MAME v.204/mame.exe mame -listxml >D:/MAME/MAME v.204/mame.xml

Let me know if it’s generated. It should be a large file measured in mb.

https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html

Finally got home and the quick answer is no, nothing came up. I tried forward and back slashes just to make sure. The image is what I was getting.

Thank you, Justin
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: keilmillerjr on January 07, 2019, 04:20:39 PM
Get rid of that “mame” parameter. Sorry, I typed on an iPhone and it can get tough some times. Essentially, you want to tell the terminal to execute a script or binary, and then pass parameters to it. In your case, the parameter would be listing xml, and the second part is to capture terminal output and store it in a file.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 04:29:47 PM
It looks like what happened with my latest AM install: the romlist generator (I'm not at my PC right now: forgive misleading terms!) included all the devices and drivers in its mame.txt file: that's what it looks like you're seeing based on your screen shot.

Good point! I remember when I set up my MAME + AM system I put all the actual game roms in one folder and all the devices, bioses etc in another folder. Then MAME settings point to both folders, while AM ROM folder setting only points to the "actual games" ROM folder. In this way you should clean up the romlist from drivers etc

This is such a great idea, I'm ashamed I didn't consider it! Probably because I'm not sure how. I'm relatively new to mucking with mame.ini: is that where you point to the drivers, etc.? (in addition to the roms themselves?)

Autotec,

zpaolo11's suggestion sounds a lot less labor-intensive, but because I started with a small number of roms, it was a small matter to remove the items I recognized as devices/drivers and test anything else on a per-"rom" basis. With a full set...yeah, I wouldn't want to deal with that, either! I'd pursue zpaolo11's idea!

Alright, looking at the folders, I have two folders named "roms" on 2 different levels. One has all the separate files and folders, and the other is a text file that says "place ROM directories here". But I don't see anything but game titles in the folder. At this point I think I need to look at MAME setup since I didn't configure it. But it shows I was pointed at the correct folder.

Like I said, I'm learning at every click....
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 04:40:33 PM
Get rid of that “mame” parameter. Sorry, I typed on an iPhone and it can get tough some times. Essentially, you want to tell the terminal to execute a script or binary, and then pass parameters to it. In your case, the parameter would be listing xml, and the second part is to capture terminal output and store it in a file.

OK, let me try that. I'll report back in a few minutes.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: progets on January 07, 2019, 04:41:27 PM
@Autotec - your command above failed because is has spaces in it. You need to wrap each section of the command in double quotes (") when using spaces. Also, you need to verify/confirm the actual name of your mame.exe (mae64.exe, mame64.exe, etc.).
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 07, 2019, 04:59:24 PM
Ugh, still no luck. I can build a engine, transmission or diagnose any electrical problem in any car, but this is getting to me. I don't suppose anyone wants to log in through Team Viewer to tell me what I'm doing wrong? I hate asking, but I will pay. This is the last step to getting this running.
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 08, 2019, 03:03:15 PM
A big shout out to Keilmillerjr, he was able to log in and find my mistake in the file routing. All the game names show up correctly now. Thanks again!

Now it's back to research to find out why when I chose a game, Attract Mode freezes. I'm thinking it's a control setup problem, but that's just a guess. Then there's the artwork I still need to find.

I give all of you guys props who have been through this, there's a lot more involved than I thought.

Thank you, Justin
Title: Re: New user here and many questions.
Post by: Autotec on January 08, 2019, 05:23:45 PM
With the freezing, I don't think it's a control configuration problem. Both the MAME and AM control config is the same now. Games still play with MAME only open, but when I load AM everything stops when I press select/enter to chose the game. Things will unfreeze when I press exit/back as long as I don't hit enter too many times.

Any ideas?

Thank you, Justin