New install, couple of questions

[dunginhawk]

Good evening all... I am new (as of today) to this front end, but i like it.

couple of questions.
1. I have 2 versions of mame I use.  one for some other roms that i simply cant get running on newer versions, so I keep an older one around.  Problem is if I try to do the 2nd mame and use artwork, and what not and it doesnt quite work because it doesnt recognize mame1, because it had to be named something different.

2. for the love of pete has anyone figured out a way to purge duplicates?  tens of thousands of roms, I can not go through one by one id love a way to just remove duplicates, and non working.  one filter i have set up is working for duplicates, but how can i do versioning too?  so I dont have to see every version as well? maybe thats a start.

3. EDIT - is there any way to scroll by letter or something? with 20,000 games it takes forever to get anywhere, is it simply up and down game by game?

thanks all, this forum is quite good, with nice folks.

[akafox]

1. You might need to update your roms. The new updates for mame are every week now. You MUST have the correct rom version for your version of mame. (It's a pain I know). However I run two versions of mame myself. Sometimes it is not the rom version. Sometimes one mame version works better than the other. You can run two versions of mame just make them separate emulators. I use Advmame (mostly) and "stock" mame (for the TWO games advanced mame won't run..*grumble*). Your artwork should work no matter what "arcade" emulator you are using as mame has a standard of naming roms. Just point the second emulator to the same path the first one uses for artwork.

Once you make your list you can combine them into one list and when you start your game am will start the correct emulator

2. You would purge duplicates by filtering. Better yet use Romlister to create a bat file..move the ones you want to keep..delete the rest.
https://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

3. As far as I know yes it is only by game..by default. You can change that in the controls settings.

[dunginhawk]

So the Roms im using are from 10_+ years ago that work.. and some i just cant get working on updated ones.

I cant remember the rom set i have now, but its only a month or so old, and its massive, 28,000 games i think.. So updating that again, isnt happening haha.

I have tried to use romlister, i just couldnt get it working.

I think the only real option for me is to use the favorites, and use that list of games to keep it shorter.  I really only play 50 anyway, so perhaps I should just stick with the ones I know i like.


One question that comes up is artwork.  Is there anywhere that would have the artwork for all the mame games?  I hate having a beautiful theme like some of you guys make, only to have nothing to show, because the artwork is bad
the last time I had a cabinet I used mamewah and did a customer skin (but that was back when i was smarter).
I feel so far behind the times right now

thanks

[akafox]

Well You don't have to download them all over again..the roms come in "update packs" and are normally MUCH smaller. You use a rom manager like CLRmamepro to update the roms to a new version . So my suggestion is use the version of mame you have roms for..Unless there is a feature or game that you JUST have to have. I use advanced mame for most of my roms. It's still maintained and it uses a rom set older than dirt. (1.06) from 2006. About the only game it will not run is Killer Instinct (1 and 2) and that has to do with the code. It will run fine in stock mame. (This is only a problem in linux..with windows advmame will run KI just fine.) If it wasn't for that I wouldn't use the newer mame. It is a LOT of work to keep up with..especially now that it's updated once a month. But this is just my opinion mind you.

You have to have all the files..list.xml. (comes in mame..mame makes one) controllers.ini, catver.ini, nplayers.ini. Well you really only need the listxml.xml. Check youtube for a tutorial I had to 

As for the artwork emumovies is the only good place...or hyperspin. But emumovies is better for attract mode I think.

Ahh mamewah! love it still use it on an older WinXP machine. Works fine. I had a problem with the movie snaps as well. I had to convert them to avi [from mp4]. So might try converting one or two to see if that will do it.

What OS are you on?

[dunginhawk]

Running windows 10.

So i have  onyx theme running, and its perfect, except the background image is so big, not scaled the right way i need it.
OTher than that, its totally playable.

I went ahead and paid for the service for EMUmovies (i have more money than time haha) and it spent hours overnight comparing my media images, movies, banners, etc.. matching them all. worked perfectly.

So now the ONLY thing left to do is trim the fat on these games.. 28,000 games, i may only really need 300

Oh and the reason I still have that old emulator is absolutely killer instinct   one of my favorites.

[dunginhawk]

So I got romlister to work. finally.
Although i noticed a LOT of games got dropped in the mix.
I basically chose all the options, all regions,  but no clones, no samples, and playable.

out of 28,800 games,i get 650, which is totally fine..
but it removed joust for some reason, and im sure others i cant think of right now

[dunginhawk]

ok, so i am making major headway..

The only problem i have now besides the theme images not being scaled right, is the ability to have 1 master favorite list.

I have mame, and mame1 (mame1 is my Killer instinct and a few other ones). 

So have my main favorites, than like 20 favorites on the other emulator mame1
is there any way to merge favorites from mame and mame1?

[progets]

ok, so i am making major headway..

The only problem i have now besides the theme images not being scaled right, is the ability to have 1 master favorite list.

I have mame, and mame1 (mame1 is my Killer instinct and a few other ones). 

So have my main favorites, than like 20 favorites on the other emulator mame1
is there any way to merge favorites from mame and mame1?

You can create a merged mame romlist to combine your mame and mame1 romlists and then use that for your display and favorites. You can also create a master game list of all your romlists to accomplish this across all your systems. Check out this for help to do either http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=1165.msg8455#msg8455

[dunginhawk]

progets, thank you.. that will help a TON.

I am 99.9% of the way there, and im so jacked... Things are coming along so well.

Does attract mode have an auto flip mode for cocktail in 2 player mode?
some games that you play at the same time work great in cocktail mode, but others  are too tiny.
is there any way to player 1 go first, then flips the screen to player 2?i know some other frontends have it.

thanks

[progets]

progets, thank you.. that will help a TON.

I am 99.9% of the way there, and im so jacked... Things are coming along so well.

Does attract mode have an auto flip mode for cocktail in 2 player mode?
some games that you play at the same time work great in cocktail mode, but others  are too tiny.
is there any way to player 1 go first, then flips the screen to player 2?i know some other frontends have it.

thanks

It sounds like you're really looking for the emulator (MAME) to do this since Attract-Mode as no interaction with the game while the emulator is running. You're more likely to enter the MAME setup menu (usually the "Tab" key while a MAME rom is running) and choose an option to run in cocktail mode. You can then save these configurations per game and you should get what you want.

There is a "Rotation Control" plugin for Attract-Mode but I don't think it's what you're looking for.

[akafox]

Yes progets is right on both counts.

In mame you can flip the screen for your cocktail games. However the only version of mame I know that does it "on the fly" is advance mame. that is to say it will filp games when you push a button. Good for the games that are 2 player alternating that mame doesn't flip itself. Moon patrol is cocktail but it doesn't work correctly in that mode. Advance mame will allow that.

As for some games being "too tiny" you might be referring to vertical games being displayed on a horizontal monitor. Again that has to do with mame itself. If you want help on that more post in the emulators thread.

[dunginhawk]

So I dont necessarily mind flipping each game the first time I go in... thats fine.

What will not work is when its a 2 player pacman game for example, player one on one side of the cocktail, 2 on the other.. when its 2's turn, he needs to come over to play one, because its not smart enough to rotate to his side.  Ill have to research that a bit.
Other games that have a "cocktail" mode just put two tiny screens facing opposite directions which makes it really hard to play (but thats only a few games, so im not worried about that).

More the flipping

EDIT:  so after having checked out the dip switches and all that, the only thing that seems to happen is instead of the screen filling up, it just creates 2 smaller screens, one facing each way... thats ridiculous   thats necessary for games like joust which have you on the screen at the same time, or fighting games. but like pacman, should be full screen facing 1 way, then the other. 


thanks

[dunginhawk]

hmmm something seems to be working now   updates soon

ok so I found for a LOT of roms, you need to go in, tab, set up the dipswitch and the video options to be what you want.  Close the game, come back in and then the changes will have taken place.
Some games work on the fly, but a lot require a reboot so to speak.

The only outstanding issue is the merged favorites list, which reading through that link makes me want to vomit

[akafox]

Yeah some of that is "hardware related" (that is the actual arcade machine worked like that.) That's why the "reboot". but glad I could help you.

The filters have always given me problems I'm not sure why. So I do it the "hard way"

[dunginhawk]

I only run 2 emulators, so worst case I just go right and left to find the games I want... Ill have to train my idiot friends to do that as well

After 2 months 4 front ends, and dozens of hours I have the right solution in place.  Onyx frontend and emumovies service to match the pics.

thank you all for your help