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[bigdumbhead]

Hello!

I've used MAME for years on my PC, and recently got an X-Box.  Decided to try the various MAME versions for it.  So far I've tried these versions:

MAMEoX - 84b3
BenderMAMEoX - HSFII_Edition_23.12.2006

In the first listed, many games worked, but a solid 1/3 did not, including Pac-Man and Galaga.
In the latter listed, no game that I have tried to play so far has worked, out of about 30 games, all from the 80's/early-90's.

I've made certain that the paths are configured correctly, with the roms all in their zips in the roms folder (which itself in the MAMEoX folder), and that within the MAMEoX configuration at least one roms path leads to the roms folder (the same one that is in the MAMEoX folder already.)

Because I have used MAME for years, I know where to get the latest roms from (though of course I can't talk about this in detail on the forum.)  I am certain that I am using the latest rom-sets, compatible with the latest version of MAME (they all work just fine on my PC's MAME install.)  These are not corrupted downloads or bad sets.  They are the latest working rom-sets.

I can understand not being able to play Mortal Kombat or Tekken (I am not even attempting to play these on my XBOX), but I can't see why there should be any problems with games like Pac-Man or Galaga?  These games (older games) are the ones I am trying to play, and always I get the error that the rom files (from inside of the zip files) "cannot be found.", and so the game cannot be run.

If I open up the zip files myself, it's true that the files are not to be found in those zips.  So apparently the MAMEoX program is looking for completely different files from the PC version of MAME.  Which raises the question of how in the world am I supposed to find ROM-sets specifically for MAMEoX, since apparently the ones for the PC MAME do not work?  Do I really have to hunt down rom-sets from three years ago?  The last release of BenderMAME was in 2006, and yet it plays even less roms than MameoX from 2004!

What piece of information or step of procedure am I missing here, to get this to work properly?

Thanks for reading!

[bigdumbhead]

Hello,

Using the game "Galaga" to experiment, I've now tried a few different .zip rom-sets for this game, each of them different (file size, different named files inside, different dates, but all confirmed to be working with PC MAME at som epoint), and none have been able to load properly in BenderMAME.  Something seems very wrong with BenderMAME.  The older MAMEoX can run about 2/3 of the games I try, but BenderMAME runs absolutely none.

This post has been edited by bigdumbhead: Nov 15 2007, 08:59 AM

[competes2win]

Mame emulators for xbox only run old rom sets up to .84 (?) im not really knowledgable on mame, but ya i'm sure you can look up the exact rom set that is compatible with the xbox. So it has nothing to do with file size or anything... However, the cpu on the xbox is also incapable of running 3d and other memory/cpu intensive games.

[bigdumbhead]

Hi, thanks for the reply

Like I mentioned, I'm not trying to play 3D/CPU-intensive games.

It still doesn't explain why Bender would play no romsets and MameoX would play some...  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[xyteam]

get a hold of mameox128 plus 05052006.
it comes with a supported games text in the documents,and it also tells you the names of the roms that are compatible.
this version is the best mame on xbox as a lot of people seem to think so!

[bigdumbhead]

Hi everybody,

I still don't know what was wrong with the original MAMEoX to make it not work with such simple games as "Pac-Man" and "Galaga", but I think that in the case of BenderMAMEoX (a different program) I may have just gotten a bad version (from a bad source) of BenderMAMEoX.  The actual .xbe file is only about 7MB, while the .xbe's of other MAMEs for various systems are at least 35MB.  I know that the download was not corrupted as I downloaded, though, so it must have been that the source was bad.  I did not get it from the usual place, but the one at the usual place looks like it was released in 2005, and I was hoping for the 2006 version.

Anyway, I will try this MAMEoX128++, in the meantime.  Thanks for the replies everyone!  I will post if it works.  Thank you!  Bye!

This post has been edited by bigdumbhead: Nov 15 2007, 09:48 PM

[bigdumbhead]

Hello,

Maybe people aren't understanding that the games that I am trying to run that aren't working are NOT obscure games.  I am not trying to run "weird" games.  They are perfectly normal mainstream games from the 80's, that have been working in MAME since nearly the beginning of the project.  They are all listed in the MAMEoX compatibility files, but for some reason the same rom sets that will work perfectly with my PC MAME are giving me "FILE CAN NOT BE FOUND" errors in MAMEoX variants, preventing me from playing.

Things are going just so-so with MAMEoX128++.  It will play Galaga and Congo Bongo, but it will not play Amidar, the Dig Dug games, the Donkey Kong games, Pac-Man, and many others.  So I can only play about half of the games I have, no matter which version of MAMEoX I use, despite my using what I know are MAME-compliant, working rom-sets.

It doesn't help me to just know that a rom-set won't work with MAMEoX.  I can know that just by trying to play it.  The problem is that the games that I want to play are very simple, are supported by both MAME and MAMEoX, and yet MAMEoX is telling me that the proper files in the rom-set can not be found.  My problem has NOTHING to do with whether a game is "supported" by MAME/MAMEoX.  Please understand this, because a lot of people who are trying to help me seem to get very confused on this point.  The games are very simple, very old, and they ARE supported, but the working rom-sets are resulting in errors when I use them with MAMEoX, but work PERFECTLY when I run them on my computer with normal MAME (latest release).  Please make sure you understand that!

[xyteam]

remember and check the supported games text on mameox128plus,it will tell you the exact romname that you need.roms you mention play perfectly on mameox 128 plus.

[killergorilla]

MAMEoX 128 comes with dats so you can check you have the correct roms using romcenter or clrmamepro, I suggest you use them to ensure you have the right versions of each rom.

[bigdumbhead]

The roms in question have the correct zip names, and those names happen to be exactly the same names that MAME for PC uses.

Anyway, yes, obviously I have versions of the roms that MAMEoX doesn't like, but that doesn't help me, because apparently it wants versions of the rom-sets that aren't the same as what PC MAME uses.

[killergorilla]

It doesn't matter if you have the same zipnames.

MameOx is based on a much older version of MAME, and a lot of the contents of each zip file have changed over the years, which is why your newer roms simply refuse to work.

You need an older set of roms.

I suggest you download the mameox128plus zip and use the dats inside it with romcenter, then you will know which roms you have which are compatible and which ones aren't.

It's quite simple really (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by killergorilla: Nov 16 2007, 02:36 AM

[bigdumbhead]

I know that it doesn't matter (for compatibility) if the romsets have the right names, but for some reason people keep mentioning this in their replies to me, so I have to respond to that point or else they'll just keep writing about it instead of understanding what I my problem is.

As I said in my last post, yes, I KNOW which rom-sets I have are compatibile and incompatible with MAMEoX, because when I try to turn them obviously they will either work or not work.

If you think that my problem is just that I don't know which ones work and which don't, then you don't understand what I am talking about here.

My problem is that there are games I want to play that I cannot play because the version of MAME in MAMEoX (and its variants) wants different rom-sets than are currently available/accessible.  So either I need to find some way of updating the MAME version in MAMEoX, or I need to know how to take all my new working rom-sets and repackage them into something that MAMEoX will like, or I need some other kind of solution (that I cannot write about here.)

Just knowing which work and which don't, out of what I have now, does nothing to actually solve my problem.

This post has been edited by bigdumbhead: Nov 16 2007, 02:43 AM

[killergorilla]

Have you ever used romcenter?  It's a rom management tool.

The dats contain the information of every file inside every zip, it'll tell you what files you need to complete each game and what crc those files should have.

But, as it doesn't sound like you've ever used a rom manager before I'd suggest just searching some torrent sites for a complete mameox128plus download (or mamedox, or bendermame).

[xyteam]

a good mame package for xbox is mamedox platinum 2.
its hastle free and easy to use and comes with all the roms you could need.
thats probably your best solution.

[bigdumbhead]

I already have those three programs, gorilla.  I have tried them all now.

I have not used Rom Manager before, but it will not help me; I already know what works and what doesn't work, and despite having used MAME for many years, I have never encountered any place where you can download specifically those .rom/.bin files that a zipped rom-set may be missing, nor am I particularly inclined to go through such a process for every single game that I wish to play.  Imagine how much time that would take!

I've searched torrents and newsgroups, and there's nothing for MAMEdoX (that I can find).  The one torrent around has neither seeders nor leechers.

So I'm in a situation where I only need a few very small roms that most people say that they have and that are working for them, but these particular sets are going to be terribly difficult for me to get through any normal source because they are all a bit out-of-date (relative to the latest MAME standards).  I can think of a few possible solutions, but I won't write about them on the forum.