Something that's puzzled me... (MAME)

[Dire 51]

I've noticed that in the newest version of MAME that I have (0.91), certain games that worked in earlier versions of MAME aren't recognized in the new one - namely Aliens, AvP, Dig Dug, Galaga and Moon Patrol.

Aliens and AvP used to work in 0.82, but when I went back and tried them in it again, they mysteriously disappeared. They all still work fine in 0.56, though.

What could be causing this? Do I need the latest dumps of those particular ROMs to get them all to run in 0.91? I have all of the filesets I could find for them all, so I don't think lack of other versions is the case.

[Gapporin]

What could be causing this? Do I need the latest dumps of those particular ROMs to get them all to run in 0.91?

Correct. Sometimes the developers will make changes to the code, or else re-dump a game to fix or correct a problem, and therefore the romset changes as well. I know for a fact that Galaga has changed recently, so that's probably what's making them not work.

[Dire 51]

I had a feeling that might be it.

Can you explain this, though... Aliens and AvP were both working in 0.82, then suddenly they vanished. That's got me baffled.

[NE146]

I had a feeling that might be it.

Can you explain this, though... Aliens and AvP were both working in 0.82, then suddenly they vanished. That's got me baffled.

Vanished? They should be there!

They're right there and playing fine in this version of Mame 96u1 that I'm using.. I'm probably a little behind in my mame versions, but I'm sure those games are still playable. You sure you got the right romsets?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/b2stoys/aliens.jpg

[Dire 51]

I couldn't figure it out either... they were there, then *poof*.

As far as I can tell I have the right romsets for Aliens: aliens.zip, aliens2.zip, aliensj.zip and aliensu.zip. That sound right?

AvP I only have one of... avsp.zip - the others I mentioned I have multiple romsets for.

[kingpong]

As Gapporin stated, ROMs do sometimes get redumped, and frequently renamed. Just correcting previous mistakes - maybe a redump is needed because there something was dumped at a multiple of its proper size or a few bits are hosed up. Redumps are pretty rare though. More common are the renames, which is just matching the proper names - maybe a second board was found that had labels the first was missing, or maybe they were corrected to match the game's self-test. You might also have PROM dumps being added, since many were omitted years ago, or defeating of protection devices resulting in something being added to the set.

Code changes never result in changes in ROMs though, unless they necessitate the inclusion of data that was previously omitted (again, really only happens with protection devices). The ROMs are the ROMs, regardless of any issues with the emulation. A pet peeve of mine is when people ask "Is there a dump of XYZ that works better than the one I have?" There's no such thing as a better or worse dump relative to the emulation, just a correct and complete dump or one that has errors. Fortunately, that wasn't the question asked here.

Having a zip file by the proper name means next to nothing though. Go download clrmamepro and let it do its thing to tell you what is wrong (and fix it if you have the proper ROMs), or go to MAWS and read the ROM info relevant to your problem ROMs.

[ddockery]

Another reason they change is more accurate emulation. This isn't so much the case now, but in the past some games had no sound emulation at all, and when that emulation was added, sound roms were needed. Since ClrMAMEPro and similar auditors delete all "unneeded" roms by default, most people were missing these. Same thing happened when they started using all the color proms a couple of years ago. The biggest thing now is when the re-allign the whole parent/child thing for some games.

[Dire 51]

That's one thing I noticed about my version of Zaxxon... no sound whatsoever. Is there one that has sound now or what?

[NE146]

That's one thing I noticed about my version of Zaxxon... no sound whatsoever. Is there one that has sound now or what?

That's because Zaxxon in mame uses samples.

Get these, and put them in your /samples folder. There's your sound.

http://www.mame.net/downsamples.html

I actually wish Phoenix still used samples because the emulated sound is wrong (or at least slightly off)!

[Dire 51]

This is the first I've heard about samples... thanks! That would explain why Berzerk never had any voice either.

[ddockery]

WHen did Phoenix switch? I've been meaning to use an older version for that very reason for ages.

[Berserker]

I've had this happen before too. Usually what it is is what someone said above, they've changed the names of the rom files for what MAME expects to find, and sometimes they actually move around files across different sets.

I don't use ClrMAMEpro, what I do when this happens is right-click on the game in question(this would probably have to be in the "All Games" Listing, since it's not going to show up in Available if it's not detecting it), select "Audit", and find out which files it's not detecting. Then go to the romset in question, and try to figure out what is what. It's usually not too hard, as often they'll have little bits and pieces of the name which MAME isn't able to find, and you usually just rename the corresponding files and it works fine.

For larger-sized games though, like some of the fighters, I've found that I'm missing files altogether, so this technique doesn't really seem to work. I think I might have to check out ClrMAMEpro in solving that...

But for the smaller-sized games, it works fine.

[Peale]

I don't use ClrMAMEpro, what I do when this happens is right-click on the game in question(this would probably have to be in the "All Games" Listing, since it's not going to show up in Available if it's not detecting it), select "Audit", and find out which files it's not detecting. Then go to the romset in question, and try to figure out what is what. It's usually not too hard, as often they'll have little bits and pieces of the name which MAME isn't able to find, and you usually just rename the corresponding files and it works fine.

I guess that's okay, IF you like doing things the hard way!

ClrMAME is dead easy. Load up a dat (created by the Mame exe) and off it goes.