Having Some Rom Troubles With Mame4All

[DarkstarV77]

I recently got A Gp2xWiz for xmas and had the entire Mame rom collection moved to my wiz via SD card.
I have used the Mame emulator on my pc and had it verify that all rom files were in place and working.
I also tested each file on the pc to see if it would boot.

However when starting the Mame 4 All and running some games the emulator totally ignored some games or totally ignored file needed for some games to run.
For instance: R-type Leo (Japan)-rom name rtypeleoj:
Upon booting into mame4all I scroll down the list until i find the game on the Wiz and i boot it.

rtl-h0-d.bin NOT FOUND
rtl-l0-d.bin NOT FOUND

Well thats odd so I check the files on the pc..

Not only are they there but it seems like the other files it loads do not exist...
And now for the second part: Games not showing up:

So I load up Mame4all and i want to play Ikaruga: -rom name ikaruga
well i scroll to the I's and its not there!
Which i find odd so i go on the the PC version of Mame and sure enough there it is ready to play.

So why is it that the emulator is ignoring games and why is it ignoring Core files of the games?

And if it is the reason i think it is, is there a way to update Mame to version 0.140 so it can detect the new romset?
And if it is not then why is it not able to see the files?

 

[MatthewQA]

So why is it that the emulator is ignoring games and why is it ignoring Core files of the games?

And if it is the reason i think it is, is there a way to update Mame to version 0.140 so it can detect the new romset?
And if it is not then why is it not able to see the files?

I had this same problem.

This is all due to the MAME4ALL using MAME 0.37b5. Games that don't show up, are not compatible with the older romset.

And it also seems to be the same reason for the files not showing up. Other files may appear because it's reading the ROM itself, not just the file names. So if it finds a portion it's looking for within another file, it'll check it off. I'd recommend trying a new copy of the ROM. Might also check the 0.37b5 romset compatibility list(here's a brief list, for example [link]).

And I'm afraid without porting it yourself, or getting someone else to add compatibility for a ROM, or update MAME; there's no simple way to update MAME4ALL. I'm not entirely sure what 0.37b5 was chosen, but it probably has something to do with the hardware limitations in the first port.

 

[DarkstarV77]

Hmm....

Well I am not sure how i would even get started on doing just that, I dont have a lot of linux experince and i dont think linux would like being fed C++ code and have it work..

As a question what distro of linux is the gp2x Wiz using?
And is there a way to contact the dev to get his code so others can continue or is it already included?

 

[MatthewQA]

As a question what distro of linux is the gp2x Wiz using?
And is there a way to contact the dev to get his code so others can continue or is it already included?

I don't see what you mean with the statement about C++. Linux has no issues with C++.

The Wiz does not use a specific distribution of Linux. If it has any "distribution" it uses it's own.

Well, I'm pretty sure the source is available, you'd have to contact Franxis. Unfortunately, his referenced site appears to be unavailable at the moment.

 

[DarkstarV77]

Does he have an account on the forum, and can someone please point me in the right direction for the dev tools?

 

[MatthewQA]

Does he have an account on the forum, and can someone please point me in the right direction for the dev tools?

Yeah, he does. It's just under the name of "Franxis"

After a bit of poking around(I should've looked harder before), I found the MAME4ALL sources. So here you go:

MAME4ALL Sources: [here]
Development Tools are in the development section, [here].

 

[DarkstarV77]

Thanks!

 

[Orion4874]

You can also take a shot and see if the games in question will play using Final Burn. Usually not but sometimes I've gotten lucky.

 

[hardyx]

The reason for select this MAME version is that newer Pc versions can't be handled well by the console. For example some games needs more modules or more memory. In this consoles resources are limited, this is not a PC. Franxis optimized this version for years and now all the code is using fixed point instead float point, because ARM926 don't have FPU. This way can be very fast in Wiz.

You have the source code available and the developer tools for Wiz, if you want to try.
P.D. Some games works better in specific emulators too, like Orion4874 said.

 

[MatthewQA]

The reason for select this MAME version is that newer Pc versions can't be handled well by the console. For example some games needs more modules or more memory. In this consoles resources are limited, this is not a PC. Franxis optimized this version for years and now all the code is using fixed point instead float point, because ARM926 don't have FPU. This way can be very fast in Wiz.

Awesome, I was very much hoping someone would come through and know the reason that it was chosen. Kinda figured it was something along those lines. Thanks a lot!