Hi there, I've built a retro pie 4.1 arcade cabinet and have a handful of MAME ROMS working but I am struggling to get more MAME ROMs to work. I have a success rate of about 1 in 10 for MAME. Is there any correlation between MAME emulator version numbers on the ROM sites and the emulators supplied with Retro Pie? Its tedious trying 5 different emulators with each ROM only to find none work. For example a ROM site will say XYZ MAME ROM works best with MAME 0.172.

• Mame 0 153 Rom Set Up 1
• Mame 0 37b5 Roms Complete Rom Set

Should this then tell me which RPie emulator it will work with? I realise there are google sheets which say what name of a ROM works with a RPie emulator but I find these very unreliable and ambiguous in the matching of the name on the sheet vs the names on the ROM sites.

I'm hoping there is an easier way. Please can someone who has navigated through this with success with the version correlations or if you have got some tips please PM me. You need to read the very clear guidance provided on MAME. Your post has been replicated hundreds of times and answered hundreds of times. A search on here would reveal hundreds of threads on this topic. Just by typing in MAME HELP into the search bar will reveal them.

Here are some examples:, and So, First you must read this: This answers everything. You should also read this after the above as it will reinforce the above: Attempting to download single roms is never recommended. You need to acquire FULL VERIFIED romsets for the emulator which you choose to use according to the wiki. Each MAME emulator is included due to the particular benefits of each one.

For example a ROM site will say XYZ MAME ROM works best with MAME 0.172. Should this then tell me which RPie emulator it will work with? No, why would it?

Please can someone who has navigated through this with success with the version correlations or if you have got some tips please PM me. There is no PM.

However the correlations you seek are already provided here: Its tedious trying 5 different emulators with each ROM only to find none work. This is never the correct method. See all previous links to avoid this in the future. Once you have tried all that, you can learn more from here: And before posting, look at the top of the page in bold: Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in In particular, point 3. Ah OK I get it now.

Mame 0 153 Rom Set Up 1

I'd previously read the MAME thread by Floob but didnt pick up on the importance of the ROM Sets. I thought a ROMset was just the files that came with a game ROM i.e. 12 files in a game.zip. Thats how this reads to me. What are romsets? A romset is typically a single compressed file (.zip). This zip file will contain various rom files required to run the game.

This differs to many other systems where there is usually just a single file. For example, the romset galaga.zip for MAME 0.78 contains 14 rom files. So based on that I am doing the right thing in downloading the romsets. But then I read this. MAME2003 is based off the MAME 0.78 source code, so you must use the MAME 0.78 ROM set with MAME2003 So from this I gather i'm trying to find ROMs based on the MAME 0.78 source code. Said in: I'd previously read the MAME thread by Floob but didnt pick up on the importance of the ROM Sets.

I thought a ROMset was just the files that came with a game ROM i.e. 12 files in a game.zip. I am the one who got the ROMSet concept wrong. The Floob's information is right, and your understanding too. I've just checked the and look what I've found: An example ROM image would be the file pm1prg1.6e stored in the Puckman ROM set.

I thought that, let's say, MAME 0.78 ROMSet was a compressed file with gigabytes of several hundreds of arcade ROMs (games) in it, but the correct name for this is MAME 0.78 Reference Set. Said in: I like the analogy that did once here in the forum: for traditional home console videogames, the user needs to install the emulator and then find ROMs to play on it. For arcade games the way is reversed, the user get the ROMset and then find a MAME version able to run the ROMs. (At least I think he meant it.:) ) my analogy was it's like getting a car and putting random liquid into it until you find out which is the right fuel:) so i think you should start with the emulator you want to use (we recommend mame2003 for pi3) and then get the ENTIRE romset for that (0.78). Oh and I found this.

'dankcushions GLOBAL MODERATOR April 28, 2016 @Meneer Jansen you're going to make me link to the wiki again, aren't you?:) that answers all your questions: the full mame 0.78 romset is 8GB.' I wasnt that crazy thinking a romset was a bunch of games in a big file afterall;-) Oh and re Emulators saving. 'dankcushions GLOBAL MODERATOR April 27, 2016 0.78 that's for mame2003. So you won't need to convert anything. Advmame i don't know much about, but mame2003 certainly saves.'

Does that mean high scores? Or just save states?

Said in: Though, I cannot find the game roughrac.zip. It doesn't seem to be part of MAME2003 or FBA 0.2.97.42?

MAME 0.106 perhaps? Never tried this romset.

Yes, I see in the.106 that roughrac.zip is Rough Racer (Japan, FD1094 317-0058-06b). Also: is it true that the best way to get ADVMAME running on a fresh setup would be a MAME 0.106 romset and the latest ADVMAME 3.x version? However, some folks have reported better performance with 1.4 (same 106 romset) but I have had the opposite experience. I have found games like Golden Tee variants work better in the 3.x versions. Video bugs have apparently been corrected in version 3.x that were present in 1.4 and earlier, and you can always swap between them with runcommand if you want to try 1.4 since the ROM is the same. I have never seen any benefit/reason to use AdvanceMAME.94.

I see four main reasons besides the romset that you might want to use AdvanceMAME. First, it was build to support custom video situations, arcade monitors etc. Where you can specify the modeline and define the exact timing of the video scanlines. Of course, this requires the support of hardware and is not as useful for those of us on a Pi using HDMI. But if you were trying to configure a CRT, this might be really handy, and it is essential on other hardware using an arcade monitor. Second, AdvanceMAME has a superior control mapping scheme that allows you to matrix just about any combination of controls.

For example, if your goal is a three trackball Rampart cabinet, you can do that. You want to run four spinners and pay Warlords? The configuration is very flexible Although great strides have been made recently in RetroArch too with respect to analog indexing and lightgun support, AdvanceMAME has always been ahead of others in that regard. Third, the rendering of vector games is the best of all of the arcade emulators we have. It draws lines at native resolution. You can also control the quality of the vector in terms of brightness, flicker, line thickness, etc.

Mame 0 37b5 Roms Complete Rom Set

For some ideas and images. Finally, AdvanceMAME includes AdvanceMESS. There may be other system-specific emulators that do a better job, but MESS is a nice tool to have. You need to jump through some hoops to get it running the way you want but it is possible (I have 3.x running as my Apple II emulator). Hi All, I totally agree with here. This thread has been super helpful. Big thanks to, and for their contributions.

I too use windows to administer my Retropie systems and have a tip for using UNIX commands directly from Windows. First download and install Gow found here: Gow (Gnu On Windows) is the lightweight alternative to Cygwin. It uses a convenient NSIS installer that installs over 100 extremely useful open source UNIX applications compiled as native win32 binaries.

It is designed to be as small as possible, about 18 MB, as opposed to Cygwin which can run well over 100 MB depending upon options. This tool is unbelievably awesome, and lets you run xargs and cp and many other UNIX commands right on your Windows machine. I've successfully used process above on Windows to filter my lists and files quickly and efficiently. Bravo guys, awesome work! Said in: if anyone has a NeoGeo gamelist with zip files listed, I can make an FBA list with these included. Personally, I like to have NeoGeo games listed under the NeoGeo system folder.