/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2588361]

I know asking 4chan for help is usually about as logical as sticking your dick into a hornet's nest in search of honey, but /vr/ is a little more civilized than most other boards and certainly less elitist than the other places I would ask for help, so h- here I go...

I've never dabbled in arcade emulation, ever, and I'd love to give it a try, but I can't wrap my head around setting up MAME. I'm trying to get it working on my Raspberry Pi 2 running the latest version of RetroPIE. I understand now, after cherry picking the games I wanted off of ROM sites and wondering why they wouldn't work, that certain ROMs need certain versions of MAME to run. So I downloaded what I've been led to believe is a fullset of ROMs for this particular version of MAME, but I really don't want ALL these games for a multitude of reasons. I know some people get off on being able to pull up VERSION 2-B BUILD DATE 04-03-19XX of Ali Baba and 40 Thieves on cue, but I really just want what I want. So because all of these ROMs in my set are using "codenames", I'm not entirely sure what's what. Obviously stuff like "dkong" is Donkey Kong, but what the fuck is "dkongjpo"? Is it a parent ROM or something?

tl;dr: MAME is a mess and I'm a pleb. How do I go about cherry picking the ROMS I want for v0.37b5 without fucking it up?

[Anonymous No.2588364]

>>2588361
>certainly less elitist than the other places

Ohh ho ho ho ho ho, you've never been here before have you?

[Anonymous No.2588381]

>>2588364
Oh, I have. Have you glanced at the MAME community? Yikes.

[Anonymous No.2588389]

>certain roms need certain versions
Because MAME has changed through versions to reflect redumps and other modifications of ROMsets. You basically need to keep up to get the best experience.

>dkongjpo
I don't see dkongjpo but there's a dkongjo, which is a second set (version) of the (j)apanese Donkey Kong, Generally those derivatives are the ones that depend on a base version, which is I believe simply dkong in this case.

[Anonymous No.2588391]

>sticking your dick into a hornet's nest

Thats a fetish you know I've done it, it's not that painful if you know how to pick the right wasps The pleasure overpasses the pain

[Anonymous No.2588393]

MAME has updated and changed its roms many times over the years. There are loads of reasons why this happens. Better dumps, reorganization and a bunch of other stuff. The reasons aren't always good, but changes happen.

The MAME version number goes up by 0.001 with each release. The current Mame version is 0.164. The Raspberry Pi version is based on MAME 0.035. That's 129 major releases and about fifteen years worth of changes behind the official version.

[Anonymous No.2588401]

The largest zip for any given game should have all the files necessary to play the primary release version

[Anonymous No.2588548]

So I just ended up going through the ROM set and picking out files that matched the names of ones I had downloaded previously. I'm copying them over to my Pi as we speak, wish me luck.

[Anonymous No.2588592]

>>2588548
Well, that's one way to do it. Here's my method(probably not the best, but it works for me).

First I google the name of the game I want, with MAME attached to it. Like...Metal Slug MAME. Then I take the emuparadise link. When you go to download from there, it will tell you the filename of what you are downloading, in this case mslug.zip. Then I go to the Archive, and download that zip. Then if it gives me any shit, I use RomCenter to figure out what's missing, and google around for the files I need. Sometimes emuparadise will tell you that you need other files, but not always.

It's a bit of work, but I prefer doing this to downloading the entire fucking collection.

>>2588401
In many cases, yes, but not always. Even more of an issue in really old games. Just look at all the old Namco games that require various specialized bios files.

Which is why I recommend using RomCenter, so you can figure out why MAME is being a cunt.

[Anonymous No.2588626]

>>2588361
You say you're using RetroPie and you're wanting to use MAME? I always check Final Burn Alpha first to see if it's compatible with the game I want because MAME is a hot pile of shit. That said, you will want to grab MAME4ALL 037b5 romset as retro pie uses older version of MAME. The is also a romeset for Final Burn Alpha specifically for RetroPie.

[Anonymous No.2588647]

>>2588391
>that image
D I A M O N D S
I
A
M
O
N
D
S

[Anonymous No.2588669]

>>2588592
That's basically what I ended up doing, I just had the ROMs saved already. I'll keep RC in mind for when it inevitably gives me more trouble, thanks for the tip.

>>2588626
Yeah, that set is downloading at the moment, just taking forever while I sit here twiddling my thumbs at work. Haven't had a chance to see what's working and what's not yet.

[Anonymous No.2588697]

>>2588361
Get MAMEUI. Same shit with a proper GUI. Then download all the BIOS files and put them in your rom folder. 90+% of the games should now work.

[Anonymous No.2589096]

>>2588361
>and certainly less elitist

That's a good one OP.

[Anonymous No.2589186]

>>2589096

Most people here are pretty chill. Only time people get really irate around here is when something non-retro is posted, which is sometimes unnecessary depending on the just how non-retro the post in question is but this board is pretty much the wild west seeing as a mod might breeze through here once or twice a month and we have to moderate ourselves. All this said, there's been a suspicious increase in /v/-like posts recently.

[Anonymous No.2589191]

>>2589186
All I'm gonna say is go check out some of the threads made about zsnes vs bsnes during this board's early days if you wanna see just how vicious people can get here.

[Anonymous No.2589190]

>>2589186
>Most people here are pretty chill.
Except the people here spend most of their time either talking about how they're so much better than any other community on the Internet or how about they're so much better than anyone that dares to play games that came out this decade.

[Anonymous No.2589204]

>>2589190

I only ever see people implying we're better than /v/ with "go back to /v/" replies, but hey, are they wrong?

>>2589191

Why would anyone argue in favour of zsnes anyway? It's nearly a decade out of date. Nice GUI but come on.

[Anonymous No.2589210]

>>2589204
>with "go back to /v/" replies, but hey, are they wrong?

I'd be fine with that if people here didn't use it for every single little thing they did not like. It's one thing to tell a guy who is ironically shitposting to fuck off back to /v/ but this board uses it for something as little as someone having an opinion they don't like. It's really fucking annoying seeing someone declare this board dead once a week since a month after it was created because someone liked/disliked a game.

[Anonymous No.2589258]

>>2589210
>It's really fucking annoying seeing someone declare this board dead once a week since a month after it was created because someone liked/disliked a game.

Ah, now see this I agree with. Frequently I see people declaring or prophesying /vr/'s demise, running around like Chicken Little as if the sky's about to fall. Gets exasperating after a while.

[Anonymous No.2592192]

>>2589186
you're wrong. i fucking hate shills, retroarch, muh crts, and spamming steaming drm shit. fuck you, plebs! back to /reddit/ if you want to "chill" and post piles of cancerous shit!!!

[Anonymous No.2592203]

retroroms has all the latest sets
always stick to the latest release, fuck the shmup mame autismal

[Anonymous No.2592805]

>>2588361
I got to agree with you there.
This has to be the less-cancerous board (with /diy/ and maybe /out/ on a good day without hammocks), and probably the only one I've not been told to fuck off whenever I asked a noobish question since 4chan turned into shit in 2009.

[Anonymous No.2593007]

and another thread turns into meta-chan whining

perhaps its about time, all boards but /b (maybe) have persistent hash IDs like those in /pol/ /int/ and dunno where else (no need for flags though)


>inb4 meta-meta post
>inb4 inb4'ing
>inb4 meta-inb4'ing
>inb4 di caprio

[Anonymous No.2593034]

>>2593007
What's even the point of those ids? Some sort of vague accountability?

[Anonymous No.2593106]

>>2593034
So it's clearly on display that the same stupid NEET is shitting up the board all over

[Anonymous No.2593148]

>>2593007
IDs are basically a desperate and useless last resort against persistent shitposting, and are against 4chan's core principles.
If a board is so shit it needs IDs to not be a sea of shit it's not worth existing in the first place, /vr/ still kinda works because most people here are older than average and are a bit more civilized and less worried about fitting in the 4chan/anonymous cred, though if I have to be brutally honest, things are going downhill here too.
I already stopped going to most boards except /m/, /vr/ and sometimes /a/, I used to go to /vg/ until roughly a year ago but the only threads I visited were constantly raided by sociopaths from /jp/ or /b/tards.
If /vr/ turns to shit too that will probably be the time when I'll quit 4chan for good, I'm really getting too old to read constant streams of memes without a scrap of content.

[Anonymous No.2593872]

>>2593148
IDs are useful when someone jumps into a conversation. How many times have you seen someone start arguing with someone about something they didn't say because some idiot couldn't start his post with "not that anon but..."

[Anonymous No.2593927]

>>2593007
>and another thread turns into meta-chan whining

It was destined to be that from the start when OP mentioned a meta aspect about this board.