Running MAME games on PC (rom related question) [SOLVED]

[DioShiba]

Hey all.

I recently downloaded a Mame emulator and a game (Super Battletoads, if you're wondering), However I am having trouble running it.

Whenever I try to launch the game it gives me this error:

The selected game is missing one or more required ROM or CHD images. Please select a different game.

How can I solve this issue? because I have absolutely no experience in playing games on a mame emulator. In short I would like to know how to actually install (sort of) a Mame game and play it with out running into this.

[puggsoy]

I don't know much/anything about MAME emulation through experience, but this page states that Neo-Geo MAME games require the Neo-Geo BIOS ROM. Not sure if that includes (Super) Battletoads, but the error message your getting seems to lean in that direction. In any case it's worth a shot.

[Tellis]

Ahhhhhh MAME.

Well, it could be a number of factors. First of all, what build of MAME do you have/what build of MAME does the emulator you have use? It could be too old... or it could be too new. MAME has pretty shaky development due to the nature of trying to emulate EVERY arcade game, so one build may support a game while the next release may completely remove support for it. Testing it out on my own set up, it seems the newest build (0.146) doesn't play Battletoads, while my version of MAME32 Plus! Plus!, which uses 0.119, does.

So the solution would be finding out which build supports Battletoads if that's the only game you're trying to play. Each build comes with release notes with what it supports so that's where you'd have to start if any other game doesn't work with your build.

The other issue that you may run into trying to run a game is not having the right BIOS roms for it, though this usually only applies to Neo Geo games, and I know that Battletoads doesn't need another BIOS rom. It also doesn't require another graphics .chd file for advanced graphics processing (like Killer Instinct 2 does, for example). The problem here is that things can be a bit confounded by the above issue as well, in that you may have all of the proper files for it to run, but it's simply not supported by the build of MAME that you're running. (For example, my version of MAME32++ doesn't run Neo Geo games, while the newest build does just fine). It's annoying as hell trying to get everything you want to play to work, but it's all we've got.

[DioShiba]

Ahhhhhh MAME.

Well, it could be a number of factors. First of all, what build of MAME do you have/what build of MAME does the emulator you have use? It could be too old... or it could be too new. MAME has pretty shaky development due to the nature of trying to emulate EVERY arcade game, so one build may support a game while the next release may completely remove support for it. Testing it out on my own set up, it seems the newest build (0.146) doesn't play Battletoads, while my version of MAME32 Plus! Plus!, which uses 0.119, does.

So the solution would be finding out which build supports Battletoads if that's the only game you're trying to play. Each build comes with release notes with what it supports so that's where you'd have to start if any other game doesn't work with your build.

The other issue that you may run into trying to run a game is not having the right BIOS roms for it, though this usually only applies to Neo Geo games, and I know that Battletoads doesn't need another BIOS rom. It also doesn't require another graphics .chd file for advanced graphics processing (like Killer Instinct 2 does, for example). The problem here is that things can be a bit confounded by the above issue as well, in that you may have all of the proper files for it to run, but it's simply not supported by the build of MAME that you're running. (For example, my version of MAME32++ doesn't run Neo Geo games, while the newest build does just fine). It's annoying as hell trying to get everything you want to play to work, but it's all we've got.

Well, I downloaded a different emulator and now it works like a charm.

So I guess the latter of this case is solved I suppose. This thread can be locked at this point.