Master System Plus - (NTSC) US/European BIOS v2.4 with Hang On and Safari Hunt Master System Plus - (PAL) US/European BIOS v2.4 with Hang On and Safari Hunt MC-10.
CHD files are often a source of great confusion for MAME newbies. Find out what CHDs are and how to set them up properly with my quick tutorial. Some other important things to realise about MAME CHD games. Some of them may still be in preliminary emulation status and even though you may be able to download them somewhere, there is no way for them work in MAME until the emulation is more complete.
One way to check the emulation status of any game is in MAME itself. Open current MAMEUI and click the CHD folder in the left field to view all CHD games, then click a game to view status near the bottom right. Even so, once you have an idea of which games may or may not be worth downloading there aren't always any guarantees that a particular game will run properly on your system. Some games, such as Gauntlet Legends, would require an extremely powerful system to run at full original performance.
Others, like Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, will generally run fine, even on an old P4, in spite of the cps3.c driver status still being classified as imperfect at the time of writing. Need help with MAME? Getting you back to the classics.;-).
I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I recently learned that MAME absorbed MESS. Tonight I wanted to sit down and get MAME 171 running, and maybe also the latest RA MAME core which I also hear will emulate MESS systems. The problem: I can't find any documentation on how to set this up. So my questions Does the new MAME require a set of MESS Bios?
If so where to put them? (I tried putting them into the roms folder in the mame directory, doesn't see them there) Same question for the RA MAME core. Any other tweaks needed to get these working? PS, my final question: What is the plural form of Bios?
I had another go at this last night and it ended in me curling up in the fetal position rocking back and forth. Ok maybe not that bad but I had zero luck with it. The documentation for it is bad at best and what does exist is beyond confusing so for now i'm just abandoning the whole idea. I simply don't care enough about emulating those older computer systems though it would be nice to have the X68000 working under Retroarch with it's simple controller setup and fancy shmancy shaders (yes, shmancy is a word). Mess is integrated into Mame since version 0.162.
I'm a newcomer to Mess and just feeling my way about. I'm using Mame 0.171 and so far only added 2 Mess systems, because I couldn't find an emulator for one and the other didn't have game saving in it's emulator. How you add your Mess stuff isn't too important as long as Mame is aware of where things are.
The Mame Configuration Settings (ini) file, Core Search Path Options, rompath needs to be edited to know about any new paths. When I decided to add Mess stuff I made a new folder inside the Mame roms folder and called it mess as I wanted to keep Mame and Mess stuff separate. In this mess folder I made subfolders for each system I wanted to add.
These subfolders match the system shortnames. For the Funtech Super A'Can system I made a subfolder called supracan. For my Epoch Super Cassette Vision games I added a folder named scv. Most systems need a Mess bios file unique to each system, but not all systems need a bios file. Super Cassette Vision games need a bios file while Super A'Can games do not. The bios is named after the system's shortname. So the Super Cassette Vision bios is named scv.zip and it goes into the scv folder along with my SCV games.
Once all done in Mame, setting things up in LaunchBox is straightforward. Say you decide to add a new LaunchBox Platform for say Super A'Can games to run with the Mess side of Mame. Open your Mame Edit Emulator window and add the associated platform with it's own parameters. Usually you'll use 2 parameters, the system shortname followed by the media type.
For the Super A'Can the parameters are supracan -cart And then add your games pointing LaunchBox to the game zips. Mess doesn't seem to be too fussy and it will accept the game zip in the full or shortname (Mame style) version. It will also accept the unzipped game. I use the Mame style, renaming where I need to. I agree with Brad and Derek on Mess.
Most systems can be handled very well using either RetroArch or standalone emulators. If neither of these options can help you with a system, then by all means see if Mess will do it. Bear in mind that while the Mess systems list is large, not all work and some work without full support.
Fromlostdays said In this mess folder I made subfolders for each system I wanted to add. These subfolders match the system shortnames. Will MAME default to these locations?
![Mess System Bios Roms For Mame Plus Mess System Bios Roms For Mame Plus](http://i.imgur.com/sEp37xg.png)
My problem was that inside the MAME 171 UI, there's an option to set Rompath, but not path to bios. So is folders named after the bios the default? Or do you have to manually set the path in the ini under this: 'Core Search Path Options' I really appreciate the input. The BIOS would go in the Rompath just like in MAME, at least this is what I remember reading.
I tried getting MESS set up previously too and it just didn't seem worth the hassle. Hi fromlostdays.
The Mame ini file does not have or need a setting specifically for Mess bios files. The rompath setting is used for all. So when I use a rompath setting of roms;roms mess scv;roms mess supracan Mame-Mess will pick up my scv.zip bios in roms mess scv This is just how I am doing it as I probably will never use more than a few Mess systems, and only then as a last resort. If you plan on using Mess in a big way and want all the systems, then using my approach would result in an unwieldy rompath and best avoided. Instead if you need to have lots or all of the Mess bios files, you would be better off keeping them together in one location. By the way I think there are about 1800 of them. As far as I know to do it this way some conditions apply.
The Mess bios files must all go in the Mame roms folder and nowhere else. Each bios must be zipped. They must be named the same as their system shortnames. As regards being zipped and correctly named, they should automatically come like that from whereever. And then your games can go whereever you would like I believe.
It's all down to what you need and prefer. Just an update on Mess bios files. With the integration of Mess into Mame, the Mess bios files are now included in the full Mame romset. So if you have the latest full Mame romset, then you will also have all the latest Mess bios files. On the other hand, if you just have a collection of Mame games individually sourced, then you will need to manually source any Mess bios files you need.
Mess bios packs exist, but they are usually for old Mess builds and will predate the Mess integration. Most of a pack's bios files may be still valid, but some may be outdated.
Look for an up to date source of Mame individual romsets and browse for the Mess bios files you want. If you edit the RetroArch.ini file in RocketLauncher Modules RetroArch you can specify the location for the MAME BIOS files.
Add these two lines: mame BIOSRomsFolder=. Emulators RetroArch system mame roms (or the path to your MAME/MESS BIOS files) Use the mame core in RetroArch This way you can keep all of the BIOS files in one location. You should be able to use RetroArch and the MAME core for all of the old systems like Bally Astrocade, Arcadia 2001, Entex, Channel F etc. Edited April 22, 2017 by Paul Flint.