Tutorial section

[bodbod]

Hi,

Maybe a Tutorials section approved by the admin would be a good solution to skim the numerous information in the general/help section.
Once you believe the tutorial is accurate and relevant, you guys move it to the Tutorials section.
I believe, this would increase the value of the forum and the number of contributors on top of the wiki documentation.

cheers

[Pieter Hulshoff]

Sure, I can set up a section for that.

[RetroPrime]

Hi Pieter,
I'm quite new to RetroFe, but am absolutely struggling at setting up MAME/Fusion or just about any emulator to run.
I don't find the online guide particularly useful. What I'm after is almost an Idiot's guide to RetroFe.
While I'm here, does retroFe work with versions of MAME that are pre-0185?

[Agent47]

What are you having trouble with specifically? Are you having trouble with setting up a collection in RetroFE or are you just having issues actually running games from the frontend? If it's the latter the first step should be to ensure you're able to run games through the emulator directly outside of the frontend. Once you can do that it's just a matter of creating a launcher.conf for that emulator containing the proper exe location and command line args and setting the collection to use that emulator in its settings.conf and setting your rom path if you're not using the default location.

IIRC the MAME and Fusion launchers are included in the base RFE download so it shouldn't be an issue with the launchers assuming you set the path to the executables. Feel free to upload your log.txt also.

[RetroPrime]

thanks for getting back. I've managed to create collections no problems, but I cannot get emulators to launch.
They launch 100% every time outside of RFE, so I'm obviously doing something wrong.
I've attached my log file (it's probably a mess!)

[Pieter Hulshoff]

I figure the wiki holds insufficient information? In general, Agent47 is correct, though we could probably do with a tutorial section containing some ready to use launchers. When it comes to MAME, please have a look at http://retrofe.nl/SMF/index.php?topic=211.0
MAME arcade is a rather special case when it comes to emulators, since it uses its own configuration file (mame.ini) that determines where the roms are located. Most other emulator setups can point directly towards the roms in the collections/<collection name>/roms directory.

Personally, I'm using MAME for almost everything. Once you've got MAME setup properly with the corresponding BIOS files for consoles, you can very easily set up a large set of collections. Should you have an EmuMovies account, feel free to have a look at their FTP as well; I've put a complete unzip/drag/drop setup for multiple systems there (without the ROMs of course).

As an example, I've included some of my launcher files. Perhaps it will help you get started.

[Pieter Hulshoff]

thanks for getting back. I've managed to create collections no problems, but I cannot get emulators to launch.
They launch 100% every time outside of RFE, so I'm obviously doing something wrong.
I've attached my log file (it's probably a mess!)

I don't see a launch attempt in that log file, though I do notice that your mame.conf contains a specific rom as argument rather than a generic referral using the RetroFE variables, and MAME arcade games should be launched with the machine name rather than a path to the rom file.

[RetroPrime]

Many thanks. I have an emu account, but I understood that you had to be a subscription member to use the ftp?
I'll have another tinker. I remember when mame was very basic and haven't dabbled in deep emulation in years, so this is all quite new. Thanks again...

[Pieter Hulshoff]

That's correct; you need a subscription membership for the FTP, but if you intend to use any front-end with videos you'll probably need a subscription there anyway. MAME Arcade is about the only one I've found an alternative for EmuMovies so far.

[RetroPrime]

I still can't get anything to launch, even with the .conf files you provided.
I have mame64 vers 0.159 which loads games fine outside of FE as stated previously, but I can't get FE to recognise the launcher or games (please see attached my latest log.txt). Any help is most welcome.

[Agent47]

Your log shows you're trying to launch a nes game using MAME which is fine except you mentioned you're using .159 which is your problem. MESS (which is what runs console/computer/non-arcade systems) didn't merge into MAME until .162 so your MAME version will only run arcade games.

Your MAME version is extremely old so I would personally suggest trashing yours and downloading the latest version but keep in mind you will also need to get a rom set to match the newer version. Otherwise, assuming you have a 159 version of MESS you would just need to set your executable to that instead of MAME. Unrelated to this issue, I noticed you have a type in your TurboGrafx collection name.

[RetroPrime]

Finally getting there! Managed to load up mame 0162 and fire up some games. However, after exiting RFE and reloading it: mame only seems to recognise 1 rom out of a few hundred. Has anyone seen this type of behaviour before?

[Pieter Hulshoff]

I've only seen such behavior if your rom set does not match your MAME version. I'd advice getting MAME 0.190 and the matching rom set.

[RetroPrime]

Thanks for all your help so far guys. Making progress through experimentation rather than just asking on the forum all the time.
Even managed to get Amstrad cpc to run through mame (happy days!)
However, if someone could point me to where (on emumovies for example) I can download the mame game title graphics and where to dump them, I'd be most grateful. I assumed it was the Mame title snap packs but this is not the case. I'm after the distinct font that each game has when cycling through a wheel in RFE.

[RetroPrime]

Here's an illustration of what I'm after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7PBe16Nx4Y