Can't run clones?

[fleskebacon]

I tried Romcenter and started the "fix" tool. It ran for two days without completing, so I gave up. Probably another evidence that my romset wasn't all that good... Ended up downloading a complete new romset which wasn't merged in the first place. It solved everything.

[davhuit]

Use something like "Romcenter" with the database required.

It's a program created to manage roms set and it can recreate some good files itself by taking files from several roms.

[fleskebacon]

Yep. As I've read a bit more about this now, I definately have a merged rom-set. It's updated for 0.149 and it's been working perfectly everywhere, including previous versions of mGalaxy as far as I can remember, so I've been a bit fooled by that.

I wasn't aware of this until now!

I'll just take the "easy fix" and make some empty zip-files for the clones I use regularly. Or I could pull the clone roms out from the parent rom and zip them into a new file. That also works. Actually, it doesn't seem to matter what's inside the clone-rom-zipfile, as long as the file is there, and all the roms needed are found in the clone and/or the parent combined.

The best would probably be to get a complete new rom-set that's not merged... I'll look into that.

Anyways, problem solved, and mGalaxy still rules! 

(But this merged rom-set works flawlessly with other frontends I've tested, so there must be a subtle difference in how clones are launched?)

[mgalaxy]

Does this mean I have some kind of problem with my rom collection?

Ok, that becomes clearer!!
You surely simply don't have the clone rom (find a full romset with clones not merged to the parent rom. One file for the parent, one file for each of the clones)...or those roms are not up to date with your Mame version! (You must know that with each new mame version comes updates/additions to the romset. This is thus very important to have your romset updated to the mame version you intend to use)
Do the test: take any rom and rename it as "pacman.zip"...and you will see that it's listed and launched properly.

[fleskebacon]

Did a complete reinstall of Windows, MAME 0.149 and mGalaxy. The database now generates correctly, and everything works perfectly. BUT, it still refuses to start clones...

I noticed, if I disable the database, only the "short" rom names are shown in the list. And clones don't show at all, even if I check "clones" in the filter menu. Is this normal?

I also discovered, if I create an empty zip-file named with the name of the clone, i.e. "pacman.zip" and put it in the rom folder, it works. But I can't create these files for every clone. Does this mean I have some kind of problem with my rom collection?

[fleskebacon]

Already tried a fresh install of Mame, mGalaxy, nplayers.ini and catver.ini.

This sounds like the right time for me to install a fresh copy of Windows and start completely from scratch... Something's obviously not right, and now that you've confirmed that everything else works, the problem is most likely somewhere hidden in my system.

Thanks for your time!

[mgalaxy]

I've taken time to test with v150...and it works as it should!
Took MAME v150, put catver.ini v150 and nplayers.ini v150 in the mame folder and generate a database as expected!
I can't see why you can't get a database to be generated correctly, actually!

Concerning the clone files, they are launched correctly too (...since they are launched exactly the same way as another rom...no specific code for this!!)

If I were you, I would make my test from scratch (new mame, new catver & nplayers)

[fleskebacon]

Installed 0.145 and tested.

Those files work correctly when generating database with 0.145, but not with 0.149.

The database generated with 0.145 works fine with 0.149, but the clones still don't work. And I can't test the clones with 0.145 because my rom collection is only working in 0.149.

[mgalaxy]

Could you try to generate a database with those catver & nplayers files.
They are targeted for 0.145...the version I'm working with...and I would like to know if that works or not for you

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[fleskebacon]

Hm. It still doesn't work. I don't get it. Everything else is working perfectly.

When I generate a new xmlout.xml the way you described, all seems good - the file ends up where it's supposed to, and mGalaxy reads the list without problems.

It doesn't tag the <genre> though, even though both nplayers.ini and catver.ini is in the Mame folder, it just ends up <genre></genre> for all roms. The <players> tag and everything else seems correct, and all roms play perfectly - except for all the clones. They show up in the list, and are filtered out correctly when I uncheck "clones" in the menu, but when I try to start them, absolutely nothing happens, the screen doesn't even blink. But They do show up in the "last played"-list after I try to start them. And I didn't modify xmlout.xml in any way, just looked at it in notepad.

I also tried to uninstall and reinstall both mGalaxy and MAME. What could this be?

Running Win7 64-bit and MAME 0.149 64-bit.

[fleskebacon]

Yep, it was working perfectly before I upgraded, so It's probably something I messed up when upgrading. Will try this tonight and see how it works out. Thanks.

[mgalaxy]

fleskebacon,

I can assure you that you can launch clones with mGalaxy.
I'm going to summarize the steps needed to work with MAME in a tutorial to come...but here's the idea:
- Download and install MAME
- Download Catver.ini (http://catlist.mameworld.info/) & nplayers.ini (http://nplayers.arcadebelgium.be/)
- Put those 2 files (once extracted from the zip archive) in the same folder than the mame.exe application
- Launch mGalaxy_Ruway.
  Select MAME
  Check 'Activated'
  Set your paths to application and snapshots.
  Check 'Use database file (if available)
  Click the 'Create database' button. (Confirm previous database erase & use of MAME's integrated database as database source...wait untill the database creation process is confirmed)
  Click on the 'Save' button

From there, everything should be working!!
 
 

[fleskebacon]

And as far as I can see, this applies to all clones. Doesn't matter if I generate the xml-file by myself or use the function in mGalaxy Runway...

[fleskebacon]

I've run into a problem with the newest version of mGalaxy: I can't seem to run clones, for example "pacman", which is a clone of "puckman", as far as I know. It runs fine in MAME with "mame64 pacman", and it ran fine on earlier versions of mGalaxy. But now nothing happens when I try to start it. I've put game name="pacman" and cloneof="puckman" in the xml-file, but nothing. Puckman itself runs fine, and so do other games.

What am I doing wrong?