MAME that works on Windows 7

[goldenegg]

To me that suggests someone who is probably technically skilled, but not particularly big on seeing average user experience as very important. If that's true, then yes, we have a difference in philosophy there.

 

No, that's not true. Especially given that my career is focussed on development of consumer and enterprise products.

 

The answer to your question is that there's no quick way for me to answer. There's a lot of technical detail and history, which I'm not about to write a novel about on a forum. I stated that you're welcome to your opinions, but please understand that all of this has been considered and there are a number of reasons why it's not going to happen. It's fine if you disagree with that, but personal attacks are not appreciated.

 

It should also be understood that MAME itself is not built as a user-friendly method of playing arcade games. That's not the purpose of the project. This is exactly why you have 3rd party tools (front ends, rom manager, etc), to fill in user experience gaps. You can have issues with the project's mission statement all you want, but that's just how it is.

 

However, it was you yourself who brought forward the argument of dumping your own ROMs as a way to have all that is needed to run a particular game under MAME

 

 

I only mentioned dumping ROMs because you brought up the legality of MAME, along with downloading ROMs for cabinets you own. Since downloading the ROMs is not legal, even if you own the cabinet, I mentioned the scenario of dumping the ROM yourself. Even the dumping situation isn't completely legal in a lot of situations.

Edited November 24, 2015 by goldenegg

[fujidude]

 

No, that's not true. Especially given that my career is focussed on development of consumer and enterprise products.

 

The answer to your question is that there's no quick way for me to answer. There's a lot of technical detail and history, which I'm not about to write a novel about on a forum. I stated that you're welcome to your opinions, but please understand that all of this has been considered and there are a number of reasons why it's not going to happen. It's fine if you disagree with that, but personal attacks are not appreciated.

 

It was not a personal attack at all. It was a statement of fact. The fact was, that it suggested to me a difference in philosophy between us. That is not a personal attack. Besides, I stated that it wouldn't make anyone wrong or bad, and I even left open the possibility that it wasn't true anyway. So please, do not accuse me of violating the forum rules (making personal attacks). That's a bogus claim. And, you did say "spoon feeding" which implies that perhaps one of the reasons for not going the extra mile is because the user isn't deserving of it. Some people think that the more the software can do to make it easier for the user, the better. After all, it's one of the biggest reasons we make software, to help people. That is a viewpoint. It's one that I have. I do not state that people who do not have it are bad or wrong, just that I think it isn't the best way to view it.

 

As to the "novel's" worth of information on why it wouldn't be a good idea to include such a capability (as ClrMAMEPro) into MAME, let's make it a point to note that you haven't yet provided any at all. Not that you have to, but it might help to be persuasive. You do seem to want to be persuasive regarding the subject.

[goldenegg]

It was not a personal attack at all.

 

That's on me. I thought you were someone else, who knows what I do for a living. If you did know me, you'd know I'd find such a statement fairly insulting.

 

 

As to the "novel's" worth of information on why it wouldn't be a good idea to include such a capability (as ClrMAMEPro) into MAME, let's make it a point to note that you haven't yet provided any at all. Not that you have to, but it might help to be persuasive. You do seem to want to be persuasive regarding the subject.

 

 

That's right, I'm not getting specific here as I don't know how to do so without rehashing a lot of information. I'm simply not interested enough to do so. I'll just leave it at the statement I made about MAME focusing on emulating platforms over UX. Integrating a ROM manager would be for UX only and doesn't do anything to assist platform emulation.

 

This is the last I'm saying on this subject and the last I'm posting in this thread. If you want to speak with the current MAMEdev team about integrating ROM manager capabilities, feel free to post on the MAMEWorld forum.

[Keatah]

Older MAME ROMs don't work with newer MAME. Newer MAME ROMs don't work with older MAME. Doesn't help that there's a billion different versions of MAME and when browsing the usual online ROM repositories, it's a total crapshoot as to which MAME version the file you are downloading is compiled for. Worse yet, some MAME ROMs are dependent upon source data files that only exist in other MAME ROMs. For instance, if you download PACMAN.ZIP, you will find that files are missing. Without PUCKMAN.ZIP, Pacman will not operate correctly. Just cherry picking your favorite games may appear to be broken if they depend on files contained within other ROMs. So unless you download a "complete" set for your specific version of MAME, many games might not work due to missing files as a result of cross dependencies. It's a real clusterfuck.

 

While I'm not a mamedev, I can tell you that without interdependencies you'd end up with 5,000 executables. A good portion of which would have only minor differences. And you'd still need to match roms anyways. But instead we have one executable!

 

While I've purchased discs from mameburners in the past, by no means do I have each and every single game configured and running. Getting discs from a mameburner is an excellent way to get current on whatever version you're dick'n around with. Nowhere else in the world can you get hundreds or thousands of hi-fidelity arcade games for pennies apiece. You can't get them at Big Box. You can't get them on Amazon or ebay.

 

Over the years I've simply added my favorite (and the generally popular) games as I thought of them or as others have mentioned them. For example I don't have 45 subtly different versions of a fruit machine set up. But I would have all the vector games of the day. And I'm sure that before the year is out I'll add in yet another favorite. All this is in the front. But I keep the discs in the backroom - if for some odd reason I needed to set up an obscure game it would be there ready to go.

 

No need to get all 5000 going and then have to scroll through them every time. Keep it rich folks!

 

And as I was cherry picking and building my rig, there were times when mame burped up and asked for roms from another game of the same family, or perhaps a japanese version of and english language game. No big deal, just copy it over.

 

 

There's also no reason to keep trying to stay current if the version you're using plays the games you want. Unless you're insane the release that plays 2 new Japanese slot machines doesn't interest me in the least and not worth updating for. I think I stopped updating around 0.138 when I realized I'm just making myself nuts and alerting my cable company by downloading 40 GB of data. |

 

As for compatibility with 7/8/10 I don't believe I ran into any issues at all. I've had the same set across all three OS and worked fine every time.

 

Absolutely right. I've got like 4 versions of mame going. My rig is rich and seasoned and nicely set up. And there is zero reason to upset that for want of some obscure casino game that had its status changed from partly working to fully working.

 

 

The requirement of matching a ROM set with the MAME versrion is very, very unfortunate I think. A ROM dump should be a ROM dump, and once done is done. The fact that it isn't suggests that the so called ROM dumps are not just ROM dumps, and instead include emulation software. The emulation software should be independent. Only in MAME and its ilk do I see this. You don't get a new version of Altirra and then have to hunt for some "matching" ATARIOSB.ROM, ATARIXL.ROM., or STARRAID.ROM.

 

But... what we may wish was true isn't. MAME has this unfortunate characteristic, and you need to be aware of it when upgrading etc.

 

That's right. While it would be nice to see a "permanent" one-time-only rom dump, it isn't practical in the real world. Mame is an archaeological project and it acquires new material in a haphazard order, just like scientists do on a dig. There is no way for them to demand the site give up its treasures in a specific chronological order for comfort and convenience. Different artifacts will arrive into the scientists’ possession at different times. And sometimes material is spread across many sites. It happens when it happens.

 

Same with mame. Later versions of a game may become available to the team before earlier versions. And different versions may have different revisions of a PCB. Some revisions using discrete logic, others using PLD/CPLD. Think Namco video or Atari's Mathbox.

 

Combine that with what I said earlier about interdependencies and it is easy to see why it evolved this way.

 

Mame is many machines. Altirra is one family of a very limited number of machines, all of which have been readily available for years and documented inside and out, backwards and forwards 50 times. Not so with arcade machines. Mame is the documentation project and expect revisions to happen.

 

Another reason why mame's roms change is because sometimes a board will be examined and dumped and made working in the program. But there will be assumptions made when it comes to a custom chip or microcontroller or palette roms - parts that weren't dumped the first time around. Do what it takes to get the game working! Then refine and polish it later.

 

Then later when skill levels of the team have improved or new information and techniques become available, go back and dig into those parts in more detail. Now colors are more accurate, and subtle behaviors of the game are more true to life.

 

Think Liberator and the 17/9 Pokey bug. Due to inaccurate emulation of the chip an approximation had to be made, thus breaking another game that used that same library. http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=501

 

Or perhaps the color of the starfield in the warp in Tempest's early levels. Yet another scenario. Should be blue, yet it is multi-colored. Later it was fixed.

 

And the first Zaxxon iteration in mame didn't have the color PROMs available for whatever reason. Later they became available and a new set of Zaxxon roms was born.

 

 

My 2 cents.

 

As others have said, it doesn't always pay to have the latest and greatest. If you have all the games you want, why change anything?

 

Indeed. There is nothing to prohibit you from having several different setups of mame going. Maybe even one version dedicated to 1 single game. All depends how you want to roll.

 

While it is overall best to have the latest version of mame and roms, you need to consider the effort involved in every incremental update. Do you gain enough to offset the time spent in making that upgrade? Maybe it's best to upgrade every 3 years or so? Or accumulate several versions for each new game you want - and then consolidating every 5 years?

Edited November 25, 2015 by Keatah

[Vaughan]

I've not idea why this thread has turned into a little flame war.

 

We're damn lucky to have Mame at all.

 

From what i understand, Mame exists as a preservation project, not as a gaming platform. As a byproduct of the preservation, the games are playable.

 

So for example. There's a game called EXAMPLE. The arcade version had speech, but the current Mame version doesn't. In the next version of Mame, the devs are adding the speech - but it will kill the framerate. THE DEVS WILL ADD THE SPEECH. They're not concerned about whether it's playable (though obviously that's a great side-effect), they want to preserve the original.

 

I thought this was all well understood, but maybe I'm wrong. Other people - not MAME Dev's - have come up with front ends. I've been using them for years, and guess what - I don't actually like ANY of them. However, I've learned my way about, and can get everything to work. I prefer to think the best front end hasn't been written yet.

 

As an aside - I did have a chat in recent times with a Mame dev about some of my favorite games. I had written that I didn't really think I needed to keep up with Mame updates because the games I like all fall between 1975-1985ish. I'm not interested in newer games. The guy (forget the name) corrected me - a lot of work is still going into the drivers for those old games to add bits and pieces missing. Frame rates go down, but processing power goes up, and most of the time it's a wash (I play Mame on an i7).

 

I think we should be grateful for what we've got, for me it's truly amazing. If and when you get a setup working as you want - leave it alone! If you must have a newer version, get it, and install it in a different folder - keep things seperate. That way you can fall back to the old version if needed. It's not rocket science. The frontends are tiny, after all.

 

I did use CLRMAME once, I created a lot of problems for myself. User error, no doubt.

[Keatah]

I don't see this thread as a flamewar at all - rather a clarification of why mame is the way it is. And it still isn't widely understood why things are the way they are. I don't see that state of affairs from changing anytime soon. Everyone seems to want a bug-free 1-click "app".

 

But I think we can all agree it's totally awesome being able to play these games again. And play them in a superior environment of my choice, on hardware of my choice, with controllers set up precisely how I like them. With perfect reliability and consistency, no deteriorating hardware. With added accoutrements and accommodations. For each and every game.

 

I only wish I could revisit the engineers that laughed me out of McDonalds and shove a JumpDrive up their asses.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Keatah

[Derek]

Lots of interesting thoughts, couple things to try, but as happened last time, things got steered way off topic. The initial wonderment remains. I copied a working version of MAME and 458 roms that worked with that version onto a thumb drive and transferred that to the new computer. Suddenly 150 or so of those roms are suddenly missing files. If as some have stated using Windows 7 versus XP, then what went wrong? If something about going from 32 to 64 bit is not the problem then why don't things still work? I get why rom sets don't work with various versions of MAME as changes are made, but there were no changes. I put files on a thumb drive and moved them to a new machine, suddenly a third of them don't work. I moved some files, that should not make 1/3 of them suddenly wrong. If you copied your mp3 collection onto a thumb drive to take to a friends house so you can have tunes for a party and 1/3 of the files are now missing or corrupt even though your friend has the exact same program to play the files as you do on your computer, would that seem ok or sane? Moving some files shouldn't make them not work. It has to be a difference between xp and Windows 7. Nothing else changed. Sorry guy who disagreed with me, on page one, the only change was xp to 7, not the roms, not the version of MAME. The fact that all the vector games stopped working, someone who works on developing MAME should be able to say why the vector games stopped working between xp and 7. But again, I moved some files from one machine to another, nothing should have stopped working. And no, it was not the thumb drive as I removed everything and started again three times with the same results.

 

clrmamepro did not work. Either I got various error messages like it just told me that it couldn't find any roms, or the rom path was wrong.

[goldenegg]

How did you move MAME itself? If your paths aren't 100% identical, it's likely simply having trouble finding files. Also, perhaps those ROMs got corrupt when moving them between computers. Try to unzip the ROMs that are failing. If they can't unzip, that's your problem.

 

I guarantee you it has absolutely nothing to do with your operating system.

 

There's really no further help anyone can give you at this point, without seeing exactly how things are configured. If you want, I'd be willing to do a TeamViewer (https://www.teamviewer.com) session on your computer, to see what's wrong. You don't lose control of the system and will see everything I'm doing. We can either communicate over Skype or just by keeping a Notepad file open to type when needed. Send me a PM if you want to do this and we'll figure out a time that works for both of us.

 

Edit:

 

I just noticed something in your original post.

 

 

 

Right now I'm using MAMEUI32 0.154 (July 2014) and it recognizes 306 of the 458 roms that worked on the xp machine. That's a two year old version of MAME and is as close to being able to play all 458 games that I could get to work.

 

I'm not exactly clear what you're trying to say here. The way it's worded, it sounds like you've tried a bunch of MAME versions and settled on MAMEUI 0.154 as it recognized the most of your ROMs. When I need to know is exactly what version of MAME is on the XP system? Was it MAMEUI 0.154 or something different?

Edited November 25, 2015 by goldenegg

[78001987]

The requirement of matching a ROM set with the MAME versrion is very, very unfortunate I think. A ROM dump should be a ROM dump, and once done is done. The fact that it isn't suggests that the so called ROM dumps are not just ROM dumps, and instead include emulation software. The emulation software should be independent. Only in MAME and its ilk do I see this. You don't get a new version of Altirra and then have to hunt for some "matching" ATARIOSB.ROM, ATARIXL.ROM., or STARRAID.ROM.

 

But... what we may wish was true isn't. MAME has this unfortunate characteristic, and you need to be aware of it when upgrading etc.

This is not really correct. What is correct is that ROM dumps are often incomplete when first emulated, and later on the emulation in MAME is adjusted as more complete versions of the ROMs become available when MAME coders get access to dump the board's chips.

 

Every MAME game that uses audio samples is incomplete. For a long time this was the case with Donkey Kong. Then somewher around .125 someone dumped all the chips on a genuine DK board and proper sounds were finally implemented in the emulation.

 

Also - many arcade games have had multiple board revisions, with completely different romsets from each.

[fujidude]

This is not really correct. What is correct is that ROM dumps are often incomplete when first emulated, and later on the emulation in MAME is adjusted as more complete versions of the ROMs become available when MAME coders get access to dump the board's chips.

 

 

It already accounts for that. Remember, it has been stated that a lot of ROMs don't change that often. Yet, they still need to have something done to them to work with a newer revision of MAME. It is totally understandable that ROMs that actually are changed and improved would require getting the newer version of it to match the newer MAME that expects that new ROM. No argument there.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Every MAME game that uses audio samples is incomplete. For a long time this was the case with Donkey Kong. Then somewher around .125 someone dumped all the chips on a genuine DK board and proper sounds were finally implemented in the emulation.

I think the bigger issue with samples was not that audio data did not exist in some capacity within the ROM, but each arcade game had it's own custom analog sound synth schematics, which were either not documented properly or very difficult to emulate accurately. Samples in certain instances were better than the poor, inaccurate, or often missing sound emulation currently available to MAME devs.

[Derek]

I tried the above mentioned MAME 32plus 0.83. Glad it works for him, but I got the same error message that seems to be preventing the older roms and older MAME's from working on Windows 7. A file called comctrlx86 which needs to be updated, the link provided from windows does not work as the file is unavailable from Windows, even though the pop up error message is from Windows telling me that they provide the damn file from them ?!?! and google'ing it results in many sites that guarantee to solve your comctl32.dll problems for a fee. I'm sure there is lots of spyware and other problems to be had there so I didn't bite. So maybe this is the problem between xp and 7 as I recall getting an error message with 32 in it when I first tried to simply move MAME, and all the roms together in one file folder from the old computer to this one. Upon opening that version of MAME which worked fine on xp, nothing would work without changing the 32.dll file which as I said, I couldn't find from Windows

 

I appreciate goldeneggs offer of computer to computer help, but it shouldn't be this difficult. MAME and all files were simply copied from an xp machine onto a thumb drive, and onto a Windows 7 machine. If that is not the problem then the games should all still work, they don't. I didn't change any pathways or file names. The older version from a 32 bit system would not open the 100 games, mostly vector games, giving the comctl32.dll file missing incomapatibility error message. I am extremely hesitant to try and accept a download of the comctrlx86 file from any of these sites as the last time I tried to fix something that stopped working (Sony mini-disc player which stopped working as well between xp and 7 for no apparent reason, so don't tell me there aren't compatibility issues betweent the two!) I ended up with a big bill from my computer repair shop to get rid of all the spyware and other shit that came with the download which was supposedly from Sony bridging the gap between xp and 7 as far as the minidisc was concerned. There is a certain appeal to simply going out the back door into the woods and listening to the birds chirp in the trees, certainly simpler that fighting with computers to get things to work. I can't imagine how anyone would find fixing computers to be a job that would not make one jump off a cliff. Sigh. Maybe it is time to concede defeat, 1/4 of the games don't work anymore for no sensible reason. The Atari, coleco and intellivision hooked up to my tv always seem to just power on and work with none of this bullshit. An update of MAME should not fuck up what worked before. Also, you should be able to have more that one version of MAME on your computer to try and figure out what is wromg without endless error messages that MAME has detected an outdated version and needs to make changes, well how can I figure out what is wrong with an older version if the newer version will not exist on my computer unless I delete the older version. I should have never tried to get this working, but fall is here with freezing to death and 14 hours of darkness per day, so I really would like to escape to summers of being a little kid at the arcade with Linda's arm around my shoulder while I played Ms. Pac and she was so impressed that I could get to the blue board and no one else could.....

[goldenegg]

Okay, so now we're getting somewhere.

 

The problem you're having has nothing to do with MAME. This is an application error, generated by MAMEUI and MAME32PLUS. It's important to note that MAMEUI and MAME32PLUS are not official builds of MAME. The problem you're having is typically caused by either having conflicting versions of the libraries or your system has corrupted system files.

 

What you mention that you changed COMCTL32.DLL, where did you change it? If you modified the file in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM, I hope you have a backup of the original file. IF so, restore that backup, as there's no reason to change that file from what Microsoft provides.

 

One thing you can check is whether MAMEUI has its own copy of COMCTL32.DLL. If it does, it would be located wherever the program exists on your system. If it does have its own copy, delete or rename it (a suggested file name would be COMCTL32_WHYISTHISHEREITSBADPRACTICETODEPLOYANAPPLICATIONLIKETHIS.DLL).

 

If you want to validate your system files, you can follow these steps from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929833

 

With all that said, I'd highly recommend using an official build of MAME. To do that, you'll want two things.

 

1 - AN OFFICIAL BUILD OF MAME

 

You can download the latest release of MAME at http://mamedev.org/release.php.

 

2 - A FRONT END

 

MAME is a command line application, so you'll want a front end to make things easier. You can download QMC2 from http://qmc2.batcom-it.net

 

Simply UNZIP the MAME binary wherever you want it and install QMC2. When running QMC2 for the first time, it will prompt for the location of several items. The important ones to fill in are the path to your downloaded MAME binary, MAME's HASH directory (it will be wherever you extracted the binary) and your ROM path.

 

Give this a try and see what happens.

[Andromeda Stardust]

comctl32.dll

No need to download this file from the internets. It should exist somewhere in the windows, system, or system32 directory of your old XP install. Copy it over to the new system and dump it in the MAME dll folder or the same filepath as the EXE that uses it.

[Keatah]

I ended up with a big bill from my computer repair shop to get rid of all the spyware and other shit that came with the download which was supposedly from Sony bridging the gap between xp and 7 as far as the minidisc was concerned.

 

Corrupt system files.

 

Not all computer shops can get every single detail and dll and driver back to the exact way it was before a spyware attack. Let alone registry and other settings files. Not even respectable experts. There are simply too many unknown things that get changed around with spyware.

 

IDK, but I've run versions of MAME as low as 0.60 or 0.50 on Win7, and they were copied directly from XP just as you did. So it can and does work.

 

Looks like you're in good hands here.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Keatah

[goldenegg]

No need to download this file from the internets. It should exist somewhere in the windows, system, or system32 directory of your old XP install. Copy it over to the new system and dump it in the MAME dll folder or the same filepath as the EXE that uses it.

 

No. Do not go copying system libraries from XP to Windows 7. They're not compatible and will give the same error he's already getting.

Edited November 26, 2015 by goldenegg

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

No. Do not go copying system libraries from XP to Windows 7. They're not compatible and will give the same error he's already getting.

I never understood the need for software dependancy on a dll file. More programs got broken due to these missing little bastards. If a programmer designs a software, he/she should include whatever dll or library the program needs to run with the executable. Bam! No more missing dlls. So when you run a program and it prompts you for missing dll, it is really the programmers fault for not inclyding it. It is highly likely the programmer has files on his or her system that you don't, and if a program requires these files, then that is bad programming and laziness on the part of the designer for not ensuring that the program doesn't need resources external to itself in order to run.

 

2 cents.

[goldenegg]

If a programmer designs a software, he/she should include whatever dll or library the program needs to run with the executable. Bam! No more missing dlls. So when you run a program and it prompts you for missing dll, it is really the programmers fault for not inclyding it.

 

That doesn't make any sense. Do you have any idea how many system libraries Windows has? There's absolutely no reason for developers to distribute those system libraries with their applications. Developers should be able to take for granted that standard Windows libraries exist, because it points to a serious issue with the operating system installation if they're missing.

 

Just look at the problem Derek is having. This is exactly what happens when a developer bundles system libraries with their applications, as it ties them to a specific OS. Leave system libraries to Microsoft, so they take the responsibility of updating them. We still don't know if that's the cause for the issue in this thread, but the same behavior would occur.

 

For other libraries, developers must take responsibility for ensuring they are available on the system. This would consist of imbedding the installer for those libraries within its own or packaging the DLLs separately. In the case where libraries can't be distributed that way (due to their licensing model), it's up to the developer to make the user aware of the dependency, so they can install the required libraries. There's nothing wrong with this and only bad development practices are to blame when dependencies aren't addressed properly. Don't change the way the system works just because some lazy developers do stupid things.

[Derek]

I'd like to try goldeneggs suggestion, but there is no results when searching this computer for the COMCTL32.DLL file, so maybe that is why nothing about MAME from the other computer works, it is not here on this Windows 7 machine at all...? So I decided to remove all traces of MAME from my computer with the exception of the rom's file (which I'll obviously need) and start over with his suggestions. Nope, can't do that as I get an error message that I need administrator permission from IBM-TC-675TG-PC-IBM to remove the various versions of MAME that are still in the downloads folder. Who the F is the administrator? This is a home computer, I don't sign on when I power it up. Time to go to bed before I take Mr Hammer to the computer.

[goldenegg]

Sounds like you have some weird permissioning issues going on as well on your system. It's not at all important that you remove MAMEUI, but you'll want to eventually do it. You can just make a new directory to use the official MAME build. There's no issue with having multiple versions of MAME, as long as they're in separate directories. They can also all use a single directory containing ROMs, so you don't need separate copies.

 

The permission issue might be minor. I suggest following the instructions on the following Microsoft KB article to check ownership and permissions on the files in question.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2623670

 

Regardless whether the above article solves your problem, it might be worth doing a scan for malware while you're at it. For that, I suggest you use two tools. The first is Microsoft Security Essentials and the other is the free version of Malwarebytes. Between these two, you should be able to find any malware which may have caused issues on the system. Both are free. It's important you get them from their source websites and not some third party. I'll post links in a couple minutes (I'm on my phone, so swapping tabs risks losing this post).

 

Microsoft Security Essentials - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows/security-essentials-download

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free - https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/

 

For Malwarebytes, feel free to enable the premium edition for the free trial. There's no commitment and it will simply revert to the free. Erosion when the trial is over. With their Black Friday sale, this would be a good time to buy the full version if you're interested in it.

Edited November 27, 2015 by goldenegg

[Derek]

Tried your suggestions, goldenegg. The newest version of official MAME plays even fewer of my roms then ever before, plus there is no sound on ones that I know worked fine with sound. The MAME folder that wouldn't let me delete it yesterday, deleted fine today. I think I'll try and get the comctl32.dll file from my sister's computer which is an xp machine and try the thumb drive with the emulator and roms on it on her machine, and if it works then it proves that either the old versions of MAME don't work on Windows 7 or that 32 file is essential to the old versions working, eiither way, since other people seem to be having such ridiculous problems with this, I have my doubts that either thing will help as any time I try to add something new to this machine which should be complete and working, be it MAME, installing the Sony minidisc which should have contained all the files needed, but from xp to 7, nope. dll files missing. It took the same amount of madness to install a logitech joystick which worked fine on xp, again with 7, missing dll files, same installation disc, should have simply installed. Perhaps I should get xp reinstalled on my machine since I don't download porn or visit questionable sites, I should be able to get things working like they did before. How about a MAC? I have no idea.

 

But what I do know is that the newest mame is a mess imho, no list of games, just a confusing mess of trying to find things by spelling them out, instead of scrolling through A into B, into C. Each game that you exit resets the volume back up to full blast, which I keep turning down so that I can have tunes shuffling in the background, the difficulty, the # of lives resets to the lowest # of men and quite often greatest difficulty. Not impressed with this one. Making things more and more frustrating and difficult is not progress, just unnecessary irritation.

 

I bet what will happen is that the MAME's that are on the thumb drive, which are identical to what is on the Windows 7 machine will work, but if I recopy them and get that mysterious 32.dll file off her computer and bring it here, I bet I will just get another error message, or simply have things still not work, as the newest MAME should not need an xp file yet still does not recognize all the games that the lack of that file seems to be preventing from working. Again, time for bed before I take a hammer to the computer,

[goldenegg]

If you were using MAMEUI 0.154 on your XP machine and it ran all your games, then those same ROMs would be fully supported on the latest (0.168). You can even download the official MAME 0.154 from their website. But none of the popular vector games have changed between those releases.

 

For the hell of it, I tried MAMEUI 0.154 on both Windows 7 and Windows 10. I didn't have problems on either system. Can you confirm 100% that this is the version you had running on the XP machine?

 

Also, games won't magically stop playing sound either. If the ROM is known to have sound issues, there will be a notice about it when you load the ROM. I'm starting to wonder if there's other issues with your system.

 

You mention no list of games. If that's the case, then you definitely didn't follow my directions to install and use QMC2. MAME on its own never had a front end. It's the front end that gives you that functionality.

Edited November 28, 2015 by goldenegg

[Keatah]

I think we need to go back and re-evaluate the integrity of the host system. If my rig was compromised I wouldn't even bother trying to fix it. I'd restore from a backup. If that's not feasible I'd consider reformatting/reinstalling. Lame? Maybe. Not man-like? Yeah whatever. I don't have time to muck around in tedium. Nor the patience. And the confidence wouldn't be there. Not like a fresh restore or reinstall.

 

And just because a computer shop said they fixed it doesn't mean they did. They can miss things just like the rest of us do. I can assure you they aren't experts in all aspects of an OS. Whereas a bit of malware CAN hit anywhere. And no one single anti-this or anti-that security program (or arsenal of them combined) is totally effective at prevention, let alone repair. Too many unknowns, too many versions of too many files in a windows system presents too many opportunities for things to go wrong. And it's only getting worse with 8 and 10.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Microsoft is bloatware after all. Maybe if you plan on using a dedicated MAME rig, a Linux install is in order? Linux can run very lean on a system and boot fast and not have multiple updates almost every day.

[Keatah]

A dedicated MAME rig shouldn't even go online. The OS should be as static as possible. It should not be subjected to daily or hourly updates. I update my emulation rig only when some new gotta-have functionality becomes available or there is a genuine problem.