I have copied the latest Mame core (0.237) to my SD card but unable to load this core (shows 1.9.13 - No Core). Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this? I have reformatted and re-applied the Lakka image but the same problem 
Also, unable to scan my “Arcade” folder. Shows 0% for a while then seems to reboot with no playlist. Have tried “Scan Without Core Match” but same problem.
you are a lot of problems you know… 
Well, thanks for the compliment.
Where did you copy this core from?, if it’s not a compiled core for your specific architecture it likely won’t work unfortunately.
Core downloaded from nightly-buildbot.libretro. Thanks powerarmour. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head 
. I’ve probably used the nightly from x86 (which I’ve used for my pc). It had worked on 351Elec, so I assumed that was the nightly too but probably came pre-installed with an older version.
Not sure what you are expecting to play by using latest MAME on such a low-end device, but performances might not be that good, you might even run into memory exhaustion issues considering MAME memory usage. You should consider using other arcade cores if they properly support the games you intend to play.
You are probably right. The games I like to play are between mid 1980’s to 2000. I just like to keep things up-to-date and not have to worry about different rom sets.
FBNeo emulates most 2D arcade games from that era just fine, better than MAME in a few edge cases. It’s using the same romsets as current MAME, is much nicer on cpu & ram usage, and is fully integrated with the libretro ecosystem (unlike MAME).
Agreed, I prefer using FBNeo when possible also, there are obviously many games that only MAME currently supports and the 2003-Plus core is generally sufficient for those.
Some reading here for context: http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/mameover.htm
Having tested with Lakka’s FBNeo, it only picked up a couple of these games, with a couple more being detected under Mame 2003 Plus. Now, having dropped them into 351Elec, all have been detected. Will do a comparison between these two cores.
I remember using FinalBurn back in the day, then Alpha (I think). After that, have been using Mame since. Interesting article. Will certainly give FBNeo a try.
MAME is a goldmine of informations for anyone who wants to develop his own emulator, but yeah it’s meant more for preservation than for playing. Sometimes they focus on totally weird things (did you know it emulates cigarette vending machines ? i’m not joking), sometimes they break a game intentionally…