Can't figure out how to make MESS work

Libretro Cores
#1

I have searched everywhere and spent a lot of time trying to make MESS work but i still can’t figure it out. MESS works with my other frontends like Hyperspin, Rocketlauncher and Quickplay. But the core in RetroArch doesn’t.

I’m not using softlist roms, just regular No-Intro roms. I have all the bioses in the RetroArch/System folder. I triple check that this is the correct path in RetroArch settings. But when i’m browsing the roms folder to run a game it always appears empty.

This is how far i gone. I’m out of ideas. Thing is that MESS is the emulator i need the most to work because it emulates a lot of systems that don’t have a standalone core. Si if anyone can help, i would appreciate it.

#2

As I understand it (I don’t use MESS personally), the libretro core requires softlists and a very specific directory structure. There are other posts on the forum that explain that a little more. You can probably find them by searching for ‘intellivision’ since that’s what they were trying to run, IIRC.

#3

Thanks for the answer. Although, i’m pretty sure it should be able to work without softlists. The reason i’m saying this is because the MESS core in RetroArch is used by other frontends like Hyperspin, RocketLauncher and LaunchBox. I was able to run the core successfully via RocketLauncher and Hyperspin. Just can’t run it in RetroArch when i use it as standalone for some reason.

All these frontends don’t use softlist names because they use boxart, videos, etc and all these files need to have the same names as the roms.

#4

Ok, in that case, can you extract the launch command those frontends are using to see what they’re doing, specifically?

#5

I managed to find some commands for MESS to work in LaunchBox. For instance, Astrocade needs a “astrocde -cart” in the command line box (that the frontend provides for each system) in order to work.

So i suppose i have to find where these commands can be entered for MESS to work in RetroArch too. Problem is RA doesn’t even see the roms…

#6

http://www.libretro.com/index.php/mamemessume-cores/

#7

Thanks for the link.

So, what i’m getting is that, to load MESS in RetroArch, the whole rom collection needs to be renamed to the softlist standard? That would be bad because all these rom collections have thousands of other files connected to them, like box art, videos, manuals, snapshots, etc.

#8

The names used in softlists are the same you find in those romsets usually. I mean, yes you have to get a MAME/MESS set, not something like no-intro sets or any other one.

MESS is complicated with particular sets, particular commands for different systems etc. I won’t deny it. :S