Confused about MAME

[Towndrunk]

I'm new to Emulators and HyperSpin, and I can't seem to find any information on an issue I'm having.  Setting up an emulator for my ROMs hasn't been an issue until I get to MAME.  I have downloaded the emulator and set it up, however none of my ROMs will start.  In the past they worked with other pre-loaded front ends like RecallBox or RetroPie, but I can't get them to work with HyperSpin.

I recently found out that certain ROMs will play with certain emulators.  They apparently have to match?  Is there a way to tell what emulator I need for a particular ROM to play?  Any help would be appreciated.

[Honosuseri]

Yes MAME is tricky to get your head around. There are many numbered Romsets, split, merged and non-merged, even CHD files to worry about.

I doubt you know which Romset you have. I could hazard a guess it's 0.78 (Mame2003) as it's a popular set for the RPI. You could try using Retroarch as the emulator. It has a number of cores that can be downloaded to cover the different Rom sets.

Or you could bite the bullet and source the latest Romset 0.205 and the CHD files to use with the latest version of Mame.

[Towndrunk]

Thanks.  I was going to try a few different emulators for the MAME ROMs once I got everything else set up.  There is a little bit more to the process with HyperSpin, but I like the look and the ability to customize things.  Also, better hardware than the Pi.  I think I may take the alternate route though, and just source some new files to use with an emulator I know will work.

[rastan]

Google is your friend! Would probably be best to just download the latest version of mame and (google is your friend) find the Rom set for the latest version of mame. 

Mame is actually one of the easiest emulator to setup in hyperspin as long as it actually works outside of hyperspin.