This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

If you are having problems finding or using cheats for an Emulator (particularly MAME/MESS) or have found a trick that you wish to share this is the place to do it. But please read the Cheat FAQ first.
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finchyfinch
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Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2017 4:02 am

This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by finchyfinch »

I have cheats working on MAME for normal roms, but cannot get them to work on systems. For example, SNES game aaahh real monsters. When I select cheats I just get a message saying that 'This Non-Arcade System has been added..........' - essentially it thinks there are no cheats for this system game. I have an xml file in the cheats folder called the same name as the SNES cartridge - in this case aaahhrmu.xml.

I have also tried the cheat.simple file example but I cant get that to work either - I just get the same message 'This Non-Arcade System has been added..........'

I'm running MAME 0.188 and the latest cheat.7z file.

Can anyone provide some straight forward information on how to get system software cheats to work.

Cheers,

Finchy
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Pugsy
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Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by Pugsy »

There are two problems here:

1. The SNES cartridge must be the one in the software list and loaded from the softwarelist not by directly telling MAME what file to load. If you look in hash\snes.xml in your MAME directory will see:

Code: Select all

	<software name="aaahhrmu" cloneof="aaahhrm">
		<description>Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (USA)</description>
		<year>1995</year>
		<publisher>Viacom New Media</publisher>
		<info name="serial" value="SNS-ANNE-USA" />
		<info name="release" value="199511xx" />
<!-- Majesco re-release -->
		<part name="cart" interface="snes_cart">
			<feature name="pcb" value="MAXI-1A0N-30-2" />
			<feature name="u1" value="U1 MASK ROM" />
			<feature name="u2" value="U2 CIC" />
			<feature name="lockout" value="D411B 9716 C" />
			<feature name="cart_model" value="SNS-006" />
			<feature name="cart_back_label" value="" />
			<feature name="slot" value="lorom" />
			<dataarea name="rom" size="2097152">
				<rom name="sns-p-anne-0.u1" size="2097152" crc="27ff5ba1" sha1="7a4452f38c76a1faa50aec790e7e38b069b2471e" offset="0x000000" />
			</dataarea>
		</part>
<!-- end of Majesco re-release -->
	</software>
In simple terms you will need a file with the crc32 of 27ff5ba1 and then place that file in a zip called aaahhrmu and place that zip file in the snes directory in your roms folder.


2. Once you've got that working you will find that there are currently no actual SNES cheats in the cheat collection....you will now get the message :- "This Software List Entry currently has no cheats" (but at least you know its setup correctly). You can then current workaround the lack of SNES cheats by editing cheat.simple and adding game genie codes and then use these cheats via the plugin menu.

Eg. to start a software list game from the commandline:
mame snes aaahhrmu

or from the mame menu:-
File Manager
cart
[software list]
Nintendo SNES cartridges
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
finchyfinch
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Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2017 4:02 am

Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by finchyfinch »

I have the software working, i.e. mame snes aaahhrmu works and I can run the game fine. I have a cheat.simple file in the cheat folder as per the following (I think this was your example);

nes/3dworldr,gg,AEUOLTPA,Infinite Lives
gameboy/addfamu,gg,C9E-F8E-081,Infinite Energy
gamegear/alien3,gg,002-B1C-3B7,Infinite Energy
megadriv/aaahhrmu,gg,ACFA-AACC,Infinite Lives
snes/aaahhrmu,gg,C282-04A7,Infinite Energy
snes/Super Mario Kart (USA),gg,C282-04A7,Infinite Energy
snes/smkartu,gg,C282-04A7,Infinite Energy
snes/aaahhrmu,gg,C282-04A7,Infinite Energy

But when I go to the cheats menu (either the built in one or the Lua Plugin version) I still get the same message 'This Non-Arcade System has been added..........'. My cheat folder has your cheat.7z file and that works ok so I know the mame path can see the cheats folder ok. Why cant I get the cheat.simple file to be recognised?
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Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by Pugsy »

The fact it displays 'This Non-Arcade System has been added..........' means it's not seeing the game as part of the softwarelist as it's loading snes.xml rather than snes\aaahhrmu.xml. If you load any SNES game from outside the softwarelist then it will display snes.xml.

cheat.simple should sit in the cheat path eg d:\mame\cheat\cheat.simple
But it won't work either if it doesn't recognise the image as part of the softwarelist

Which version & variant of MAME are you using?
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
crazyc
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Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by crazyc »

Are you checking for the cheats in the plugin options menu? The cheat menu is only for the builtin cheat engine currently. (I also posted a huge game genie list here if you're interested)
finchyfinch
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2017 4:02 am

Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by finchyfinch »

ok, so I corrected my error in trying to call the filename rather than the softlist name. I now get the message 'This software list entry currently has no cheats.' The only options displayed under it are Set Hotkeys, Reset All, and Reload All. I am running MAME in Win10 command line 64 bit version 0.188. I am using the Lua Plugin cheats option. I have the cheat.simple in the cheat path (same location as cheat.7z and that one works fine for normal MAME roms).

Could it be that the checksum of the game image isn't correct? I don't know how to check that. Is there any special formatting inside the cheat.simple other than 'snes/aaahhrmu,gg,C282-04A7,Infinite Energy'.

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong somewhere.
crazyc
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Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by crazyc »

finchyfinch wrote:(same location as cheat.7z and that one works fine for normal MAME roms).
I think this is your problem. cheat.7z is considered a subdirectory by the mame file open code so you need to create a new subdir called cheat in the dir where cheat.7z is and put the cheat.simple file in there.
finchyfinch
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Re: This Non-Arcade System has been added - cant get cheats to work on systems

Post by finchyfinch »

ok, wow, finally got it working. Seems there are quite a number of either undocumented or hard to find bits of info. My main mistake was that the cheat.simple file had the aaahhrmu (note the u for USA version) whereas the one I was using was the Europe version (no u). Also then found that I cant run the USA version using mame snes aaahhrmu as it complains about not finding a rom file called sns-p-anne-0.u1. Checking out the XML file I can see that sns-p-anne-0.u1 is listed as the rom name for the aaahhrmu game. Well that seems a little confusing. On top of that, I was making the assumption that the mame.ini file setting swpath is the folder where your systems software files should be, but regardless of what I put there, it always looks in the Roms folder. Is that intentional or am I missing something.
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