MAME hard drive image question

[kennyrh]

I can't get MAME32 to create a diff file for the hard disk image games.

I was told to make a folder with the same name as the .chd file and put the .chd in it and put it in my roms folder.

But when I try to run the game it loads about 3/4 the way through and then comes up with "can't create diff file" or somesuch.

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong . . .

[SegNin]

Read this:

http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mameguide/mamechd.htm

[kennyrh]

Yeah . . .cheers mate but that's where I got my info from in the first place.

I've followed those instructions but still get the error which makes me wonder if the Diff folder in Mame32 should be "dif" or sometrhing daft like that . . .

[SegNin]

How much free space do you have left on your hard drive?

Ands what is the exact error message that you get?

[AKUMA™]

Okay, you should have a folder in you Mame directory titled "diff" (without quotes of course). Mame just stores the saved data for high scores n shit for chd games in there. Now, some games chd's had their names changed so that they no longer match the folder they go to.

Example: Street Fighter III 3rd Strike
Rom name: sfiii3.zip
Chd name: 33s000.chd
Chd folder name: sfiii3

see what I mean? The chd and folder names don't match up. I don't know why they did this but it threw me off when I upgraded mame a while back. So this may be a problem for you, I dunno, you really didn't explain much about exactly what was happening. Go here http://www.mameworld.net/maws/ and look up the names of whatever games are giving you problems and search through the files and names of each to make sure yours match up.

[kennyrh]

Okay . . .I had a look there but as far as I can see I've done everything correctly.

eg . . .Ive got a folder called calspeed in my mame roms folder with a calspeed.chd inside. But when I try to run it in Mame32 I get "Calspeed.dif CAN'T CREATE DIFF FILE"

I'm stumped . . .

[SegNin]

We're all stumped.

When I googled for "CAN'T CREATE DIFF FILE" the only search result I got was the source code of the MAME emulator in text format.

http://www.mameworld.net/maws/mamesrc/src/common.c

I'm no programmer, but based on what I could understand, I think you have a bad or wrong CHD file.

But before you delete your CHD file and start hunting around for another, try several of the previous versions of MAME32, and maybe also MAME.

You also might want to try MAME32Plus.
http://mameplus.emu-france.com/

[kennyrh]

I'm no programmer, but based on what I could understand, I think you have a bad or wrong CHD file.

I checked the CRC and MD5 in ClrMamePro and everything looked okay . . .

[SegNin]

Do you have the latest MAME32 dats for ClrManePro?

And did you try other versions of Mame yet?

And how much free space do you have left on your HD?

Because if it's trying to create a DIFF file but there isn't enough space left; maybe that could be the reason you're getting this error.

But how big is a typical DIFF file anyway?

[kennyrh]

Yes have the latest dats . . .plenty of hd space.

Someone on another forum said make sure the diff folder in mame32 is write-enabled but when I checked the properties it had "read-only" checked and I can't change it.

How do you do that in Windows XP ?

[SegNin]

http://support.microsoft.com/default...22120121120120

[kennyrh]

Thanks for the link . . .

. . .I read it but it doesn't make a heap of sense to me because, for a start, I haven't got a "security" tab in the folders proerties.

Strange thing is . . .my other folders in mame32 like cfg and nvram are "read-only" but the files for the games I've played are in those . . .