MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Cheat.dat Problems SOLVED

Okay - I finally solved this problem.

Before I start, please don't laugh at me to much.

I took this opportunity to really clean up my Mame installs, so everything was put into neat folders, all nicely named.

Now the solution for me.......

When you install a frontend, the DIRECTORIES settings all point to things like CHEAT and CPANEL, without any paths given. this is obviously because it assumes they're folders off the place when the executable is run.

Part of my Mame install is that I didn't want to duplicate a lot of files. So I have a common SNAPSHOT folder for instance, shared amongst all the frontends. It's a simple matter to set up, you just change the entry for SNAPHOTS in the directory setup, explicitly pathing it to the central location.

And there - ladies and gentlemen - you have the root of my problem. When I had a folder of unzipped cheat XML files, I simply pointed the CHEAT folder to this central location. Everything worked.

Now, today I downloaded a new set of Cheat XML files, and I placed the CHEAT.7z file in the root of the application folder. I then changed the path in the frontend to point to that folder.

THIS DOES NOT WORK. You get no cheats.

Sitting here going over things, and over things, and over things, I started to wonder about something I'd read in this thread. "By keeping the cheat.7z intact, the system will consider that the cheat folder".

Hm, I don't have a CHEAT folder. I've NEVER had a CHEAT folder, other than my central one. It got me thinking.... Mame will use the CHEAT.7z file as though it were a CHEAT folder - but I'm pathed to the folder containing the file, not the file itself.

I tested it. I created a CHEAT folder, which is empty. I pointed the CHEAT directory at it. I then DELETED the CHEAT folder. I wanted to know if Mame, not pathed to a folder called CHEAT that wasn't actually there, would instead pick up the CHEAT.7z file and use it instead.

And indeed, that worked.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. Sorry to make such a rookie error, but this seems a little counter-intuitive. At least to my brain. But at least I finally was able to hear the ball drop.

Thanks again for your help.