that thread says ~2007, Id assume ur not using the same stuff he is.. u maybe using the same mame version IF thats the version u downloaded ?
I havn't used "hotd", but to answer ur question. he sounds like a newb, so he probably did something stupid with the settings or his computer, which is probably why he didnt post what he did.
I don't know if the hotd rom is version dependant regaurding the mame ver in question, some roms are some arn't. I can point out a way to find out tho. If your using a 3rd party GUI frontend for mame that may have an easyer way of telling you, I don't use them tho. suffice it to say, its simpler to just use up to date files. and beyond mame for help, you'd have to post your system specs.. such as operating system, cpu and gpu. a vauge suggestion would be try running the rom in ddraw mode instead of d3d or viseversa.
re: version missmatch what I would do is get the latest offical version of mame, verify the rom with it in command prompt, (replace the path names of course) example:
Code:
"C:\path\to\mame.exe" -rompath "D:\path\to\roms" -verifyroms "hotd"
if it fails u could check if theres a file mismatch by compairing the number of files in mames database for the Rom:
Code:
"C:\path\to\mame.exe" -listcrc "hotd" >>D:\path\of\ur\choice\mame_crc_hotd.txt
vs how many u actually have in the zip file(since a missing file is the same as a corrupt file[if file labels dont match re:verifying only not for running the rom]), keep in mind mames list includes any necessary bios files for the rom also.
just opening the "hotd" zipped archive in 7zip for example will show u the count in the bar at the bottom if u select all files (ctrl+a) and it also shows the CRCs, just drag the crc column all the way left for easy viewing if its not so already. File names can be ignored, mame doesn't use them to launch the game and they maybe mis named anyway.
If ur missing files, thats ur first problem.. If ur not but it failed anyway, u can see the origin date for the files(if u didn't modify them) in one of the columns, and just add ~5 to the yr. I don't know the exact number, but emu devs don't support roms untill they reach a certain age, so that'll be about the yr mame would start actual support for the rom... u can download the version of mame of that year from mames offical release archived from
www.mamedev.org and see if the CRC of the failed file in question is actually listed in that version's -listcrc database.
