I spent a few hours trying to figure out why XMAME would not work on Linux, though it would work on WIndows with the same ROM files. The answer was for some reason on Arch Linux I had to pass the parameter -rompath /path/to/roms when starting xmame from the command line...otherwise it said it could not find the required files, even though it loads them. Well, now that I know how to play a game manually from the command line, I still can't figure out how to use gxmame to play my games. The path is set correctly in options, but rebuilding the game list does absolutely nothing, even after an audit. I'm led to believe this is because I have no way of passing -rompath to the backend. I never had to do anything of the sort with XMAME 0.79 on Slackware Linux...but XMAME 0.86 seems to be broken or something. Any help?

To all those wondering what the problem is I found out:

XMAME versions greater than 0.81.x have undergone a major change in structure in the way they list games. ANY XMAME VERSION GREATER THAN 0.81x WILL NOT WORK WITH GXMAME! The gxmame author has said he doesn't have much time for gxmame anymore, so don't expect much in the way of changes or fixes. Solution, downgrade to 0.81.1