Zaphod54

The basic question - is there a good way to filter out "devices" with a MAME import? I mean things like the base hardware devices like DACs, PPU, network interfaces, sound and video devices, etc.? I'm surprised there isn't a "Skip Devices" option in that filter screen. Or are Devices part of one of the other categories that can be skipped? Admittedly I did not select all of the Skip categories during the import. My plan is instead look at the playlists for some of the categories (looks like that's covered in the Genre list) and decide if I want them or not, then either just hide them or maybe delete them again. But I definitely don't want all those "devices".

Thanks, all! I think that covers it. This does tell me that even if I just do NAOMI and Model 2 as playlists within the Arcade platform, I should associate Flycast and Model 2 to the Arcade platform, but not make them Default (Default is still MAME). This makes sense too, except I mentioned in my original post that I had found pre-defined playlists that someone had created for the MAME set that separated out all of the Sega arcade platform stuff (NAOMI, etc.), which made it very easy to just select that playlist, then CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist, then bulk-edit the emulator for all of the games in that playlist. But in looking at some of the other playlists that LB creates on its own, I think creating auto-populate playlists for these games would be easy too, using "Source contains naomi.cpp" for example.

I understand that. I do already have the Arcade platform that was created when importing MAME. It was more about whether there was any advantage to treating NAOMI and Model 2 as separate platforms vs. just playlists under Arcade, when using a different emulator for those games, particularly in regard to having an "associated" emulator to the platform? Sounds like there's not though (just for confirmation)? I guess, follow-up question, what does configuring an emulator to be associated with a platform actually do? I can configure the emulator on an individual game inside a platform to any other emulator defined in the system, whether that emulator is associated with that platform or not. So what's the purpose of adding an associated platform to an emulator config?

Basic question - is there an advantage to using a Platform vs. just a Playlist? Or is it purely personal preference? Details... I have a full MAME set imported and working under the default "Arcade" Platform, but I'm going to use Flycast for Sega NAOMI emulation and I have the Nebula Model 2 emulator set up for those games. All the YouTube videos I've seen for "importing" these games using Flycast or Model 2 indicated to import the games into the "Platform" Sega NAOMI, Model 2, etc., and setting the emulator as "associated" to that platform. But I then see this separates out those games in the Platform and Platform Category lists into those NAOMI or Model 2 Platforms, separate from the Arcade Platform. I'm not sure I want that. They're still "Arcade" games, I don't care that they're using a different emulator underneath. I don't feel like I need/want a separate "Platform" for these in the sense that "PlayStation" or "Sega Genisis" or "Wii" are clearly, truly, separate Platforms. So then I found this forum post with Playlists already defined for the Sega NAOMI games https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/64472-sega-playlists-naomi-naomi-2-naomi-gd-naomi-2-gd-atomiswave-model-3 and LB already had a Playlist for Model 2 built in. I then found it very easy to simply select one of those Playlists, press CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist from the MAME imported set, and then change the emulator for that entire Playlist to Flycast or Nebula Model 2. This was MUCH easier than re-importing each ROM for the Flycast or Model 2 emulators separately, and it keeps them under the Arcade platform. Seems to work fine so far. Am I missing something, or some feature advantage, by not doing these as a "Platform" as the YouTube videos indicate?