NLS

OK so new MAME came out (as it was last Wednesday of the month), I have it updated fully... What is the proper process to follow in LaunchBox to update the LB library (ROMs and metadata)?

Not fond of this bounty thing. Someone might say that some development ideas are stalled until they are paid.

+1

That.

Actually all TOSEC ROMs are in zips containing single files.

Yes I know that. Thanks.

Wait you mean that for TOSEC to import C64 games I need to go to \Emulation\TOSEC\Main\Commodore\C64\Games\[D64] (to name just one folder as an example) and EXTRACT all 96 thousand files? Why? If I extract "2-D Cube (19xx)(-).zip" it only has a "2-D Cube (19xx)(-).d64", why I need to extract it? VICE works fine with zips directly, but even if it didn't I believe LB has an option to extract zips before using them ROM... am I wrong?

Ok so for MAME it is pretty clear how it scans things, as there is a single official collection of ROMS, of CHDs, of software lists (ROMs and CHDs again). But for other platforms how does the scraper work? For example I add Commodore 64, follow the tutorial... When it requests to add my "ROMs" (I hate the generalizaton "ROMs" in emulation btw, when NOT talking about actual ROMs), I point it to my Commodore 64 folder in TOSEC. And I mean the top Commodore 64 folder, including subfolders Demos, Apps, Collections etc. Not sure I do right. How do I know WHAT collection the Commodore 64 scraper needs? Maybe it understands No-Intro naming, maybe something else. How do we know? Same for Amiga etc. Even for MAME, the scraper adds many sections in the tree, I never asked. Is everything spread in those branches, or there are unclassified ROMs also in "All" (or in Arcade)? So can someone clear things up for me please?

You should do it every time it pops up (it takes seconds), because when a new release is out, it makes sure to be safe to update over the immediately previous version. Possibly they check 2 versions back, not sure, but I wouldn't say it is as safe to jump 5-6-10 updates at once. So don't skip them.

In the "unread content" list I think there are tiny buttons to send you directly to the first unread post of every thread. Is there anything like that WITHIN the thread itself? I've searched for that and can't see it.

You did and I voted for it. It would be cool. GameBase (which is an ancient fossil in everything else), has this for many years.

+1 for simple "run with" +1 for LB to evolve (and stay) as a completely self-sustainable front-end without need of middle-ware (by all means support the middle-ware just render it less and less a need)

I use normal official MAME, which, remember is NOT only command line, but for several versions has a rather rich GUI. I also use QMC2 for when I want the "native Windows" feeling. Of course also use LB for the cabinet feeling. I have abandoned all alternative builds, esp. those that don't actually add anything better than stock MAME (most of them) and/or don't respect release version freezes etc. (which some may remember even led mamedev team to make a blog post about).

So is there a guide for this?

Very interesting!

I don't want to ruin the thread. Roughly only, ( a ) I find the design confusing and many things overcomplicated for no reason really and ( b ) I hate that the major part of the equation, the actual emulators, are only treated as irrelevant building blocks, whereas libretro itself is considered to big boy that will take control of everything. I would prefer if libretro was instead a nice library, politely pushed to emulator developers to use and solve many I/O problems and discrepancies. I also hate that it is usually a few versions back (cores vs stand-alone emus). I also hate the RA GUI (looks like HTPC from 2004). I might re-think things if mamedev (for example, as a major player of the emulation game) released with every official MAME version, also the "core" version. Anyway, enough for off-topic. Back to the topic, I believe the easiest way to get back to MAME, is to get back to MAME. As is. It is literally 5 minutes of config to be up and running. From local disk or network. Anywhere.

I run (latest) RetroArch again a few minutes ago. Yeap, it is still chaos. Would definitely not suggest it to a newbie. Good progress though changing X/Z to Enter/BS.

The problem here is that us people that has spent many hours on those things and find things "simple and normal", have lost the actual measure of "simple and normal". We have to return to the "real newbie" (here with a positive meaning) from time to time. BTW this is actually missing from LaunchBox too. Until they implement wizards that start by default when something is not set up properly (or at all).

No offence, but what you describe is infinitely more complex than what I described. You have to think with the mentality of someone that doesn't know what to do. Think of the steps you describe and what I describe (ok given that someone should tell you to throw roms as they are -unextracted- in roms folder... but MAME will even read extracted fine if they are extracted using folders in the names of the archives, which is pretty much what even a newbie would do, or risk mixing thousands of random files in a folder). And in MAME you don't have to exactly match the version with the roms, who says that? Yes few roms will not work if you are 1-2-3-4-5 releases apart (new roms plus VERY few renames). But few in thousands. Also I dunno it seems pretty much a giveaway to me that someone should match "mame 0.185" with "mame roms 0.185", when trying to set up things... If you run RetroArch MAME core, data/metadata needs are exactly the same as running MAME directly, running RetroArch doesn't change anything about that. Only adds extra layers of things to configure. When I first run RA many releases ago, I couldn't even figure out that I need to manually add cores ONE BY ONE and manually update them. To each their own as Charco says.

MAME runs using default settings after you simply extract the release and then dropping the roms/snapshots/samples etc. in their proper folders (for people that find complex to define alternative paths in the ini). Then you simply run it and you get a very workable GUI that is mouse and keyboard friendly. You can't get simpler than that (I mean for something out of the box and not preconfigured by someone).

MAME is one of the simplest emulators. Maybe 3 minutes to set up if you have the data/metadata it needs to play (and look nice). RetroArch is NOT an emulator and is NOT simple to grab if you are someone that starts from scratch.

http://www.mamedev.org/history.html this is also interesting because you can picture how big a project this has become, the importance of updates (which was the original question) etc. (I maintain the history pages btw)

I did with my first line in the post. He still needs to do some reading. Whole books are written about MAME. Here is some more info: MESS is the part of MAME that emulates consoles, handhelds and computers. So software lists are the pieces of software (tape and disk rips etc.) that can be loaded by MAME directly choosing from a list depending on the machine emulated. Actually MAME can even use software not yet in software lists, but you need to manually command it to mount the software and run it.

Software Lists downloads are for the MESS part of MAME. You really need some reading about MAME (reach a certain level of knowledge about it) before resorting to questions.

I think you didn't understand what he is asking. He asks about GAME manuals accessed through LB.