How to update your MAME ROMset to a newer version with CLRmamepro

[DOS76]

Really no other way to get updated MAME except from a torrent Downloading 60GB any other way would be painful

[Yardley]

Thanks for the tutorial. I haven't followed it yet but it looks promising. Question, I usually have a buddy update my MAME set with clrmamepro and he always use .dat files yet I don't see that mentioned in the tutorial at all. He also doesn't download every mame update pack, instead he just places the roms and chd's in their own directory and points the torrent client to those directories so that only the updated files are downloaded. Is this just a different approach? The clrmamepro results are correct afterwards with this method. 

[Replay]

1 hour ago, Yardley said:

Thanks for the tutorial. I haven't followed it yet but it looks promising. Question, I usually have a buddy update my MAME set with clrmamepro and he always use .dat files yet I don't see that mentioned in the tutorial at all. He also doesn't download every mame update pack, instead he just places the roms and chd's in their own directory and points the torrent client to those directories so that only the updated files are downloaded. Is this just a different approach? The clrmamepro results are correct afterwards with this method. 

The difference between DAT files and importing binary is with DAT files certain options are locked in so you can't mess up.

 

It sounds like this buddy just joins in full sets which means then it's a bit pointless to even audit them as the posted sets are 100% correct. Exactly the point I was making here with my previous post on this thread.

 

Basically these days only the torrent uploader needs to worry about auditing. The rest of us have it easy where they can just join in and clean up later

[Yardley]

13 minutes ago, Replay said:

The difference between DAT files and importing binary is with DAT files certain options are locked in so you can't mess up.

 

It sounds like this buddy just joins in full sets which means then it's a bit pointless to even audit them as the posted sets are 100% correct. Exactly the point I was making here with my previous post on this thread.

 

Basically these days only the torrent uploader needs to worry about auditing. The rest of us have it easy where they can just join in and clean up later

So downloading the new set over the current set and running TorrentCheck is a safe and accurate way to do it? I know that when he runs clrmamepro after downloading the new set over the current one it usually finds and fixes errors. I guess TorrentCheck would essentially do the same? 

[Replay]

On 4/8/2018 at 7:37 PM, Yardley said:

So downloading the new set over the current set and running TorrentCheck is a safe and accurate way to do it? I know that when he runs clrmamepro after downloading the new set over the current one it usually finds and fixes errors. I guess TorrentCheck would essentially do the same? 

Yes, TorrentCheck is completely safe and it cleans up un-needed files much faster than CMP can do it.

[Yardley]

9 minutes ago, Replay said:

Yes, TorrentCheck is completely safe and it cleans up un-needed files much faster than CMP can do it.

Thank you, I’m going to give this approach a try next time. Is there an easy way to pick out working CHD’s after downloading the entire set and delete non-working ones? 

[Trnzaddict]

20 hours ago, Replay said:

Yes, TorrentCheck is completely safe and it cleans up un-needed files much faster than CMP can do it.

Wow, never knew this! Going to try this as well. I always waited usually a year to update my romset because of clrmamepro’s extensive process but maybe now I can update every month!

[Replay]

On 4/10/2018 at 7:32 AM, Yardley said:

Thank you, I’m going to give this approach a try next time. Is there an easy way to pick out working CHD’s after downloading the entire set and delete non-working ones? 

 

Well you could use QMC2 which allows you to align the game listing to show which sets require CHD and driver status. It's really handy for eyeballing information. The CHD folders in the torrent will match the set names you see in QMC2 so you can cherry-pick what interests you.

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by Replay

[TonyRamirez]

Clrmamepro gives me a headache and always makes a mess of my roms which I why I use romcenter.  I have to use the RC2 version which will work with the newer versions of MAME and it supports 7z but I never really have any issues.  It is much simpler.  I create a database file point my roms and it marks which once are yellow that can be fixed and red that have to be updated.

As for Clrmamepro nothing is user friendly and even following detailed tutorials I get lost and it ends up making my 650+ Mame roms turn into over 2000 roms most that won't work anymore.  Then I have to restore my backup as Clrmamepro backup feature is a joke too.

[DOS76]

I really suggest Torrent Check these day its really great and much easier than CLRMAMEPro. You simple point it to you new MAME torrent and your existing MAME folder then it checks the data against it depending on what checkboxes you use it will remove all unnecessary files and wrongly sized files while creating a missing list then I just start the torrent in my torrent client and only have it download the files that are listed in the missing list.

[TonyRamirez]

15 hours ago, DOS76 said:

I really suggest Torrent Check these day its really great and much easier than CLRMAMEPro. You simple point it to you new MAME torrent and your existing MAME folder then it checks the data against it depending on what checkboxes you use it will remove all unnecessary files and wrongly sized files while creating a missing list then I just start the torrent in my torrent client and only have it download the files that are listed in the missing list.

Thanks I will have to try it but I still always keep a backup of my MAME games before messing around with any third party program.

Edit, can't find it can someone PM it to me I don't want to break any forum rules.  Thanks.

Edited May 12, 2018 by TonyRamirez

[DOS76]

That is fine TorrentCheck does move any files it deems unneeded to a folder so they are still around if you do need them

[TonyRamirez]

Thanks I tried to get TorrentCheck and tried RomVault just as confusing as Clrmamepro.  I am sticking with Romcenter I have been using it since the early 2000's and never had issues simple to use even with the new ribbon RC2 interface but thanks anyway.

[Replay]

1 hour ago, TonyRamirez said:

Thanks I tried to get TorrentCheck and tried RomVault just as confusing as Clrmamepro.  I am sticking with Romcenter I have been using it since the early 2000's and never had issues simple to use even with the new ribbon RC2 interface but thanks anyway.

If you know about the Dome of Pleasure and you're downloading complete sets then you don't need a RV, CMP, RC, or any other auditing tool.

The Torrent uploader has to do the auditing and make sure sets are 100% before distributing files. As a downloader you only need to clean with TorrentCheck if you download the latest set over an older set.

 

You do not need to audit as the uploader has already done that.

TorrentCheck is the *ONLY* thing you need to use and worry about.

[DOS76]

Yeah if TorrentCheck is to complex for you then I don't know what to say seemed extremely simple and straightforward to me but whatever just use what you already know

 

[TonyRamirez]

1 hour ago, DOS76 said:

Yeah if TorrentCheck is to complex for you then I don't know what to say seemed extremely simple and straightforward to me but whatever just use what you already know

Thanks I am staying with Romcenter.  I can only fix the games I want and not have it create a a bunch of invalid files.  It is easier to find just go to romcenter.com (no violations as there are no roms there that is the name of the program) even a stupid search engine like google can find it.  It also never once messed up my roms unlike Clrmamepro.

[flatuswalrus]

I have the latest MAME 0.198 ROMs (split) and MAME 0.198 Software List ROMs (split), regarding the CHD's will the MAME 0.198 CHDs (merged) be okay to use along side my  0.198 ROMs and Software List since they are both (split)? I ask because I am not sure which to get from the place of pleasure:

Being that they can be quite large downloads I do not want to get the wrong one. Can someone advise?

Edited June 2, 2018 by Dane

[neil9000]

1 hour ago, Dane said:

I have the latest MAME 0.198 ROMs (split) and MAME 0.198 Software List ROMs (split), regarding the CHD's will the MAME 0.198 CHDs (merged) be okay to use along side my  0.198 ROMs and Software List since they are both (split)? I ask because I am not sure which to get from the place of pleasure:

Being that they can be quite large downloads I do not want to get the wrong one. Can someone advise?

CHD's only come one way, so yes that is what you want.

[TonyRamirez]

I am on Mame 0.197 so I am not behind like I was months ago when I was on 0.139.  Tried many programs that messed up my games.  Then went back to Romcenter and fixed any games red manually and now they all work great.

Staying with 0.197 right now as I got the games I want (no clones except Pacman and 2 player fighter games) instead of GB of files that won't even fit on my Hard Drive.

Question on Mame.  Why do so many games don't even work like mechanical games?  They just load and quit.

Edited June 2, 2018 by TonyRamirez

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, TonyRamirez said:

I am on Mame 0.197 so I am not behind like I was months ago when I was on 0.139.  Tried many programs that messed up my games.  Then went back to Romcenter and fixed any games red manually and now they all work great.

Staying with 0.197 right now as I got the games I want (no clones except Pacman and 2 player fighter games) instead of GB of files that won't even fit on my Hard Drive.

Question on Mame.  Why do so many games don't even work like mechanical games?  They just load and quit.

Mechanical games are games that usually used some sort of custom mechanical hardware in them, like basketball games with real balls and hoops, things like that so are impossible to emulate.