MAME Merged vs Split. Which is better?

[steveboura]

Im using a merged set as well- 

 

[natemac00]

Bringing up a old thread but thought I’d ask; I was thinking of changing my MAME rom set 0.204 from a split set to a merged set, any reason I shouldn’t?

[Lordmonkus]

No reason at all not to, the new full set importer makes the merged set a perfectly viable option.

[mohanned85]

sorry for bumping old thread but with split roms can you paste new games in rom folder?

[natemac00]

3 minutes ago, mohanned85 said:

sorry for bumping old thread but with split roms can you paste new games in rom folder?

You want to use something like clrmamepro, just to be safe to add Roms 

[mohanned85]

2 minutes ago, natemac00 said:

You want to use something like clrmamepro, just to be safe to add Roms 

 

any good guides how use it

[Retro808]

28 minutes ago, mohanned85 said:

 

any good guides how use it

Try here. 

[mohanned85]

is it same steps. I feared was outdated

[Typhoon1944]

Been using Launchbox on and off for a couple of years and have had a lot of help from Brad and Jason in the past.  I always fall over with MAME though.  I have the full MAME .206 split ROM set but having had a lot of success swapping Sega Mega CD bin/cue files and TurboGrafx & PCEngine files out for CHDs I thought MAME CHDs might be better but now I seem to have read that you need the merged/split ROM set AND CHDs.  Is that definitely the case?  I'm rapidly running out of disk space.  Also I've been storing my ROMs on an old MAC Pro hardwired to my router.  Playing them locally doesn't seem to cause any issues but it's not convenient, however streaming them over the network seems to introduce a lot of slowdown with audio and gameplay.  This isn't just affecting MAME but all my ROMs.  Both devices are connected via Ethernet cable so network speed shouldn't be the bottleneck.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, Typhoon1944 said:

Been using Launchbox on and off for a couple of years and have had a lot of help from Brad and Jason in the past.  I always fall over with MAME though.  I have the full MAME .206 split ROM set but having had a lot of success swapping Sega Mega CD bin/cue files and TurboGrafx & PCEngine files out for CHDs I thought MAME CHDs might be better but now I seem to have read that you need the merged/split ROM set AND CHDs.  Is that definitely the case?  I'm rapidly running out of disk space.  Also I've been storing my ROMs on an old MAC Pro hardwired to my router.  Playing them locally doesn't seem to cause any issues but it's not convenient, however streaming them over the network seems to introduce a lot of slowdown with audio and gameplay.  This isn't just affecting MAME but all my ROMs.  Both devices are connected via Ethernet cable so network speed shouldn't be the bottleneck.

"Most" MAME games do not need CHD's, but of course there are some that do. Most CHD games are either newer Arcade games like CPS3, or older ones that use video like Dragons Lair. There are games that fall outside of those but not to many.

[Typhoon1944]

Thanks for the reply.  Wasn't expecting anything that quick!  I guess my next question is, what's the best way to have an install and forget experience or am I searching for the impossible in that respect?

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, Typhoon1944 said:

Thanks for the reply.  Wasn't expecting anything that quick!  I guess my next question is, what's the best way to have an install and forget experience or am I searching for the impossible in that respect?

MAME is easy in Launchbox these days, you can use any of the three set types and use the "MAME fullset importer" if you leave the settings at there defaults it will only import the actual working games into Launchbox, so around 2900 roms at this point i think.

[Typhoon1944]

So do I still need to search for the update packs or am I good with .206?  And any experience with storing the games on one machine and playing on another?

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, Typhoon1944 said:

So do I still need to search for the update packs or am I good with .206?  And any experience with storing the games on one machine and playing on another?

Its up to you if you want a new set or not. 0.204 isnt that old in the grand scheme of things, but you would have a few games imported that wont work for you, as Launchbox is using the current working games list, so any games marked as working since 0.204 will show in Launchbox, but likely wont work as you would be using version 0.204 of the MAME emulator. There wouldnt be many of those though, and you can always just delete any from Launchbox if you come across them.

[Typhoon1944]

Presumably if I did want to update to .221 I'd have to find every split update pack from .207 to .221 and then import using ClrMAME Pro (which confuses the hell out of me)?

[DOS76]

It be easier to just delete the set you have and get 221 at this point.

[Typhoon1944]

Fair point.  Hopefully I'll be issued a warning if this isn't allowed but I'm a member on a site made famous by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.  On there are several files named MAME 0.221 Multimedia, MAME 0.221 EXTRAs, MAME 0.221 Software List ROMs (split) (and merged/non-merged), MAME 0.221 Software List ROMs (machines-bios-devices), MAME 0.221 Software List CHDs (merged, etc) and so on.  I'll concentrate on the split set but do I need everything that mentions split or literally just the 68 GB MAME 0.221 ROMs (split)?

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, Typhoon1944 said:

Fair point.  Hopefully I'll be issued a warning if this isn't allowed but I'm a member on a site made famous by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.  On there are several files named MAME 0.221 Multimedia, MAME 0.221 EXTRAs, MAME 0.221 Software List ROMs (split) (and merged/non-merged), MAME 0.221 Software List ROMs (machines-bios-devices), MAME 0.221 Software List CHDs (merged, etc) and so on.  I'll concentrate on the split set but do I need everything that mentions split or literally just the 68 GB MAME 0.221 ROMs (split)?

Just the 68GB split.

[Typhoon1944]

So CHDs are only really good for CD Based systems?

[DOS76]

no chds are necessary for certain Arcade games just not all that many of them are in a working state in MAME at this point. There are some that are part of the MAME set that work in other emulators though Like the ones for Naomi and Naomi 2 arcade boards via Demul.