Best way to update Arcade collection

[wize]

Which is the best way to update Arcade (Mame) in Launchbox without loosing all the dl images and movies?

I have one folder named mame174 and now I have a new folder called mame179

Whats the best approach to get everything updated? Should I add all the roms from the new directory?

 

BTW I want to keep the different mamefolders intact and only move the pointers. If I point to a new directory will it update all roms?

Roms
F:\arcade\roms\mame175\MAME 0.175 ROMs < Old
F:\arcade\roms\mame179\MAME 0.179 ROMs < New

Emulator
F:\arcade\emulators\mame\mame174
F:\arcade\emulators\mame\mame179

 

and when I see everything is working as expected I will remove the old ones..

Edited October 29, 2016 by wize

[SentaiBrad]

Click on a game, Ctrl + A to highlight them all, and press delete. Only delete the entries from LaunchBox, don't remove the games. So if two delete dialogues pop up, press Yes then No. Then run the MAME Importer on your new folder. When it asks to download media, uncheck all of the boxes so it downloads nothing. It should it import fairly fast and the media you've already download will automatically attach it's self to games it matches with. To make sure you don't have any holes in media, highlight all your MAME games again, then go to Tools -> Download Metadata and Images. When you get to the screen with 3 questions, click the second one, where it will only download media for games that are missing it. Let that run and it should download media if any of the games are missing any of it. You should be good to go after that, it's actually a fairly quick process, but it's more or less the route you should take if you want to make sure you don't re-download anything.

If you delete all your games from LB, then run the importer on the new folder and let it run through the downloader during import, nothing will change other than it will take longer, nothing will change or break, or it shouldn't. When you remove your games from LaunchBox, it doesn't remove any media that you've downloaded, and I can't quite remember if it redownloads everything again during import even if you have it all. I know for a fact though, that I will remove games from LB, then re-import that platform and deselect all of the media download check boxes, and all of my media is still there and re-attached properly. The only thing you should keep note of is any favorites you've made as it will remove those.

[wize]

Thanks! Worked as intended

[duerra]

I kinda wish I had found this before.  This is not super intuitive.  I have a similar profile as the OP in this thread - I have a new folder with a complete set, and essentially wanted to "migrate" to the new folder.  So I selected to import a full mame set, and now all the metadata is fully redownloading and is now only ~50% done after running all night, even though I already have it all local.  I'm also afraid that when this is done, I'll end up with a bunch of duplicates - both entries as well as gigabytes of duplicated metadata!  We'll see... it would be nice if launchbox was a little more intelligent about his when reimporting a full MAME set.

Edited July 31, 2019 by duerra

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, duerra said:

I kinda wish I had found this before.  This is not super intuitive.  I have a similar profile as the OP in this thread - I have a new folder with a complete set, and essentially wanted to "migrate" to the new folder.  So I selected to import a full mame set, and now all the metadata is fully redownloading and is now only ~50% done after running all night, even though I already have it all local.  I'm also afraid that when this is done, I'll end up with a bunch of duplicates - both entries as well as gigabytes of duplicated metadata!  We'll see... it would be nice if launchbox was a little more intelligent about his when reimporting a full MAME set.

To update a MAME romset just re-run the MAME fullset importer, but uncheck all the image downloads, as you dont need it.

EDIT:

Also this thread is nearly 3 years old and MAME has been completely overhauled in Launchbox since then.

Edited July 31, 2019 by neil9000

[duerra]

52 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

To update a MAME romset just re-run the MAME fullset importer, but uncheck all the image downloads, as you dont need it.

EDIT:

Also this thread is nearly 3 years old and MAME has been completely overhauled in Launchbox since then.

Hey Neil - 
I realize the age of the thread, but it was still relevant for me.  Given that I did not uncheck those boxes when I started the reimport (I would have assumed the "update but don't don't replace metadata" option in other metadata import flows - I didn't see this option during the full import flow, unless I missed it), what should I do now?  Am I going to end up with double the meta-data as I have with launchbox in the past for this platform, or will launchbox be replacing the media of what has already been downloaded?

Edited July 31, 2019 by duerra