Goin' cross-eyed, help sorting Mame roms

[Mr. RetroLust]

I know there is a lot of information about this but there is so much information online I'm getting seriously cross-eyed and confused and time after time it's just not what I am specifically searching for or people being skeptical about the solutions, normally I can really help myself and find solutions to technical problems but this is getting a bit out of hand for me. I'm really sorry if you this has been asked a dozen of times and I didn't find the answer, thing is I can formulate my problems in a 1000 different ways and get different results everytime and since english isn't my main language it's adding up to the info-overdose.

I downloaded an entire set of 0.197 non-merged Mame roms so I can safely delete games I do not want as I've been told, before this I tried a complete 0.188 set split or merged (don't know for sure) and imported it several times in Launchbox, I tried various import methods but each time I missed some games and other times I had too many files I didn't want or need, it became a big mess so I deleted all the files and now I'm gonna start over with a clean slate and really want to do it the right way.

What do I want? 100% Accurately separate (Arcade) rom files by moving them to separate folders (in windows explorer) so I can import the ones I need in Launchbox manually later on in the way I see fit. I want to sort them in the following folders/categories:

• Games that are better off run in other emulators, like daphne, sega model 2 or 3 etc., I already have separate CPS1, CPS2 and CPS3 and Neo Geo to run as a different platform instead of playlist and run in FBA for example
• Anything to do with Pinball roms in separate folders
• Anything to do with computers in separate folders
• Anything to do with Game & Watch in separate folders
• Anything to do with Majong in separate folders
• Anything to do with Fruit Machines in separate folders
• All Bios files in seperate folders
• And so on

Hope someone knows a real accurate way to do this. 

[DOS76]

good luck boss that is a monumental task.

[Mr. RetroLust]

1 hour ago, DOS76 said:

good luck boss that is a monumental task.

Lol I bet, but I was hoping I could pre-sort/separate a lot of files before doing so, I don't mind taking a year going through a batch of games each night, kinda like it even (OCD like the world hasn't seen before haha)  But I gather from your answer there are no such tools or batch processes that do a really accurate sorting? Even if it would do only one of those tasks accurately it would help me out.

[DOS76]

There maybe but I don't know hopefully some one else might know more

[Kondorito]

Hey @Mr. RetroLust

You can do it by creating XMLs for all the categories you want (using for example the app "Don Hypertools", but there are many). And then, using an app like HyperChecker, you can load the desired XML, point it to the roms path, and tell it to move all the zips that are not present in the XML to another folder. 

[Mr. RetroLust]

1 minute ago, Kondorito said:

Hey @Mr. RetroLust

You can do it by creating XMLs for all the categories you want (using for example the app "Don Hypertools", but there are many). And then, using an app like HyperChecker, you can load the desired XML, point it to the roms path, and tell it to move all the zips that are not present in the XML to another folder. 

I was just reading through your other response about hyperchecker while you answered here haha that's a cool coincendce, thank you so much dude! Will try it out and let you know my experiences, hopefully we can help people with the same questions out as well by this and other posts.

[Mr. RetroLust]

3 hours ago, Kondorito said:

Hey @Mr. RetroLust

You can do it by creating XMLs for all the categories you want (using for example the app "Don Hypertools", but there are many). And then, using an app like HyperChecker, you can load the desired XML, point it to the roms path, and tell it to move all the zips that are not present in the XML to another folder. 

Well, trying it out but both tools are made for hyperspin, I have Launchbox not hyperspin so I don't know what to do with this, geez man everything concerning mame seems to be be broken, fragmented or not up to date, I really don't get it why it's all so unorganized and fragmented all over the place. I guess I just have to use the Launchbox importer and miss a lot of games, it is what it is, getting really tired after reading and testing for days on end and getting nowhere  Aren't there simple batch scripts pre-configured for all these tasks? Surely i'm not the first person confronting the enormous Mame mountain. Anyhow thanks for the help man.

[Mr. RetroLust]

I conclude with this new mame meme 

 

[Kondorito]

1 hour ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

Well, trying it out but both tools are made for hyperspin, I have Launchbox not hyperspin so I don't know what to do with this, geez man everything concerning mame seems to be be broken, fragmented or not up to date, I really don't get it why it's all so unorganized and fragmented all over the place. I guess I just have to use the Launchbox importer and miss a lot of games, it is what it is, getting really tired after reading and testing for days on end and getting nowhere  Aren't there simple batch scripts pre-configured for all these tasks? Surely i'm not the first person confronting the enormous Mame mountain. Anyhow thanks for the help man.

The tools might have been developed for Hyperspin, but they will serve their purpose for what you want them (to have a folder [or multiple] with specific zip files, which you can then drag and drop in Launchbox, and specify for each batch a platform name, or an emulator, or etc.). That is what I did; got my desired XML file, ran it through HyperspinChecker11, pointed to my whole 196 set, and selected to move to a different folder what is not present in the XML file. Then, I just dropped those zip files that remained in the MAME roms folder to Launchbox, and that was it.

[wallmachine]

^ What master @Kondorito said

[Mr. RetroLust]

1 hour ago, Kondorito said:

The tools might have been developed for Hyperspin, but they will serve their purpose for what you want them (to have a folder [or multiple] with specific zip files, which you can then drag and drop in Launchbox, and specify for each batch a platform name, or an emulator, or etc.). That is what I did; got my desired XML file, ran it through HyperspinChecker11, pointed to my whole 196 set, and selected to move to a different folder what is not present in the XML file. Then, I just dropped those zip files that remained in the MAME roms folder to Launchbox, and that was it.

Thanks for the help man, I appreciate it! Can you explain how I can get this program to work without installing hyperspin and the steps I should take? I just thought of a possible alternative without having to install anything (since I do wish to keep my system minimalistic and clean), what if I just drop all the gamescreen and video snaps inside the rom folder so the rom files have a screenshot next to it so I can exactly see what is a game and what is not and then delete all the files that dont have a screenshot, would that work or are there still some external files that non-merged sets do depend on? Thanks again for any thoughts and knowledge on this matter. 

[Kondorito]

36 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

Thanks for the help man, I appreciate it! Can you explain how I can get this program to work without installing hyperspin and the steps I should take? I just thought of a possible alternative without having to install anything (since I do wish to keep my system minimalistic and clean), what if I just drop all the gamescreen and video snaps inside the rom folder so the rom files have a screenshot next to it so I can exactly see what is a game and what is not and then delete all the files that dont have a screenshot, would that work or are there still some external files that non-merged sets do depend on? Thanks again for any thoughts and knowledge on this matter. 

Havent messed with it without an HS installation, I guess you eill need to setup the HS folder tree for them to work.
Will try to explain my best below in how you can go about it:

• Get a MAME XML file containing all the roms you want to filter later on
  • Here are all phulshof's MAME XML files: http://retrofe.nl/Download/XML/
  • You can grab yours (if you are already in 197 which is not there yet, 196 is almost the same, except for a couple of Tiger games [I can provide you later on a Youtube channel from a russian guy that on each MAME release, he shows a small video preview of every new added game]).
  • In these zip files you will find ALL the possible configurations. Select the XML you want and move it out of the zip file. If you find in these zip files all your deisred categories, then you dont need to use Don Tools and you can just disregard those steps and go straight to Hyperspin Checker. If you decide to grab the main MAME file and make custom lists from there (that are not present in the zip file, even by genre) then Don tools will be necessary.
     
• Get "Dons Hyperspin Tools 4.3.26" (I am not sure if I can post a link to another FE here, so just google that name and you will be able to find the application).
   
• Get "Hyperspin Checker 0.11.1u2 Beta" (same as above; google is your friend).
   
• Create a folder tree for the above apps to work
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Databases\Main Menu\
    • Place this file: Main Menu.xml  inside the Main Menu folder
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Settings\
    • Place this file: MAME.ini inside the Settings folder
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\
    • Inside this folder, you will need to place the XML file you select from phulshof place (or any other XML file you want), named as MAME.xml
       
• Extract Don tools and Hyperspin Checker folders in C:\HyperSpin\
   
• Go to Dons folder and choose the Filter Hyperlist app
  • Select the mame.xml and Scan it
  • Once scanned it will let you create lists from any variable you desire and save them as new XMLs
     
• Now that you have all the XMLs you want (by genre, manufacturer, year, etc.) you will need to process each XML in Hyperspin Checker
  • Grab one of the XMLs, rename it as mame.xml and place it in C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\ (renaming or moving out the original mame.xml first)
  • Open Hyperspin Checker
  • Select MAME from the list
  • Go to the "Hyperspin system settings" and choose your MAME roms path and press the "Update Hyperspin INI"
  • Restart the application to take the changes
  • Select MAME from the list
  • Press the Check and it will load the xml, showing which roms you have in green and which are not there in red
  • You can then press the "Move unneeded roms or media to subfolder" and select the roms option
  • The app will create a folder called "Unneeded" and will move all the zip files not present in the XML.
     
• What you get in the main roms folder, are the rom zip files from the XML you processed, so you can grab those and place them in a folder called "Fruit" for example.
• Move all the roms from the "Unneeded" folder back to the now empty main roms folder, change the mame.xml file from C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\ to another one you want to process, launch Hyperspin Checker again, and so on.
   
• You then open Launchbox, go to one of the folders with roms you created, select them all, and do a drag and drop, and import them choosing to NOT skip anything, NOT compress anything, force duplicate roms, etc. Everything so if you drag and drop 1,000 zip files, by the end of the process Launchbox will tell you that 1,000 games were added. 
• It is important to do drag and drop and not from the Import option in the menu, as I dont know why, the results are different.

 

I tried to explain my best on how I would go about it being under your scenario. In my case it was different and a lot easier, because I did not wanted to make several folders; just wanted to make one specific rom folder with all my desired games, exported them, and then let Launchbox take care of the rest (so I can simply do searchs in LB and BB for genre, manufacturer, etc. without the need to have the zips separated).

This whole process might be easier to do with a simple batch file, but since I am no programmer, or know how to do those things, I simply rely on already created tools.

Good luck bro and sorry for the wall of text!  

 

[Mr. RetroLust]

9 hours ago, Kondorito said:

Havent messed with it without an HS installation, I guess you eill need to setup the HS folder tree for them to work.
Will try to explain my best below in how you can go about it:

• Get a MAME XML file containing all the roms you want to filter later on
  • Here are all phulshof's MAME XML files: http://retrofe.nl/Download/XML/
  • You can grab yours (if you are already in 197 which is not there yet, 196 is almost the same, except for a couple of Tiger games [I can provide you later on a Youtube channel from a russian guy that on each MAME release, he shows a small video preview of every new added game]).
  • In these zip files you will find ALL the possible configurations. Select the XML you want and move it out of the zip file. If you find in these zip files all your deisred categories, then you dont need to use Don Tools and you can just disregard those steps and go straight to Hyperspin Checker. If you decide to grab the main MAME file and make custom lists from there (that are not present in the zip file, even by genre) then Don tools will be necessary.
     
• Get "Dons Hyperspin Tools 4.3.26" (I am not sure if I can post a link to another FE here, so just google that name and you will be able to find the application).
   
• Get "Hyperspin Checker 0.11.1u2 Beta" (same as above; google is your friend).
   
• Create a folder tree for the above apps to work
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Databases\Main Menu\
    • Place this file: Main Menu.xml  inside the Main Menu folder
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Settings\
    • Place this file: MAME.ini inside the Settings folder
  • Create C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\
    • Inside this folder, you will need to place the XML file you select from phulshof place (or any other XML file you want), named as MAME.xml
       
• Extract Don tools and Hyperspin Checker folders in C:\HyperSpin\
   
• Go to Dons folder and choose the Filter Hyperlist app
  • Select the mame.xml and Scan it
  • Once scanned it will let you create lists from any variable you desire and save them as new XMLs
     
• Now that you have all the XMLs you want (by genre, manufacturer, year, etc.) you will need to process each XML in Hyperspin Checker
  • Grab one of the XMLs, rename it as mame.xml and place it in C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\ (renaming or moving out the original mame.xml first)
  • Open Hyperspin Checker
  • Select MAME from the list
  • Go to the "Hyperspin system settings" and choose your MAME roms path and press the "Update Hyperspin INI"
  • Restart the application to take the changes
  • Select MAME from the list
  • Press the Check and it will load the xml, showing which roms you have in green and which are not there in red
  • You can then press the "Move unneeded roms or media to subfolder" and select the roms option
  • The app will create a folder called "Unneeded" and will move all the zip files not present in the XML.
     
• What you get in the main roms folder, are the rom zip files from the XML you processed, so you can grab those and place them in a folder called "Fruit" for example.
• Move all the roms from the "Unneeded" folder back to the now empty main roms folder, change the mame.xml file from C:\HyperSpin\Databases\MAME\ to another one you want to process, launch Hyperspin Checker again, and so on.
   
• You then open Launchbox, go to one of the folders with roms you created, select them all, and do a drag and drop, and import them choosing to NOT skip anything, NOT compress anything, force duplicate roms, etc. Everything so if you drag and drop 1,000 zip files, by the end of the process Launchbox will tell you that 1,000 games were added. 
• It is important to do drag and drop and not from the Import option in the menu, as I dont know why, the results are different.

 

I tried to explain my best on how I would go about it being under your scenario. In my case it was different and a lot easier, because I did not wanted to make several folders; just wanted to make one specific rom folder with all my desired games, exported them, and then let Launchbox take care of the rest (so I can simply do searchs in LB and BB for genre, manufacturer, etc. without the need to have the zips separated).

This whole process might be easier to do with a simple batch file, but since I am no programmer, or know how to do those things, I simply rely on already created tools.

Good luck bro and sorry for the wall of text!  

 

Wow @Kondorito thank you so much man! I really appreciate the time you took to write this down and everything! It's working and hyperchecker is moving roms around as we speak!  Thank you again @wallmachine is right, you are a master  So is @Lordmonkus btw whom I learned a lot from on this forum as well during the climb of mount Mame, thank you all! The mountain peak is in sight and soon I will watch out over a world of arcade cabinets with a digital sun goin' down behind a retro grid horizon haha

[Mr. RetroLust]

A few small questions still (so sorry for asking so much as I don't do this normally and have asked quite a lot on these forums already in a short amount of time) I understand most of the lists but there are still some I don't understand, perhaps there is a thread that is explaining the lists in further depth somewhere?:

• worthy_clones_joybut < What does "Joy But" mean (Joystick with button games?), there is also a folder with worthy clones without joybut at the end.
• electro < I take it that's electro mechanical like Pinball machines and such?
• utilities < Computers, chess computers, calculators, consoles and cash registers?  

[Mr. RetroLust]

Damn, well I regret to say I got some very mixed and unaccurate filtering results during the proces. I'll be going the alternative route with gameplay snaps in the rom folder and separate it from there, sorry man after all the time you spend explaining this, know that you didn't spend it for nothing. Thanks again for everything.

[Kondorito]

Thats a shame. The mixed results are from Don's filtering? Or when importing the zip files onto LB? 

[Mr. RetroLust]

26 minutes ago, Kondorito said:

Thats a shame. The mixed results are from Don's filtering? Or when importing the zip files onto LB? 

During the XML lists for instance during the list of separating no casino games I got a list with many arcade games in one folder and in the other a lot of other files including 18th wheeler or something simular which is an arcade game so if I can't rely on the results I'll have to do the sorting myself even if it takes years, I guess i'm OCD beyond help.