3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 I am trying to wrap my head around what is the best platform for arcade. I am building an upright arcade; so I want to have just one Arcade platform. As now, I have mame 0.9 I believe, with its related romset; although many games I like do not work. So I did get an older romset; that I had on my ancient hd (it is like from 2009 or so); and some games I want, works there. Then there is FBAlpha, which support yet another romset; with more games I would like on my cabinet arcade. Is there a simple way to get a single arcade setting as platform, so I can put all the games I like, without the need to have 2 different MAME applications and FBAlpha on top of that? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 You can easily import them into their own platforms but you will want to have the appropriate emulator for each rom set to ensure the best compatibility with each set. My advice if at all possible for you is to download the latest or at least closest to the latest Mame rom set you can get and break them up in LB using playlists. This way would be one rom set and one emulator, Mame has all the games that FBA has plus more, FBA has nothing that isn't in Mame at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 Thanks for the clarification. So fundamentally, it is a waste of time to use both MAME and FBA because the latter has the same ROMS that MAME handle. This is, assuming that the versioning is correct, of course. I have no idea which romset I own; one is from 2009 and it is pretty old; the newer one was from the Android version of Mame; which was on the nvidia shield I bought (it came with the software on it already); so that add complexity for sure. I am just tempted to start clean with the latest mame romset; but due to constrains on my internet connection, and issues from the legal perspective, I may not be able to do so (I am using only the roms for the games I actually own; for practical reasons my original games and jamma boards are in storage; and it is much more convenient to have 1 computer running all the roms in my upright arcade). Is there an easy way to know what romset each rom belong to? I can read the version for Mame, but roms does not have any file in it that show the version; so I am totally clueless about which romset each rom belong to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 4 minutes ago, 3dlollo said: but due to constrains on my internet connection I can understand that. 4 minutes ago, 3dlollo said: I may not be able to do so (I am using only the roms for the games I actually own We wont tell if you download a rom set somewhere if you don't tell 5 minutes ago, 3dlollo said: Is there an easy way to know what romset each rom belong to? Unfortunately there is not, even though a rom might have the same name it may be a completely different dump with different rom files in the zip file so for example, a Pac-Rom from 2003 may not work with the latest version of Mame even though the file name is identical. 6 minutes ago, 3dlollo said: the newer one was from the Android version of Mame This would be a very old rom set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 I see; so without knowing the version; the only thing I can do is to try to load it in launchbox; and see if it works. I can keep what works and dump the rest; and then try to hunt down only the roms I need . Sounds like a lot of work, but once I am done, I can just make a backup and keep that mame+roms combo and there won't be need for me to make any changes. To be honest I don't care to get ALL the arcade games; I just own like less than 100 jamma boards; which I collected in the past 20 years; and those are the only games I really care to play after all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Yeah it's gonna be a lot of work to try and put together a set manually. What I would do, even though it would require a big up front download of about 110 gigs is to get the latest Non-Merged rom set and pick out each games rom file. The thing that makes the Non-Merged set perfect for this is that is 1 rom = 1 working game, there is no split of rom files such as bios or parents. My personal Mame set I use is a hand picked set from the Non-Merged set, approx 430 games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 Oh, I see! So the single rom contains all it needs to run on its own. I think I have a split romset because games like 1941 for example; have 2-3 zip files, and they are all required to run the game, even if I don't care about the clone or the different regions (I play mostly USA region, unless there is no USA region, in which case I get the EU variant). If I can find a torrent, with the latest non-merged, I can select only the games I own and get those; that should save me the hassle to get the whole 110 GB (and any legal issue if the tracker is tracked). Thanks for the hint! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 (edited) BTW on the mame site they are up to 0.207; should I also grab the latest MAME or should I use an older one? Probably I should go for a version that match retropie for example; in case I want to make a case using the RPI? I assume that as long as the mame version match; it should not matter if it is running on windows via Launchbox or on the PI. Edited April 22, 2019 by 3dlollo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 You should try and match your version of Mame and rom set as close as possible, the further apart you get in versions the more likely you are to run into games not working. The version of Mame used on a Pi is an older version so the rom set is also older. Also the latest Mame right now is .208 with an update to .209 due out this Wednesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dlollo Posted April 22, 2019 Author Share Posted April 22, 2019 Got it, so there is no real usefulness in getting a newer version, if I have older ROM. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Get the newer version if you get a new rom set, otherwise use the version of Mame that plays all your games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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