Best method to add MAME romset

[bitxo]

Hello everyone.

After 15 years collecting roms for different systems, plus Steam, Twitch, GOG... my collection got too big and  unwieldy. I started recently to use Launchbox Premium as desktop app (not that interested on Big Box at the moment) to keep track of my games and have an organized, elegant an fast to use environment. Thing is I'm not fond to full romsets, and have just the selected games I want for every system (it's a nice selection I've been making for 10 years I'm pretty proud of). Not a big issue with consoles, but it can be a headache when it comes to MAME and keep the list updated. I've been researching how to solve issues, but with so much outdated info and the merged/un-merged/split thing, I have a big mess.

So, here is the question. I have a junk-free collection of 1120 games for MAME, with its different regional versions as a 0.174 split romset already added to Launchbox. Some of the games have issues or are not supported, and want to update to 0.212, what should I do? I have already downloaded the 0.212 sets (CHD, merged, un-merged and split), but I don't really know which one should I use to make it easier to update in the future, and how to add just the roms I'm interested in. I've watched a couple of clrmamepro tutorials, but I'm not sure if that app may help me. Any suggestions? Thank you.

[Lordmonkus]

I use a hand picked Mame set as well though only about 430 games, not quite as big as yours.

What I do is this:

I use a Non Merged rom set.
I have a seedbox which I use to store the full set and keep up to date with PleasureDome and build ratio.
I have a text list of all my rom files.
When I update my roms I simply connect to my seedbox via ftp using WinSCP. I then copy my text list of roms into a filter in WinSCP. This filter only shows the files I want to see and hides everything else.
I then select all of the files and download to the folder where my Mame set is located on my system and only download New Or Updated files.
This entire process only takes me a couple of minutes on my fairly slow internet.

You can read more about my hand picked "No Filler" Mame set here:

 

[Headrush69]

I do a similar thing. Once you have you the list of roms you want, it’s easy to do a directory listing without the file extensions to produce a text file with the roms name of your games.

When a new Mame release comes out, using ClrMamePro, go into set information, select load from file and use that text file you created. Now your only checking the games you want and it will show any files you might now need.

Super fast and no need keep a full Mame collection if you don’t want to or can’t.

[bitxo]

That's a smart solution, pretty much what I was looking for, thank you. I will have to look how to set it up, but I think it will pay off.