Import MAME Arcade Full Set

[BlackPredator72]

I like this option in LaunchBox to import the working roms of a MAME collection.

It saves a lot of disk space with unplayable/not working roms, clones and other garbage.

Followed this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfoOTckURA&ab_channel=4ppleseed

The only thing missing is that it will not import the needed BIOS files and the associated CHD files (or do the imported roms don't have CHD's?)

This could be a nice feature.

Or is it already possible?

[neil9000]

You dont import bios files or CHD's to Launchbox, MAME handles those.

[BlackPredator72]

Yes I understand that.

But I downsized my collection of roms from 110+ GB to 14GB, it would be nice to have LaunchBox do the same for the associated CHD files.

So instead of 500GB of CHD's only keep the necessary files and maybe have only 100GB. And how do I know which CHD's to keep? (working ones)

BIOS files can be downloaded again very simple so that's not the main issue.

[neil9000]

Just now, BlackPredator72 said:

Yes I understand that.

But I downsized my collection of roms from 110+ GB to 14GB, it would be nice to have LaunchBox do the same for the associated CHD files.

So instead of 500GB of CHD's only keep the necessary files and maybe have only 100GB. And how do I know which CHD's to keep? (working ones)

BIOS files can be downloaded again very simple so that's not the main issue.

Launchbox doesnt even do what you are asking to romfiles, its true it only imports working games but you still have the not imported games on your system, unless you manually delete them like you seem to of done. As i said though Launchbox doesnt do anything with CHD files, it doesnt even know they exist, so has no way of deleting what you dont need. Also there is a major flaw in what you are proposing, so you delete all roms and CHD's for games that dont currently work, then next month MAME add 10 new working games, well you are out of luck then as you have deleted those now working games, where as people who just use our importer to import working games will still have those in there collection.

Also as a last thing, what you are doing relies on having a full non-merged set, which as you say is around 110GB, thats why most people dont even use a non-merged set, they use a merged or split set, that are around 60GB instead. You can not just delete roms from those sets as other completely different games may be using files in completely unrelated roms.

As for the CHD's its very easy to get a list of working games that need a CHD from MAME itself and delete what doesnt work/or what you dont care to play. Personally my CHD collection is about 50GB only.

[BlackPredator72]

Thnx for the info. Will search for a merged collection then and keep them all in my collection.

[Headrush69]

I initially used the full Mame importer but my displayed games are relatively small, around 400 games. I always run the latest Mame but don’t bother re-importing as very few of the roms in my collection ever change. If one needs an update, I just grab the rom from my update HD and move to my Mame rom directory manually.

If I was to re-run the full Mame importer, does it respect the Hide/Show property set for individual games?

I know I could make a playlist before importing and mass edit back after, but curious how the importer handles it.

[neil9000]

26 minutes ago, Headrush69 said:

If I was to re-run the full Mame importer, does it respect the Hide/Show property set for individual games?

I dont hide games, so i cant say for sure, but when i update my romset i just re-run the importer and it keeps my favourites.

[Headrush69]

6 hours ago, neil9000 said:

I dont hide games, so i cant say for sure, but when i update my romset i just re-run the importer and it keeps my favourites.

I went ahead and tried it and it did respect the previous Show/Hide settings. The only additional games that appeared are newly working ones.

Even more important, roms that I had set to use a different variant/clone as default, stayed set that way, Need to make sure I still can pick characters for those 4 player games, TMNT for example. ?

[Wagman]

I recently imported the list, and none of the new games added appear to be playable. I'm using the newest version of MAMEUI64, Dont know if it's the newest version is missing somethng or if It's a problem with the imported MAME list

[neil9000]

1 hour ago, Wagman said:

I recently imported the list, and none of the new games added appear to be playable. I'm using the newest version of MAMEUI64, Dont know if it's the newest version is missing somethng or if It's a problem with the imported MAME list

What romset do you have? What version number is it and is it non-merged, split or merged?

[kmoney]

18 hours ago, Headrush69 said:

I went ahead and tried it and it did respect the previous Show/Hide settings. The only additional games that appeared are newly working ones.

Even more important, roms that I had set to use a different variant/clone as default, stayed set that way, Need to make sure I still can pick characters for those 4 player games, TMNT for example. ?

I recently ran the mame full arcade set importer again and it did respect the games I had hidden but I had a different experience with the games I had a different variant/clone chosen as a default. The full mame arcade set importer changed the variant/clones I had set. For instance I have sfiii3n no cd version chose as my default for Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and when I ran the importer it changed it to whatever region I chose in the import process (ex. North America, World, etc.). I am curious did you run the full mame arcade set importer again or just the regular import rom files importer?

[Wagman]

39 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

What romset do you have? What version number is it and is it non-merged, split or merged?

The Verison is MAMEUI64 V.226. Honestly don't know what the rest of your response means. I'm newer to Mame and Launchbox

[neil9000]

30 minutes ago, Wagman said:

The Verison is MAMEUI64 V.226. Honestly don't know what the rest of your response means. I'm newer to Mame and Launchbox

Im asking what your roms are, where did you get them? They would have had a version number on them to let you no the version they are, like the image below.

 

[Headrush69]

25 minutes ago, kmoney said:

I recently ran the mame full arcade set importer again and it did respect the games I had hidden but I had a different experience with the games I had a different variant/clone chosen as a default. The full mame arcade set importer changed the variant/clones I had set. For instance I have sfiii3n no cd version chose as my default for Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and when I ran the importer it changed it to whatever region I chose in the import process (ex. North America, World, etc.). I am curious did you run the full mame arcade set importer again or just the regular import rom files importer?

I definitely used the Full MAME Arcade set but I'm not sure whether I used North America or World as region import originally.

To test again I reset the variants and imported again using the Full MAME Arcade Set using both World and NA as regions (did the import twice), and now those roms are being set back to the default variants. (I only have 4 games I know I changed)

Obviously the the MAME version used by the importer just got updated, (as I'm seeing new games since that first import as well. Guessing that came with the 11.7 update?) 

That may be something to look at for addition to the importer than, saving variant information for roms that have been changed, If possible.

[Wagman]

41 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Im asking what your roms are, where did you get them? They would have had a version number on them to let you no the version they are, like the image below.

 

I'm not even sure where Launchbox installed the MAME Fullset. I set it to my original ROM file, but nothing new is listed. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Wagman

[neil9000]

Just now, Wagman said:

I'm not even sure where Launchbox installed the MAME Fullset.

OK, this is what i have been getting at by asking you what your romset is. You dont have any Arcade roms do you, you are expecting Launchbox to download them for you, correct? Launchbox does not provide any roms, that would be a hugely illegal thing to do, and thats not a good thing for a legitimate business to be doing. 

You have to provide your own roms to Launchbox, it does not download any and we cannot provide them for obvious legal reasons.

[kmoney]

49 minutes ago, Headrush69 said:

I definitely used the Full MAME Arcade set but I'm not sure whether I used North America or World as region import originally.

To test again I reset the variants and imported again using the Full MAME Arcade Set using both World and NA as regions (did the import twice), and now those roms are being set back to the default variants. (I only have 4 games I know I changed)

Obviously the the MAME version used by the importer just got updated, (as I'm seeing new games since that first import as well. Guessing that came with the 11.7 update?) 

That may be something to look at for addition to the importer than, saving variant information for roms that have been changed, If possible.

That would be great indeed for the importer to save the variant/clone default information when re running the arcade full set importer again.

@Jason Carr The full MAME Arcade set Importer respects games that you have hidden in your Arcade platform when you run the importer again and does not unhide the games which is good. The importer does not however respect if you have changed a specific game to a variant/clone as the default. When you run the importer again it defaults the rom back to the region you choose during import. Would it be possible to have the importer save the variant/clone you have set as the default during the re import process so it does not get changed back to the region default? I like to run the importer again every so often to check for new games that have been updated as working.

[Jason Carr]

On 11/1/2020 at 10:27 AM, kmoney said:

That would be great indeed for the importer to save the variant/clone default information when re running the arcade full set importer again.

@Jason Carr The full MAME Arcade set Importer respects games that you have hidden in your Arcade platform when you run the importer again and does not unhide the games which is good. The importer does not however respect if you have changed a specific game to a variant/clone as the default. When you run the importer again it defaults the rom back to the region you choose during import. Would it be possible to have the importer save the variant/clone you have set as the default during the re import process so it does not get changed back to the region default? I like to run the importer again every so often to check for new games that have been updated as working.

If the game already exists, it shouldn't be overwriting it...are am I misunderstanding something? Are you overwriting metadata?

[kmoney]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

If the game already exists, it shouldn't be overwriting it...are am I misunderstanding something? Are you overwriting metadata?

  I will use Street Fighter II Champion Edition as an example. Lets say I ran the full mame set importer and I chose to prioritize North America as the region when I originally imported the roms. It will import sf2ceua as the default rom for that game which is correct for that region. I decide after the import to change to sfce as my default rom for that game which is the world version. So the problem lies in if I decide to run the full mame importer again later to check for any new games that might have added as working. If I choose the same settings as before and choose North America as the region it overwrites my sfce world rom as the default and chooses the sf2ceua rom.

Is there anyway for the full mame set importer to not overwrite if you have chosen a different variant/clone as the default than what was originally imported? 

[Jason Carr]

On 11/17/2020 at 12:02 PM, kmoney said:

  I will use Street Fighter II Champion Edition as an example. Lets say I ran the full mame set importer and I chose to prioritize North America as the region when I originally imported the roms. It will import sf2ceua as the default rom for that game which is correct for that region. I decide after the import to change to sfce as my default rom for that game which is the world version. So the problem lies in if I decide to run the full mame importer again later to check for any new games that might have added as working. If I choose the same settings as before and choose North America as the region it overwrites my sfce world rom as the default and chooses the sf2ceua rom.

Is there anyway for the full mame set importer to not overwrite if you have chosen a different variant/clone as the default than what was originally imported? 

Yikes, this is an old one. Sorry, I'm going through my backlog here. In theory, I think it should be possible to not change what the default ROM is on games that already exist, so long as you're not wanting to change it to a new ROM. I'll put this on our radar to look into.