"Unplayable" MAME games overlap SoftwareList games

[jan.axhell]

I'm trying to import the Full MAME set, but if I skip Unplayable games, many almost-completely playable games are not imported. OTOH if I do not skip them, they are imported, but also thousands of bogus/non-existent SoftwareList entries with no picture are imported.

I thought "Skip non-Arcade games" was supposed to do that, but it doesn't. 

How do I filter out SoftwareList games but NOT actual arcade "unplayable" games while importing?

 

[Retro808]

Are you trying to run the importer against an arcade rom set and a software list rom set? I ask because you mention software list so not sure if you mean the machines files or the actual game roms and the full set importer is not for use with software list roms. The full set importer is for the arcade rom set which is why it is specifically called “Mame Arcade Full Set”

[jan.axhell]

No, I don't want SoftwareList, nor I have a set for it, I just have a full MAME 0.231 set and wish to import the Arcade-only games, including unplayable ones.

I'm talking about SoftwareList because when I uncheck "Skip unplayable games", after scanning the ROM set, things like c64, AMC, 6501 and many other (hundreds or thiunsands) entries like that appear in the list of things to be imported, but those things are not present in my MAME ROM set. If I go on, among the actual games, many blank slots with those names appear in Launchbox.

 

EDIT: I am on another PC now, I'll post screenshots tomorrow

Edited May 13, 2021 by jan.axhell

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, jan.axhell said:

but those things are not present in my MAME ROM set

Since you have a curated set of roms, you should be able to do the Full Set import (for a proper Import) and then Scan for Removes ROMs.  And that'll take out the 'blanks slots' (the entries that got imported, but are not in your particular romset).  But if the unplayable games you're wanting are in not your romset, then.... never mind.

[jan.axhell]

I have a Full Mame Arcade set curated every release. 

I have tried the Full Import + Scan for Removes, but beside removing 7000+ roms that could not be checked because the dialog showed only the first few, so I don't know which they were, the problem persists.

In the picture you can see some legit Arcade Roms with their screenshot and a ton of non-arcade blank slots. I have used official mame64.exe to scan the roms, not a custom build.

 

 

UPDATE

I have tried to completely rebuild my MAME ROMset from scratch using ClrMamePro *excluding* SoftwareList -> no-go, it imported them (tried to follow what the author himself wrote here with no success https://www.emulab.it/forum/index.php?topic=4591.0 )

I have tried again to rebuild using the MAME 0.231 (Arcade).dat from here https://www.progettosnaps.net/dats/MAME/ -> no-go, exactly same as above.

I cannot get rid of non-Arcade roms. 

In launchbox if I disable "Skip unplayable games" non-arcade stuff like this is imported

If I enable it that stuff disappears ALONG with legit arcade games flagged inside MAME as unplaybale (despite being often almost playable)

Edited May 14, 2021 by jan.axhell

[CriticalCid]

I think the problem here is that SoftwareList machines/BIOS files are not part of the “non-arcade games” filter. My assumption would be that these entries are already filtered out with the “non-playable” filter and therefore don’t get filtered out a second time with the “non-arcade” filter. But that’s just a guess as I don’t know the code behind it.

4 hours ago, jan.axhell said:

UPDATE

I have tried to completely rebuild my MAME ROMset from scratch using ClrMamePro *excluding* SoftwareList -> no-go, it imported them (tried to follow what the author himself wrote here with no success https://www.emulab.it/forum/index.php?topic=4591.0 )

I have tried again to rebuild using the MAME 0.231 (Arcade).dat from here https://www.progettosnaps.net/dats/MAME/ -> no-go, exactly same as above.

I cannot get rid of non-Arcade roms. 

In launchbox if I disable "Skip unplayable games" non-arcade stuff like this is imported

If I enable it that stuff disappears ALONG with legit arcade games flagged inside MAME as unplaybale (despite being often almost playable)

Have you also used the “Scan for removed games” option after you’ve rebuilt your ROMset? That’s the only option that will make a difference after messing with your ROM set.

The full set importer is completely agnostic to your actual owned ROMs and will always import everything it can based on your MAME version and filter settings; it’s called FULL set importer for a reason. You could even point the importer to an empty folder and it would still import the same games.

 

I think you have two options here to get your wanted result.

1. Rebuild your ROMset to a new one without any of the SoftwareList BIOS files and use the “Scan for Removed ROMs” function after the import. That’s probably the route you should be going since you’ve said that you’ve already rebuilt your set.

2. Do a full set import with your normal full set and then navigate to the “Genres” section on the left side panel in LaunchBox. Here you will find all your unwanted entries grouped by their “genre” or more like machine/device type in this case. Navigate to the genre you don’t want, press Ctrl+A to select all entries and then delete them. Sure, it’s a little tedious since there are quite a few genres but, in the end, still a lot faster then all your other previous attempts.

[CriticalCid]

I also want to clarify something before it comes to any confusion. These SoftwareLists machine entries are definitely part of the "normal" MAME ROMset. In most cases the SoftwareList ROMsets only contain the games; the BIOS files for the actual hardware (computer, console, etc.) are part of the normal "Arcade" MAME set. So, it's definitely nothing extraordinary that those would show up when they aren't filtered out properly.

[neil9000]

4 hours ago, jan.axhell said:

I have a Full Mame Arcade set curated every release. 

These two things completely contradict each other, either its a fullset or its not. If its not you shouldnt use the MAME importer at all if its not a complete mame romset. Im going to assume you have non-merged roms, if thats the case simply import your set the normal way with the standard rom importer, that will only import the files in your folder. Just make sure on the last page of the import wizard to check the box to use MAME naming for systems that use mame naming.

[jan.axhell]

11 minutes ago, CriticalCid said:

I think the problem here is that SoftwareList machines/BIOS files are not part of the “non-arcade games” filter. My assumption would be that these entries are already filtered out with the “non-playable” filter and therefore don’t get filtered out a second time with the “non-arcade” filter. But that’s just a guess as I don’t know the code behind it.

Have you also used the “Scan for removed games” option after you’ve rebuilt your ROMset? That’s the only option that will make a difference after messing with your ROM set.

The full set importer is completely agnostic to your actual owned ROMs and will always import everything it can based on your MAME version and filter settings; it’s called FULL set importer for a reason. You could even point the importer to an empty folder and it would still import the same games.

 

I think you have two options here to get your wanted result.

1. Rebuild your ROMset to a new one without any of the SoftwareList BIOS files and use the “Scan for Removed ROMs” function after the import. That’s probably the route you should be going since you’ve said that you’ve already rebuilt your set.

2. Do a full set import with your normal full set and then navigate to the “Genres” section on the left side panel in LaunchBox. Here you will find all your unwanted entries grouped by their “genre” or more like machine/device type in this case. Navigate to the genre you don’t want, press Ctrl+A to select all entries and then delete them. Sure, it’s a little tedious since there are quite a few genres but, in the end, still a lot faster then all your other previous attempts.

I also want to clarify something before it comes to any confusion. These SoftwareLists machine entries are definitely part of the "normal" MAME ROMset. In most cases the SoftwareList ROMsets only contain the games; the BIOS files for the actual hardware (computer, console, etc.) are part of the normal MAME set. So, it's definitely nothing extraordinary that those would show up when they aren't filtered out properly.

I have done the "Scan for removed games” as written above with unsatisfying result.

1. How do I do that? Using both mame.exe and DAT file excluding SoftwareList ended up including SoftwareList stuff.

2. Taking a look at Genres now just shows me a lot of entries, but none of them corresponds to Consoles o Computer related stuff.

I am familiar with MAME, used to collaborate on the database in late 90's and used MESS when it was split. My prolem now is that stuff like Amiga or IBM or C64 stuff is added to the ROMset. None of that has anything to do with Coin-Ops. I know some bioses are common for both arcade and home, but not thousands. 

[jan.axhell]

5 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

These two things completely contradict each other, either its a fullset or its not. If its not you shouldnt use the MAME importer at all if its not a complete mame romset. Im going to assume you have non-merged roms, if thats the case simply import your set the normal way with the standard rom importer, that will only import the files in your folder. Just make sure on the last page of the import wizard to check the box to use MAME naming for systems that use mame naming.

I have a complete MERGED set created with ClrMamePro *excluding* SoftwareList when building -> a complete scan of this shows 0 missing roms. I don't have any c64 or Amiga o SNES or whatever non-arcade games in that set.

[jan.axhell]

Look at this: I'm importing again the full set. the "coco_fdc" rom is NOT present in my set, nevertheless Launchbox "sees" it. 

panel on the left is source Mame folder, panel on the right is destination folder, the one I scan with Launchbox

Edited May 14, 2021 by jan.axhell

[neil9000]

Just now, jan.axhell said:

I have a complete MERGED set created with ClrMamePro *excluding* SoftwareList when building -> a complete scan of this shows 0 missing roms. I don't have any c64 or Amiga o SNES or whatever non-arcade games in that set.

Well again, if you have used CLR to remove files present in a standard merged set, then that by its very definition is not a fullset anymore. and if you uncheck the skip non working roms then the importer will do just that, it will import all roms from a fullset (including system and bios file), not what you specifically have in your folder. As already stated what files you actually have is irrelevant to the fullset importer, it takes the list of files to import from the mame.exe itself, it has no regard as to if you have personally trimmed your romset, as it doesnt look at it at all. It will simply import all files included in mames internal list, which will include the things you have personally removed.

[neil9000]

Just now, jan.axhell said:

Look at this: I'm importing again the full set. the "coco_fdc" rom is NOT present in my set, nevertheless Launchbox "sees" it. 

Again please read my above comment, Launchbox DOES NOT look at your actual files it gets the list from the mame.exe itself.

[CriticalCid]

2 minutes ago, jan.axhell said:

Look at this: I'm importing again the full set. the "coco_fdc" rom is NOT present in my set, nevertheless Launchbox "sees" it. 

Like I've explained it to you. It doesn't matter what you have in your actual ROMs folder. If it's part of MAME and doesn't get filtered out (which it obvousily isn't, I've also explained why in my other post) it will get imported. LB only checks your imported full set against your actual owned ROMs when you use the "Scan for removed ROMs" function.

 

8 minutes ago, jan.axhell said:

I am familiar with MAME, used to collaborate on the database in late 90's and used MESS when it was split. My prolem now is that stuff like Amiga or IBM or C64 stuff is added to the ROMset. None of that has anything to do with Coin-Ops. I know some bioses are common for both arcade and home, but not thousands. 

The normal MAME set isn’t just coin-ops since the merge with MESS. It now covers everything hardware-based, meaning every computer, calculator, console, chip and what else MAME supports nowadays.

SoftwareLists are just what the name implies, software for said hardware. In most cases that means extra applications and games that can be run on that hardware.

If you take a look on what you’ve actually imported you’ll see that there’s not a single game for these systems, just the hardware and single components themselves.

 

9 minutes ago, jan.axhell said:

2. Taking a look at Genres now just shows me a lot of entries, but none of them corresponds to Consoles o Computer related stuff.

The “System / Device” genre is where most of the stuff belongs. But there might be a few machines falling under a different category.

[jan.axhell]

Ok, so there is NO way to automatically exclude non-arcade roms from import because unplayable includes both arcade and non arcade. Why Launchbox doesn't take advantege of the SoftwareList database inside MAME to exclude that and only that category?

[neil9000]

Just now, jan.axhell said:

Why Launchbox doesn't take advantege of the SoftwareList database inside MAME to exclude that and only that category?

Because software lists are not supported in Launchbox in any capacity.

[jan.axhell]

Ok, thank you all for the patience, I saw an ETA Prime video and it looked pretty straight-forward to just import a clean set. I'll now re-import and take a look a System / Device and try to clean it as much as I can. A front-end over a multi system emulator based on an arbitrary ROMset is not immediate to manage. 

[CriticalCid]

13 minutes ago, jan.axhell said:

Ok, so there is NO way to automatically exclude non-arcade roms from import because unplayable includes both arcade and non arcade. Why Launchbox doesn't take advantege of the SoftwareList database inside MAME to exclude that and only that category?

Those entries are all machines and not any games at all, that's why they get filtered out with the "unplayable" filter. Sure, it would somehow make sense to also include them in the "non-arcade games" filter as "not a game" basically also implies that it's a "non-arcade game" as well, but it probably wasn't deemed to be necessary to filter for the exact same thing twice.

[jan.axhell]

7 minutes ago, CriticalCid said:

Those entries are all machines and not any games at all, that's why they get filtered out with the "unplayable" filter. Sure, it would somehow make sense to also include them in the "non-arcade games" filter as "not a game" basically also implies that it's a "non-arcade game" as well, but it probably wasn't deemed to be necessary to filter for the exact same thing twice.

Yes, the real problem is that many MAME games flagged as unplayable are actually playable to some degree, but obviously LB only sees them as "unplayable". Thanks again for the hints. 

Edited May 14, 2021 by jan.axhell

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, jan.axhell said:

Yes, the real problem is that many MAME games flagged as unplayable are actually playable to some degree, but obviously LB only sees them as "unplayable". Thanks again for the hints. 

Launchbox gets that info from the mame.exe itself. If the MAME devs consider a game to be unplayable im going to tend to believe that, they know far more than i about how good the actual emulation of a game is. By the way Launchbox imports around 2800 fully working Arcade roms, more than enough to be getting on with, and as i say is exactly how many the MAME devs themselves list as working.