CHDs for MAME - what to play and what to throw?

[vaderag]

Been googling a lot around this but not found a definitive list of CHDs for MAME that are worth keeping, those that are useless/pointless and those that are maybe worth holding onto... anyone got a list?

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by vaderag

[vaderag]

17 minutes ago, zugswang said:

CHD's for what ?

Maybe make your question a bit clearer if you want any response to this ?

I have literally converted every system that is compatible to CHD now, so you are literally talking about 1,000's if not 10's 000's

 

Clarified

[Retro808]

http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php

Under the ""Additional Filters" option click it and select "Use CHD". Should give you a list of CHD required games. You will see a Color coded dot in each game as well to see which work and do not. In the "Emulation" spot you can change that to show only working games.

[vaderag]

20 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php

Under the ""Additional Filters" option click it and select "Use CHD". Should give you a list of CHD required games. You will see a Color coded dot in each game as well to see which work and do not. In the "Emulation" spot you can change that to show only working games.

That's a really useful site - not come across that before!

So, this gives me a way of filtering, which in essence I can do with Launchbox on import (by saying remove non-working) but while Launchbox allows me to eliminate non-working on import and then export a rom set, it doesnt seem to bring the CHDs with it when you do that - is there any automated way to clear these out rather than going through one by one?

 

On top of that, this only gets part of the way to what I was looking for - in the same way that there are all killer lists etc I was hoping there might be some list of things that are actually good! E.g. Eggs Playing Chicken - is that any good? (I'm guessing not), are California Speed A and B different enough to keep both... etc
 and while i could try all 200 games, i would rather not  

[C-Beats]

Categories tab lets you filter based on rating, can use that to help thin out titles.

[vaderag]

56 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Categories tab lets you filter based on rating, can use that to help thin out titles.

That's a good idea - is there a way to filter by CHD games themselves tho?

It seems that Launchbox doesnt really handle the CHDs in the same way as the zips when it comes to MAME as all the actions I take seem to ignore them

[Retro808]

44 minutes ago, vaderag said:

That's a good idea - is there a way to filter by CHD games themselves tho?

It seems that Launchbox doesnt really handle the CHDs in the same way as the zips when it comes to MAME as all the actions I take seem to ignore them

Filter in LB? What specifically are you looking to do?

LB does not care about the CHD, only Mame does. LB just tells mame the name of the rom file to launch. Most of the games in Mame require the zipped rom to launch the game and the CHD supports it. There are a few exceptions that are CHD only games like Golden Tee Fore 2005 and 2006.

[vaderag]

3 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

Filter in LB? What specifically are you looking to do?

LB does not care about the CHD, only Mame does. LB just tells mame the name of the rom file to launch. Most of the games in Mame require the zipped rom to launch the game and the CHD supports it. There are a few exceptions that are CHD only games like Golden Tee Fore 2005 and 2006.

For playing you're right. But launchbox also offers copy files functionality under the tools menu. Doing this does not copy the chds even if they're there to be copied

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, vaderag said:

For playing you're right. But launchbox also offers copy files functionality under the tools menu. Doing this does not copy the chds even if they're there to be copied

It doesn't copy them cause it doesn't know they exist, that information is not needed for you to import your MAME collection, only the emulator itself needs that location, so we don't know they are there at all, in order to copy them.

[Retro808]

No. If you are either importing Mame rom files individually or using the Full Mame importer LB is only importing the zipped rom or in case of the full importer it just refers to the file name. So the only thing it would or could copy over is the zipped file. It does not even know if a game needs a CHD. Even the Mame.xaml metadata file only makes reference to the zipped rom.

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

I do not download full CHD sets. If I want to play a game in Mame and it gives an error, I check the aforementioned site (http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/) if the game needs a CHD. You can do this by searching on rom name and then scroll down to "Files" and then "Required Files". Then I look for the CHD on a certain "Archival" site. There are too few playable good games that require a CHD to warrant the download (and storage) of a full CHD set IMO.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Koroth

[Retro808]

23 minutes ago, Koroth said:

I do not download full CHD sets. If I want to play a game in Mame and it gives an error, I check the aforementioned site (http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/) if the game needs a CHD. You can do this by searching on rom name and then scroll down to "Files" and then "Required Files". Then I look for the CHD on a certain "Archival" site. There are too few playable good games that require a CHD to warrant the download (and storage) of a full CHD set IMO.

@vaderag This about sums it up. If you do not count the clones there are really only like 50-60 working and way less than that are even worth keeping/playing.

[vaderag]

13 hours ago, Retro808 said:

@vaderag This about sums it up. If you do not count the clones there are really only like 50-60 working and way less than that are even worth keeping/playing.

 

14 hours ago, Koroth said:

I do not download full CHD sets. If I want to play a game in Mame and it gives an error, I check the aforementioned site (http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/) if the game needs a CHD. You can do this by searching on rom name and then scroll down to "Files" and then "Required Files". Then I look for the CHD on a certain "Archival" site. There are too few playable good games that require a CHD to warrant the download (and storage) of a full CHD set IMO.

I think this is fair, but given my setup being in a cab I don't want to have to hunt it out if I want to play something, so am trying to pre-prepare.

"There are too few playable good games that require a CHD to warrant the download (and storage) of a full CHD set IMO."

"there are really only like 50-60 working and way less than that are even worth keeping/playing."

I'm really looking for that list that are worth keeping/playing

 

[neil9000]

3 hours ago, vaderag said:

I'm really looking for that list that are worth keeping/playing

Only you are you, so any list is gonna be based on someone else's tastes, so may have games in it you don't care for, or missing a series you do like, its very subjective, so there is no "good games" list for that. Personally i have 47 CHD files, i havent run into any games that i was missing it, and i do also have some for games that i probably wont ever play like the Area 51 games (i dont have a lightgun), i just made sure i had any street fighter and killer instinct CHD's, and all the CPS 3 CHD's i saw, as well as others that i recognised the names of, and a good portion of them are actually Naomi games, that i dont actually emulate anyway.

[vaderag]

34 minutes ago, zugswang said:

You are looking for something that does not exist (unless you put a bit of work into it)

Okay, fine, that's good to know. That's why I posted. Seems odd that it doesnt exist however when All Killer lists exist, assumed such a thing must exist!

But now I know

 

EDIT: There seems to be a reasonable list here which I just came across: 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by vaderag

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, vaderag said:

Okay, fine, that's good to know. That's why I posted. Seems odd that it doesnt exist however when All Killer lists exist, assumed such a thing must exist!

But now I know

Well the same is true for no filler lists, its the opinion of the person making the list only, so may be completely useless to someone other than the list creator.

[Retro808]

51 minutes ago, vaderag said:

Okay, fine, that's good to know. That's why I posted. Seems odd that it doesnt exist however when All Killer lists exist, assumed such a thing must exist!

But now I know

 

EDIT: There seems to be a reasonable list here which I just came across: 

 

The CHD's are the arcade game disk image so those games needing a CHD would be included in one of those Arcade All Killer No Filler lists. Unlikely anyone would have made a list specific to chd games since those are just arcade games.

[SiriusVI]

On 8/26/2021 at 3:43 PM, vaderag said:

Been googling a lot around this but not found a definitive list of CHDs for MAME that are worth keeping, those that are useless/pointless and those that are maybe worth holding onto... anyone got a list?

 

I used to only keep the CHDs for working games, but now I just keep a complete set of everything, Roms, CHDs and Software List Roms all in their correct folders, so Mame can Launch anything I throw at it. The only thing I don't keep is Software List CHDs, because a complete set is almost 3 TB and contains a lot of systems I already have, such as PS1.

[Headrush69]

38 minutes ago, SiriusVI said:

I used to only keep the CHDs for working games, but now I just keep a complete set of everything, Roms, CHDs and Software List Roms all in their correct folders, so Mame can Launch anything I throw at it. The only thing I don't keep is Software List CHDs, because a complete set is almost 3 TB and contains a lot of systems I already have, such as PS1.

Exact same situation here as well.

You're hardware is also going to matter as well, as some CHD games can be quite demanding as well. I generally start MAME and filter by working CHD based games and cherry pick the ones I want/like. I then only keep those one's on my main cabinet. Within LB I hide the ones my lowly i3 can't quite handle and might unhide if I ever upgrade the CPU in the future. 

[DerSchlachter]

Is there a buddy here who can write a .bat file in which you can insert the files to be copied, so that you only have to run this .bat with every MAME update.

My first try with a cmd File works not well, it runs into issues:

 

On Error Resume Next
Const QUELLE = "H:\Downloads Torrents\MAME 0.235 CHDs (merged)"
Const ZIEL = "I:\mame chd"
Const LISTE = "H:\Downloads\mame chd copy.xlsx"
Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
objExcel.DisplayAlerts = False
With objExcel.Workbooks.Open(LISTE).Sheets(1)
	For Each cell In .Range("A1:A" & .Cells.Item(.Rows.Count,"A").End(-4162).Row)
		folder = QUELLE & "\" & cell.Value
		If fso.FolderExists(folder) Then fso.CopyFolder folder,ZIEL & "\", True
                If Err.Number <> 0 Then
			MsgBox "Fehler beim kopieren des Ordners '" & folder & "'" & vbNewLine & Err.Description, vbExclamation
			Err.Clear
		End If
	Next
End With
objExcel.DisplayAlerts = True
objExcel.Quit
MsgBox "Finished"

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by DerSchlachter