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Info on How to use CHD full set


Sbuddha77

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I have downloaded the MAME .241 full set and was able to play games. I then downloaded the .241 full set with CHD because I want to play more of the Newer game I guess .It seems that it is not as straight forward as just importing the  regular full set. It shows data files as games and I am still not able to play games like Blitz and Area 51. Is there an easy way to just import the full set with CHD into Launchbox and have them work or do I need to move files and folders around to different locations, or is there a way for Launchbox to do it for me? is there an easy to follow guide to show steps or something?  I am new to this and love the community support and advice. any help would be appreciated. Thank you

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7 minutes ago, Sbuddha77 said:

It seems that it is not as straight forward as just importing the  regular full set.

You dont import CHD files, Launchbox doesnt care about them, only MAME does, just put them in the same folder as your roms, or anywhere else, but you will need to tell the MAME emulator where they are if you do that.

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2 hours ago, neil9000 said:

You dont import CHD files, Launchbox doesnt care about them, only MAME does, just put them in the same folder as your roms, or anywhere else, but you will need to tell the MAME emulator where they are if you do that.

just to be sure, I have a folder "MAME 0.241 Roms (merged)" and within that folder I would put "MAME 0.241 CHDs (merged)" and then go to launchbox and import full set correct?1785598460_Screenshot2022-03-06084101.thumb.png.5f02db1530c195efc910e36cc02981ec.png1447942816_Screenshot2022-03-06083956.png.8be6d48447db78a5a10c6148becebeae.png

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4 minutes ago, Sbuddha77 said:

just to be sure, I have a folder "MAME 0.241 Roms (merged)" and within that folder I would put "MAME 0.241 CHDs (merged)" and then go to launchbox and import full set correct?1785598460_Screenshot2022-03-06084101.thumb.png.5f02db1530c195efc910e36cc02981ec.png1447942816_Screenshot2022-03-06083956.png.8be6d48447db78a5a10c6148becebeae.png

Dont put the actual CHD folder into your roms folder, just the CHD's from within it, so its just one folder with the roms and CHD's all together. Or as i say you can keep them seperate, but you will need to actively tell the mame emulator those patchs, you will need to do that anyway by the looks of it as you are not keeping them in the mame emulators roms folder.

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4 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Dont put the actual CHD folder into your roms folder, just the CHD's from within it, so its just one folder with the roms and CHD's all together. Or as i say you can keep them seperate, but you will need to actively tell the mame emulator those patchs, you will need to do that anyway by the looks of it as you are not keeping them in the mame emulators roms folder.

ok, I opened the CHD folder, copied everything in the folder to the roms folder. I have yet to create a "games" folder within Launchbox to start the import process, I wanted to make sure that I had the files in the correct place first. within the roms folder do I need to put the CHDs into the corresponding ROMs zip files or is the way I have it enough for launchbox import to recognize? it will be a fresh install of launchbox so I dont have anything set up now. 

Screenshot 2022-03-06 085426.png

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6 hours ago, Sbuddha77 said:

ok, I opened the CHD folder, copied everything in the folder to the roms folder. I have yet to create a "games" folder within Launchbox to start the import process, I wanted to make sure that I had the files in the correct place first. within the roms folder do I need to put the CHDs into the corresponding ROMs zip files or is the way I have it enough for launchbox import to recognize? it will be a fresh install of launchbox so I dont have anything set up now. 

 

The way you have it now is correct. Folders with the chd's and zips in the root.

Launchbox will detect/recognize the games.

When importing them, you can direct Launchbox to the folder you have now and it will parse all the zips and versions of all arcade games.
 

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Thank you both so much, I am up and running now but I have another issue. If I need to start another thread, please let me know. I imported the folders and now I have Data files listed as games. reading through some of the forums, It looks like I should have separated some of the files. Is there a way to hide them or  go to each one and hide them somehow? I would assume I need them and don't want to just hit delete when I right click on them.

Screenshot 2022-03-07 155540.png

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47 minutes ago, Sbuddha77 said:

Thank you both so much, I am up and running now but I have another issue. If I need to start another thread, please let me know. I imported the folders and now I have Data files listed as games. reading through some of the forums, It looks like I should have separated some of the files. Is there a way to hide them or  go to each one and hide them somehow? I would assume I need them and don't want to just hit delete when I right click on them.

 

If you import by folder you will get duplicates. You need to import by files and only import the .zip files.

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On 3/8/2022 at 2:58 PM, BlackSol said:

If you import by folder you will get duplicates. You need to import by files and only import the .zip files.

there are no zip files in the CHD folder. I downloaded the ROMs and then put the CHD folder in the ROMs folder. the ROMs and the CHDs are working but shows DATA files as games. can I hide these or Audit or something to only show games not DATA files or can I do a new install somehow and have launchbox only import the CHDs and Roms and not show DATA files?

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  • 1 month later...

Hey sorry probably too late to help you, but I've just gone through this process for myself.  I found that the better way to do this is to  scan the the ROMS into Launchbox BEFORE you copy the CHD folders into the ROM directory.  That avoids the duplicates in Launchbox and the games all still work fine if you copy the CHDs over after the import (because it's MAME that looks for the CHDs, not Launchbox). 

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1 hour ago, SchneakyPete said:

Hey sorry probably too late to help you, but I've just gone through this process for myself.  I found that the better way to do this is to  scan the the ROMS into Launchbox BEFORE you copy the CHD folders into the ROM directory.  That avoids the duplicates in Launchbox and the games all still work fine if you copy the CHDs over after the import (because it's MAME that looks for the CHDs, not Launchbox). 

If you are using the MAME fullset importer with a full set, as you should, this doesn't matter. Launchbox doesn't look at your rom folder at all, it doesn't know if there are roms in it, let alone CHD's.

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Apologies for asking a noob question...  I always hear, Get the latest version mame rom fullset! Get the latest version! I'm scared of losing some games is I do so.  So I stay stuck with romset 2.00

Does every Mame Full set have the same amount of games as the previous version?  You are not missing anything that was only in say, Mame romset 1.91?

Thanks in advance!

 

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9 hours ago, latin625 said:

Apologies for asking a noob question...  I always hear, Get the latest version mame rom fullset! Get the latest version! I'm scared of losing some games is I do so.  So I stay stuck with romset 2.00

Does every Mame Full set have the same amount of games as the previous version?  You are not missing anything that was only in say, Mame romset 1.91?

Thanks in advance!

 

Every version has new games, now they may not be games that you care about, so only you can decide if its worth updating, but yes new games are added every month when a new version is released.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/1/2022 at 8:32 PM, latin625 said:

Apologies for asking a noob question...  I always hear, Get the latest version mame rom fullset! Get the latest version! I'm scared of losing some games is I do so.  So I stay stuck with romset 2.00

Does every Mame Full set have the same amount of games as the previous version?  You are not missing anything that was only in say, Mame romset 1.91?

Thanks in advance!

 

Be aware that in rare cases, some games may no longer work due to various emulation / driver issues or new bugs introduced. This isn't the norm, but wanted you to know that it isn't always a positive moving to newer versions especially making large leaps in versions. Sometimes hacks were used to make games work that were removed in later releases making games unplayable. Again, this is probably rare for most cases but it is helpful to read the "whatsnew.txt" file between versions to see what you might be getting into posted on the MAME website for each version.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/26/2022 at 12:44 PM, neil9000 said:

If you are using the MAME fullset importer with a full set, as you should, this doesn't matter. Launchbox doesn't look at your rom folder at all, it doesn't know if there are roms in it, let alone CHD's.

What do you do if you used the MAME fullset importer and you eventually update your MAME set (with the CHD's in the rom folder). Do you scan for new roms, use the importer again or anything else?

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34 minutes ago, X1pheR said:

What do you do if you used the MAME fullset importer and you eventually update your MAME set (with the CHD's in the rom folder). Do you scan for new roms, use the importer again or anything else?

You just run the full set importer again. You do not need to delete anything. 

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  • 4 months later...

Glad I saw this as it is what I did:  From SchneakyPete:  Hey sorry probably too late to help you, but I've just gone through this process for myself.  I found that the better way to do this is to  scan the the ROMS into Launchbox BEFORE you copy the CHD folders into the ROM directory.  That avoids the duplicates in Launchbox and the games all still work fine if you copy the CHDs over after the import (because it's MAME that looks for the CHDs, not Launchbox). 

 

I simply imported the MAME ROMS in .zip only.  The CHD files are in a separate folder.  I will simply move each CHD folder into the main ROMS directory afterwards.

Edited by DarkMatterDM
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