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Where to get the latest Mame sets (Guide)


Lordmonkus

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In the past the best place to get a full up to date Mame rom set was either from PleasureDome which had a complicated application process to gain access and you had to maintain a share ratio to keep access or you went to The Internet Archive and dealt with out of date sets and extremely slow download speeds. The PleasureDome has shut down their private tracker which sucked for several reasons but they have since moved their Mame downloads to a new site which is easily accessible to all and no share ratios to maintain.

To find the site simply search Google for "pleasuredome mame".

You should find this page:

screenshot.4.thumb.jpg.1aaa743b7830189a604be7098a7afc28.jpg

From here scroll down to find the full sets, you are looking for this section:
screenshot.2.jpg.88c05afb8f57e2688ff70e03e0402a11.jpg

For the typical users what you want is either the merged or split sets, which would be the 1st and 3rd links in the picture above. The CHDs are optional downloads and needed for a small handful of games but the download is quite large. The links will open a magnet torrent link which your torrent client should auto recognize. I highly recommend using qBittorrent found here: https://www.qbittorrent.org You can look up guides on using bit torrent if you are new to it, I won't be going into how to use the software.

As a bonus to this guide, once you have your full set and want to use it in Launchbox watch and follow the guide on the YouTube channel:

 

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Nice topic to link people when they ask for MAME Sets links.

Another similar way to find MAME sets is by searching "Roms Megathread". On the Retro tab you can find MAME Sets and other retro stuff. Be wary though, those sets might not be up to date.

Edited by Suhrvivor
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8 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

We have always allowed rom site naming and google search terms, just no links has always been the rule here. We have never banned anyone for naming sites and we only remove links when people post them and ask them not to post links.

Also could a tutorial be made for the GitHub roms megathread?

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is kind of related. 

Who the heck builds these "full" sets?    I've been messing with MAME for 15+ years now, and every time I download a "full set", when I do a check with a tool like CLRMAMEPRO against the matching mame.exe binary, it always has some differences or missing roms, sets named or packed wrong, etc.  Split or merged, doesn't seem to matter.  I just got in the habit or rebuilding when I decide to do an update.    Its just bizarre to me.     And you also have a to do goofy stuff like torrentzip to build your current set to the torrent set so you can join at greater than zero percent, and even that has weird inconsistencies.

Anyway, just thinking out loud here.  Not complaining, just truly trying to understand what the heck is going on so updates are easier / more efficient.  :)  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks a lot Lordmonkus

Very usefull information!

I have download the Multimedia File, there a lot of video that I have not in my arcade video folder.

But I have a problem! The video files are named like the file rom not how LB name them.

So...there is a way to update the filename according to the name of the roms? So I can use them in my LB/BB?

Or...I have to do manually?

thank you!

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23 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

Sorry I do not have a good answer for you, I don't use video files in my LB setup and have never downloaded the multimedia file.

I do recall their being a tool that HyperSpin users use to rename files but I couldn't tell you what it is.

Thank you a lot for your answer! I'll search following your tip!

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Hey @Lordmonkus you have helped me a lot!
I have searched a little following you (hyperspin rename tool, then Launchbox rename media tool)

and I have found that Launchbox can read media file that are named like the rom LB title AND rom file!
So I am just copying in the right dir to show them.

Later I'll use media clean tool to remove the duplicated video

Thanks again for the tip!

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  • 2 months later...

Hey!

Ultra noob (and french) here. I began to built my collection and I finded those awesome Rom pack. I just downloaded the mame Rom Pack and the only thing I find is a XML Document. Not Zip roms or anything. I continued my setting in Launch box, it analyzed it very well, but I could not play the games. It wanted to run, but failed after like 5 seconds (no audio or video). I know I probably messed up or forgot something, but right now I'm searching my Obi wan. You are my only hope. 

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9 hours ago, Neutrebon said:

I just downloaded the mame Rom Pack and the only thing I find is a XML Document. Not Zip roms or anything. I continued my setting in Launch box, it analyzed it very well, but I could not play the games.

You cannot play games without the actual roms.

You need to download the actual zipped rom files and if you followed the steps in the first post you would not end up with just an xml file. Not sure where you are downloading the Mame rom pack from but if it is just an xml file that is your issue. 

 

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  • 5 months later...

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