Where to get the latest Mame sets (Guide)

[Lordmonkus]

You don't have to re-import, you can just re-scrape the platform and get the media you want.

[Reaper978]

Ok. Can you please tell me how to re-scrape? I tried using “update metadata and media for all games” and now unfortunately every game on each platform now is blank (like the screenshots I posted). Hopefully I didn’t screw anything up.

[pofo14]

Anyone have a tip for adding these magnet links?  I have never used them before, and nothing is there to re-check or download when I add them.

[tangodown]

Does anybody please know where I can get a full rom set for 0.259. I have looked everywhere. internet achive, mega ect. I have other rom sets that work with my older versions. The only reason I am updating is so I can use cheats.

Man, you would think getting rom sets would not be this hard these days. 

Somebody please help

[djarthur78]

also interesting in this? I can't seem to find as well (merged updates). 

I have 0.258 and then only now 0.261 . Is there a good way to find 0.259 and 0.260?

does pleasuredome have a way to gett to the older romsets?

[tkssitch]

On 1/13/2024 at 4:01 AM, djarthur78 said:

also interesting in this? I can't seem to find as well (merged updates). 

I have 0.258 and then only now 0.261 . Is there a good way to find 0.259 and 0.260?

does pleasuredome have a way to gett to the older romsets?

Pleasuredome only provides the latest romsets.  They do have older ones, but those are mostly for the lower end units, such low power pc, or raspberry pi style boards.  I wouldn't worry about trying to update your roms.  Just download the newest and match it with the new mame build.

[damageinc86]

2 hours ago, tkssitch said:

Pleasuredome only provides the latest romsets.  They do have older ones, but those are mostly for the lower end units, such low power pc, or raspberry pi style boards.  I wouldn't worry about trying to update your roms.  Just download the newest and match it with the new mame build.

Wait,...Pleasuredome is back?

[tkssitch]

22 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Wait,...Pleasuredome is back?

Yeah, it's been up for awhile. Just search pleasuredome and github. I just checked it. Still there.

[DocHoliday]

Can someone help me with the CHD software lists im confused. I am trying to set up my first LB build and I have N64 and NES roms running fine but I also downloaded  MAME 0.261 Software List CHDs (merged)  and Im not sure what to do with it  LOL   Sorry for the super noob question 

Edited January 29 by DocHoliday

[Lordmonkus]

My opinion but to me software lists are a waste of time and space. Better off getting No-Intro sets for cart based systems and Redump sets for CD/DVD based systems. They are far more versatile, they work in any emulator and using Mame for most systems outside of arcade is very much hit or miss on the quality of emulation.\

This is just my opinion, people are free to do what they like and prefer.

[DocHoliday]

Gotcha, thank you. that saves me 2.6TB LOL

[Gothicplsur]

Hey guys! I recently installed Launchbox, imported my full set of Mame .261, media and everything works perfectly. I have a couple questions...

Every month a new version of Mame drops, how do I update LB to the new version of Mame, For example, when I installed LB it was Mame .261, now .262 released and I want to update LB to the latest version and roms. 

Do I have to import a full set again or is there an easy way?

Second: In Mame itself I use MameUI and in the  default system options I enable Bi-Linerar filter, HLSL, GLSL, for smoother textures and sometimes for scanlines on certain games. How do I enable that for LB, or is it simply thru the Mame.ini in the LB folder?

Third and lastly, I went to run Killer Instinct a .CHD game and it attempted to load but then went back to LB, I have in my Mame directory: Roms/CHDs/kinst does the kinst folder need to be out of the main CHD folder in order for LB to find it?

Thanks for your time in reading. Thank you again in advance!

[sundogak]

10 hours ago, Gothicplsur said:

Hey guys! I recently installed Launchbox, imported my full set of Mame .261, media and everything works perfectly. I have a couple questions...

Every month a new version of Mame drops, how do I update LB to the new version of Mame, For example, when I installed LB it was Mame .261, now .262 released and I want to update LB to the latest version and roms. 

Do I have to import a full set again or is there an easy way?

Second: In Mame itself I use MameUI and in the  default system options I enable Bi-Linerar filter, HLSL, GLSL, for smoother textures and sometimes for scanlines on certain games. How do I enable that for LB, or is it simply thru the Mame.ini in the LB folder?

Third and lastly, I went to run Killer Instinct a .CHD game and it attempted to load but then went back to LB, I have in my Mame directory: Roms/CHDs/kinst does the kinst folder need to be out of the main CHD folder in order for LB to find it?

Thanks for your time in reading. Thank you again in advance!

You re-import the full set. Note you will lose any customization as re-import uses the MAME data for things like genre and player type as they will revert to MAME way of things.  If only interested in a specific game in the update you can drag and drop the ROM into LB Arcade window and install that way and that way doesn't mess with any customization. 

LB isn't an emulator, so there is nothing to enable.  LB will launch the emulator with whatever settings you have setup.  For regular MAME those settings are determined via MAME.INI (or command line).  There is really no reason (in my view) to use MAMEUI if using LB as front-end.

Don't move the CHD folders as that is way needs to be setup with folder name and CHD inside that folder.  In LB it should point to the the kinst.zip file.  Your CHD should then be here using what you described:   ROMS\CHDS\kinst\kinst.chd

More than likely if not launching you have a path/setting issue.  Does it work with MAME directly? If you try launching from command window (outside LB) what error does it give you?)  Make sure your path to CHDs is specified in the MAME.ini for rompath (in your case would be called "CHDs").

 

For regular MAME you set the settings such as bi-linear filter, HSL and GSL here:

[Gothicplsur]

I've always used UI as a base program for mame. 

Here is the path to my CHDs, So it would seem correct, and the CHD files are in their corresponding folders. But still goes back to LB main screen when I start, say Killer Instinct.

I'll try and move the CHD folders of the games into where the ROMs are located and see if that makes a difference.

And great the HLSL works as intended once I enabled. - Thanks for that!

 

[sundogak]

1 hour ago, Gothicplsur said:

I've always used UI as a base program for mame. 

Here is the path to my CHDs, So it would seem correct, and the CHD files are in their corresponding folders. But still goes back to LB main screen when I start, say Killer Instinct.

I'll try and move the CHD folders of the games into where the ROMs are located and see if that makes a difference.

And great the HLSL works as intended once I enabled. - Thanks for that!

 

rompath defaults to where the executable is launched as base path.  So when you have just "Roms" in the ROMPath then assumption is MAMEUI.exe\ROMs  is where things are located. Similar with CHDs.  If you are executing via MAMEUI.EXE then the paths and roms should be like this:

• MAMEUI.EXE\ROMS
• MAMEUI.EXE\ROMS\CHDS

You MAME.ini would then be

rompath       roms;roms\CHDS  

You shouldn't need to put in the full path and in many cases causes issues later.  You also shouldn't have to move anything as that is whole point of the rompath variable to point to correct pathing.  Just make sure your logic and names are correct for both.

[rbryan79]

Thank you bro.

[BigLee]

On 3/29/2022 at 8:04 PM, Lordmonkus said:

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:

From here scroll down to find the full sets, you are looking for this section:

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:

 

 

On 3/29/2022 at 8:04 PM, Lordmonkus said:

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:

From here scroll down to find the full sets, you are looking for this section:

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:

 

They don’t work from that website honestly,.

[Retro808]

44 minutes ago, BigLee said:

 

They don’t work from that website honestly,.

They do work from that site. If you are having issues getting Mame roms from pleasure dome workin you are definitely setting something up wrong. Pleasure Dome is the the best source for the most up-to-date Mame roms. 

[BigLee]

Well I have tried several times to download from there and nothing works, must be my browser.

I have Steam that works great, but I’m giving up slowly with Retro games because I can’t get anything working.

 

[Truest1]

question how do you guys update your mame rome sets if you already have afull rom ret installed? do we cpmpletely delete mame ( Arcade ) platform then reinport fresh rome set and let launchbox update mame automaticly? 

or do we replace the roms in the mame roms folder then scan for added roms to arcade platform, then updating mame emulator sepretly?  whats the best way to not lose artwork and settings? thank you guys in advace for any input on this. its been bugging me.  ive been doing a full delete of mame then reinporting mame full rom set from scratch. ive bzcked up my artwork first then re move it to image folders after inport. but then i lose all the mering or same game roms/ games ive done and stuff like that. somre game are named incorrectly so ive gone in and fixed those but upon reinporting fresh mame i have to do all that again.