Question about duplicate arcade games when importing full romset

[Rinusch]

Hi,

I've imported a full romset and it strikes me that I seem to have quite some duplicates. What I don't understand is for example, I have two different roms: '4in1boot.zip' and 'puzzlekg.zip'.
Both have been recognized as being the same game and hence have the same Launchbox Game DB ID (#38818). Not only are they actually different games when starting them, what strikes me most is that they both have different meta data in Launchbox.
For instance, they both have a different publisher and status (good vs imperfect). I've performed a forced update of the games DB metadata (from the 'tools->download' menu).

How does this work? Apparently each Launchbox ID can have multiple entries in the database and are matched differently based on the rom name?

Issue I have is I can't currently trust the fact games are marked as duplicate by LB. I have to manually start them to tell if they're really the same game.

[Retro808]

This is likely because Mame has the <Name> of both those files as Puzzle King. LB is only going by what is in the Mame.xaml generated from the version of Mame you are using. If you go into the Metadata folder and open the Mame.xaml file there you can search the files and see. 

Searching the Arcade Database you can also see this same information.

[Rinusch]

Thanks.
However, they both have the same LB ID assigned in my case..but with different metadata. Not sure if this was clear from my post.
Here's what I see (Mame0.259):

Keen to hear your thoughts, thanks!

[Retro808]

I probably should have better clarified my post.

The GamesDB seems to be matching only the game name.  So LB sees the game name for both files as "Puzzle King" (even though there is a "-" in one name) and is searching the GameDB and it only finds the one GamesDB ID for "Puzzle King". I thought it was also supposed to try and search with rom name to further refine it.

That other game is listed under name Puzzle King (Dance & Puzzle).  I do see that second listing has an "Alternate Name" of "puzzlekg" which is the rom name. I thought that was supposed to help refine matches better.  

I will ask one of the devs.

[GamerKeags_YT]

Retro808 

 

[Rinusch]

On 2/12/2024 at 9:00 PM, Retro808 said:

I probably should have better clarified my post.

The GamesDB seems to be matching only the game name.  So LB sees the game name for both files as "Puzzle King" (even though there is a "-" in one name) and is searching the GameDB and it only finds the one GamesDB ID for "Puzzle King". I thought it was also supposed to try and search with rom name to further refine it.

That other game is listed under name Puzzle King (Dance & Puzzle).  I do see that second listing has an "Alternate Name" of "puzzlekg" which is the rom name. I thought that was supposed to help refine matches better.  

I will ask one of the devs.

Hi @Retro808, it's me again 😉.

I found another example but I think it may be a different issue. Please read for details.
Both roms 'ddragon.zip' and 'doubledr.zip' were originally matched against the same game 'Double Dragon' with LB ID #10901. However, 'doubledr.zip' is a different game and should be matched against 'Double Dragon (Neo-Geo)' with LB ID #26804.
Only thing I notice in mame.xml is that only the latter has a '<MameListItem>' entry at the end of the file. Maybe that could be a lead for trouble shooting.

Hope this helps?

Edited February 21, 2024 by Rinusch