Medullah Posted June 11 Share Posted June 11 (edited) Hey all - I built my cabinet a few years ago and have decided I want to do some ROM curation on MAME after noticing there's 700 versions of a video poker game. I figure the first thing I want to do is just delete the romset and emulator and start from scratch with an up to date MAME version and romset. Is it as simple as removing MAME from Launchbox? What's the best way to clear it and then do a fresh import? Is it possible to delete the games from Launchbox but keep all the downloaded media so it doesn't have to download again? EDIT - And also keep any custom controller configurations I've set up. Edited June 11 by Medullah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skizzosjt Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 On 6/11/2024 at 4:35 PM, Medullah said: Is it possible to delete the games from Launchbox but keep all the downloaded media so it doesn't have to download again? yes, that is intended for such situations. you can delete games, or a whole platform, or your entire library in LaunchBox and all the images and videos will stay in tact. so when you reimport games, the media will link right back to up to them with no further user input. if you end up reimporting less games than you original had or end up using less images/videos this time around, you can use the clean up media tool to help deleting unused media to free up space On 6/11/2024 at 4:35 PM, Medullah said: Is it as simple as removing MAME from Launchbox? What's the best way to clear it and then do a fresh import? you do not necessarily need to remove MAME from your emulator list to update it to a new version. but if you got a new version of MAME you would at the very least need to update it's application path in the emulator list, assuming the file has a different name or folder path. if the new MAME version has the exact same file name and path, you wouldn't need to change anything in the emulator list. so you don't need to delete the emulator to clear games and reimport them. you can delete the games out of the platform, and then reimport the newer set just as you did the older ROM set. I would just edit the emulator in the emulator list, if needed, rather than set it up from scratch again On 6/11/2024 at 4:35 PM, Medullah said: EDIT - And also keep any custom controller configurations I've set up. I'm guessing you mean MAME controller stuff? that would be stored in the emulator's folder and likely is going to be saved on a per game basis. you would need to copy those config files over to the newer MAME version When I want to update an emulator I do not delete the current version right away. I instead rename its folder. Say going from "MAME" to "MAME OLD". Then I get the new version setup using the same folder name as the "old" one, so "MAME" in this ex. Then test out the new version, make sure it is working as intended. Once you feel confident everything is setup OK you can then delete the "MAME OLD" version. The folder renaming gives you chance to grab files out of the old version and bring them to the new one. It also reassures the new version is working properly and isn't only working due to the "old" version still existing due to the new version using default paths for stuff that are actually part of the "old" version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medullah Posted June 14 Author Share Posted June 14 18 hours ago, skizzosjt said: yes, that is intended for such situations. you can delete games, or a whole platform, or your entire library in LaunchBox and all the images and videos will stay in tact. so when you reimport games, the media will link right back to up to them with no further user input. if you end up reimporting less games than you original had or end up using less images/videos this time around, you can use the clean up media tool to help deleting unused media to free up space Thanks for the advice, I'm ready to re-import at this point but I figured I'd ask you instead of starting a new topic - what is the proper file folder format for the "import full set" of MAME roms? I have my structure as - <Drive>:\ROMS\MAME ROMS and then two subdirectories for the ROMs and CHDs. When I go to do the full import it says "There is not a complete set here". Do the CHDs and ROMs need to be in the same directory overall? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skizzosjt Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 I've never used the full set importer but as far as I know you need to have the actual full set of ROMs to use that option so I would hazard a guess what you got is incomplete one way or the other. if you didn't intend on importing a full set, then use the standard import wizard and it will go ok, it doesn't care if you have a full set or not. So it sounds like your structure is like this? ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\ROMS CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\CHDS By default MAME looks for CHDs in a different spot. You should set up the folder structure like this format ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\<CHD GAME NAME> CHDs by default need to go in a subfolder where the zip file is, using the same name as their zip file. I'll use Blitz as an example ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\blitz.zip CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\Blitz\blitz.chd If you follow this structure MAME will find the CHDs by default. alternatively they can go anywhere, but you would need to setup the custom path in the MAME.ini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medullah Posted June 14 Author Share Posted June 14 27 minutes ago, skizzosjt said: I've never used the full set importer but as far as I know you need to have the actual full set of ROMs to use that option so I would hazard a guess what you got is incomplete one way or the other. if you didn't intend on importing a full set, then use the standard import wizard and it will go ok, it doesn't care if you have a full set or not. So it sounds like your structure is like this? ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\ROMS CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\CHDS By default MAME looks for CHDs in a different spot. You should set up the folder structure like this format ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\<CHD GAME NAME> CHDs by default need to go in a subfolder where the zip file is, using the same name as their zip file. I'll use Blitz as an example ROMS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\blitz.zip CHDS = \ROMS\MAME ROMS\Blitz\blitz.chd If you follow this structure MAME will find the CHDs by default. alternatively they can go anywhere, but you would need to setup the custom path in the MAME.ini Yeah I wanted to try the full set import and have it remove all the casino and non working games, because last time I just did a regular import and hoooo boy was there a lot of junk. I figured out my issue though, there was another nested folder and it doesn't search subdirectories. I did the reimport and it seems to have worked from Launchbox's perspective, but games aren't launching. I can figure that out though, probably just some path changes I need to validate. Thanks for the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 7 minutes ago, Medullah said: Yeah I wanted to try the full set import and have it remove all the casino and non working games, because last time I just did a regular import and hoooo boy was there a lot of junk. I figured out my issue though, there was another nested folder and it doesn't search subdirectories. I did the reimport and it seems to have worked from Launchbox's perspective, but games aren't launching. I can figure that out though, probably just some path changes I need to validate. Thanks for the help. If you didn't let us install MAME for you and set the command line you'll need to add your ROM path to the INI file manually so MAME knows where your games are Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medullah Posted June 14 Author Share Posted June 14 1 minute ago, C-Beats said: If you didn't let us install MAME for you and set the command line you'll need to add your ROM path to the INI file manually so MAME knows where your games are Yeah I had MAME installed and it found the roms running on it's own, I just ran out of time to troubleshoot it. Or do you mean the INI in Launchbox, not MAME? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 37 minutes ago, Medullah said: Yeah I had MAME installed and it found the roms running on it's own, I just ran out of time to troubleshoot it. Or do you mean the INI in Launchbox, not MAME? was referring to the mame.ini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medullah Posted June 14 Author Share Posted June 14 5 minutes ago, C-Beats said: was referring to the mame.ini Yep I'm good there, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medullah Posted June 14 Author Share Posted June 14 (edited) 1 hour ago, C-Beats said: was referring to the mame.ini Hmmm I'm seeing something kind of odd - I have MAME configured and working fine standalone, but through Launchbox it's not finding anything. After some playing around I found that the ROMs folder setting in MAME is being reset to default every time I launch Launchbox. Any idea why that might be happening? Edit - This isn't a Launchbox problem, it's a problem with MAME. Grr, guess I should play around with this when I'm not working. Edit 2 - Good lord I'm dumb, IT Medullah of 10 years ago would be ashamed, directories were read only for whatever reason. shame.gif Edited June 14 by Medullah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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