Help using a .xml or .dat for a playlist

I have playlist buddy and RA installed, i can scan regular ROMs like SNES or NES but as soon as i get to games like MAME or NeoGeo the games come in .zip format and I cant figure out how to make a playlist using these files. all i get for games titles are machine code

The easiest way to handle these is to use RetroArch’s ‘manual scan’ (in the ‘import’ section) and provide a DAT to get the names right.

Now that manual scanning is a thing, I don’t think there’s any reason to use playlist buddy for anything anymore.

Which version has manual scan as an option? I must be using an older version of RA because I don’t see manual scan anywhere

it’s been in there for a while now. Which version are you using?

I am on 1.7.6. I am trying to get this working on a PS3 so I’m kind of afraid of updating.

ah, yeah, you’re out of luck then. That’s a super-old version, but I understand your reasons for not updating.

A few things…

  • If you’re using an arcade DAT with Playlist Buddy it’s required that your ROMs have already been audited with the same DAT file. If you haven’t done this yet and are new to ROM auditing I suggest using ROMVault since its pretty easy to use.

  • Make sure you’re using file paths in the right format for PS3.

For example, on PC a ROM path might look like: C:\\Games\\ROMs\\MAME 2003\\dkong.zip

But on PS3 it would be: /dev_hdd0/ROMS/MAME 2003/dkong.zip

  • Another option is to use a current desktop version of RetroArch and set it to use the old playlist format and use Manual Scan, and then manually edit the paths to PS3 format in a text editor.

The most important thing is that you first audit your arcade ROMs with a DAT that matches the core you’re using them with, and then use that same DAT file during playlist creation. I don’t know of any other way to do it.

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