I’m currently finishing downloading a 0.215 set and was wondering how far back the latest core is behind mame’s 0.215 release.
The MAME core has not been updated yet. Currently on 0.214.
Ah ok, I guess it should update soon then considering it’s not too far away from 0.215.
If I choose the core “MAME” without any numbering it will always default to the latest core update?
In that case what if a year from now I still keep my 0.215 rom set and download retroarch again, could the MAME core be on a much newer version and thus break the compatibility on my actual 0.215 rom set?
Does that mean that as soon as they catch up the core with version 0.215 that I will need to backup the mame_libretro.dll and keep a copy of that to assure my rom set will work in the future when the core version bumps up?
Thanks!
That is correct. As you saw under cores there are specific versions of MAME being maintained, but aside from those RA will generally stay up to date with upstream.
So with that in mind it would be a good idea to make a backup of whichever version of MAME matches your romset.
If you want to keep track of the state of the MAME core take a look at the github commits. Once it has been updated to 0.215 you will see a commit stating as such.
Cool, they’ve just accepted a push request to upgrade to 0.215 however the build seems to be failing on Travis and so far no new Windows binaries have been deployed to the nightly directory since the 12nd.
Just a reminder, if the core you are using is a couple of versions newer or older than your romset it doesn’t matter much. It will still be 99,9% compatible with the roms you have. You will only start to notice incompabilities if your core is 10 versions older/newer or something and even then it will still be OK with most games.
So, you don’t have to wait for a 215 core in order to use your 215 rom set. 214 is going to be fine and 216 after that too, you don’t need to download the 216 rom set.
Personally, i update my rom set every 5-6 months.
Good to know, thank you.
Off-topic but what are you recommendations as far as for cleaning up the rom set from unplayable titles?
I’m using RomCenter and I see complete, incomplete, missing and unknown files, did not figure how to filter out the not compatible ones considering many of the “incomplete” reported by the app will still launch and play apparently decent enough but some will definitely not load at all or crash Mame.
I never used RomCenter so i can’t help.
In RetroArch i just use all the roms, i only filter out things like mechanical, mahjong, quiz games, slot machines and other trash using custom made XMLs that i found online.
What exactly are you trying to do? What rom set version do you have? From your picture i see roms like 1941-1943 that claim they need to be fixed. That shouldn’t happen though, unless you have very old roms (from 10 years ago or something) and using dats from recent versions of MAME to compare or the opposite (recent roms and a very old MAME core).
Was looking to clean out the trash roms just like you did, the mechanical ones, etc.
1941 and other roms are reporting that need to be fixed because they contain more files than needed inside the zip file, but they run just fine, I guess I would be able to save some space if I ran the fix though.
This is my current rom set: https://archive.org/details/mame0215_nochd and https://archive.org/details/mame0215_chd
Try the XML files from this link:
That’s what i am using. Sure, it’s version 210 but i haven’t noticed missing games from my 214 romset. 99,9% of the roms should still have the same names. It has tons of different combination of XMLs, with different combination of filters. I am using those with Hyperspin.
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I’m using the Android version of Retroarch and when I load the MAME core it says it is 0.197. Does that mean that the newest libretro core of MAME on Android is a lot older than the one the Windows version uses?
Yes, we haven’t been able to get up-to-date MAME to build properly on Android, so it’s stuck with the last version before they switched to their new build tools and process.
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Nice! They are now up to date with MAME 0.217!!!
Just not sure how to process the list agains my gamelist.xml, I use EmulationStation as my FE.
Not sure what you mean when you say “how to process”. But i imagine that if you take one of those custom xmls and rename it to gamelist.xml (or whatever your frontend uses) then it should use that xml.
That’s what i do with Hyperspin. I took the xml i needed (in their filenames it says what is filtered out), rename that to Mame.xml (because that’s what Hyperspin expects) and make sure i am using a 0.217 romset or something close to it so the roms are the same the xml expects. The romset in my HDD is full, yes, but the xml filters out the roms i want to see in Hyperspin’s menu.
In any case i don’t use rom managers. These xmls work fine.
I see, so it applies to Hyperspin only, the gamelist.xml that ES uses is different, can’t just place it in there, I’ll try to figure something out and will report back here, tks.
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Oh, i see. So they aren’t compatible with ES. Unfortunately, i never used that frontend so i am of no help. But if you figure something out i’m interested to know.
Ok wait, i think i might have something to help ypu.
There is a tool, google “HyperSpin Rom Manager”. It’s a small portable program that should be able to isolate the roms you need. Give it the xml you want to use and as a “source” use the folder where you keep the full 0.217 set. Then a folder where you want your isolated “clean” roms to be copied.
If everything is done correctly, it will show you the results and all games should have a “100” next to them (meaning a rom is found that has the same filename 100%). If there are a couple of roms that aren’t 100% remove them (don’t let them pass because they will be renamed). Then you press the “Run” button and all the roms from that XML will be copied in the new folder, ignoring everything else. This way you will only have the roms you need in that folder. Then i assume your frontend will be able to create a compatible XML based on these roms.
These roms aren’t going to be enough though, you will still need the full bios pack extracted inside, to make sure all games will work.
I gave it a try but couldn’t figure it out, it’s not locating my roms although the filenames match the xml descriptor name.
Screenshot attached:
Did you press the “scan” button before the “run”? I forgot to tell you that so i don’t know if you did.
You hit SCAN to see the results and then you hit RUN for the copy process. Also, choose to COPY not just MOVE because you never know if something goes wrong.