New to RetroArch, but I was able to have MAME .139 Core ROMs recognized as both Split and Unmerged sets on version 1.6.7 on Windows 64 and Shield TV.
One caveat is, when using the .dat files here:
and here:
I could only verify them to make sure I was using valid ROMs if each ROM was in an individually named folder.
In other words, while RetroArch will recognize your ROMs (as long as the CRC matches up), you can only verify if you have valid ROMs if each ROM is in a folder and not dumped into a single “MAME 2010” folder, for example.
If I did that, with both clrmamepro and Romcenter, I would only have about 8-9 verified ROMs out of 180. Is that expected behavior?
It’s a bit confusing, because if you use the dat files here:
Or generated from the mame64.exe itself, it’ll only work if your ROMs are not in individual directories.
Another oddity that caused a lot of confusion for me, is if you use the:
dat files, or a dat file compiled from mame64.exe, you can validate your ROM sets as split, merged, unmerged, but also as unmerged ROMs with unmerged BIOS (so that the all the necessary BIOS files are in each ROM). However, if you do that, despite being seemingly valid, RA will absolutely not recognize or load them, because it seems like the RDB file can only verify the CRC from the zip file itself, and not by scanning the individual files within the zip, like you can do if you use the aforementioned dat files. So while your ROMs are verified as valid, RA will never recognize them and load them into a playlist. Which makes sense, but baffled me as a beginner for multiple days before I was able to validate my .139 ROMs through trial and error.
ROMs that don’t require a special BIOS will still be added to the playlist, but Neo Geo ROMs, for example, will not.
The reason I like including the BIOS in the ROMs, is I’ve been having trouble with RA finding the BIOS in the System folder. And if your ROMs are in individual folders (like the split and unmerged dats above seem to require), to get RA to pick up the BIOS you need to add it to each individual folder that requires one as well.
In a completely roundabout way, I ended up:
A) putting all my roms into individual folders, then validating them with clrmamepro (which also corrected my folder names and let me know the ROMs checked out).
B) doing a search in Windows Explorer to find/copy ALL the zip files from the individual folders, into a general MAME 2010 folder.
C) scanning this MAME 2010 folder in RA, so that the MAME 2010 playlist is generated.
Then, either:
D) copying all the necessary BIOS files into the MAME 2010 folder
Or:
E) copying all my unmerged ROM/unmerged BIOS files into the MAME 2010 folder, being careful to make sure they all have the exact same filenames so they can overwrite the ROMS already in the MAME 2010 folder. Because once the playlist is generated, RA doesn’t seem to care if the CRC matches.
After that, all the ROMs will load without issue, even the Neo Geo ones.
I hope that all makes sense, and is helpful information, or that someone can explain if I went awry at any point in the process.
