Testers needed: New MAME ROMset playlist scanning

Thanks to @RobLoach, @wertz, @shakalakka, @larrykoubiak and many others, RetroArch’s playlist scanner should now recognize Non-Merged and Split collections for MAME 2000, MAME 2003, MAME 2010, and MAME 2014.

That said, this is new territory and testing would be helpful to smooth out any wrinkles. I’ve done some testing with the MAME 2003 / MAME 0.78 core, but I haven’t had the chance to scan ROMs for the other cores as I’m traveling.

If you use one of these MAME cores, please consider spending a few moments scanning your collection. Then post your results, please!

Please use the latest nightly and make sure you download the RetroArch databases and core info files via the updater.

  1. Go to Online Updater in the RetroArch menu
  2. Select Update Core Info Files, then wait for the package to download and extract
  3. Select Update Databases, then wait for the package to download and extract
  4. Restart RetroArch (I’m not sure if the restart s actually necessary)
  5. Scan your MAME collection
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Hello, that are really great News!!!

I want to try scanning a splitted Mame2014 (0.159) set with latest lakka Release what exactly i have to to update / do for it ?

In theory it’s a quick process. I have only tried this with standalone RetroArch but it should be the same in Lakka.

Before you start, connect Lakka/RetroArch to the internet if it isn’t already connected.

  1. Go to Online Updater in the RetroArch menu
  2. Select Update Core Info Files, then wait for the package to download and extract
  3. Select Update Databases, then wait for the package to download and extract
  4. Restart RetroArch (I’m not sure if the restart s actually necessary)
  5. Scan your MAME collection

I’ll add this info to the OP as well

Scanning not working for me so far unfortunality lakka dont have the online core-updater. any workround for getting the right info-/database files/scanning script ? Mame2014-Core i used (copied via samba in “Cores”) is the newest one from buildbot (mar-17-2017) https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/x86_64/latest/

I knew that Kivutar removed the core updater in recent Lakka versions, but is the database and core info updater also gone?

Core .info files

  1. You could download the matching .info file here: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-super/tree/master/dist/info
  2. In Windows, that file goes into a subfolder called “info” in the RetroArch folder. I can’t remember what it is called on Lakka, maybe the same thing?

Database/RDB files

  1. Then you can get the RDB database files: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-database/tree/master/rdb
  2. In windows RetroArch there is a subfolder called “database” where the RDB will need to be copied. Again you will need to figure out where Lakka stores those files.

Thank you. will give a try tomorrow

For those with access to the Online Updater, there was an issue with the buildbot that has been preventing the new MAME databases from downloading via the Update Databases command. That should be resolved now.

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Have tried scanning a (rebuilded) splitted MAME2014 Set with lakka but had no luck so far. since Lakka has no online updater i have tried to download the needed database/info files and put it to the following path (access from Windows over Samba/SMB): file were loaded here:

for Database i put file (MAME 0.159.rdb) to:

\LAKKA\Configfiles\retroarch\database\rdb

for Info (mame2014_libretro.info):

\LAKKA\Configfiles\retroarch\cores

and to be sure here again:

\LAKKA\Cores

because there is no online updater for lakka i had the figure out the directories… no clue if the used pathes are correct or not… (cant found any other similar structure in the smb-shared folders but it seems to be wrong anyway) maybe the correct folders are not accessable over smb but here ends my knowledge and i dont want dig into the internal things until most other systems runs perfectly for me at moment.

seems i can t test with my set until anybody pack in lates database/info files into one of the next lakka releases.

You may need to enable the updater in the Menu Settings.

hello, i can’t find a option to activate the online-updater. where exactly is that?

using lakka 2.1 rc3

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.

I just realized instead of step E, I could edit the playlist file once it’s generated and point it to a different directory with my unmerged ROM / unmerged BIOS ROMs (as long as the filenames are the same), instead of copying the files over each other. That way I can maintain both sets just in case.