Tested MAME rom collection?

A Former User

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Colstar

Is there a filter in RP that will show you which of the ROMs you have will actually work??

mitu

@colstar said in Tested MAME rom collection?:

Is there a filter in RP that will show you which of the ROMs you have will actually work??

No, the frontend (EmulationStation) doesn't know - and care - which emulator is used for the game/ROM and if it's valid. As per your previous topic about MAME, you should use a valid ROMset for the emulator you're using.

IanDaemon

@mitu I'm not even sure how that would work. The closest I can think of off the top of my head would be something that launched each ROM and read logs and if...something....doesn't see the word "error" in the log then it would keep a separate list of "good games", BUT what would happen it the machine locked up? Where would it know to look for the logs depending on emulator? How would you account for the various countdowns that may or may not be present in arcade ROMs? When would it know to test the next ROM? How would it know which emulator or emulators to test?

VictimRLSH

@iandaemon Virtually every game with working sounds makes a sound on coin add, you might be able to test them in that manner.

mitu

@iandaemon said in Tested MAME rom collection?:

@mitu I'm not even sure how that would work

Maybe something like https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/30301, which tries to take the same 'I don't know what ROMs I have, but I'm determined to test all the emulators available to see which fits ' approach.

dankcushions

@iandaemon said in Tested MAME rom collection?:

@mitu I'm not even sure how that would work. The closest I can think of off the top of my head would be something that launched each ROM and read logs and if...something....doesn't see the word "error" in the log then it would keep a separate list of "good games", BUT what would happen it the machine locked up? Where would it know to look for the logs depending on emulator? How would you account for the various countdowns that may or may not be present in arcade ROMs? When would it know to test the next ROM? How would it know which emulator or emulators to test?

i looked into this ages ago with https://github.com/dankcushions/retropie-auto-testing (git is way out of date). my strategy was - read the number of frames rendered via the benchmarking output from verbose logging (if no frame are rendered, you know it didn't launch). you can avoid soft locks by quitting after a certain amount of frames (this also allows you to automatically exit and move on to the next rom/emulator).

but this is a lot of effort to establish a known quantity for arcade roms - the dat file says which games work/don't work. eg https://buildbot.libretro.com/compatibility_lists/cores/mame2003-plus/mame2003-plus.html

Colstar

@dankcushions Is it possible to tell which version of MAME my ROMs will work with and then import that version into RetroPi?

dankcushions

@colstar said in Tested MAME rom collection?:

@dankcushions Is it possible to tell which version of MAME my ROMs will work with and then import that version into RetroPi?

yes, you can validate a rom(s) via clrmamepro: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating%2C-Rebuilding%2C-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/#validating-and-rebuilding-roms

but that's complex and time consuming when you can trivially acquire a correct, complete set to start with: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Arcade/#step-2-select-the-right-rom-set

Colstar

Just had a check and my romset is from 2005 and mentions mame 0.103(?)

dankcushions

@colstar since that's not the version of any of our recommended arcade emulators in my previous link (or indeed any of the supported arcade emulators in retropie at all), i would forget it and acquire the set for one of them instead.