MAME2003 MAME2010 rom directory question
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Hello,
I am just getting started setting up retropie and after reviewing the working/non-working status of various roms from the rom management wiki, have decided to use some MAME2010 roms, mostly MAME2003 roms, and a good number of FBA roms.
I am unable to find documentation on how to separate the .139 and .78 roms. From what I read, it seems the "proper" thing to do is to dump them all into the "mame-libretro" directory but this seems messy from a maintenance standpoint because there is no easy way to tell which roms are which type.
Inside of the mame-libretro directory, I see a sub-directory for MAME2003, but do not see the same for MAME2010 after activating the experimental package and rebooting.
Any assistance would be helpful.
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I keep all arcade roms in the "Arcade" directory, which gives access to all the arcade emulators. I then select the emulator per game using the run command. You just have to know what rom you are putting there and selecting the right emulator, but you can mix and match them all you want.
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The MAME2003 folder you referenced will contain sub-directories that in-turn contain all the files that MAME2003 creates during use. The same can be said of the MAME2003 folder located at
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/, should you choose to use that instead. The equivalents to those sub-drectories for MAME2010 will be created in the 'pi' user directory at/home/pi/.Seeing as how you're looking to mix the two versions of MAME along with FBA, while also keeping the roms themselves separate, you could create three directories (one for each rom set) at
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/. Then, by using the Runcommand launch menu, set the default emulator to whichever has rom set has the most titles and select the appropriate rom-specific emulator as you launch games from the smaller sets. You could also simplify the grind a bit by putting the rom sets in their respective MAME and FBA folders, where you would then only have to set the rom-specific emulators to differentiate between the two versions of MAME. -
@mediamogul Thanks for the clarifications.
I am still parsing roms manually right now. I decided that Retropie is not the correct platform to require users to efficiently scroll 2000+ roms in, so I found a crowd sourced "no filler" list which contains a much more manageable selection of `~600 roms. Unfortunately, as I started parsing the list and cross-referencing the WIKI rom lists, it became apparent that no single emulator that runs on the Pi3 would suitably accommodate the entire list as it is likely based on current versions of MAME.
I am fine with the roms being split between separate Emulation Station navigation categories:
- FBA
- Neo Geo
- MAME2003
- MAME2010
Please let me know if I am understanding the structure correctly.
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FBA and NeoGeo directories are provided for me as standard. If I place roms respectively in these folders, I can treat and configure them as individual systems with their own overarching config files if desired.
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"MAME-libretro" and "arcade" directories are also provided. If I so choose, I can perhaps put MAME2003 roms in "MAME-libretro" directory and MAME2010 roms in "arcade" directory and configure those 2 separate areas to run on their respective emulators.
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Alternately, I can create my own subdirectories inside of the "arcade" directory, but I am not sure if I can set the default emulator inside those subdirectories easily. If I create subdirectories inside of "arcade", and then place roms inside of these subdirectories, will emulation station recognize them and give me for instance a "MAME2010" and "MAME2003" navigation option when I click into "arcade"?
What I am trying to avoid is the need to memorize which roms require 2003 or 2010 emulators and need to select the correct option upon launching each individual game. Additionally, I would like to have separate directories where I can place and remove roms intuitively where the proper emulator settings would be applied.
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@chunger said in MAME2003 MAME2010 rom directory question:
I decided that Retropie is not the correct platform to require users to efficiently scroll 2000+ roms
It may help to note that scrolling up and down using the left and right shoulder buttons moves a page at a time and you can also move directly to any alphabetic letter by pressing the select button while in the rom list. These factors combined with the option of manually sorting roms into sub-folders allow you to quickly cut through any size list with relative ease.
Please let me know if I am understanding the structure correctly.
- Yes
- Yes
- You would be limited to assigning a default emulator for the largest set and manually setting a rom-specific emulator for the smaller sets. It's also worth noting that roms don't have to be put in sub-folders, but can be intermingled in one list when in 'arcade'.
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@chunger the mame2003 sub directory is for various supplementary files, NOT roms. you should use the arcade folder, as per the docs: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/MAME#arcade
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@chunger I have the same doubt about this issue, what have you done?
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