Full romsets or just favourites?

[AndersHP]

Hey all.

In lack of a favourites feature in ES, I'm wondering if you guys use full romsets for MAME and home consoles, or just install a few favourites per system?

I think the full romsets can be kind of cool, but the endless lists of games also can be blinding and overwhelming.

What do you guys prefer?

Bear in mind the theoretical nature of this discussion. Of course, only games that you already own may be installed for emulation :)

[TMNTturtlguy]

@andershp update your emulationstation. Favorites has been implemented into the main Es branch available from the binary update. Enable it it the start menu. Be sure to use a theme that supports the updates. There is a separate thread that lists all themes that support favorites.

[AndersHP]

@tmntturtlguy sorry, I missed that. Will try it out.

[pjft]

Sticking to the question, full romsets are unmanageable from my perspective. I believe it is more useful to keep a curated list, even if it still has a lot of games.

And use Favorites on top of that.

[obsidianspider]

Full sets are good in theory, but in practice a curated set tends to work out better "in the real world".

[lilbud]

I usually only put my favorite games on the pi, but I do have full sets of Nintendo ROMs, since Nintendo is taking down several romsites. So I want to a copy of all these games.

[TMNTturtlguy]

@lilbud I assume what you are stating is that you have full roms for all of the nintendo cartridges you own and have in your possession. Correct?

[lilbud]

@tmntturtlguy Ummmmm walks out of room

[mediamogul]

@andershp

the endless lists of games also can be blinding and overwhelming.

In a world where you have 27 choices of Doritos alone in the chip isle of your supermarket, the phenomenon you're describing has come to be known as "paralyzation of choice". It's the definition of a first world problem, but it does often work against us. I recently went to my local Walmart because someone told me they had the full run of 'Sliders' for $20. While I was there, I also saw the complete run of 'Quantum Leap' and quite a few more for the same price. Being pressed for time and not wanting to buy a million hours of television, I ended up walking out empty handed because I couldn't decide.

As far as games go, I know a guy with an amazing game room filled with complete North American system sets of physical game copies and this is a problem that he has mentioned as well. Fortunately for us, as mentioned above, Emulation Station now has several features that help with paralyzation of choice. Gathering your favorite titles together helps keep a focus on what games you're always going to enjoy most. Filtering a system list to any number of criteria will cut through the weeds to find just the type of games that you currently feel like playing. And if that weren't enough, the random selection can be used in either of those scenarios to always pick a winner, or applied to your whole library to find something you never would have discovered otherwise. All in all, being burdened with choice has never been easier to overcome and the coding geniuses responsible should really be commended.

[obsidianspider]

@mediamogul said in Full romsets or just favourites?:

the full run of 'Sliders'

I rewatched that on Netflix a year or so ago and it was so fun. For whatever reason the "lottery" episode is the one I remember the most clearly.

[mediamogul]

@obsidianspider

My full thoughts on that show would completely derail this thread, but sufficed to say, for a few seasons, it was top notch and had some very memorable episodes. The lottery and western episodes were definitely stand-outs for me.

[AndersHP]

@tmntturtlguy said in Full romsets or just favourites?:

@lilbud I assume what you are stating is that you have full roms for all of the nintendo cartridges you own and have in your possession. Correct?

That's what I gathered :)

Thanks for your inputs! Can't wait to try the favourites function!

[pjft]

@lilbud you don't need to feel ashamed for not having the cartridge copy of Nintendo World Championship.

[mediamogul]

@lilbud However, you do need to feel ashamed for not having the cartridge copy of Clash at Demonhead.

[lilbud]

@pjft Yeah, if I had to buy the games I wanted to emulate, this would be me after buying a copy of Earthbound of NWC 1990

TBH, emulation is the only way to play a lot of rare and expensive games, without, ya'know, emptying my college fund.

[lilbud]

@mediamogul Is that game really that good?

I've heard so much about it but never played it. I do have some NES games on cartridge.

[mediamogul]

@lilbud

TBH, emulation is the only way to play a lot of rare and expensive games, without, ya'know, emptying my college fund.

Who needs college when you have 'Donkey Kong Jr. Math'?

Is that game really that good?

Try it for yourself and find out. It plays a bit like 'Mega Man' with an arsenal of items almost unparalleled in other action platformers of the era. I actually do have a complete in-box copy of this game that I got a great deal on.

[A Former User]

@tmntturtlguy said in Full romsets or just favourites?:

@lilbud I assume what you are stating is that you have full roms for all of the nintendo cartridges you own and have in your possession. Correct?

I assume that you yourself own every single arcade cabinet/pcb board corresponding to the files in the romsets you use in your builds . Correct?

[TMNTturtlguy]

@arkive i am not making any statements regarding right or wrong, ethical or not, legal or illegal, and I am not making any statements about what i do personally. I am only suggesting that it is not wise to post statements about what you may or may not choose to put on your personal machines. I love retropie and this community and it is in our best interest as a group to be wise about what we state, share and condone. That is all I was trying to say. I think @lilbud and I have had enough conversations and fun on this forum for him to know exactly where I am coming from, and based on his response, and the fun responses by others, I think most people caught onto what my intent was.

[A Former User]

@tmntturtlguy said in Full romsets or just favourites?:

@arkive I am not making any statements about what i do personally.

You are, in the 1st post of the topic you created and I linked to. It's just one example - so does everybody else on this forum, otherwise we would just have to walk around this giant elephant in the room and any conversations would be impossible. Do you think that the guys in MAME ROW threads own the cabinets for the games they play, etc, etc?

I didn't quote you to start a personal argument. I also like this forum & community - a rare thing these days, and I fully understand when the owners make some rules - even if I may disagree with them, it's their house and so we have to act accordingly.

However, I also think that some better explanation/elaboration of said rules is in order, or perhaps new ones added. Situations as the one above are unacceptable - one member chiding another for something he does himself. I understand you may be friends, but this is a public forum and there's lots of irregular posters, lurkers and people with no personal connections. It's simply not fair.