[guide] Fastest way to remove all unplayable MAME 2003 games (and adult/mahjong if desired)

[markwkidd]

Note: This process takes about five minutes total if you already have a MAME 0.78 ROM collection. As of September 11, 2017 this process will filter out 391 unplayable MAME 0.78 ROMs.

Lately I have been embarked on a project to cross reference all of the games designated as "GAME_NOT_WORKING" in the MAME 0.78 source code with games so designated in the catver.ini categories file and in the MAME 0.78 'gamelist' text file.

The goal is to make sure that MAME 2003's catver.ini is a trustworthy source of information on which games cannot be played, so that they can be sorted out. As of today, I have completed a slate of updates to catver.ini that has each been double-checked with the original MAME 0.78 program.

What is the point?
Now, any ROM filtering software that can work with MAME's catver.ini file can sort out all of the unplayable games. The Simple Arcade Multifilter is one such tool, and not coincidentally, it makes filtering out unplayable MAME 2003 ROMs very simple.

Filtering the ROMs

1. Download the most recent version of the Simple Arcade Multifilter from this thread: https://forums.libretro.com/t/simple-arcade-multifilter-app-for-mame-and-fb-alpha-rom-sets/9063
2. Download MAME 0.78 XML.dat and catver.ini from the MAME 2003 metadata repository (click on "Raw" and then use your browser's "Save As" feature for each file): https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/blob/master/metadata
3. There are few settings to configure with the Multifilter.
   
4. Select all of the categories on the left that you would like to keep by single-clicking on them. Be sure not to select the "Unplayable" category. Please also note that in the screenshot below that I am also filtering out "Mature" titles. The category clicking may be the only time consuming part of the process.

After a few minutes of processing -- voila!

[Rion]

Great work @markwkidd !

[herb_fargus]

@markwkidd well done

[dudumaroja]

i cant use this Simple Arcade Multifilter the last version wont populate the categories list.. someone has a older version?

[markwkidd]

@dudumaroja said in [guide] Fastest way to remove all unplayable MAME 2003 games (and adult/mahjong if desired):

i cant use this Simple Arcade Multifilter the last version wont populate the categories list.. someone has a older version?

Could you post the name of the emulator core you are using as well as a link to the catver.ini you are using that isn't working with the app?

[dudumaroja]

@markwkidd

mame2003 libretro ( romset 0.78 )

i used the the files provided in this link https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-libretro/tree/master/metadata

this is how it appears to me

https://imgur.com/a/6V2oz

Edit: some how my browser was not saving the files properly.. work just fine when a copy and pasted the file content on notepad++

[EmuChicken]

@dudumaroja I get the same ;/ Laaame.. Maybe because we're on a x64 windows system?

[itsnice]

Followed steps as described (running on Windows on VirtualBox on an MacOS system). Worked brilliantly.