MAME Set Rebuilder

Ionic

I want to share with you this very simple application for romset rebuilding that make this one very easy to do :D

MAME Set Rebuilder has many advantages versus Clrmamepro:

Linux version available
Only 3 steps are needed for start rebuilding: selection of source and destination folder, selection of xml/dat file of desired M.A.M.E. version and selection of set type (not merged, split or merged) :-)
It's able to use old dat format from old M.A.M.E. version, for example 0.37b5
On destination set only complete romset will be created. With Clrmamepro if your starting set is not complete it creates also incomplete romset. In this way romset won't start with M.A.M.E. that complains for missing roms. This is very tedious (with complete set it doesn't happen) and always happens during downgrade of few romset
In the romset will be inserted (using a prefix) also roms that in xml/dat file are reported with same name but different CRC (in this case Clrmamepro takes only last one)
Romset will be separated in different folders:
-bios-devices
-mechanical
-roms
-roms_chd_needed
In the last two folders will be other folders for separate Parent from Clone and romset that needs a BIOS.

Note:
In mechanical folder will be inserted systems like flipper, whereas in bios-devices you will find for example NeoGeo BIOS needed for SNK game (i.e. Metal Slug - Super Vehicle-001). In roms_chd_needed folder you will find romset that uses a CHD

Note 2:
MAME Set Rebuilder creates only complete romset, so in Merged or Split mode if Parent is not present (because it's not complete), but Clone needs only some available roms from it and may be fully working, Clone romset will be created in Not-Merged mode

In order to extract the xml/dat file from M.A.M.E. (recommended) follow these step:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/15233/mame-set-rebuilder/23

Application official site is here (check the first post of the thread for download links):
http://www.retropie-italia.it/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=630

Regards ;-)

Rion

@ionic Nice! Your tool in conjunction with @markwkidd 's excellent tool Simple Arcade Multifilter - app for MAME and FB Alpha ROM sets makes life a little easier for rebuilding your sets.

I myself use Clrmamepro when rebuilding my sets cause i always have a rollback mame romset that is corresponding to the latest mame release.

But then again I'm a intermediate user. If this could make it easier for Novice user then I'm all in.

CrocodileTom

Looks very simple and easy to understand. I always thought Clrmamepro was overly complicated, but that's me. I'm going to give this a try... plus it runs on Linux, which is my main operating system for emulation. Thanks!

Ionic

@Rion Rollback is needed when the romset has been changed in the time and the roms inside the archive have been redumped.
Also MAME Set Rebuilder sometimes needs a Rollback. If you pass from 0.192 set to 0.37b5 set the probability that you need it is very high ;-) Lower if you pass from 0.192 to 0.188 :-)
The advantage is that only complete romset will be created, so if a romset could be created it'll creates it :D

P.S.: this application is not mine but come from RetroPie Italia Forum's guys

Rion

@ionic Yes I know that's why I always have a rollback set. But maybe I was a little bit unclear what I meant.

Anyway I don't speak Italian so would you mind notifying the author of this program to join this thread?

Ionic

I'll do that, at the moment if you want you can ask in the italian forum in english ;-)

FranceMSR

Hi all, I'm the developer of MAME Set Rebuilder ;-)

FranceMSR

@ionic said in MAME Set Rebuilder:

I'll do that, at the moment if you want you can ask in the italian forum in english ;-)

Maybe it wasn't so important. If he wants he'll find me on RetroPie Italia Forum

Bye all

Clyde

@francemsr Many thanks for creating the tool, there are way too few Linux tools for ROM management out there (despite the fact that most emulators run on Linux and specialized distros like Retropie are based on it).

Two things, though:

Even better would be to release your source code under GPL or another free license. We Linuxers like free open source apps. :)
The Linux app doesn't run on my system (Kubuntu 14.04). This is the output:

Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>
Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x0600
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x0601
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x0602
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x0603
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x06dd
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x070f
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x2028
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0x2029
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0xfff9
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0xfffa
Unable to update the static FcBlanks: 0xfffb
Cannot mix incompatible Qt library (version 0x40806) with this library (version 0x40807)
Aborted (core dumped)

Seems that the app is incompatible with the Qt library of Kubuntu 14.04. What are the system requirements on Linux?

Could you also build it for (K)Ubuntu 14.04, since its official repositories have long term support (LTS) until April 2019. Thus, it is still used by many people.

FranceMSR

@clyde Which version of Kubuntu do you use? 32 or 64 bit?

Clyde

@francemsr 64 bit

FranceMSR

Soon I'll give you a test version for your problem ;-)

Clyde

@francemsr Thanks! :)

FranceMSR

@clyde Ok, this is a test. I built a version of MAME Set Rebuilder on Ubuntu 14.04.5 32 bit. You use Kubuntu 14.04.x 64 bit. In this way if the app works for you in the future I'll build the app both for 32 and 64 bit systems. At the moment it works fine on Ubuntu 16.04.3 64 bit, Ubuntu 14.04.5 32 bit and Ubuntu 14.04.5 64 bit.

In order to run 32 bit application on 64 bit system you have to install only 3 little packages ;-)

sudo apt install libc6-i386 zlib1g:i386 libxcb1:i386

Let me know :-)

EDIT: this time with the link :D
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MOyZO-hfW8JPr9bd78TFK9FfWZ2qDYpA

Clyde

@francemsr It works! :D I tested it with the mame2003-lr-lite.xml from the Retropie wiki. As soon as I have more time, I will test the rebuild roms in Retropie and report any issues.

A native 64 bit version would be the icing on the cake. :)

Many thanks for this tool and your friendly support.

FranceMSR

@clyde said in MAME Set Rebuilder:

@francemsr It works! :D I tested it with the mame2003-lr-lite.xml from the Retropie wiki. As soon as I have more time, I will test the rebuild roms in Retropie and report any issues.

A native 64 bit version would be the icing on the cake. :)

Many thanks for this tool and your friendly support.

This is a good news :-) Time depending, I'll build separate versione both for 32 and 64 bit Linux systems ;-)

FranceMSR

New updated version available for Windows (32-64 bit) and Ubuntu-based system 14.04.5 and newer (32-64 bit)

v1.21
-Ported some library in C
-Now available for Ubuntu-based system 14.04.5 and newer (both 32 and 64 bit)

Enjoy ;-)

Rion

@francemsr Thanks for the update and for joining the official RetroPie forums.

FranceMSR

@rion said in MAME Set Rebuilder:

@francemsr Thanks for the update and for joining the official RetroPie forums.

You are welcome ;-)

P.S.: check always official page for updates

rancid

@FranceMSR I apologize for being so dumb, but can you break this down a little more for me before I mess up my rom sets? I have some general questions:

-When you say "source" is this your existing rom set that you want to upgrade? Say I have Mame 0.192 and want to go to 0.193, would I select the folder where all the 0.192 roms are?
-How does the program know where my upgraded roms are for 0.193? Should I add them to the 0.192 directory I selected for "source" or would they go into the destination directory?
-Should the destination directory always be empty? I think I remember reading on the Italian forums everything in that dir will be deleted. I am confused if my upgraded roms should be in the destination folder or if you keep this empty.

If I want to upgrade both my rom sets and my CHDs, can you do them seperately or do the CHDs need to be in the same directory as the roms?

Sorry, just need a little more help before I pull the trigger. :)

Thank you and happy new years!