The roms versions are ridiculous

Alturis

@ruicunha said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

To end all this bull, just make links of complete rom sets for every emulator on retropie so for once everyone at leats can have all working roms.

First, I do agree that the documentation is not organized well or user-friendly for people first ramping up on RetroPie or MAME in general. It could be improved for sure.

But posting links to copyrighted material to be downloaded without permission from the owners of said material is probably the fastest way for Retropie to be shut down. It is a software suite of tools and open source packages for retro gaming enthusiasts to enjoy playing games.

In theory, one would already own copies of the games they play but just need a platform to emulate and run them on after extracting the rom data from the media sources. Thats how you got all your roms right? ;)

In my estimation, the reason most people find it an attractive activity is the difficulty and complexity involved to get it all working correctly. It was never intended to be a package deal that you just double click and you are off and running. This same mental state of mind permeates into the way in which data and information is organized on top of the fact that its all done for free by volunteers working together without a guiding body.

So the end result is messy and organic. It's part of the deal.

Edit: Frankly its quite impressive how nice the retropie.org.uk site IS organized knowing that its all just people contributing together.

jonnykesh

@alturis said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

First, I do agree that the documentation is not organized well or user-friendly for people first ramping up on RetroPie or MAME in general. It could be improved for sure.

Feel free. The wiki is editable.
I think the documentation is excellent for a free, open source project.
Perhaps it does expect a certain level of prior knowledge or at the very least some reading.
RetroPie is a project developed by hobbyists for hobbyists. If people want a "plug-and -play" solution then RetroPie is the wrong software for those type of people.

Alturis

@jonnykesh Yeah that is basically what I was saying. ;)

Alturis

@jonnykesh said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

Feel free. The wiki is editable.

There. I rewrote and expanded the Step 2 section here:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Arcade/

Not public yet but that paragraph drove me crazy when I was first trying to get arcade games running. So many references to unexplained things. Tried to summarize the basics and typical hangups in just a few small paragraphs without just linking to other reading sources.

markwkidd

@alturis said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

Not public yet but that paragraph drove me crazy when I was first trying to get arcade games running. So many references to unexplained things. Tried to summarize the basics and typical hangups in just a few small paragraphs without just linking to other reading sources.

Nice to see some new documentation contributors! I have just a few corrections to your edit. The more you say about Arcade emulation, the more astrixes and provisos you have to mention due to the nature of the beast.

Parent zips are not needed if you have a Non-Merged Reference Set.

Neither Parent zips nor BIOS zips are needed if you have a "Full Non-Merged Reference Set" or you have rebuilt a regular Non-Merged set to be Full Non-Merged.

Fun fun fun.

AndersHP

Dude, you are just throwing your frustrations out there.

I agree that MAME is a hassle to sort, but that's just the way it is. I'm new to all of this also, but for MAME2003, in the docs, there are a light DAT file that does what you want, and Clrmamepro and romlister are powerful tools for rebuilding romsets.. Also for console games!

I can understand your frustration, but with MAME, you just shouldn't rush it. Get your retrogaming urges satisfied by playing console games (because they just work), while you get your MAME setup up and running.

I can recommend reading my own thread regarding sorting of roms. A lot of good links to useful guides and programs. And theory from all the patient guys on this excellent forum.

Alturis

@markwkidd said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

Parent zips are not needed if you have a Non-Merged Reference Set.
Neither Parent zips nor BIOS zips are needed if you have a "Full Non-Merged Reference Set" or you have rebuilt a regular Non-Merged set to be Full Non-Merged.

This is EXACTLY the kind of terminology I was trying to avoid. I didn't even use the word "rom" when possible. I wanted to leave it up to the "Further Reading" to learn more details like that. My main focus was to succinctly hit on the key points that often trip people up when they are first trying to get MAME games working. Typically this would be testing the waters by either getting a random game running or their favorite game running.

I really think that bit about quickly explaining Parent and Bios dependancies should be there right front and center. The point is that people are much more likely never to continue reading about how to build Non-Merged sets (nor was I interested in building a set of all games when I first started - you just want to get the games working that you want) and obviously split sets are what they are going to find on the internet as they are smallest in size.

Your shorter version would be fine I guess. Just need to mention it at least.

"Each game zip contains multiple files needed for that game and many games share some of those same files. It is critical that you refer to the compatibility list for the emulator you are using (see chart below) and check the "Parent" and "BIOS" columns."

markwkidd

@alturis said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

@markwkidd said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

Parent zips are not needed if you have a Non-Merged Reference Set.
Neither Parent zips nor BIOS zips are needed if you have a "Full Non-Merged Reference Set" or you have rebuilt a regular Non-Merged set to be Full Non-Merged.

This is EXACTLY the kind of terminology I was trying to avoid. I didn't even use the word "rom" when possible. I wanted to leave it up to the "Further Reading" to learn more details like that. My main focus was to succinctly hit on the key points that often trip people up when they are first trying to get MAME games working. Typically this would be testing the waters by either getting a random game running or their favorite game running.

I really think that bit about quickly explaining Parent and Bios dependancies should be there right front and center. The point is that people are much more likely never to continue reading about how to build Non-Merged sets (nor was I interested in building a set of all games when I first started - you just want to get the games working that you want) and obviously split sets are what they are going to find on the internet as they are smallest in size.

I think that's a valid approach to the docs but that's a different approach than the one we have been using. During the last major overhaul there was a consensus from team RetroPie that the Arcade docs should tell users to start with the best possible set rather than trying to tell them anything about Parents, Split sets, etc.

For the historical MAME emulators, it's much harder these days to come across a Split set that requires Parents. I'm not sure it's actually helpful to introduce it at the beginning.

What about a line to the effect of: If your Arcade collection uses Split romsets, jump to "Advanced Terminology" to learn about Parent and BIOS romsets.

Alturis

@markwkidd

it's much harder these days to come across a Split set that requires Parents

Again I would not even use the word "Split set" in that initial paragraph. Someone reading that introduction for the first time will have no idea what you are talking about.

I am still new to the scene so I may be unaware of where to find a non-merged set online but every set I have found has been split. Seems very logical as its saves download size obviously.

Alturis

How about:

Each game zip contains multiple files needed for it and many games share files from other zips. It is critical that you refer to the compatibility list for the emulator you are using (see chart below) and check the "Parent" and "BIOS" columns. Or refer to Further Reading below for how to create whats called a "Non-Merged Set."

dankcushions

Each game zip contains multiple files needed for that game. Some games also have a "Samples" column entry which is referring to a zip file containing a set of audio files included ...

samples column entry where? i have to say, i hate the edits done so far. 'reference set' is not a defined mame/fba term and only refers to a specific romsite's listings.

dankcushions

re: original topic. the right mame and fba romsets are so trivial to find. beyond that the only fiddling you may want to do is clearing out what you don't want, and we have a amongst the best documentation on the internet for that.

i don't know what else we can reasonably do without breaking laws.

BuZz

@dankcushions said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

samples column entry where? i have to say, i hate the edits done so far. 'reference set' is not a defined mame/fba term and only refers to a specific romsite's listings.

I agree and I don't want it there. Whoever added it please remove it, or I will just revert it back to as it was. As soon as I saw it it looked like "Aiding people to download roms" to me.

Alturis

Reverted. I am telling you people are going to keep being confused by the terminology in that paragraph and getting started from scratch though. Just trying to help.

BuZz

@markwkidd Whilst on the subject of documentation - I also have a problem with your edit - here

commit - c8f903b8ebbd7df2327fda287883948ef87a3942 - note about ROM status

diff --git a/Vectrex.md b/Vectrex.md
index e8d9fd8..754731a 100644
--- a/Vectrex.md
+++ b/Vectrex.md
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ![Vectrex](http://standalonepost.com/sites/all/pictures/Nikopik/Vectrex_logo.png)
 ***
-_The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console released in 1982_
+_The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console released in 1982_ Vectrex ROMs have been released into the public domain by their publisher and can be freely distributed and shared.

Where is the citation or reference for this ? It is important for things like this to come with more information - I cannot just trust an edit like this otherwise. (I know you changed it later to say original roms, but I still need a reference)

Alturis

Split sets are how most downloaded complete MAME romsets are presented.

Was trying to help people get from there to working games without having to process the set to create a non-merged or merged full set as they are likely to not even read that far or may already have a split set they are wondering what to do with.

Briefly explaining why what they have downloaded is not likely to work unless they have the entire thing copied over to roms folder (not likely) seemed important.

BuZz

@alturis I didn't have a problem with you explaining terminology. I had a problem with the first sentence which looked pretty intentional.

dankcushions

@alturis said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

Split sets are how most downloaded complete MAME romsets are presented.

i don't think that's true. the last sets i've got have been non-merged. either way, i don't think we need to explain split/non-merged in this basic guideline. just instruct to put the entire set in your directory and you will have no dependency issues. if users want to trim down that set, then they have to look into that kind of thing (which is all in the filtering/validating wiki page).

Alturis

@dankcushions said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

samples column entry where?

If you look at the edit history you will see that my original edit included a paragraph explaining the importance of referring to the compatibility list and briefly explaining what the Parent and BIOS columns meant.

Then the "Samples" paragraph followed that carrying the same line of thinking from the previous. markwkidd had removed that first paragraph in his later edit.

@dankcushions : "i don't think that's true. " I copied that line of text verbatim from literally the first google link that comes up when you search for a full set.

How about this.....

"Start by locating a Full Set for the MAME or FB-Alpha emulator you wish to use. Incorrect versions will cause most or all games to immediately exit. In other words, lr-mame2003 will only work correctly with MAME 0.78 ROMs, mame4all will only work with MAME 0.37b5 ROMs, and so on. (see chart below)

Each game zip contains multiple files needed for it and many games share files. It is critical that you refer to the compatibility list for the emulator you are using (see chart below) and check the "Parent" and "BIOS" columns. If a game has a Parent entry, it requires all the files within the game zip plus the files contained in the parent game zip. If the game has a BIOS entry, it also requires all the files from that bios zip. Extract all files from the Bios zip and/or the Parent zip and add them into the Game zip that you want to play. See "Further Reading" below for more info on other ways to manage this by creating a Non-Merged or Merged set.

Some games also have a "Samples" column entry which is referring to a zip file containing a set of audio files included in the Reference Set in a "samples" folder. These zip files are generally installed in the /BIOS/[emulator]/samples folder ( e.g. /BIOS/mame2003/samples ) but this can vary depending on the emulator.

Other games may also require disk image data (chd) files that need to be installed into a folder within the appropriate roms folder of the same name as the game zip file. ( roms/arcade/game.zip, and roms/arcade/game/ folder with chd files )"

dankcushions

@alturis said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

@dankcushions said in The roms versions are ridiculous:

samples column entry where?

If you look at the edit history you will see that my original edit included a paragraph explaining the importance of referring to the compatibility list and briefly explaining what the Parent and BIOS columns meant.

Then the "Samples" paragraph followed that carrying the same line of thinking from the previous. markwkidd had removed that first paragraph in his later edit.

@dankcushions : "i don't think that's true. " I copied that line of text verbatim from literally the first google link that comes up when you search for a full set.

How about this.....

"Start by locating a Full Set for the MAME or FB-Alpha emulator you wish to use. Incorrect versions will cause most or all games to immediately exit. In other words, lr-mame2003 will only work correctly with MAME 0.78 ROMs, mame4all will only work with MAME 0.37b5 ROMs, and so on. (see chart below)

Each game zip contains multiple files needed for it and many games share files. It is critical that you refer to the compatibility list for the emulator you are using (see chart below) and check the "Parent" and "BIOS" columns. If a game has a Parent entry, it requires all the files within the game zip plus the files contained in the parent game zip. If the game has a BIOS entry, it also requires all the files from that bios zip.

again my preference is that we don't cater for customising/reducing romsets on this 'quick start' page. i feel it suddenly opens up a can of worms that isn't necessary to play arcade games. transfer the whole romset and then you have everything you need. if you don't want to do that - we have another page for that.

Extract all files from the Bios zip and/or the Parent zip and add them into the Game zip that you want to play. See "Further Reading" below for more info on other ways to manage this by creating a Non-Merged or Merged set.

i don't agree with this - users shouldn't have to create their own composite files and will likely get into a mess if they do so. it also presumes they aren't running a non-merged set (as i said, i think is rarely the case mame2003, which is the most popular), and indeed there are tools to convert from a split to a non-merged. this side of things is covered in the validating romsets wiki page: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Validating,-Rebuilding,-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections

Some games also have a "Samples" column entry which is referring to a zip file containing a set of audio files included in the Reference Set in a "samples" folder. These zip files are generally installed in the /BIOS/[emulator]/samples folder ( e.g. /BIOS/mame2003/samples ) but this can vary depending on the emulator.

Other games may also require disk image data (chd) files that need to be installed into a folder within the appropriate roms folder of the same name as the game zip file. ( roms/arcade/game.zip, and roms/arcade/game/ folder with chd files )"

chd and samples.. i believe these are niche and are covered in their respective emulator pages. the number of people playing chd games via retropie is likely approaching zero.

for me the chief problem with the discourse and documentation around romsets is people getting 'blinded by science' via information overload. i think it's simpler to have two instructions at this basic level: 1) right romset version for emulator. 2) full romset transferred to right directory. you don't need to refer to spreadsheets, or reconstruct zip files.