ROMSET/Emulator clarification needed

jhawk44

I've been reading for a couple of days and need somebody to just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.

I'm working on a MAME only cabinet project. Don't universal support for an infinite number of ROMs. Just looking to create a 30-40 rom cabinet. However, to make things easiest on myself is working with lr-mame2010 going to give me the most compatibility? The wiki shows 8782 roms, does that mean that this emulator BIOS can run that many existing ROMs (depending on romset version?)

Also, if the lr-mame2010 that comes with the retropie image, is .139 does that mean that I need to have my roms "formated" or converted to .139? Am I understanding that correctly?

thank you

rbaker

@jhawk44 No that is not correct. Better read this to clarify:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2859/how-to-use-mame-with-retropie-help-guide

dankcushions

@jhawk44 said in ROMSET/Emulator clarification needed:

I'm working on a MAME only cabinet project. Don't universal support for an infinite number of ROMs. Just looking to create a 30-40 rom cabinet. However, to make things easiest on myself is working with lr-mame2010 going to give me the most compatibility?

no. https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/MAME#emulators-advancemame-mame4all-pi-lr-imame4all-lr-mame2003-lr-mame2010

"mame4all-pi has the best performance of them all, but a limited romset. This is the best choice for the Raspberry Pi 1/0. lr-imame4all is the libretro equivalent, with possibly weaker performance, but features all the libretro benefits (RetroArch controller configurations, shader support, save states, etc). lr-mame2003 is a good choice for Raspberry Pi 2 and up, as it has a comprehensive romset, and good performance, as well as also being libretro. The AdvMames are popular as they have a huge romset, but they're non-libretro. All other MAME cores are experimental and should normally be avoided."

jhawk44

So I'm better off using lr-mame2003 and roms from .78 romset?

thank you both for your responses. I did read those wiki articles, but obviously I don't understand exactly what they are saying. Seems like there is a LOT of information, but I'm having trouble deciphering it.