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UGGGH! MAME Maintenance

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Howard_Casto:
So I got a new monitor for my mame cab, which is awesome, but I didn't think it would lead to months of maintenance to get things back in sync.

I used to keep my rom collection in sync regularly... I had to because I used to release front-ends.  (You need the roms to check for issues, believe it or not.)

I haven't updated the roms in my mame cab for about a year or two.  "No big deal" I thought.  Maybe a couple dozen or so roms and I'm good to go.  Well apparently not, because clrmamepro says I'm missing roughly 10,000 roms!  Damn!  I confirmed that it wasn't a glitch too as any missing rom it listed wouldn't work. 

So I'm downloading a fresh set on my main pc..  and then I'll have to transfer it to my mame cab... then I'll check the chds, which will surely take a week to get up to snuff.  After that it's time to update the snaps, titles, flyers, marquees, videos, ect... as well as any artwork or samples that mame needs. 

Then there are the physical updates.  My monitor will obviously need a new bezel.... They don't make a 16:10 arcade bezel, so I'll have to make one.  I've already made a cheap one out of posterboard, but that just won't do.  I'll have to make a real one as soon as it gets warm.  Of course the monitor sets back further, so I'll have to fix the finsih on the inside of the monitor area. 

And these are the EASY things to do. 

I don't even wanna talk about trying to getting visual pinbal and future pinball back up to speed. 


Now before anybody says anything, I know that I don't HAVE to have a complete set, but guess what?  It is actually easier for me to get a complete set than to pick and choose the ones I need!  See I needed to upgrade mame to 144 for a feature or two I wanted and it instantly made almost all of my roms out of date.  It's a real pain in the butt. 


There's really no point to this thread other than to share my frustrations.... I thought you guys might like a space to complain as well. 

ark_ader:
My needs are quite small Howard.  I'm not too bothered with 100% emulation of Donkey Kong, only I need to be able to play it when the feeling calls for it.

I used to use Mame on the PC/cab, but after repeated attempts to get the games working after every revision I just gave up.  I, like you, have only minor requirements like some CHDs to work, and I have both the releases of Mame that works for the games I want.  The rest is stored on my Xbox1, and after the recent CoinOPS 50gb capture, I used a file compare utility (Duplicate Files Finder) to get rid of every type of Mame rom on my system and network. Well except for my Mame4All versions. 

That way when things improve, I just check to see if the change is justified.

I can understand the update for your cab, the Pinball, and emulators etc, but please make a snapshot of your drive and store it somewhere safe.  All that work to get it going is expensive if you have to replace it.

If I want a game I just have to fire up the old xbox, phone, tablet or PSP. 

I'm through with PC Mame releases. 

Congrats on your cabinet revival Howard, and I hope you get chance to wear that monitor out for the rest of 2012 and beyond.  :cheers: 

Howard_Casto:
Thanks!  I don't care what people say about lcds in a mame cab, I am now officially a convert.  Throw some hlsl/screen filters on there and the mame games look nearly identical to how they do on a real arcade monitor.  But more importantly the select few pc games I will play on it as well as future pinball ect... still look great because those are displayed in high resolution. 

At this point I don't think I could justify putting a crt monitor in a cab unless it's a 19 inch and I happen to have one lying around.

I usually have triple redundancy going on.  Once I get my main pc up to date I copy that to my main mame cab... and then later my pacman cab, which has a suprisngly fast processor in it.  So all three would have to die before I lost anything.

nitz:

--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 01, 2012, 01:35:13 pm ---I haven't updated the roms in my mame cab for about a year or two.  "No big deal" I thought.  Maybe a couple dozen or so roms and I'm good to go.  Well apparently not, because clrmamepro says I'm missing roughly 10,000 roms!  Damn!  I confirmed that it wasn't a glitch too as any missing rom it listed wouldn't work. 

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I've been working on updating off and on too, and it is kind of a pain in the butt. The crazy thing is, most of those 10,000 roms are gambling and mechanical games that most of us are never going to play anyway, but as you said, it's actually easier to just get a complete set. I've been using 0.122 for quite awhile, but I NEED the new HLSL effects. ;) I'm waiting for 0.145 as 0.144 has missing sound in Qbert and I think a few other issues affecting games I play as well. Once I update to the next solid mame version, I'm probably never going to update again! CRT simulation was really the last piece of the puzzle for me, I'd been hoping and waiting for it a long time, and now that we have it, there won't be a reason for me to upgrade again. Every game I care about has been working in mame for years aside from Model 3 stuff, but now we have Supermodel for that.


--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on January 01, 2012, 06:14:20 pm ---Thanks!  I don't care what people say about lcds in a mame cab, I am now officially a convert.  Throw some hlsl/screen filters on there and the mame games look nearly identical to how they do on a real arcade monitor. 
--- End quote ---

+1

Unless you're a diehard purist, there's just no reason to bother with a CRT in a cab anymore. Or otherwise for that matter. I just recently replaced my tube TV with an LCD after holding out for a long time. And I'm lovin the new LCD. :cheers: It's awesome for movies, I can hook my PC up to it, and even old console games look pretty decent on it (I'm less concerned about getting the CRT effect on old console games for some reason). I'm still slightly annoyed by the fact that we can't get big 4:3 LCDs for our cabs, but other than that, I'm fine with going LCD all the way baby! ;D ;)

Howard_Casto:
Well I got a 16:10 instead of a 16:9, so that helps a lot.  It equates to the 4:3 size being about 1-2 inches smaller diagonally as opposed to 16:9, where it's more like 3-4.  I can live with the slightly smaller screen.

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