Minimum files to run a few games

[Goglu2]

Is there a list or a software that will give me the required system ROMs needed to run a game on mame ?

Ex: if I want to put Tron and only Tron on a computer, I need more than just the Tron ROM (zip file).

Anything like that exist already ?

[Fursphere]

CLRMAMEPRO - Set it for MERGED Sets.

Then audit your roms (the ones you want to play) and it'll tell you if you're missing anything?   

[JDFan]

Really depends on the specific game, version of MAME, and MAME romset you are using -- for example with TRON it uses the Midway SSIO audio so for newer versions of the ROM package you will also need the midssio.zip file (they moved the audio rom into a separate zip folder in newer versions of MAME ) So easiest method is as Fursphere mentioned audit the game and see what else it lists as missing.

CLRMAMEPRO - Set it for MERGED Sets.

Then audit your roms (the ones you want to play) and it'll tell you if you're missing anything?

Wouldn't he actually want to set it to Non merged sets ?? since that would place all of the files for each game (ie. Tron, Tron2, Tron3 and Tron4 roms each with all needed file in a separate package) where merged sets would create a single package for all 4 into a single package that could run any version of Tron.  ( I use split sets myself to cut down on HDD space usage for the ROM set rather than the packages being stand alone so not sure  )

[Howard_Casto]

I believe the correct term (and the correct usage) is split-merged sets.  With this setup the parent versions of the game have all the files but the clones just contain the files that are different from the parent.  If you do a full on split set the amount of extra space taken up from the doubles would up the total disc space considerably.  I think mame takes up around 45 gigs, not including chds, at this point.

[Goglu2]

Thank you both for your help, I did use the "Non merged sets" setting since I'm only using a few ROMs.
Doesn't take a lot of space.

[Fursphere]

I didn't recommend split-merged because he probably has a few games that share files...   so no reason to duplicate stuff.

But to each their own.  With the price of HDD space, I just keep the whole damn set and use the XML databases to filter out games I don't want.

[Howard_Casto]

No that's not what split-merge is, I think you are confused.  With split-merged there are zero duplicates.  With regular old split there are duplicates.  Merged works, but then your front-end of choice can't see all the clones, making it cumbersome to work with. 

[Fursphere]

No that's not what split-merge is, I think you are confused.  With split-merged there are zero duplicates.  With regular old split there are duplicates.  Merged works, but then your front-end of choice can't see all the clones, making it cumbersome to work with.

I'm going to have to try rebuilding my set now (was going to anyway) as "split-merged" and see if its any smaller.  I'll let you know tomorrow as it takes like 8 hours to do this.  lol