Mame Rom Set Updating. Needed???

[lisowskikevin]

Hey guys quick question, I just updated mame to the latest version. Do I also need to update my roms even though they still work?

[05SRT4]

I believe so.

I forgot that I was rocking .145 roms and when I tried the latest version I got nothing but errors. Been so long that I forgot all about it.

[BobA]

No update required if you are using a set for the Raspberry Pi until that is updated to a newer set.  The Pi uses a very old Mame distro.

[lisowskikevin]

I'm not using Pi but most of my ROMS seems to be working fine, just wondering if they will crash at some point.

I have also noticed that my Hyperspin Databases are all out of whack not recognizing most of my MAME games yet they still work through Hyperspin, weird.

[Rikoos]

Depends from which version you are from and going. If there is a small jump most will work but you beter use this 1 on 1 . Why update the mame exe files if you use the old mame set?

[lisowskikevin]

Depends from which version you are from and going. If there is a small jump most will work but you beter use this 1 on 1 . Why update the mame exe files if you use the old mame set?

Ya I'm kinda in the "don't fix what aint broke" situation right now. I have heard horror stories of guys messing up the update. I have spent so much freakin time setting it up to where it is right now!

Anyway thanks again for the advice!

[floob]

Bear in mind the Pi will support romsets from about July 2014 (using libretro-fba), so some pretty new stuff.
I've got most of the details here:
http://smartretro.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=68

Its main emulators on the stock RetroPie install are mame4all, fba (plus fba-libretro), gngeo and Advance Mame.

I'm loving the Cave shooters on it.

[StefanBurger]

Hey guys quick question, I just updated mame to the latest version. Do I also need to update my roms even though they still work?

Hope I don't get the question wrong, but updating ROMs doesn't make sense to me for the following reasons.

ROMs are basically dumps/dowloads of the original software that where once installed in the original machines in form of ROM integrated circuits.
The binary data within the roms is the machine code that where originaly compiled for the original hardware (especially CPUs).

So you can consider them as 'hostircal' information that will never change, regardless of emulator updates.

However, an emulater like mame on the other side does not necessarily support all existing ROMs. MAME for example needs a so called game driver for every ROM that should become emulated. The game driver is a piece of software (derived C++ class) that carries all informations and methods about the hardware neccessary to emulate to get the software within the ROM emulated.

That means: a newer version of an emulater may support additinal ROMs that where not supported in its earlier version or may have updates/ enhancements to improve the performance of an specific ROM/game. But there is no such thing like an improved or updated version of a ROM (at least not because of new emulator version).

Regards
Stefan

[lisowskikevin]

Hey guys quick question, I just updated mame to the latest version. Do I also need to update my roms even though they still work?

Hope I don't get the question wrong, but updating ROMs doesn't make sense to me for the following reasons.

ROMs are basically dumps/dowloads of the original software that where once installed in the original machines in form of ROM integrated circuits.
The binary data within the roms is the machine code that where originaly compiled for the original hardware (especially CPUs).

So you can consider them as 'hostircal' information that will never change, regardless of emulator updates.


Good to know thanks.

However, an emulater like mame on the other side does not necessarily support all existing ROMs. MAME for example needs a so called game driver for every ROM that should become emulated. The game driver is a piece of software (derived C++ class) that carries all informations and methods about the hardware neccessary to emulate to get the software within the ROM emulated.

That means: a newer version of an emulater may support additinal ROMs that where not supported in its earlier version or may have updates/ enhancements to improve the performance of an specific ROM/game. But there is no such thing like an improved or updated version of a ROM (at least not because of new emulator version).

Regards
Stefan