ROMS all or best.

[Nutty Boy]

I now have most of the systems that i want running fine software wise and I'm in the process of building my coffee table arcade cabinet Just wondered what the people on here thought about what ROMS to add.

Take the C64 or even Mame they both have great games but they also have quite a few stinkers. Storage space is not really a issue as I have plenty within my cabinet but do you think it is best to have say the top/best games for each system to sort of showcase them and maybe a few guilty pleasures that you remember playing or is it best to have them all the bad and the good to be more of a completionist.

Any thoughts? 

[PL1]

Storage space is not really a issue as I have plenty within my cabinet but do you think it is best to have say the top/best games for each system to sort of showcase them and maybe a few guilty pleasures that you remember playing or is it best to have them all the bad and the good to be more of a completionist.

How much coal do you want to shovel through every time you look for a diamond?



Make a list.  Keep it short.  The general consensus is around 200 games or less.

There are lots of good lists that will help you build a cab experience that is less like the coal mine and more like this.



YMMV.


Scott

[JDFan]

I'd agree with Scott - though since you say you have plenty of storage space could also have offline copies of the rest for those times you want to find a new diamond !

While a small list is best for playing and for having others play, so that games actually get played rather than searching through a list to find something - there is nothing wrong with having the rest of the set available for those down times when you want to try and find something new to play or when that visitor that remembers a specific game they used to play that hasn't made your list comes over. 

[haynor666]

Here is mine [removed] , less than 2000 games

Just put file in folder called folders, change it's extension from txt to inirun mame 171 (it supports now favorites) or mameui to see full titles.

[n3wt0n]

I have had a cab running with a complete set of mame roms and will never do it again. Scott's description is spot on. Badmouth (with input from the community) has taken the time to put together a great resource that features the top games in various categories. You can check out the thread here... http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149708.0.html

[Nutty Boy]

Yea I think I agree with Scott. I have been checking out various front ends. Liking Maximus Arcade which suits me as it does not seem to want you to add Mame as a default. This is going to be more of an emulator cabinet with a Ultrastik 360 and a small keyboard and mouse built into frame and will probably add Mame later. Maximus allows me to either display a full list or a favorites so will setup with all so i can check out the games I have never played and maybe add them to my favorites list that i can use for presentation and when playing with mates. I think you are all right that the list in use should be kept to the best and favorites. Cheers for the help Lads 

[yotsuya]

I'm using a Hyperspin setup tat shows all games with themes.  It's a lot of games, but my guests get a kick out of it.

[n3wt0n]

You are a brave man Yots. That's a lot of Majong.

[yotsuya]

When I did my setup, there were 0 majong themes. So that wasn't an issue.

[smass]

I started with the full mame library and a half dozen console libraries as well.  Too much.  I have been using the aforementioned Badmouth's "All Killer, No Filler" lists to build out favorites lists. This works okay for me on Maximus, which is the first frontend I have fully configured.  I am experimenting with Mala, Gameex, and Hyperspin, so depending on which one I settle on I may cut the lists down even more and go with a top 100 list for mame, and top 20 lists for Nintendo and genesis, and nix all the other emulators.  If I did this I would probably group the games by genre and pull all the un-used roms out of my main rom folder and archive elsewhere so they could easily be pulled back in if I had a guest that wanted to play something specific. 

I think your choice of front-end may influence how you go about organizing things.  But I have learned that less is more with game lists.  Even for myself, the temptation to scroll through a huge list for 10-15 minutes is hard to break, and with guests its even more of an issue.  Too much of a good thing and all. 

[Jamesbeat]

I agree that too many games just makes the system difficult to use, but on the other hand, there are many games that you might not even know about yet that you will really like.

I have a full set on my raspberry pi based system, but that uses 0.37b5, so there are only(!) Just over 2000 games.

If I didn't have a full set, I would never have discovered a few games which have become favorites.

I'm putting together a more conventional PC-based system, and it will be using a more up to date version of mame with a lot more roms.
I'm unsure how best to approach this, because I want the fullest selection possible, but at the same time I don't want to have 2000 versions of Mah Jong.

There are pieces of software that allow you to remove/hide certain types of game, so I'm going to look more into that.
My main concern is getting rid of the adult games because I don't want my five year old daughter discovering them by accident...

Maybe a similar tool could be used to get rid of other game types  (like the aforementioned manifold iterations of Mah Jong)?

[haynor666]

The best way is too run MAMEUI and browse full list of working games. List will have about 11000 sets but most of them are just clones of existing games not too mention that many of them are fruits/gambling. Whole process might take 3 hours but at least You will see all games.
Just pay attention that some working games are clones while main sets are not working for example Alligator Hunt.

[artyfarty]

I use Attract Mode, which lets you have multiple lists, and easily switch between them. I have an "All MAME" list, plus lists I have found discussed here "Golden Age", "Top 200", "2 Player". And a "Favorites" that I can easily add to by finding a game in the All list and adding to Favorites, for when I'm asked if I have a specific game by a visitor. I'm experimenting with lists for console games, but there aren't very many I actually want to play on the cabinet, so have a couple of extra entries in Favorites for those at the moment.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ghoolster]

Maybe a similar tool could be used to get rid of other game types  (like the aforementioned manifold iterations of Mah Jong)?

I would recommend MCM+

You just need to tell it where your mame.exe and a suitable .ini file then you can pick a catagory, list all the games in that catagory
then if you want to keep any roms in the list you can remove them. Then you send them to another list where all of the roms you dont
want can either be renamed (adds .mcm) of deleted...

This way your can get rid of a lot of stuff you wont want, eg mah jong or the fruit machines (most which dont work anyway) or even adult
material. MCM+ even has a adult filter.

Also you can use it to get rid of all the stuff that has been added by the MAME - MESS merger. 

[NOP]

IMO, the best way to reduce your overall list is to simply remove the games you don't have the hardware support for.
No steering wheel on your cab? Dump any game with steering controls.  No light gun or spinner? ditto.  Only have 3 buttons?  Dump anything with more than that.

This is of course where I naturally plug the tool written to help do that- romlister!
https://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

I also just yesterday added support for Attract Mode, and I need some volunteers to test it.

Use this version if you are willing to try creating an attract mode list
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/RomLister313.zip

[yotsuya]

I would say 95% of the time I'm in my game room, I'm playing my dedicated game. The Mame cabinet is really for my guests. And honestly, they enjoy scrolling through the menus looking at the different games. So I enjoy having longer lists, that's because those games are not for me.

[GSXRMovistar]

Similar to the above my cocktail cab is more of an encyclopaedia of games so I have everything on it (except Mahjong games), family/guests seem to enjoy looking up games they remember from childhood so it's good to have the big lists/media.

Anything I play often is just added to the favourites menu for quick access.

The current cab I'm building for my daughter will be streamlined and I will only be putting on those games which I know she will enjoy (there will probably still be hundreds on there).

[yotsuya]

Similar to the above my cocktail cab is more of an encyclopaedia of games so I have everything on it (except Mahjong games), family/guests seem to enjoy looking up games they remember from childhood so it's good to have the big lists/media.

Anything I play often is just added to the favourites menu for quick access.

The current cab I'm building for my daughter will be streamlined and I will only be putting on those games which I know she will enjoy (there will probably still be hundreds on there).

Exactly.  I like that phrase. My MAME cab is also an "encyclopedia of games", mainly for guests.

[pbj]

Nobody has ever asked for a game that wasn't on the CoinOps list once ever.  I think that's a reasonable starting point.

[MaseMan]

I like Maximus Arcade's "Favorites" lists for this reason. I can have all the roms I want, but keep the good ones in the "Favorites" list.

[leapinlew]

All roms for all emulators is the only way to go.

Anyone who has less than 10,000 games on their machine is screwing up!

[jimmer]

IMO, the best way to reduce your overall list is to simply remove the games you don't have the hardware support for.
No steering wheel on your cab? Dump any game with steering controls.  No light gun or spinner? ditto.  Only have 3 buttons?  Dump anything with more than that.

This is of course where I naturally plug the tool written to help do that- romlister!
https://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

I also just yesterday added support for Attract Mode, and I need some volunteers to test it.

Use this version if you are willing to try creating an attract mode list
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/RomLister313.zip

I will take a look. I've used ROMlister before and I use attract mode and I'm just thinking about how to make a universal set up that either copes or can be tailored to various different cabinets.

I use attractmode because I like the live filtering. But I may have to resort to lists.  eg I don't want Streetfighter to be on the gameslist when I'm using my Robotron+2buttons panel.

[jimmer]

I like Maximus Arcade's "Favorites" lists for this reason. I can have all the roms I want, but keep the good ones in the "Favorites" list.

AttractMode is very flexible. As well as a built in favorites set, you can define your own sets (using the tag option) and the sets are easy to create/manipulate as they are plain text lists. These can then be used in filters to create the onscreen games lists.

This is the sort of approach that works well with an external filtering program like ROMlister.

It's kind of the opposite approach to live filtering which is what attracted me to AtrtactMode, but gives maximum flexibility.

[MaseMan]

I like Maximus Arcade's "Favorites" lists for this reason. I can have all the roms I want, but keep the good ones in the "Favorites" list.

AttractMode is very flexible. As well as a built in favorites set, you can define your own sets (using the tag option) and the sets are easy to create/manipulate as they are plain text lists. These can then be used in filters to create the onscreen games lists.

This is the sort of approach that works well with an external filtering program like ROMlister.

It's kind of the opposite approach to live filtering which is what attracted me to AtrtactMode, but gives maximum flexibility.

I didn't know Maximus Arcade has an attract mode. I'll have to check it out later.

[Slippyblade]

No, there is a front end CALLED "Attract Mode".

[MaseMan]

No, there is a front end CALLED "Attract Mode".

Oh OK. That makes more sense! Thanks.

[danny_galaga]

For my cocktail cab, I started with some downloaded package of say 600 games. Then whittled away the worthless ones, and just kept adding the best games one by one as I thought of them or people asked about it. It's how I have Xain'd Sleena, never heard of it until someone asked me. My cab now consists of 187 games.
As PL1 says, how much coal do you want to shovel?

[Rob_Lo]

I think with MAME it not even a question of whether you have to pare it down...it's a must.

With some of the obscure consoles and ones with smaller sets, like SMS and TG16, it's perfectly fine to have a full romset IMO.

And novelties like Colecovision is always cool to have the whole set.

I guess it depends on your frontend as well...with Hyperspin a lot of it is eyecandy, so having complete wheel art kind of encourages me to keep full sets in.

[ark_ader]

I now have most of the systems that i want running fine software wise and I'm in the process of building my coffee table arcade cabinet Just wondered what the people on here thought about what ROMS to add.

Take the C64 or even Mame they both have great games but they also have quite a few stinkers. Storage space is not really a issue as I have plenty within my cabinet but do you think it is best to have say the top/best games for each system to sort of showcase them and maybe a few guilty pleasures that you remember playing or is it best to have them all the bad and the good to be more of a completionist.

Any thoughts? 

Are these roms you bought or ripped from boards you own?

[Nutty Boy]

I just mentioned Mame as a example. Might look into using it later so will look into the legal side of that. At the minute my setup is just a emulator setup 8Bit and 16Bit. All the games I have setup are ones i own a physical copy of. Reliving my youth so most of that was Amiga and C64 etc. Not many Arcades round my way when i was a kid but my mate has 8 full sized arcade machines and a massive set of main boards so might have a word with him about it.

[Rob_Lo]

I keep a shameless list of c64 cheez in my setup.

[leapinlew]

The funny thing is, we just had this discussion and was accused of squashing ideas and being part of an inner-circle of bitter old men. We even had someone leave over it - and took all his pictures. 

I think most folks will want a pared down list as there are just too many games. Yes, you'll lose some quality games but if it's your arcade and if you never played the game, what of it? Most of us started with the idea of building 1 arcade to do everything, like a swiss army knife. And like a swiss army knife, it's not good at anything. Many people start to specialize their machine to customize their taste and for many people that means putting on games that you know.

Other people will want to keep whole genres, systems, etc. You're the best person to answer the question "What roms and/or systems". I think the only hard and fast rule I would stick with is, you should definitely remove all games that won't play on your machine because you don't have the controls for it. Optionally, I would then remove genres like Majong, fruit machine, etc. Personally, I'd get rid of Playchoice 10 for sure - I hate that.

[Nutty Boy]

As the cabinet I'm building is mostly for me and my mates who I grew up with i will build my setup to play our favourites. I think the earlier answers were right best to keep the lists small. Even though its a cabinet its like when you buy a console  or computer you get the games you like. I can test other games on the emulators on my laptop and if I come across something I really like stick it on the cab.

[yotsuya]

The funny thing is, we just had this discussion and was accused of squashing ideas and being part of an inner-circle of bitter old men. We even had someone leave over it - and took all his pictures.

That was a perfect illustration of why you should never drink and BYOAC.

[danny_galaga]

I now have most of the systems that i want running fine software wise and I'm in the process of building my coffee table arcade cabinet Just wondered what the people on here thought about what ROMS to add.

Take the C64 or even Mame they both have great games but they also have quite a few stinkers. Storage space is not really a issue as I have plenty within my cabinet but do you think it is best to have say the top/best games for each system to sort of showcase them and maybe a few guilty pleasures that you remember playing or is it best to have them all the bad and the good to be more of a completionist.

Any thoughts? 

Are these roms you bought or ripped from boards you own?

 

[Nutty Boy]

I just mentioned Mame as a example. Might look into using it later so will look into the legal side of that. At the minute my setup is just a emulator setup 8Bit and 16Bit. All the games I have setup are ones i own a physical copy of. Reliving my youth so most of that was Amiga and C64 etc. Not many Arcades round my way when i was a kid but my mate has 8 full sized arcade machines and a massive set of main boards so might have a word with him about it.

Alright  danny_galaga already answered that earlier on mate. 

[SpatzST]

i have them all added because sometimes you just run into some random game that ends up being funny/unique/etc. 

all my "diamonds" i have saved in a favorites list in hyperspin so i can just check it to play the good games otherwise i find it interesting to see all of whats out there. you never know

[Automark]

With my first cab i wanted to have everything, but with my current mame cab i found out that i only play around 20, 30 games. So i triugh out all the crap.
Also not nice to find a game if you have to scroll trough 1000 menus and wheels. (And explain it to friends )

[haynor666]

i have them all added because sometimes you just run into some random game that ends up being funny/unique/etc. 

all my "diamonds" i have saved in a favorites list in hyperspin so i can just check it to play the good games otherwise i find it interesting to see all of whats out there. you never know

From almost 2000 games on my list plenty are barely played but just like You from time to time a pick game and give it a try. That's why the best way is to browse all playable games and create list with all potential titles what You might wan't to play some day.