MAME is kicking my @ss

[Zoomie]

 

All right, I have nearly exceeded my monthly 1TB download cap trying to download everything required to run MAME with a Hyperspin FE.
I'm hoping someone very familiar with the process can either provide a helpful and current link or can debug my attempts to set up my system.  I'm okay keeping the machine on an older version if monthly updates are a pain, but I'd prefer to keep up with the latest release version if it's not too much trouble.

I understand that MAME is very picky with versions.
I downloaded the latest version of MAME (1.94b 64-bit), a set of ROMs (1.85 split), and ROM updates all the way up to the latest version.  I'm not sure I understand how to use the updates - I extracted the zips into the ROM directory but the system wanted to overwrite fairly sizeable files with very small replacements.  It didn't seem right to me and made me wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

I plan to use Hyperspin.  I had some success installing it, updating, and configuring Rocketlauncher. (I used this guide)

I understand what CHD files are but I haven't found a good way of updating them to the latest version.  My download is at 200 gigs of 446 gigs for the 1.85 set. 
I also downloaded a 1.85 set of video clips and extras to use in Hyperspin.  I don't know how to update those to the latest version either.  My video previews had sound but no video in Hyperspin - could it be a version issue?

From what I can see the ROMS, CHD, and Videos/Extras will total under 1TB.  I also plan to also run modern games like DBZ Fighterz, so I'm hoping a 2TB drive will be sufficient for everything I want.

[Vigo]

Don't extract the roms. Each rom should be left in a zip or 7z format in the roms directory.

[Zoomie]

I'll be explicit so there's no confusion.

The updates are large zip files containing a compressed zip file for each game.  When I extract an update (ie 1.86-1.87) into the ROM folder it tries to replace the existing zip files with the ones from the update.  I'm not unpacking individual game files, simply letting it overwrite the existing zip in the folder.

The problem is that it looked like it was replacing 17mb files with like 170kb files...  which made me question if I was doing it correctly.

[Vigo]

Gotcha, yeah, I recommend using clrMAMEpro to update and audit your romset for you. there are plenty of tutorials on how to use. It will get your romset accurate.

[Zoomie]

I will look into it.  Thank you.

[JDFan]

I'll be explicit so there's no confusion.

The updates are large zip files containing a compressed zip file for each game.  When I extract an update (ie 1.86-1.87) into the ROM folder it tries to replace the existing zip files with the ones from the update.  I'm not unpacking individual game files, simply letting it overwrite the existing zip in the folder.

The problem is that it looked like it was replacing 17mb files with like 170kb files...  which made me question if I was doing it correctly.

You dont want to extract the update over your existing roms -- the update zips will only contain the files in them that have been updated - so it might only be a single file out of the entire zip and overwriting will replace the old zip that could contain several files with that new zip that has only the 1 file that changed - breaking that game since you no longer have the rest of the files inside the zip.

You need to use something like clearmamepro like Vigo suggested that will open each zip file and append/rep[lace the single file within the zip that changed without deleting the rest of the zip file.

ie. if the zip for a game1 has file1, file2, file3 and file4 and only file4 is changed in an update overwriting like you mention doing would replace game1.zip with the 4 files with the updates game1.zip with just file4. so the game1 would no longer work since you just deleted file1,file2 and file3.

YOu want to use a program that will open game1.zip and replace the old file4 with the updated file4 leaving the old file1, file2, and file3 - which is what clrmamepro will do.

[Zoomie]

There we go.  This is what I suspected was happening and it didn't make sense to just replace the zip files given the relative sizes of the old and new versions.

It's a bit different than update files I've used before.  Typically you just put an update in the existing folder and overwrite.  Given the rather large number of zip files involved it seemed a bit crazy to me to have to go into each and every one to overwrite specific files.  Now it makes sense if there's a program that will do it for you, especially if means the update is only the files required rather than the whole game each time.

clearmamepro appends the existing zips with my update files, problem solved.  Thanks much!

[gildahl]

I gave up doing wholesale updates of mame some time ago.  While the theory of keeping everything "up-to-date" is nice, in the world of mame it is just as likely that an update will break something as it will improve something.  It was quite frustrating to discover months after an update that a game that used to work was no longer working and having no easy recourse in fixing it.  You could just never tell what just broke after an update.

The remedy, I found, was in standardizing on a build (mine is 0.146) for the majority of games, and keeping one or two newer versions of mame in parallel folders for the relatively small handful of games that *I know* have been recently added or improved (a script manages what version of mame is used based on the roms in its \rom folder).  Yeah, I might need a new or updated rom from time-to-time doing it this way, but I find it easier to just grab those individually on a case-by-case basis than to manage huge romsets with what mostly amount to refactoring and housekeeping changes.

[fallacy]

you don't really need to update mame and more importantly the rom sets that work with that version. I am still using version 130 from 2009 because I was able to torrent the entire 7000 something rom set and create my games list from that. There would be no difference playing the games that works in that version to the same games that work in the newest version. With newer versions they will add compatibility to other games 99% of them you don't want anyway.

[Osirus23]

Just get a setup working with one version of MAME with the appropriate romset and leave it be. It isn't worth the headache trying to patch new ROMs or using crap like clrMamePro.

[keilmillerjr]

You can update romset using torrent checking.