Mame Set confusion

[BillytheGoat]

I believe I understand the difference between Non-Merged Mame Sets, Split Sets and Merged Sets.  Split sets seem to be the way to go.    What I'm not clear on is the difference between:

Full Pack: MAME ROMs v0.185 (split set) 59GB. The arcade ROM sets, devices and BIOSes.

and

0.185 Software List ROMs (split set) (54.3GB). Software for MAME home computer systems and games consoles.


Are both these files needed to complete a set or does the first include the second? 

[JDFan]

From the description I would think that the 1st set is arcade roms and second set is the consoles and home computer systems ( ie. atari 2600, Amiga,etc.)  roms. So if you want both the Mame arcade roms and also all of the various consoles and home computer system games then yes you'd need both - IF you just want the arcade versions of roms then you'd want the 1st set.

THough at this point 0.185 is getting old ( May 2017) -  current mame version is 0.200

[BillytheGoat]

I should rightfully be mocked for not knowing this or not having read whatever faqs I should have to find out, but while I've got you here... I've been using MAME primarily for arcade games and other emulators for other games, SNES.  Take SNES... Does Mame work as well running SNES roms as it does running arcade roms or am I better off using stand alone emulators for other formats (like SNES)?

I understand your point about .185.  I'm still new here and I'm not how far I can go discussing rom acquisition, but the way I'm going about it is I'll apply updates to the older build.  Speaking of which, can I just copy/paste the updates over the top of the older but complete set?   Does it matter if the complete set is split, merged, or non-merged?  I would think the updates would also have to be labeled, or it is assumed updates are split?

[Titchgamer]

Dont bother updating.
You have to rebuild the rom sets for each update.

I found it quicker just to download the latest version.

[JDFan]

Dont bother updating.
You have to rebuild the rom sets for each update.

I found it quicker just to download the latest version.

Even quicker if using a torrent to just download the new torrent  into the same folder and have it check the files - that way it will only download any files that have changed between downloads since you already have the ones that have not changed. (only problem there is if some are deleted from the new set they will remain in the folder but there are not very many deletions so it's not really a problem)