Split, Merged and non merged...which one do I need?

[CXK]

I'm looking to update my rom set. I assume moving to a newer version of MAME will help some games run better since I'm running games from .139 currently.

I've always just used one zip file per rom. mk2.zip and thats all I needed. I'd like to continue that way since its easy. Would that method be split or merged? or something else? lol Thanks

[TheElectricMonk]

This link might be helpful:
https://choccyhobnob.com/mame/demystifying-mame-roms/

[JDFan]

I'm looking to update my rom set. I assume moving to a newer version of MAME will help some games run better since I'm running games from .139 currently.

I've always just used one zip file per rom. mk2.zip and thats all I needed. I'd like to continue that way since its easy. Would that method be split or merged? or something else? lol Thanks

Some will run better some worse - depending on the computer system you are using since newer mame versions require higher levels of performance even on older roms due to new shaders etc. that have been refined - so depending on the games you play and the system you play on - performance may be better or may be worse with a newer mame version.


That would be non merged !  WIth the non merged each zip has the entire game inside each zip file so you can delete any without effecting others ( ie. if you delete a parent rom the child roms can still be played since their zip file contains a copy of all the files from the parent that they need.) That method takes up the most HDD space for storage since each game has a copy of all the files they need packed inside the zip file ( so if there are 20 child roms of a certain parent game you will have 20 copies of some of the same files so it takes more space - but is much more convenient if you plan on going through and deleting some games since deleting 1 does not cause the 20 others to stop working also !)

[CXK]

Thank you for clearing it up! I think I'll hold off then. Everything I really want to play works, only a few games I kind of cared about didn't work. The PC I'm running it on is almost 15 years old. Its an AMD 4200+ with 2gb of ram so I don't want to push it too hard.

[Ninjadog]

There's no difference in content. There are the same number of games.

The difference is that for the fully merged set, each game will have all of the ROMs (parent ROMs for the 'main' game, clone ROMs for all the various revisions/regions, and common ROM files that all of them rely on) in one archive (.zip or .7z) instead of several different archives.

In a fully split set, you'd have the ROMs required for the main Street Fighter Alpha 3 in one archive (sfa3.7z), but then you would also have several different .7z archives containing all of the ROMs required for the other versions of that game (sfa3b, sfa3h, sfa3u, sfa3ud, sfa3ur1, etc.).

It really is down to personal preference.