HOW TO MAKE AN OLDER ROMSET USING CLRMAME PRO AND/OR YOUR COMMAND PROMPT

[menace]

Download clrmame pro from www.clrmame.com and install,

Download older mame program from www.mame.net/oldmame.html and install, preserving directory structure

Step 1 Creating a DAT file

You can either use clrmame pro or your command prompt

Using clrmame:

In filename box, Locate your mame program and hit

[Jakobud]

This won't always work... if a rom dump itself actually changes from version to version then CMPro usually can't change it back because the old file is just a completely different file of different size with information added or removed that the dats just don't document.

By the way, you can download all the dats you will ever need from here:

http://www.logiqx.com/

He has perfect dats from all Mame versions (+ supplemental dats for all versions) available for download.

PS - wrong forum  

[Grasshopper]

Thanks for that useful info. Unfortunately the clrmamepro link doesn't work.

Is it possible to take a partially complete older set of ROMs and somehow get clrmame to fill in the gaps from a newer ROM set?

I've got a set of CDs for MAME 0.37 but one of the CDs is partially corrupted and not all the ROMs can be copied.

I've got a set of MAME 0.85 ROMs but I'd still like to repair my 0.37 set so I can use it on slower machines.

Thanks in advance.

[Jakobud]

Thanks for that useful info. Unfortunately the clrmamepro link doesn't work.

Is it possible to take a partially complete older set of ROMs and somehow get clrmame to fill in the gaps from a newer ROM set?

I've got a set of CDs for MAME 0.37 but one of the CDs is partially corrupted and not all the ROMs can be copied.

I've got a set of MAME 0.85 ROMs but I'd still like to repair my 0.37 set so I can use it on slower machines.

Thanks in advance.

He got the website wrong.  Its here: http://www.clrmame.com/

Regarding your 0.85 -> 0.37 question, you can try doing a rebuild, and I am willing to bet that it will be able to rebuild probably 50% of what you need.  But like I said before, it can't rebuild everything.  

[Martoon]

Thanks for that useful info. Unfortunately the clrmamepro link doesn't work.

Is it possible to take a partially complete older set of ROMs and somehow get clrmame to fill in the gaps from a newer ROM set?

I've got a set of CDs for MAME 0.37 but one of the CDs is partially corrupted and not all the ROMs can be copied.

I've got a set of MAME 0.85 ROMs but I'd still like to repair my 0.37 set so I can use it on slower machines.

Thanks in advance.

Use a 0.37 dat file.  Set the directories containing your existing and/or partial romsets (and anything else you think may contain some of the files) as source directories, and an empty directory as your roms directory, and tell ClrMamePro to rebuild.  It will go through all the source directories you gave it, and use any files it finds to build the output directory.  If you have the files it needs for any particular romset, it will find them.

[JoyMonkey]

Regarding your 0.85 -> 0.37 question, you can try doing a rebuild, and I am willing to bet that it will be able to rebuild probably 50% of what you need.  But like I said before, it can't rebuild everything.  

Some time ago there were a bunch of 'rollback' sets available that only included roms that changed between two Mame versions, so it let you 'rollback' to a previous version. I have no idea if these are available anywhere, even if they were I probably couldn't mention it here.

[MoonDog]

sounds like a rollback set would be quite handy.  guess i'll have to do some looking around at some point since i'll probably want to run an older version as well.

[menace]

I rolled back .72 -> .37b12 and .72 -> .55 and had very good results--a few errors but they were in the original set and games I never played anyways.  Now if i could get a snap set rolled back...

[allroy1975]

I Have no flippin idea how to use clrmame.  I have an old rom set, and got a differential from like .62 to .81 or something like that and I can't for the life of me figure out how to merge them.  I posted a question in the appropriate forum once, and everyone was just like "go in and do it" no one was willing to give my dumb ass step by step instructions...so...I'm still running the roms for .62.  w00t!

I'm stuck there.  If anyone wanted to walk my dumb ass through it, I'd be more than greatful.

Thanks


Allroy

[Chemixtry]

I Have no flippin idea how to use clrmame.  I have an old rom set, and got a differential from like .62 to .81 or something like that and I can't for the life of me figure out how to merge them.  I posted a question in the appropriate forum once, and everyone was just like "go in and do it" no one was willing to give my dumb ass step by step instructions...so...I'm still running the roms for .62.  w00t!

I'm stuck there.  If anyone wanted to walk my dumb ass through it, I'd be more than greatful.

Thanks


Allroy

Excellenct source for clrmame pro:
http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/

or

http://www.geocities.com/dougburton/clrmamepro.html

[quarterback]

I wish I had found this post earlier, it would have saved me a hour or 2 of googling and work to roll back my .88 mame to .55

The easyemu page is alright, but doesn't explain that CLRMame might not work and you should try the command line way of getting your .dat file (mame -listinfo > mame055.dat) so when CLRmame wouldn't generate a .dat file for me, I was stumped and thought something else must be wrong with my files.

Also, I looked at all the 'dat file' webpages I could find and couldn't make heads nor tails of any of them, including: