MAMEUI32, GameEx, and rom lists question

[Bonecollektor]

I'm running mameui32 ver 1.46 (i think) and the latest version of GameEx. My question is, I have a TON of games (1000+) for mame but not all of them work. I'm still trying to figure out auditing and clrmamepro but, my question is this: how do i get GameEx to only show the working roms?
When i run mameui32 i can filter out everything but the working roms and they all seem to play just fine but, when i update the list in GameEx it still shows a lot of the non-working roms. Other than taking the "working" list and using it to go into my roms folder and manually removing everything except the known working files.
Is there an easier way???

[nullPointer]

Hi Bonecollektor

You might have a greater number of responses to your question over on the GameEx forums, but as it happens I know a thing or two about GameEx.   

In the Setup Wizard on the MAME Settings screen (it's actually under the Advance MAME Settings section) you'll find a field called Only Working Games.  You'll want to set that to Yes.  Additionally you'll find fields called Only Existing ROMs and Allow Imperfect Games.  The 'Existing' setting you'll probably want to set to Yes, and the 'Imperfect' thing is up to your discretion.

It probably goes without saying, but for any of the above to function properly you'll want to be sure that the version of your ROM set is a match to your version of MAME.

[Bonecollektor]

Hi Bonecollektor

You might have a greater number of responses to your question over on the GameEx forums, but as it happens I know a thing or two about GameEx.   

In the Setup Wizard on the MAME Settings screen (it's actually under the Advance MAME Settings section) you'll find a field called Only Working Games.  You'll want to set that to Yes.  Additionally you'll find fields called Only Existing ROMs and Allow Imperfect Games.  The 'Existing' setting you'll probably want to set to Yes, and the 'Imperfect' thing is up to your discretion.

It probably goes without saying, but for any of the above to function properly you'll want to be sure that the version of your ROM set is a match to your version of MAME.

I've set those options but, it still has issues. Something else thats weird, i used RomCenter to check out the roms and found out that even some of the "green" working roms would fail to load. Ever seen this before?

[ppv]

I've set those options but, it still has issues. Something else thats weird, i used RomCenter to check out the roms and found out that even some of the "green" working roms would fail to load. Ever seen this before?

Should not happen with RomCenter as it is supposed to check for that, but check if the rom needs a bios file.

I also had a couple of cases were romcenter corrupted my roms... audit the non working ones with mame32ui also...

[nullPointer]

Yeah I'm more familiar with ClrMamePro than I am with RomCenter.  Does it show missing ROMs in your set?  Do the non-functional games require a CHD?  A driver status of working will naturally be different than "functionally working" if the ROMs themselves have issues (but again I'm not familiar with the nuances of how RomCenter presents the results of an audit). 

The other thing you can do in GameEx is turn on Verify ROMs.  That may or may not have an impact but it's worth a shot.  Also be sure you rebuild your MAME list in GameEx any time you're making changes to your MAME config through the Setup Wizard (you'll find this selection at the bottom of your MAME category list screen assuming that the selection is setup to display).

[Bonecollektor]

Ok, so I followed the tutorial for RomCenter to a tee and things seemed to be going well. They have an option to remove unnecessary files and bad roms. WooHoo...right? Wrong. Oh it deleted the bad roms along with whatever else it wanted to and even made some of my "green" working games unplayable. I had to go into my recylce bin and restore a bunch of crap to get them working again. Ugh.

I've tried the clrmamepro as well and don't see any differences with it either. I have all the filters set to only show good roms etc...but there are still games that fail to load.

I make sure to update my list every time I make a change outside of GameEx.

I'm still very new to this and have been reading a ton of material but, I still dont have a firm grasp on all of it. So correct me if i'm wrong: if i have version X of mame then my roms need to be compatible with version X. Clrmamepro and romcenter check the roms by using the mame version X.exe as a source to compare and popluate a list of good, needs something, and broken categories. The ones that are green are supposed to be olayable with version X of mame. The yellow (needs something) can be changed by either tool and normally can be fixed. The red (broken files) areissing some sort of file to complete the set.

Correct? Or no?

And while we are on the topic, sets. One tutorial i followed told me to unmerge all my roms in order to run the scan. Is there any way to merge them back? Now i'm seeing all kinds of crap I don't need to see.

I just didnt want to go through the process of starting every game in my list to see if it actually works of if it needs deleted but, i'm running out of options.

Lastly, and I am not trying to post material i'm not supposed to but, if i have a rom that i got from website Y, how doni know if its compatible with my version of mame, emulator, etc...?

Sorry for all the questions.

[Dawgz Rule]

1.  Make sure your ROMS match your Mame version.
2.  All of your ROMS can be dumped to one folder.  (Recommend using the default folder)
3.  Verify your gameex settings per previous poster.
4.  Dump the gamelist file (I think it is gamelist.txt) in the gameex folder.
5.  Restart gameex. 

It will recreate the gamelist based on your settings.  Should be good to go. 

[Bonecollektor]

1.  Make sure your ROMS match your Mame version.
2.  All of your ROMS can be dumped to one folder.  (Recommend using the default folder)
3.  Verify your gameex settings per previous poster.
4.  Dump the gamelist file (I think it is gamelist.txt) in the gameex folder.
5.  Restart gameex. 

It will recreate the gamelist based on your settings.  Should be good to go.

1. Not sure how else to do this except use clrmamepro or rom center
2. Roms are all in one folder
3. Settings verified
4. Do you mean let mame generate the game list?
5. Every time I make a change i restart gameEx.

Normally i let GameEx generate the list and do an "update list" within GameEx.

[Dawgz Rule]

Do you mean let mame generate the game list?

No, the gameex list of games that is displayed is stored in a text file in the gameex folder.  I believe the name of it is gamelist.txt. 

I have seen a bug in gameex where the update list option doesn't work correctly.  The workaround is to delete the gamelist.txt file.  When you do this and restart gameex, it will build a new game list based on the parameters you set up in the mame advanced settings.   

[Bonecollektor]

Oh ok, i see what you're saying. I'll give that a try. Most of the other tutorials always reference a "listinfo.dat" file that needed to be deleted but that never seemed to help. I'll give your idea a try. Thanks foe the reply. I'll keep you posted.

[Dawgz Rule]

Good luck.  Not exactly sure why it happens and didn't really pursue it when I was fine tuning my front end.   Just saw some issues from time to time and deleting that file always seemed to fix it by forcing it to compile a new game list.

In regards to your ROM questions, don't know.  When I initially set up my cab I got a full set that matched the mame version I am running and just stuck with it.