help fully understanding rom functions and mame version changes

[aldub516]

Hey guys and thanks for the constant support. As i constantly nail down the final issues of my new cabinet, having a good working rom list is one of the last but most important things. And im running into some issues. im pretty well versed in this hobby and know more than the average, but id like some opinions and advice
A while back i obtained a FULL folder of mame .149 roms, chds, artwork etc. This was when i didnt really grasp the idea of rom naming and such to be an issue.. Anyways, the rom folder it self contains about 18,000 roms, (obviously split sets or clones, hacks, etc).. At the time again not understanding proper rom name changing, i downloaded a few update packs to update my roms to a more current mame version, and since i was stupid at the time, i basically just copied the new roms into my old roms folder assuming the new ones would replace the old named roms.. but apparently thats not how it works, as clrmamepro is made to take the info of the new roms and adjust the old roms accordingly for the new mame. That just left me with my original folder, plus some new roms just floating around in there. Ive begun dabbling with clr mame pro, but am still lost on a few things. So rather than ask for another walk through of clrmame, ill ask this. How many major changes have been added since mame .149, and if you were me, would u suggest saving all that time of updating my art, roms and chds? or should i just stick to 149 now? I dont know how many names change and such, so for all i know its a minor change. But as i said, assuming i have a complete collection of .149 files, should i just stick to that and save myself headaches? Or would you be encouraged to properly download/update all of that stuff. I have a paid membership to emumovies so i assume getting new artwork shouldnt be the biggest problem. So please, give me a little hardcore schooling on rom functions, their name changes per version updates, and anything else that would make this make more sense to me. I cant get a clean working complete rom list for the life of me, and only now realize it could be because im running a new version of mame, with 149 roms.

[haynor666]

Use clrmamepro to rescan all roms or get recent versions of missing roms.