Okay...I'm a moron need RomCenter Help

[allroy1975]

Everyone talks about how any chimp can use RomCenter.  Well, I used it and now all my roms are horked.  Of course I backed them up, but it doesn't help me accomplish what I'm trying to do.  I've read tutorials (that mostly just point out what each function does) but never really tells me what to do.  I understand that it must be customizable, but I don't really care if my roms are merged or Split.  Here's my situation.  I have a complete set of .63 roms.  Great.  I got an update to .79.  So I have .63 and everything that was changed, added or updated between the 2.
 I can NOT figure out what to do, and since it's such a simple program I was hoping someone here could help me out.  I feel like I've done my research I've tried to accomplish it with existing documentation, and I've come to the conclustion that I'm just as smart as a box of rocks.

If you think about it, it's pretty amazing that I got a cab built at all.  

TIA

Allroy

[allroy1975]

oh...and I have no dats.  

[SirPeale]

Use ClrMAME.  Generate your own .dat file, and you will sit pretty.

[allroy1975]

Isn't clrMAME supposed to be harder to use?

Same thing with the tutorials there though.

Anyone know of a good document on how to do what I'm trying to do?  Or is it so simple (I'm so stupid) that you could just tell me what I'm supposed to do in 5-10 easy steps?  

I don't know if it's coming across right, but I feel like a total beaver asking this question because I don't really think I'm that stupid, I'm just not getting this for some reason....I'm expecting to get flamed but hoping someone can help me out.

Thanks....Sorry...Allroy

[housenm]

between 63 and 79 is a long way....
do you only have the updated roms from 78=>79 ??
Shouldn't matter though, romcenter should tell you which
roms you have and which you have not

[SirPeale]

Isn't clrMAME supposed to be harder to use?

I dunno...I've always used it.  It's not terribly hard.  Set up where your ROMs are kept, add a .dat file, scan the ROMs.  ClrMAME will tell you what's wrong with them, with the option to fix them separate.  You can even download the new ROMs, keep them in a separate folder, and select that folder as an 'add path.'  ClrMAME will go thru this folder and take what it needs to make a set(s) complete.

[allroy1975]

between 63 and 79 is a long way....
do you only have the updated roms from 78=>79 ??
Shouldn't matter though, romcenter should tell you which
roms you have and which you have not

no, I have everything between.  It's about 2gb of stuff.

Still hoping someone can make a quick walk through, but I'm gonna home and try messing around with it again tonight.  

Allroy

[allroy1975]

quick question - like I stated before - I don't care what kind of sets I run (or should I?).

Do I prefer Merged, Split or Non-Merged?

Thanks
Allroy

[SirPeale]

Go with split.

[allroy1975]

Go with split.

I didn't wait for the reply.  It seemed like Merged was smaller.  So I did that.

Why do you say Split?  just wondering.

Thanks
Allroy

[SirPeale]

Actually, IIRC merged is bigger.  It merges ROMs to make them all work, all the time.

Some it will make smaller, IE the Pac-Man ROMsets.  Merges the parents and clones together.

Some it will make larger, IE merge the Neo Geos BIOS ROMs to every Neo Geo game.

I'm not sure what the difference between split and non-merged is.