Successor to SortInfo.exe ?

[spystyle]

Here's a n00b question, but I'm not so familiar with the software aspects of MAME, just building cabs ...

I use SortInfo.exe to sort my roms, but it's pretty inaccurate, what do you fellas recommend as it's successor?

Thanks,
Craig

[SirPoonga]

Inaccurate as in how?

[screaming]

Here's a n00b question, but I'm not so familiar with the software aspects of MAME, just building cabs ...

I use SortInfo.exe to sort my roms, but it's pretty inaccurate, what do you fellas recommend as it's successor?

Thanks,
Craig
http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com

  Unfortunately, Sortinfo is only as accurate as MAME is. There's not much you can do, really, except talk to the MAME devs.

-Steve

[SirPoonga]

What screaming sai, I was just trying to see what you thought was inaccurate.

[spystyle]

Inaccurate as in how?

I built a 3 button cab and sortinfo identified a bunch of 3 button games as 4 button games, and it identifies Mappy as an 8-way game, ect.

[SirPoonga]

yeah, that's coming from mame.  What many of the driver programmers did was create a button macro that covered all the games in the driver.  Soa  3 button game will have 4 buttons defined because it is using the same macro as the rest of the games in the driver, one being a 4 button game.

Then there is the issue of some controls aren't right, like 2way joys and dotron having a "trackball".  Many many other examples.  This is why the controls.dat project started.

[southpaw13]

There is always going to be mistakes.  The sad story is that sortinfo doesn't work after Mame 76.  If anyone knows a fix, PLEASE post it!

[jerryjanis]

There is always going to be mistakes.  The sad story is that sortinfo doesn't work after Mame 76.  If anyone knows a fix, PLEASE post it!

What is the problem?  I didn't notice any problem running it on version 82.1.  (using Wine under Linux if it matters - I don't imagine that it would make it work better).  I use it to generate my little database searching tool:
Here it is

[JoyMonkey]

SortInfo didn't like a lot of the recent Mame releases. I'm not sure why.
For example, it wouldn't work with .81, but it worked fine with .83.

But since the -listinfo command has been permanently removed from all future builds of Mame (from .84 onward), SortInfo will never work directly with a Mame executable again.
I haven't tried using the Xml2info utility, so I'm not sure how good the listinfo it produces is, or if SortInfo likes it.

[spystyle]

*bump*

Is there a successor to sortinfo.exe yet?

Also, is there a way to make it work with MAME versions beyond .84?

Thanks,
Craig

[JoyMonkey]

I haven't had any problems with .84 or above - converting the listxml to the old listinfo format with xml2info does do the trick.
I think Screaming did put together a utility with the same (if not better) functionality as SortInfo that works directly with the newer Mame versions. I can't remember what it's called or where to get it right now. Must search...


Edit: Here's Screaming's ListGen thread I was thinking of:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=36762.msg335037#msg335037

[spystyle]

Thank you

[spystyle]

OK, I got SortInfo to work with the new versions of MAME

MAME 0.141

Here is the bat file :

(mame executable) -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info2 < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt

So you need the file "xml2info2.exe"

example 1 :

MameUI32 -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info2 < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt

example 2 :

MAMEpp -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info2 < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt

example 3 :

MAME -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info2 < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt

example 4 :

MAME64 -listxml > gamelist.xml
xml2info2 < gamelist.xml > gamelist.txt

So I guess we can continue to use Sortinfo forever ?

Cheers!
Craig