updating mame....will i lose my high scores?

[hulkster]

im using mame32 and its version .71 so obviously its old.  i want to update to version .84.2 but im worried that my highscores will go away.  i have the hiscore.dat file, but will that mess up when i update my mame32?  if so, is there a way to save the highscores and then paste them in the new file or something?

[SirPeale]

The hiscore.dat file only tells Mame where the hiscore info is in each ROMset.  Scores are saved in the nvram folder.  It's a crapshoot whether or not the scores will be saved correctly or not.  Some may, some won't.  Since you're going with a huge revision change, likely the answer is no.

[hulkster]

okay, i started thinking about it, and if i do an upgrade from .71 to .84 of mame....and i want to update the roms as well....will i have to install the updates starting at like v.71 to .72, then from .72 to .73, etc....going all the way until i get up to .84??  or can i just update the roms that are designed for .83 to .84?  

[screaming]

okay, i started thinking about it, and if i do an upgrade from .71 to .84 of mame....and i want to update the roms as well....will i have to install the updates starting at like v.71 to .72, then from .72 to .73, etc....going all the way until i get up to .84??  or can i just update the roms that are designed for .83 to .84?  

  You would have to update your ROMs incrementally.  It's huge hassle and it's pretty time consuming, which is why most people don't do it unless they have to

-Steve

[hulkster]

well i am running mame32 v.71 but i have a complete rom set for v .80.  yeah i know, but i didnt realize i had an old version of mame until i got the roms.  anyway, i guess i could just update mam32 to the newewst version, then install the rom updates for .80 to .81, .81 to .82, etc.....up to .84.  right???

[SirPeale]

 You would have to update your ROMs incrementally.  It's huge hassle and it's pretty time consuming, which is why most people don't do it unless they have to

Who told you that bologna?  You can certainly jump to any revision you want.  ClrMAME will sort everything out, and let you know what you're missing.

[hulkster]

well i have the rom updates for .81 to .82, .82 to .83, etc.  my question was will i have to update the first, then the second, or can i just do this...

i have v .80 roms....i will use the .83 to .84 rom update to go to the latest version.  will that work?

[SirPeale]

If you have them on seperate CDs (or DVDs) ClrMAME can just pull what it needs from them.  Just put the CD path as an addpath.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Pardon my ignorance, but I've never really understood the complexities of updating ROMS sets.

I've got a full .79 set, with updates stepping .79-.80, .80-.81, etc... Can't you just dump the .80 roms in the rom directory, then the .81 and so on? Doesn't this copy over old roms and add any new ones? Am I missing something?

Then wouldn't you use ClrMAME to just doublecheck?

I guess I'm confused by the word 'installing', it's making it sound very complex.

[SirPeale]

With updates that are *just* the changed ROMs, if you dump those in you will overwrite the existing set that's in there.  Which is really bad if it's an 80M set that only needs a 500k update file.

What ClrMAME does is look in the addpaths for these updates, pulls what it needs out and inserts it into the ROMset.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

So a ROM update set only features the updated <b>parts</b> of the roms?

Is there a site that clearly explains the clone/merged/split issue?

I thought it was a one-for-one swap, ie: whatever.zip (v.83) replaces whatever.zip (v.79). I hadn't compared filesizes yet, so that may have been a dead give away.

[Paul Olson]

The best way is to rebuild the roms.  Set your roms folder as the destination folder, and the folder containing the updates as the source folder.

Paul