So how often do the ROMs themselves get updated?

[javeryh]

I'm running MAME .113 but my romset is .87 - a lot of games get to a loading screen with a percentage and then go back to the front end unable to load.  Is this typical?  Is it finally time to update my romset?

[SGT]

Is it finally time to update my romset?

Yep, the roms are constantly being updated.

[rockin_rick]

You could have either changed roms, or more likely, roms added that you don't have.  Such things like color proms were sometimes not originally dumped and emulated, only eproms.  But later in time, someone somewhere realized that color proms could be used and they got dumped.

Perhaps you could do a audit of your roms?  I remember some program (CMP or MAME32) giving a report of each and every rom needed for a set, and how your roms measure up.

Rick

[javeryh]

This is happening with a TON of games I've tried and I'm not even through the "A's" yet.  Apparently, there is no version of Asteroids that works...  So I'd be better off using MAME .118 with romset .118?  Maybe I'll order the set...

[SGT]

You could have either changed roms, or more likely, roms added that you don't have. 

Unless you update your mame version often, I think you'd be surprised how often the roms actually change.   Those that don't follow it that closely just assume that the only time roms change are when new dumps become available.

That is why he has so many roms that no longer work.

[tetsu96]

Keep in mind also - it's not just new dumps in all cases - it's adding new ROMs, switching sets, renaming ROMs to more accurately reflect stuff, etc...  This doesn't happen with all ROMs in every release of course, but it does happen often enough that you should audit your set or use a tool like CMP before you go playing games on any version.

[Space Fractal]

Yep, only use that mame version, you have roms for.... If you update mame, update your roms as way, due they constaly many changes they have.

There are very big version jump from .87 to .113, so of course you need to updater your roms. You could even stick with your old mame version, if you do not have any problems like that.

[javeryh]

Thanks guys... that's what I thought.  I need to learn the inner workings of MAME or at least more than how to install it and launch a game.  I'm going to order the .118 romset and recompile MAME .118 for high scores and go from there.  I'd love to learn how to use the various tools like how to update a romset, learn what the heck a parent rom is, etc.

[u_rebelscum]

If you want to see how often (and when) a ROM set changes, look that game up at MAWS.  MAWS includes ROM set changes back until 0.53, but AFAIK does not include name changes.  For example, hard drivin' (harddriv) has:

data
     version added     .037b09
     last change(s)    .105u4 .077

Usually, there is more details on what the changes are in the "Additional information" section, but in this game it doesn't include info about the two ROM set changes.  OTOH, it does list that 0.62 and .076u1 added clones, which might have also included moving/renaming some ROM files into or out of the ROM set harddriv.zip, which AFAIK usually aren't included in the "last change(s)" stat.


And then there's software like ClrMamePro, which can tell exactly which files in which sets you are missing, as well as fix name changes, set changes, etc.  It can take two different version sets and try to reconstruct a third set (but can't make missing files magically).


In general, ROM set rarely change, and the ones that change most often are usually the ones that are still under major construction.  But going from 0.87 to 0.113 is 26 versions, not including the intermediate releases.  And with ~6000 games over two and a half years, "rare" can add up to many games.  Very simple example: let's assume 0.5% rom sets get changed each full version (or ~0.125% per minor version if usual 4 minors per full version).  0.5% of 6000 games is 30.  If we assume no games are changed more than once, and that no new games are added, 30 * 26 = 780, or 13%.  All assumptions, but might help illustrate what's going on.

[rockin_rick]

If you don't get new roms, then you should at least run CMP on your romset.  It finds roms that fit into a set by running a hash check on each rom, then comparing that hash to the expected hash for a specific rom.  If it finds a match, it renames the rom to the correct name and puts it in the correct set.  As mentioned, you may have (for some sets) all the roms, but they have been renamed.  So right now, mame thinks that they are wrong, but with a run of CMP, it will rename then as needed.

I'd just try to get a full set, though...

Rick

[cadis12]

Sorry if I missed this in the above posts but here is my question...
If I have a 0.117 romset is there some type of program to upgrade my set to .118?  Or do I just have to obtain the entire romset again?  I just can't keep up with the updates! 

[Circo]

Sorry if I missed this in the above posts but here is my question...
If I have a 0.117 romset is there some type of program to upgrade my set to .118?  Or do I just have to obtain the entire romset again?  I just can't keep up with the updates! 

All that you have to do is obtain the roms that have been added or changed since .117.  Use clrmamepro to update your existing set to .118 and then use the missing list to find what roms that you need to complete the set.

[fjl]

This is usually what I do to keep the old mame sets working with previous mame versions and still get the latest versions of the rom sets. For example lets say I want to update the rom set from 0.117 to 0.118.

First I have my existing 0.117 official roms on a folder separated from everything else. C:\roms

Then I have a folder with the old mame program like c:\mame32v117

I run the torrent to download the latest rom set and point it to download them to my official rom set directory(c:\roms). While its checking the files, it will say something like dkjr.zip has a bad check sum.
So what I do is move that bad zip file to c:\mame32v117\roms

What that does is makes it so that when I run mame version 0.117, it will first check its own ROM directory for the files before it checks the official directory of c:\mame\roms. So it will run the unchanged 0.117 roms before it runs the updated 0.118 roms located in the official roms directory. Of course you have to set mame to look for rom in both directories. But put c:\roms as the second directory/folder to check for roms.

I repeat this process for each rom file until finally each and every rom that is going to be updated for romset 0.118 is moved to the old mame's rom folder. As for mame version 0.118, I set it to look for roms in both its own rom directory and the official romset directory. The end result is that c:\roms will contain the latest romset 0.118 while c:\mame32v117\roms contains ONLY the 0.117 roms that where going to change to 0.118.

Not sure if that made sense to anyone but if it did and you know of a better way to do this then please speak out.

[Hoopz]

Why not just point your torrent to the existing rom set?  It then checks them first and you start about 96% on the download?  May not be as clean but its much easier.  Point, click, play....

[fjl]

Isn't that what I said or did I not make that clear?

But yeah, thats what I do. I point the new rom set to the existing rom set. That's why the roms that are to be updated get that bad check sum error. Those that do I move them to the previous mame versions rom folder.