Goodmerge 7-Zip support for MaLa Front End

[elec3cdreams]

Hi,
I am a maniac of all System's roms, I collect all roms of a same Game different for a names, regions language ecc, so I have to use a GoodMerge 7zip Sets (http://goodmerge.sourceforge.net/About.php), because so I save more space on my HD. Someone that is good in planning could create a Plugin or Batch File for MaLa? so I select the Game from a Mala List, then I select the rom from the game archive (or automatically the first file in the archive) and run it.

[DaveMMR]

I never knew ROMS were so collectible.   

EDIT: I should try to actually be more helpful instead of smarmy. 

I don't know about other emulators' or frontends' abilities to read 7-Zip, but this is a quote from the Mame FAQ:

Why doesn't MAME support RAR/7-Zip/xxxx compression?

ZIP is extremely well-supported through a free, cross-platform library, and has been a standard for at least a decade. Yes, there are many new up-and-coming compression algorithms that squeeze an extra few percent out of things, but they are generally (a) strictly coded for a particular platform, like 7-Zip (though this is apparently changing), or (b) proprietary, like RAR. Furthermore, what most people really fail to realize is that there is absolutely no incentive for the MAME developers to add support for another compression format. For one thing, it only makes the MAME core more complicated, dependent on more external libraries, and prone to bugs.

But even beyond that, what is the real benefit of getting those extra few percentage points of compression? While we realize there are plenty of people out there who feel that life is not worthwhile unless they have an absolutely perfect, audited collection of ROMs on their machines, we honestly don't see why MAME should bend over backwards to ensure that they can accomplish this in a few less MB. If you're really so cheap that you have to pirate all your software, you can at least cough up a few extra dollars to buy a bigger hard disk.

In short, ZIP is good enough, and has a ton of benefits to it. Adding support for anything else merely says, "Hey, we're in it for the ROMz." And quite frankly, we don't think that benefits MAME in any way.

[elec3cdreams]

I never knew ROMS were so collectible.   

EDIT: I should try to actually be more helpful instead of smarmy. 

I don't know about other emulators' or frontends' abilities to read 7-Zip, but this is a quote from the Mame FAQ:

Why doesn't MAME support RAR/7-Zip/xxxx compression?

ZIP is extremely well-supported through a free, cross-platform library, and has been a standard for at least a decade. Yes, there are many new up-and-coming compression algorithms that squeeze an extra few percent out of things, but they are generally (a) strictly coded for a particular platform, like 7-Zip (though this is apparently changing), or (b) proprietary, like RAR. Furthermore, what most people really fail to realize is that there is absolutely no incentive for the MAME developers to add support for another compression format. For one thing, it only makes the MAME core more complicated, dependent on more external libraries, and prone to bugs.

But even beyond that, what is the real benefit of getting those extra few percentage points of compression? While we realize there are plenty of people out there who feel that life is not worthwhile unless they have an absolutely perfect, audited collection of ROMs on their machines, we honestly don't see why MAME should bend over backwards to ensure that they can accomplish this in a few less MB. If you're really so cheap that you have to pirate all your software, you can at least cough up a few extra dollars to buy a bigger hard disk.

In short, ZIP is good enough, and has a ton of benefits to it. Adding support for anything else merely says, "Hey, we're in it for the ROMz." And quite frankly, we don't think that benefits MAME in any way.

Well, I will be more clear....I have more romset, for exemple if I have 32768 GBA roms that no zipped occupy 84,3G and Zipped occupy about 38G, but if I use GoodMerge 7zip I have 32768 Rom, Only 1664 file in 18,0G....so I save more GigaByte and no few MB.

[DaveMMR]

I think the quote from the MAME FAQ sums it all up.  If you're just going to download all these still widely available GBA games illegally for free (see below), why not at least pony up a few bucks for dedicated storage (an external HD, for example).   

By the way, I am no way passing judgment on what people do or don't do with regards to downloading ROMs.  To do so would make me hypocritical.  But your "rom collection" is not something you should be bragging about and should probably be kept to yourself.  Advertising in a public forum about how you don't have enough room for all the illegal downloads on your hard drive is never a good idea.  Realistically, I don't see the FBI showing up at your doorstep, but then again I never would have thought the RIAA would have sued its customers either.