How do I get to a specific rom in a merged set?

[PhoneLine]

Hey all,

I recently started tinkering with my cabinet again since the last version of mame I had was 123.  I've tacked down everything and have been able to update things to 129, but have a question.

I had been using spilt sets on my cabinet and things were mostly ok, but I had a couple issues here and there where I was missing somethings and decided to try merged sets.  I like them, but have one issue.

I'm going to use Mortal Kombat as the example, but it goes for everything with more then one version.....

I have a mk.zip merged set with all the versions in it.  At a command prompt, If I type 'mame mk', I get the 'parent' version 5, and if I do 'mame mkprot9' I get the prototype, even though the only file there is mk.zip, it loads up whatever version I tell it too.  If I just type 'mame' and go to the built in rom menu, it only shows me the parent (MK ver 5).

Here's the question.  When using either the command line or gameex, its only showing me the parent mk version 5 t-unit, blah blah.  There's 4 or 5 other versions of MK that are there and work, but I don't get to select them it only is showing me the parent as the option to start.

In gamex I have show all games and have clones on, and I've tinkered with settings, but can't seem to figure out a way to show them all.

Short of converting things back to split sets, is there a way?

Thanks!

[Sosetsuken]

Phone, theres a few problems with going Merged->Split sets.  Because all of the roms are stored in the one zip file, and zip files store files by name.  Alot of the duplicate named (but different) roms get overwritten with the parent set.

There is a way to do it but its sort of complicated and you might need to download some files to replace the overwritten ones.  I always use CLRMAMEPRO, its probably the defacto standard.

if you just have an mk.zip you probably don't have all the versions as mame labels roms the same way they were labelled on the pcb chips.  And usually an MK revision would be the same chip just reflashed with new code; ie. Same romname different rom (crc).

Your best bet is to use clrmamepro to rebuild your merged sets into split sets and download the non-parent games, which is a bonus cause the non-parent sets are usually small containing just the altered roms.

[PhoneLine]

Thanks.  Luckily, I made some backups before I started doing anything.  The merged sets are on my cab, but I've got 0.129 split sets on both my PC, and also a second backup on a removable disk.  (Oh yes, I've done dumb ass things before and needed to re-download stuff) So, I'm learning 

So, right now CLRMAMEPRO is running on my cab and splitting my merged sets there, about 700 games, back to split sets.

What I'll need to do, is just go though and see what doesn't work and whats not there that I want and copy the zip over from the full split set roms that I have, right?

[Sosetsuken]

Yeah thats all phone. 

I seem to do the dumb things but don't make backups :/

[u_rebelscum]

I say split is the most universal way to go, too, but FWIW, FYI:

Mame's mini UI only looks at what zip file names are in the rom folder(s).  It doesn't look in the zip files to check what games' ROMs exist for the list, while on starting the game, it looks in parent zip files.  I'm assuming gameex is the same in making it's list.  I don't know gameex, though, but I'm hope you can make your own list for the FE.  Mame's mini UI you can't.

I'm not sure about other FE's, and if they look into zip files or not.  But, yeah, split is the "standard" that all FEs handle well.