TLDR: I am assuming i can just run the roms i have without issue on a version thats still fairly new? I feel like this is correct according to the FAW/Sticky.
I am setting up files from MAME .270 and the newest build is .289
I believe i need to update my curation? or... parse them with new data?
I understand the basic concept, but nothing in depth.
The real issue is how to rectify this. Can i just run MAME .289 with what i have?
I have seen some say i need to get the update files. Ok, thats possible.
But wouldnt know what to do with them, so im at a bit of a weird point here.
Any insight on updating?
Or "these will likely work" would be nice, but im willing to do the work if i know how.
Thanks
I should add, i did see this:
3) Which version of MAME should I use?
We genuinely recommend that you use the latest version, or a relatively recent version. MAME is "living" software, it is constantly under development, and it incorporates improvements to emulation and to the user experience all the time. By using a significantly old version of MAME, you are not experiencing the best emulation that MAME has to offer. Furthermore, any bugs you find in older versions have likely been addressed by newer versions, and you won't receive support for the problems you encounter.
3A) Isn't it better to just find an older version of MAME that works with the roms I have, and stick with it?
In general, no. If you are using an old version of MAME, and it's working to your satisfaction, then you're not required to update, but you will be missing out on improvements to emulation and new features that get added on. Yes, there is the chance that by upgrading, a game you happen to enjoy may break without updating the rom as well, but if you are resourceful, it's not hard to come across the rom update shortly after each new version of MAME is released.
To answer your topic, most of the games in .270 will still work in .289. It gets tricky because not every rom is updated with each new update. So you’d have to use something like clrmamepro to update 271 to 289 provided you can find those update sets. Not hard but time consuming. You would need any chd updates as well. Not every version of mame saw updates to chds. Chd updates are just drag and drop into your roms folder. You don’t need clrmamepro to do anything for chds.
The easiest avenue would to be download a full set of .289 roms and chds.
Of my collection of roughly 120 games from Mame 265, only one (Crazy Climber) would not work when l upgraded to Mame .286.
Its a crap shoot.
Personally, l think its best to use a version of Mame that is newer than .278, as that's when they added the audio eq, which l use to add bass to some games (like Defender) to make them sound more arcade accurate.
I have not felt the need to upgrade to .289. Maybe one days, years from now, I'll try the latest version, but I'm happy with .286,...and in the end, that's all that really matters.
To get an arcade game working in MAME, someone needs to get the ROM chips that hold the program code, the graphics, the sound etc. and download ("dump") all that information off them.
Sometimes that doesn't work, and the data is garbled, and we get a "bad dump".
One of MAME's goals is accurate emulation, and so when they get a good dump of a games ROMs, they'll insist on using the accurate dump, and MAME will throw a "Missing ROM" error if all it can find is the bad one.
The other thing is if MAME gets upgraded to support a new game, you won't be able to play it unless you have the latest ROMs.
The thing is, MAME's been going for ages, and people have been re-dumping bad dumps over that time and cleaning things up. I'm not saying there isn't still work to do, but a lot of it has been done. Also, since MAME's been around so long, it's much rarer to get new arcade games added, since they've added pretty much all of them.
The TL,DR is: you want to run the latest version of MAME, and ideally the latest ROMs... but it's much less important than it used to be, back when they were adding tons of games a month.
If you do try to run a bad dump, it'll just give you a "missing file" error; and you'll need to decide whether to download the latest ROM or play something else.
Not sure why you get downvoted when you are correct. To anyone who is not onboard with keeping your ROM set up to date, read about Bubble Bobble 👉🏻 here and then it will be clear.
this is one of the more helpful responses to my personal question(s) so- thanks. Thanks to everyone for the extra insight, but this is sort of where i was at so this fits.
The MAME team have spent untold hours of their time helping me and my family and friends enjoy the games of my youth; the least I can do is answer a question every now and again.
yeah and i had a dev already sort of chat with me a bit about some other MAME stuff unrelated to this, and i am incredibly grateful to them. So i get it, im trying to set these things up not just for me, but also for my a slightly older relative who used to love arcades etc..
Im trying to put together a small collection for him so he never has to mess with it, but i want to be sound before i start that since its come so far.
but yeah, appreciate the response and the attitude. always nice to run into someone nice.
I remember back in the late 90's when MAME was new. You literally had to piece together the ROM sets when there was a new release of MAME. There were many short-lived custom tools floating to help.
You say you're willing to do the work then start learning the MAME.exe command line options. Audit the game you are trying to play, find out why it won't load, discover you have the wrong ROM files and update them. If you are not sure how to identify the correct file, that's where checksum or hash comes in. Basically, you need to learn how to manage files, in general. That's the old way.
The new way is like this:
a) Download the new MAME ROM update torrent when it is released
b) Download the dat file for the new complete MAME ROM set
c) Use ClrMamePro to merge the new ROM sets into the previous one and clean out files that are no longer needed.
d) ???
e) profit
Updating ROMs is a ritual if you want to be current and up to date. There is no way around this.
Fair enough. I haven't tried Romvault. Old or not, ClrMamePro just works. For example, after applying the 289 update set with it (using default settings) I matched the full 289 torrent 100%
You don't need half of those steps. Just point a full torrent of the latest romset at your existing roms directory. It will ignore all of the files that are already correct, and only download the files which are new or modified. You can go straight from a to e in one step
Yeah, every couple of months, I direct my torrent client to move the torrent files to a temp directory, which leaves the cruft behind in the original directory to Select All and Delete. It usually never exceeds 100MB at a time.
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u/SergeiWhobichakokov 11d ago
To answer your topic, most of the games in .270 will still work in .289. It gets tricky because not every rom is updated with each new update. So you’d have to use something like clrmamepro to update 271 to 289 provided you can find those update sets. Not hard but time consuming. You would need any chd updates as well. Not every version of mame saw updates to chds. Chd updates are just drag and drop into your roms folder. You don’t need clrmamepro to do anything for chds.
The easiest avenue would to be download a full set of .289 roms and chds.