braap Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 I recently started to setup MAME and I grabbed a database from http://retrofe.nl/download/ which removes all of the clone systems, casino, etc. I would really like my main menu wheel to contain atari classics, capcom classics, etc, but these databases are not provided by retrofe. I downloaded the databases from the download section here at Hyperspin but they contain a lot of clones and stuff. What are clones exactly? Homebrews? Does anyone have these systems without all the extra stuff? I have a really great console setup but MAME is wayyyy above my head at the moment. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phulshof Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 Clones are different versions of the same game, so either for a different market (Japan, China, Korea, Asia, Europe, USA, ...) or a later update. If people were to give me criteria upon which to generate a specific database, I could probably do it, but what qualifies as Atari Classics? Games by Atari before a certain year? If so: what year? Same for everything else; I need objective criteria upon which to filter the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braap Posted June 18, 2019 Author Share Posted June 18, 2019 5 minutes ago, phulshof said: Clones are different versions of the same game, so either for a different market (Japan, China, Korea, Asia, Europe, USA, ...) or a later update. If people were to give me criteria upon which to generate a specific database, I could probably do it, but what qualifies as Atari Classics? Games by Atari before a certain year? If so: what year? Same for everything else; I need objective criteria upon which to filter the list. I honestly don't know. This is where my struggle is. I split my mame (your database) database and sorted them my manufacture and I was going to merge sets then but there is a bunch of crossover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowr14 Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 https://hyperspin-fe.com/files/category/28-arcade-systems/ Are these the ones you have grabbed on the left side of this page? I haven't checked these myself but if there are clones etc there is probably a good reason they are added. That said I have no idea how old these xmls are and if they are out of date. A note on clones, they are often bootlegs or region different versions. For example Pacman is a clone of Puckman the Japanese version. The whole deal with clones as far as I can tell is that to save space. MAME will use the parent files and clone files in conjunction. There are different ways to split up MAMEroms using clrmamepro and other software so that all files are contained in each title clone or not. Obviously this will take up more HDD space but can be useful if you want to move roms around without taking the whole collection. The xml you want which i think is in phulsofs pack is titled "worthy clones" and I believe is a result of a forum thread somewhere on this site created by metalzoic. It's basically all the clones that are best known and worth adding in addition to parent files. The second thing in regards to MAME is that the rom set is constantly updated and added to and given a version number (currently in the .200s). For best compatibility you must use the version of mame that corresponds with the version number rom set. This is the reason that xml files can be out of date/different as rom names can change over time with different versions. This is where things get difficult sharing lists, I could share my custom made xmls for Mame but for many people out there on different version rom sets it will be incomplete. I've also filtered out certain control schemes, Mame covers everything from steering wheels to spinners to plastic guns, not to mention different numbers of buttons and extra joysticks. There is no sort of 'ideal' list for MAME like there are for consoles. You can find some "best of" lists around with cherry pick the most iconic stuff. Or split by manufacturer like those ones in the download section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braap Posted June 19, 2019 Author Share Posted June 19, 2019 I grabbed my xmls from the hyperdatabase. I've read a few threads about xmls being wrong or out of date so it's hard to say if they were added for a good reason. While I know mame is to preserve, I do not need 14 versions of a game. That just makes the wheel cluttered. I love phulshof's condensed list but I think it would be convenient to have the classics in another list as I mentioned. But this is what is so hard for me. I split by list but there are a lot of crossover titles so I am unsure if they go on two lists or.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowr14 Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 9 minutes ago, braap said: I grabbed my xmls from the hyperdatabase. I've read a few threads about xmls being wrong or out of date so it's hard to say if they were added for a good reason. While I know mame is to preserve, I do not need 14 versions of a game. That just makes the wheel cluttered. I love phulshof's condensed list but I think it would be convenient to have the classics in another list as I mentioned. But this is what is so hard for me. I split by list but there are a lot of crossover titles so I am unsure if they go on two lists or.... If your talking about the 'hyperlist' section unfortunately all that stuff is way out of date. Best to use phulsofs and for consoles grab your xmls from the relevant forum threads here at this point, the older console xmls are pure garbage. As i said, best to grab the 'worthy clones' list which is only leaving in the important clones (like pacman etc) and go from there working out what you want. Again, you need to check to make sure you have the right mame version roms/xml, this is key or you will have neverending dramas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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