bkenobi

Hmmm, that sounds interesting. I might give that a try with a small subset and see how it goes. The fact that I have to copy all roms over the network to start might kill it though, since that might require days of stable network connection. Thanks!

I haven't used the briefcase before, but I thought it was mainly for use with office documents that have multiple copies (like one on the HDD and one on a floppy) so that you can edit one and have both up to date. I hadn't thought of using it for this. The difference from reading the help page is that it appears you have to move the briefcase back to the source computer for updating. I've been playing with syncback a little bit and it looks like an ideal tool. I'm thinking I might be able share out the roms dir on the cabinet and use it like a backup location. That's sort of what it is anyway, so it's probably appropriate. Using this software, I can set up multiple rules, so perhaps the second cabinet would only have the files for driving games backed up. This is just tentative, so any other thoughts are definitely welcomed! Thanks for the responses.

Thanks for the responses... I don't update every time and when I do update, I simply point the set to the location of my rom set. That way, I start from up to 90% or more done. I realize there are update sets, but they are only available for each release (like 118 to 119) which would be a bit of a problem when skipping releases (like 109 to 119). The problem with xcopy is that it will just blanket copy everything over and require more time and bandwidth than is really necessary plus put extra stress on hardware. I had been thinking about using SyncBack since it's free and it uses MD5 checksums rather than simply file name, date, and size so a bad download would be detected too. Any other thoughts?

This question is intended to start a discussion on file synchronization techniques for rom sets. I am thinking mainly about MAME due to its massive size, but it could be used for any other rom set as well. To start with, the problem: I keep my most up to date sets on my main PC and update it via torrents periodically. I manually copy these files to a USB2 hard drive and walk it over to the cabinet to synchronize. There is no easy way to copy only new and updated files in windows (that I know of), so I end up copying the entire set over. MAME currently takes MANY, MANY, MANY GB and copying takes a LONG time. The goal: I want to copy only files that really need copying. I want it to be easy. I want it to be automated. I really would prefer something that could deal with slow and sometimes unreliable wireless. The question: Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone currently have a way they are currently using to copy sets from one machine to another over a network that doesn't involve copying the entire thing? My current thoughts involve writing an AHK or VB script to compare files based on name and date and copying the ones that don't match. I also found a number of programs that claim to be able to synchronize over a network between machines, but I don't see anything that's really simple enough for what I want. Anyone want to chime in with some of their thoughts?

It has to do with who owns the rights to the original code and who controls how it's released. The MAMEdev's write the official releases and anyone can use them if they abide by the TOS that is distributed with the package. You are not allowed to do certain things which includes changing the code and compiling a binary for redistribution without prior permission. I think releasing the code is ok, it's the binary part that they don't like. This is not a binary (an executable version of MAME that someone could take and directly run), so it shouldn't be a problem. This is basically a diff file that can that automatically applies the diff. Diff's are deemed ok, so this shouldn't be any different. In any case, HK is talking to the MAMEdev's about it and will know more soon. Then we won't have to speculate what the official answer is, we will actually have one! EDIT: HK beat me to it...

Isn't programming GREAT!

CBZ or CBR

Cool! I've been wondering about crosshairs for a while too! There is a way to disable them, but it completely removes them. If you change the crosshair overlay file (cross1.png for P1 as I recall) to a transparent alpha channel, it's supposed to eliminate them. Thing is, some people like them, so I have to keep them around. This will be really nice!

I don't usually use U releases since they are usually more buggy. If vanilla 119u1 is running ok, I can get that one too. I just grabbed 119 last night.

I just d/l'ed 119 last night but it was corrupt (redownloaded several times and still corrupt), so I tried 119u1. Works great so far. Do you already have a patch for MAME Plus! 119u1? That was the first time I tried the new CPSIII engine...I LOVE IT! I can't beleive how smooth it plays (compared to normal MAME with zinc and model2 titles). Only thing I didn't expect was the 20 minute wait for it to load the cd the first time.

How hard is this patch to develop? I would really like to patch MAME Plus!, but I haven't really looked into this much. Actually, I should try 119 first to make sure I even like the update. I might have to wait another version or so if the updates don't work well for me...

Especially early on, game writers weren't exactly creative with titles. My example of "Baseball" wasn't an exaggeration! I had a TI99/4A that had a game called "Football". I guarantee there is at least one more title of the same name. There wouldn't be a copyright thing anyway since a title like football is simply the name of the sport. You can't copyright the name of a sport! Either way, it's unlikely we would run into too many of these problems (which I stated above...sorta). I still think these should be matched as best they can and just flagged for review.

I was thinking on the order of nologic on this one. Ideally, we would be able to use date of release, publisher, title, and developer for filling in, but if a title doesn't have all of this (or worse, there's a difference) things get complicated. I would think that if there was a Moby field for AlsoFor and a similar date (or one other field match), it would have to be a match even if it wasn't necessarily perfect.

Interesting questions... My concern with using the name of the game to get the info from another system is duplicate game names with different games. What I mean is, take for example the game name "Baseball". How many systems had a game with that name? My guess is, especially early systems, they all had one and they were all from different software companies. In this case, you can safely assume that they were going to be a sports game where the sport is baseball. But, what if the game is called "Stunner" or whatever. I like the idea, I'm just concerned that we may have false matches. Maybe there could be a way to flag the ones that aren't matched for manual verification? So, your fuzzy match creates the suggested info and someone has to manually verify. Of course, that might be difficult if you don't have the rom to run...

Nebula and Model2 have nearly 0 development as is, so I doubt they even have a way to make suggestions like that. I'm suprised that's not one of the first things on the list when developing an emulator (CLI).

Hmmm, that is a strange way to keep roms, but oh well. I can't think of any reason GameEx wouldn't find the files if you are pointing the roms dir to the right place and you have the right filter (so desired files are in the filter). This has nothing to do with what emulator you are using as GameEx doesn't care. All it is doing is listing files that apply in the list. GameEx can list any kind of file you tell it to, so I don't see what the problem is here.

Sorry if my suggestion was not taken well. My only intent was to try to keep a single thread with pictures of cabinets so a new member wouldn't have to search through tons of threads to find the info they are looking for. I personally think pics of cabinets and parts of cabinets could be kept together, but that was just my suggestion...it's by no means a rule! I love seeing the pictures period, I just was trying to help Anyway, I definitely think pictures are VERY helpful since it provides ideas on how other people did things. When I started, I found it very difficult to come up with a design since the pictures that were available only showed what they had done, not what they would do again. Basically, a lessons learned blurb. A couple CP shots as well as my finished cab. Actually, the CP wiring just changed in loo of my new GP-WizRX-ST (a GP-Wiz with a built in rotary encoder).

It's been discussed in threads, but I don't know if a feature request was ever made... PLEASE, please, please add the new Model2 engine to GameEx. The new version doesn't seem to work anymore with the built-in code and no longer requires a wrapper. Thanks!

Model2 was updated months ago. If GameEx hasn't been updated to use it, then that's really a flaw with GameEx that should be fixed. I'll add a feature request to get it in the works (hopefully).

Just FYI, but I've been running MAME .111 for a while now and haven't had any real problems with my guns. It seems like some games don't work (Golly Ghost for one), but I never tried it before, so I can't say it's a new problem. I'm currently updating to .119 and if I run into problems, I will be making a new emu for light gun games using .106 or .107. If I run into any problems with the update, I'll report back.

If there is an error outside of GameEx, than running in GameEx will be challenging. There might be a popup window that is giving an error message that disappears right away and messes with focus. Can you alt-tab back to the emu?

I actually just grabbed this yesterday. Works great as usual!

If you want to get everything in the folder to show up and you only have correct working roms in that directory, you could just remove the filter. I don't know if it can be blank, but *.* will show everything. I'm skeptical that the files wouldn't have an extension on them. I personally hate that MS decided that people don't need to see file extensions anymore, so they have them turned off by default. I highly recommend that EVERYONE turn them back on! To do that: Open File Exporer Select Tools -> Folder Options... Select the View tab Deselect "Hide extensions for known file types" This will allow you to see what you actually have on your hard drive. If you are used to the MAC or Linux, you might not be comfortable/familiar with file extensions since I don't think they really use them, but in a DOS based system, they are very important!

I started out using AdvMAME in my cab w/ GameEx, but then turned it off for one reason or another (I think it was light gun compatibility). I really liked how it looked on my TV, but I would rather have something that always works and looks good rather than something that usually works and looks awesome. What are you going to do...

Must be nice. I paid $50 for my 19" trinitron...