Clean game list for other emu (Stella - a2600 roms)?

[rabidpuppy]

Hi.. new (registered) user. To this.. born in 73 so this is right up my alley.

Was wondering how to duplicate the effects of the "no clones" and "remove brackets" options that GameEx has for MAME, for other platforms. Specifically I've just setup Stella for Atari 2600, and just want the clean list i.e. just one of each game please.

I'm assuming its easy enough once I have built a control panel to remap the keyboard? e.g. pressing player 1 button (which would be keyboard 1 in mame) will start game (F1 or whatever it is).

Still trying to get my head around this whole scene but so far so good.

Cheers

[bkenobi]

1) The easiest way is to run your set through CMP or RomCenter with a NoIntro dat file. That will give you one copy of a game, but it will still include different regions. I remember someone on this forum (Adultery?) was putting together a set of dat files that would just keep the one best copy of a game, but I can't seem to find it now. If that's not available, you can take your NoIntro set and make a few directories (USA, Japan, Europe, Other) and move games to those directories according to what's in the brackets. Then, rename them to remove the bracketed text (there's a bunch of renaming tools out there, I can recommend one if you need help). Finally, recombine the files in the opposite order of your preferred region. So, if your preference is USA, Europe, Japan, Other...move the files to a new directory in this order: Other, Japan, Europe, USA. That new directory contains your new, clean, one game only set. The only thing this can't help with is if the game has a slightly different name for a different region (e.g., Destiny's Sword -> Sword of Destiny).

2) For GameEx, you can customize what buttons perform actions. For MAME, just hit TAB and remap as needed. For other emulators, you will have to either use the built-in remapping tool or use a script. If you choose to go with a game pad emulator, you can use programs like XPadder to remap joystick buttons to key presses.

3) Have fun!