The Rebuilder is a crc32 based scanner & file creator. It is file-based (even files in archives) not set-based. The rebuilder scans all files from its source folder and tries to match the file's crc32 with one in the ROMlist. If the crc32 matches it will create the file in the destination folder with correct set and ROMname. So you can see that the rebuilder only rebuild valid files. It is a fine utility to create clean sets or add files to your sets. The current rebuilder is filebased not setbased. That means that it doesn't rebuild set by set but file by file. So when a rom is shared by e.g. 8 sets, the rebuilder creates/adds this file to all 8 sets.
Rebuilding can last from seconds to hours. That depends on the amount of files, the filesizes, your CPU, your HD the zipcompressionlevel and the thread priority. It's possible to stop the process at any time. Disabling the 'recompress' option will speed up the rebuild operation.
The titlebar shows the current number of enabled games and the currently selected profile. For further information check out the settings dialog. Always be careful if the number doesn't match your selected number. You will also see a warning message when scanner and rebuilder mergemodes differ. The lower part of this window is the warningswindow which will list possible minor problems. By right-clicking you'll see a popup menu which is described in the Scanner documentation.
You can set your mergemode with the first three options.
Disables merging. That means that you'll get unmerged sets in the destination folder.
Enables split (merging). All ROMs which belong to the parentset will be placed in the parent set. The rest will be placed in the clone set.
Enables (full) merging. All ROMs will be placed in the parent set.
Press this button to start the rebuilding process.
Here you can enter the name of the source path. This is the folder which will be scanned for possible ROMs. Click the right button to open a folder-browser-dialog. ClrMamePro automatically adds a '\' at the end of the name. You don't have to use quotation marks while entering a name which contains spaces.
If you check this checkbox ClrMamePro walks recursively through your sourcefolder. So it will try to rebuild any file in any subfolder of your sourcefolder, too.
That's the folder where the 'rebuilt' ROMs will be stored. It has to differ from the source folder and - if 'subfolders' is checked - it can't be a subfolder of it. Click the right button to open a folder-browser-dialog. ClrMamePro automatically adds a '\' at the end of the name. You don't have to use quotation marks while entering a name which contains spaces. If the destinationfolder doesn't exist, CMPro can try to create it. Warning: It can only create one subfolder...So e.g.: If c:\temp\ doesn't exist, CMPro can't create c:\temp\test\.
Enable this option if the destination files should be zipped. The files will be zipped with the compression level which is set in the settings dialog.
If this option is enabled, the rebuilder will recompress any file with the currently selected zipcompression level. Disabling this option will speed up the rebuilding process dramatically. It will then only copy the compressed data from one zip to another. Of course that means that you may get a zipfile with a different zipcompressionlevel. Use other ziptools (e.g. Zipmax) then to optimize the files.
All rebuilt files will be deleted from the sourcefolder. Warning: BACKUP WON'T SAVE THESE FILES ! THEY'LL BE GONE FOREVER ! This option will slow down the rebuilding process ! This option is disabled when using a fixdatfile !
If this option is enabled ClrMamePro will also rebuild ROMs with a 0 checksum. These ROMs are so called 'bad dumps'. Because a valid checksum doesn't exist, ClrMamePro will match these ROMs by name and size.
You can select which Systems... you want to (un-)merge. Only active systems will be used.
Here you can find some advanced Rebuilder options:
Ignore Filesize
Normally ClrMamePro's rebuilder does a CRC32 + size match to rebuild files. By enabling this option you will ignore the size. Better keep it disabled :O)
Ignore 'RebuildTo'
CMPro ignores any 'rebuildto' tags in the datfile. All files will only be rebuilt to the destinationfolder. This option isn't available if no 'rebuildto' tags exist.
ClrMamePro puts found BIOS-roms in the belonging BIOS-sets, if enabled. Otherwise it will rebuilt biosroms to each single set (not recommended).
If you enable this option you can enter (or browse for...) the name of a logfile. ClrMamePro will log which files can be rebuilt and which stay untouched. This option will slow down the rebuilding process !
You can drop files and folders to the rebuilder window. ClrMamePro will ignore the 'Source' settings and will only rebuild the dropped files to the destination folder. ClrMamePro will use the current rebuilder settings (except 'Source') to rebuild the files. If you drop a folder, ClrMamePro will rebuild all files from this folder. If you activate 'Recursively Rebuild' and drop a folder it will recursively rebuild this folder (and its subfolders). Illegal folders will be skipped.