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3441

clrmame Discussion / #0015 - chds in rompath root

« on: 15 April 2009, 18:14 »

An - imo - ugly way to store chds is to keep the chd files themselves in a rompath root. Why ugly?

1) it's against the general MAME loading scheme of rompath\setname\file 1... n (rompath\setname.zip for compressed sets)

2) you don't have any connection to the set itself. In case the name matches the setname like area51.chd it's ok....but you normally don't know directly to which game 765uab02.chd belongs.

Some years back MAME allowed chds on root level...then it was fixed (it was defined as a bug). When MAME introduced the new chd 4 format lately, this storing method was reenabled.

In case you're using this (which I personally don't recommend) you have to tell clrmamepro so. In Scanner Advanced you will find an option to allow chds on rompath root level.

3442

clrmame Discussion / #0014 - system default paths and systems

« on: 15 April 2009, 18:08 »

System Default Paths are a way to split up sets by 'bios' usage.

So for example you want to keep your Playchoice10 sets in a different folder than neogeo ones.
In MAME you got roughly 43 different systems and of course a huge amout of sets which don't use a bios at all. These non-bios ones are collected as system 'Standard'.

In clrmamepro you can define a path on our harddisk for each of the systems. Open the 'Systems' dialog which is accessible in Scanner, Rebuilder or Merger. You will see a list of BIOS Descriptions, setname and an assigned path. By double-clicking this last column you can browse a path.

System Default Paths are not necessarily rompaths. In most cases they match your rompaths though.

Hitting Auto-Detect SysDefPaths will try to find the best-fitting rompath name for the system default paths.

Move Sets will run through your rompaths and moves the sets to their belonging system default paths.

In front of the BIOS descriptions you also see a checkbox. Enabling/Disabling can be used to enable/disable all sets belonging to this BIOS/System, i.e. they are ignored during scanning/rebuilding/merging.


Rebuilding To Sytem-Default-Paths: Well, in rebuilder you can specify system-default path usage as rebuilder destination(s). So the rebuilder can split up your sets by systems.

Scanner: Well, in this case we talk about rompaths = system default paths. Now there's one thing to know: Fix-missing adds files and in case of system-default-paths usage you have to tell clrmamepro that you want to split up your sets by systems.

In the scanner advanced dialog you find 3 system default path options:

1) Detect Sets in Wrong SysDefaultPaths - this will list a warning about set xyz is in a wrong system default path. You have to manually move it to the correct one (or use the System->Move Sets button).

2) CHDs use SysDefault assignments - when a chd is wrong placed and moved to the correct place, you can use this option and clrmamepro will use the system-default-path information as new place

3) Use SysDefault paths for fix missing - the most important one for system default path usage. Fix missing got several rules to find the correct place to add found missing files. If you use system-default-paths, you have to enable this to get added files correctly placed.

3443

clrmame Discussion / Re: Bug in processing of symbol "`"

« on: 14 April 2009, 18:38 »

ok I checked the current cmpro and don't find any issue with "?" and "`" and "'" in datfiles (both, xml and deprecated format).

Send me the datfile in question and a more clear description what does not work for you. "`" gets replaced with "'" during datfile parsing...

So...currently I don't see any issue here.

3444

clrmame Discussion / Re: Bug in processing of symbol "`"

« on: 14 April 2009, 06:07 »

ver. 1.26

Incorrectly made ziping of file "Commodore Amiga - Demos - Music - Mel A'Dee (19xx)(Megahead)(AGA)" during build. Used original tosec .dat 2007-03-14. Problem was in apostrophe symbol, wich is used in original tosec.

OS: WinXP

"`" is reserved and internally used for romsubfolders. Use "'" instead in datfiles.

on the other hand, "`" should be replaced with "'" during datfile parsing...I will have a look.

3445

clrmame Discussion / Re: Bug in processing of symbol "`"

« on: 10 April 2009, 14:57 »

ver. 1.26

Incorrectly made ziping of file "Commodore Amiga - Demos - Music - Mel A'Dee (19xx)(Megahead)(AGA)" during build. Used original tosec .dat 2007-03-14. Problem was in apostrophe symbol, wich is used in original tosec.

OS: WinXP

"`" is reserved and internally used for romsubfolders. Use "'" instead in datfiles.

3446

clrmame Discussion / #0013 - rebuilding prestrings

« on: 09 April 2009, 08:33 »

Let's open up the rebuilder advanced dialog. At its bottom you see a 'Dest. prestring' check and editbox. So what's this all about?

In general, the rebuilder takes any file (or file in archive) from the source, matches it against the database (hash + size compare) and creates all instances at the destination.

To keep it simple (and ignore system-default-paths for now), the file is created the usual way:
destination_path\set_name\rom_name (where set_name can also be an archive...).

No back to that advanced rebuilder option. With the destination prestring, the creation path changes slightly:
destination_path\<prestring>set_name\rom_name.

So you got the chance to modify the setname. You can also use "\" in the prestring which results in folders. You can also use variables (e.g. %m = manufacturer) as prestring. The variables are listed as tooltip of the prestring edit box.

An example: Let's assume your rebuilder destination is "d:\temp\" and you want to rebuild some MAME files to folders specifying the year and then the manufacturer.
As destination prestring you enter:

%y\%m\

so you get something like:

d:\temp\1985\capcom\commando.zip
d:\temp\1987\[Seibu Kaihatsu] (Taito license)\cshooter.zip
d:\temp\1987\capcom\1943.zip


The %A, %a, %Z, %z variables can be used to sort sets by their first character/number.

3447

clrmame Discussion / Re: Feature Request

« on: 07 April 2009, 09:00 »

you trust torrents more than dats? Shame on you

3448

clrmame Discussion / #0012 - Download roms

« on: 06 April 2009, 11:55 »

Downloading roms? Sounds a bit hmm...well...something to discuss...
Anyway, clrmamepro got some mechanism to download files and let them automatically rebuilt them to your collection. What is needed:

1) urls.ini
2) a download folder

1) In urls.ini (or better use urls01.ini ...urls10.ini to avoid overwriting your changes with the next update), you can define a site alias, a pre and a post string. Let's have a look at the official urls.ini which lists an entry for MAWS and CAESAR:

CAESAR; http://caesar.logiqx.com/html/emus/multi/mame/; .shtml

There are three parts separated by ;. First one is an alias (which will be shown later in the frontend), a pre (http:....) and a post string (.shtml).

So what does this pre/post string stuff do?
In the scan results popup menu you got the menu items WWW Open. Via "Set URL" you can select one of the alias names. If you selected a missing set you will also see something like 'Open <setname> @ <alias". clrmamepro will build an url by taking the prestring + setname + poststring. As an example if you selected "puckman", it will open http://caesar.logiqx.com/html/emus/multi/mame/puckman.shtml
In this example it will open the

Now to the downloading....in the same menu you also see download options to actually download the constructed url. There are also options to rebuild the downloaded files automatically afterwards.

2) download folder: In settings you can define a download folder root path. This path (your_root\profile_name) is used for these download operations.

A good example for downloading files is for Mr Do's artwork collection. Add an entry in urls01.ini like this:

MrDo; http://www.arcadeflyers.com/artwork/; .zip

....and you can download the missing artwork files without the need to visit his page and grab the files manually. (However you should visit his page since he's doing a great job).


For "Download" ftp and http urls are allowed...for "Open" operations everything your system allows...

3449

clrmame Discussion / Re: SKIN!

« on: 06 April 2009, 10:38 »

if I know how to change it...sure.....however Simone (Datworkshop) set this up for me....

3450

clrmame Discussion / Re: Feature Request

« on: 06 April 2009, 07:04 »

I hope other people will find this idea of great use, I sure do!

I tend to not run clrmame over an updated dat alot of times, so I am sure that I have alot of unneeded files possibly floating around. I would like to be able to take a torrent file and use it as a dat file. Scanning the folder where the files were located would be short and fast to show unneeded items.

Is this silly? I know I could get an updated dat and scan it, just thought this might be a shortcut.

MageMaster

Actually I don't understand your request. Sounds like you're only rebuilding new files from "update packs" to your collection without doing a single scan on it?
I don't see a problem removing unneeded files with the scanner.

3451

clrmame Discussion / Re: clrmamepro 3.126 released

« on: 06 April 2009, 06:59 »

A couple of bugs.

Backup dirs are not saved, the last location entered in the settings dialog is used.
When clicking 'use backup path' in the rebuilder, the rom directory is appended to the path.

No bugs. You can only specify a backup root in settings dialog. The following path is constructed from the profile name.  Rebuilder 'use backup path' is only a one-time copy current backup setting (root + profilename) into the rebuilder source edit box.

3452

clrmame Discussion / clrmamepro 3.126 released

« on: 04 April 2009, 15:02 »

3.126

misc:  optimized rom name check, major speed increase for sets with lots of roms
misc:  optimized "deeper check for fixable missing files", major speed increase for sets with lots of roms
misc:  don't list unneeded chds twice anymore (one via disk and the other via rom unneeded check)
fixed: zip buffersize for one-file operations was wrongly set to 15 byte decreasing speed immensly
fixed: profiler rarely shows a wrong tree icon when removing a currently loaded profile
fixed: profiler rarely doesn't autorefresh [new datfiles]

3453

clrmame Discussion / #0011 - Missing sets (chd-only sets)

« on: 03 April 2009, 18:08 »

Some people wonder why e.g. CD32 sets are listed as missing sets when they don't have the chd.
Well, these sets are chd-only sets, i.e. the only have a chd (plus separated bios files).
As long as you scan for 'Sets' and don't have the chd, the set will be listed as missing. It's not recommended to turn off 'sets'. An easier way is to fool cmpro a bit. You can simply add empty setsubfolders for the sets in question (as you normally do to put a chd file in it). The the 'sets' scan won't report any issue anymore...however an enabled chd check will of course list the missing chd.

3454

clrmame Discussion / Re: ? about batch scanning

« on: 03 April 2009, 17:01 »

Rebuilder_PackerType = 1

0 = zip
1 = 7z
2 = rar

3455

clrmame Discussion / Re: ? about batch scanning

« on: 03 April 2009, 09:37 »

Batch jobs use the settings from each profile. There are only some settings which you can 'overwrite' in the batch window. If your single profile's rebuilder options use 7z as pack option, it should work.

Of course this is a nice idea for an enhancement....

3456

clrmame Discussion / #0010 - Your own customized statistics

« on: 01 April 2009, 17:51 »

Have a look at stats.ini file. This is the default textfile which holds the captions and placeholders for the statistics window which appears optionally after a scan.
You don't like the layout, well, feel free and change it. The placeholder variables are pretty much recognizeable by the captions.

You shouldn't change stats.ini itself, instead create stats01.ini (..02.ini, ..., 10.ini). The highest number will be used. Why not changing stats.ini itself? Well, because when you update to a new version, stats.ini will be replaced again.

3457

clrmame Discussion / Re: Rom Renaming

« on: 31 March 2009, 21:03 »

First of all, take a look at the dat and check how they organized the sets and if you use a correct rompath setting. Keep in mind to follow the supported storing method:

rompath\setname\file 1 ... file n for decompressed sets
rompath\setname.zip(.rar, .7z) for compressed sets.

Second thing with N64 files is: Headers and Byte/Word Order, i.e. one and the same file (datawise) can be stored in a different byte/word ordering which results in a different hash. Different hash -> cmpro's name check won't find a match.

In clrmamepro you have header support (settings->headers (rompath dropdown box)). There are several header definitions there for N64 files for the different byte orderings. You can try to play around with them.

Maybe the nointro datfile even provides an own xml header definition (which should be listed in the header of the datfile and you should get it from somewhere and put it in cmpro's header folder before starting cmpro).....Since I don't know the datfile, I can't tell you.....so check out if one of the standard n64 headers help you....or convert your files in the format which the dat is made from....

3458

clrmame Discussion / #0009 - The about dialog

« on: 31 March 2009, 17:27 »

Wondered what the dialog window is all about...well..sure..it shows the version, got buttons to write an email, visit the homepage etc....but there is more...

drag'n drop an (archive (7z/rar/7z)) file into it....you will see what happens...


There is also a popup menu in this dialog to change the style of the buttons plus some more...you can also scan folders for a given crc32....

3459

clrmame Discussion / #0008 - Hide / Show issues

« on: 30 March 2009, 22:28 »

Ever scanned empty MAME rompaths and wondered about the stats?

Missing
?Sets                 7944/7986
?Roms                 78276/116904
?CHDs                 289/374
?Samples              2178/2178
?Bytes                41gb/64gb

Empty paths but the count ain't 100/100?

Well, the reason for this are mainly nodumps. Nodumps are 'not dumped' ICs which appear in the database with a given size but no hash information. The total values count them (to match the MAME output) while they aren't handled as missing. That's why you don't see 100/100. Similar for CHDs...there are still a lot laserdisk chds which are listed as nodumps.

3460

clrmame Discussion / Re: Torrentzip

« on: 30 March 2009, 21:07 »

It has been discussed a lot of times already.

Torrentzip WON'T be supported.

The reason for this is pretty obvious and I was already asked by official sources to even not support reading the torrentzip zip files (and even much worse things). Since they are still standard zips, I don't have a problem with reading them....
Besides of this legal issues, reorganizing the set will slow down the whole process anyway.