I stumbled into a little problem when I scanned the Passigar SCI/AGI DATs.
Well... I have a lot of the files included in the DAT's, but far from all, so I was making a Fix-DAT to send to a friend who could put the remaining files on his FTP. When I browsed through the Fix-DAT to control it I found out there's MANY crc32's that are the same, of course this is because the files itself is the same, but I don't need more than one copies of each file, especially not since my friends FTP is somewhat slow...
How can I tell ClrMame to only include the files once in the Fix-DAT?
and if this isn't implemented, could you please implement it? :)

Thanks!

> How can I tell ClrMame to only include the files once in the Fix-DAT?
> and if this isn't implemented, could you please implement it? :)

A fixdatfile is just a subset of the used database/datfile. If they appear twice or more in the datfile and you miss the files and save a fixdatfile, they appear twice or more in the fixdatfile. Since double crc32s usually represent the same files it's the datfile author's fault that they appear more than once in the datfile. Equal checksums within a parent/clone relationship are rather normal, but they appear only once if you scan in split or full-merged mode and so they appear only once in the fixdat.
Of course I'm aware that the rebuilder will rebuilt all files even if listed once, so it might look useful to include them only once in the fixdat...but mainly a fixdatfile is an output of the currently missing files within different sets....

in other words...I doubt I will change the behaviour....the used datfile should be a bit more cleaner ;)
Although I did make a note about your idea...

Roman Scherzer
ClrMamePro

But this is about the PASSIGAR AGI/SCI DAT... That's old Sierra On-line games and many of the files should be in more than one set. It's for PC, Mac, Amiga, PCjr, Atari ST, Tandy etc, etc with more than one version for each game.

> A fixdatfile is just a subset of the used database/datfile. If they appear twice
> or more in the datfile and you miss the files and save a fixdatfile, they appear
> twice or more in the fixdatfile. Since double crc32s usually represent the same
> files it's the datfile author's fault that they appear more than once in the
> datfile. Equal checksums within a parent/clone relationship are rather normal,
> but they appear only once if you scan in split or full-merged mode and so they
> appear only once in the fixdat.
> Of course I'm aware that the rebuilder will rebuilt all files even if listed
> once, so it might look useful to include them only once in the fixdat...but
> mainly a fixdatfile is an output of the currently missing files within different
> sets....
>
> in other words...I doubt I will change the behaviour....the used datfile should
> be a bit more cleaner ;)
> Although I did make a note about your idea...
>
> Roman Scherzer
> ClrMamePro
>

> But this is about the PASSIGAR AGI/SCI DAT... That's old Sierra On-line games
> and many of the files should be in more than one set. It's for PC, Mac, Amiga,
> PCjr, Atari ST, Tandy etc, etc with more than one version for each game.


Guess a reorganization of the dat would be fine then ;)
Why downloading double crc32s anyway? Download one file, rebuild/rescan and see what's still missing. Since all entries of a multiple crc32 was rebuilt, you won't run into downloading the same file again.

Roman Scherzer
ClrMamePro

I guess that is what I have to do then...
but it's not a picnic when the DAT contains 10955 ROMs divided to only 360 sets. This is not emulation, it's the old Sierra games like Space Quest series, etc, etc... there's "ROMs" over 300Megs that is in more than one set.

I just thought I requested a feature that would be appriciated by many and make ClrMame Pro more complete.

> Guess a reorganization of the dat would be fine then ;)
> Why downloading double crc32s anyway? Download one file, rebuild/rescan and see
> what's still missing. Since all entries of a multiple crc32 was rebuilt, you
> won't run into downloading the same file again.
>
> Roman Scherzer
> ClrMamePro
>