MAME Merge 2.30
Release date - May 28 1999

Homepage - http://members.xoom.com/ins_au
E-Mail (Insane) - insane_au@yahoo.com

What's New

- Completely new interface.
- Merge, split and scan routines totally re-written.
- Verify is now called scan which is a more accurate description.
- Full Split is now just called split. It's function in still identical.
- A 'Bad dumps must exist' option has been added.
- The quick scan now correctly checks over-sized ROMs.
- The scan routines can now perform split or merged searches.
- Classic and NeoGeo games can be processed in a single pass.
- Disk space remaining display of the drive MAME Merge is run from.
- The lists of missing games are saved to a single file, 'Missing games.txt'.
- A list of missing ROMs can also be saved with the missing game list.
- A resource file for building clean RAINE 0.20 ROM sets is available.
- A load of other stuff I can't remember or couldn't be bothered listing.

Notes

- MAME Merge works ONLY with zipped ROM sets.
- Your source ROMs will NEVER be deleted or modified.
- Incorrectly sized ROM images will be trimmed to the correct length.
- If 'mame.cfg' exists, the ROM paths it contains will be used as source folders.
- MAME Merge does not check for available disk space. Be sure to have enough space to store the new ROM sets.
- 50-80 Mb of extra disk space is required for temp storage while working on the classic ROMs and 100-150 Mb for NEO-GEO.

I'd like to hear your suggestions, comments and general opinion of MAME Merge.
Without a little feedback this program is going nowhere fast.

Here are a few things I'd like to see in future versions MAME Merge...

- Sample cleaning support. (I feel this is not worth implementing until, if ever, MAME recognises samples by CRC)
- Available disk space checking so MAME Merge pauses before you run out of room for the new ROM sets.
- The ability to only build ROM sets changed since the last MAME version.
- An improved 'Missing games.txt' file. (.rtf format?)
- System16 ROM cleaning support.
- Quite a few other things I'll keep to myself for now... :)

Come on... let's hear some ideas!

Instructions

Before you can start building new ROM sets some data needs to be extracted from the MAME (DOS) executable you want to build your ROM sets for. Putting 'mame.exe' in the same folder as MAME Merge enables the 'Create resource file' button which, when pressed, enables the rest of the options.

NOTE : The scan routines determine only if good ROM sets can be built from the ROM sets in the source folders. Until you build the new sets MAME may not be able to find all of the games MAME Merge can.

NT users : If the other options do not become available after clicking 'Create Resource File', try typing the following at the command prompt in your MAME Merge folder : mame -listinfo >"MAME Merge.res". Let me know how, or if, you get it to work! If I recieve no feedback on the creation of the resource file this time, *ALL* Windows NT support will be removed from future versions of MAME Merge.

Options

Start : Enabled only when a resource file and at least one source folder is defined.
Stop / Pause : When clicked, you may have to wait a short while for the current zip / unzip operation to finish.

Games

Selects which game sets you want to build or verify.
If Classic and NeoGeo are both selected, the Classic games are processed first.

- Classic : Enables or disables Classic ROM set building and scanning.
- NeoGeo : Enables or disables NeoGeo ROM set building and scanning.
- Create resource file : Extracts required data from the MAME (DOS) executable.

Output

Selects the format of the new ROM sets that are to be built.
All of the below (except scan) will save the new ROM sets created in a folder called 'New ROMs'.
The completion of any of these procedures saves a list of missing and incomplete games to 'Missing games.txt'.

- NONE (scan only) : No ROM sets are built.
- Merged Split : A single zip is created for each game, each only containing ROMs not shared with its parent (if any).
- Merged : No zips are created for child ROM sets. Instead, their ROMs are merged into their parents zip file.
- Split : A single zip is created for each game, each containing every ROM needed to run independant of its parent (if any).

Compression

Sets the compression level used on the new ROM sets built.

- 0 (store) : Created zip files have no compression applied to then (quite fast).
- 5 (default) : A very good compromise between speed and compression.
- 9 (max) : Created zip files have the maximum compression applied to them (very slow).

Source folders

Displays a window allowing you to add or remove source ROM folders.

- Folders are added by clicking 'Browse...', or typing a full or relative (to your MAME Merge folder) path in the edit box and hitting ENTER.

Miscellaneous

- Bad dumps must exist : If checked, the merge, split and scan functions require that ROM images known to be bad exist for a ROM set to be considered complete.
- Save the list of missing ROMs... : If checked, a list of the ROMs missing from each missing or incomplete game reported is also saved to the 'Missing games.txt' file.
- Scan searches for missing split sets : If checked, the scan function requires the ROMs shared with a games parent (if any) also to exist for it to considered complete.
- Quick verify : If checked, the verify function checks zips headers to determine which files are inside. If not, the integrity of the data inside the zips is also verified.

Acknowledgements

MAME Merge makes use of Delphi-Zip 1.52d based on code by Info-Zip.

Delphi-Zip :
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/2114/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Orchard/8607/

Info-Zip :
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/