MAME CHD Files
Issue #357
invalid
It would be nice if LaunchBox had a way to handle MAME CHD files that go along with the ROM files.
It could give the option to point to the CHD file folder while it imports the ROM file folder (in the same way) and match the files up so the user doesn't have to go in and manually do each one which would take forever. Also give the user the option to go in and edit these file locations later on in the settings portion of the application.
Comments (20)
-
-
repo owner
Thanks Brad. Let me know Anonymous if we're incorrect on anything and we can re-open this.
-
repo owner
- changed status to invalid
-
I have all of my CHD files in one folder. My ROM files are all in another folder. Most people who download a whole set of ROMs, download a whole set of CHD files separately. It is very tedious to copy each and every CHD set to each and every ROM/GameName folder. It would be easier if you could specify a folder, then let the software put everything where it needs to go.
-
Right, but that isn't how MAME works I don't believe. I am fairly I certain I read that on a wiki on setting mame up, and after that my games that required CHD files were fixed.
-
repo owner
We can open this back up if anyone can provide documentation on how this is supposed to work.
-
I guess I must not be making this very clear. When you acquire ROMs and CHDs, most of the time they are not packaged together. They usually come compressed in two separate downloads, in separate folders.
When you want to run a ROM that requires a CHD, you must first create a folder with the same name as the ROM file in the same directory as your ROM files, then copy the CHD files into that folder.
So if you downloaded thousands of ROMs all in one folder, then you need to create a ton of folders with the same names containing these CHD files and copy them into that ROMs folder. This can be time consuming.
I was just thinking that it would be easier just to point the LaunchBox MAME setup wizard to both the ROMs folder and the CHDs folder and let the wizard do all of the hard work creating folders with the same name and putting everything where it needs to be to make it work.
I don't know, maybe I am overthinking this, but I thought it would fit LaunchBox's "just works" style.
-
jasondavidcarr, do you understand what I am saying?
-
repo owner
Yeah, I think so. To be honest I'm not really very familiar with CHDs, but it makes sense. I'll open this back up for review. :)
-
repo owner
- changed status to open
-
Personally I wouldn’t let LaunchBox mess with my MAME sets. There are programs like Clrmamepro out there which are only dedicated for this exact purpose to check, clean, reorganize and rebuild your romsets (including CHDs and Samples) and do the job perfectly. A check for a correct romset would be way much more as to just check if the CHDs are in the right folder. There are way too much variables and factors to consider.
-
http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/
This would be a better solution than Jason trying to re-create something like this. Our scope is more broad than just MAME.
-
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzBkcfhyZw
This guy in this video is a little annoying, but this is how it's done. When you are doing lots of these, it isn't something that you want to do manually.
-
Which is why I suggested clrmamepro.
-
I am having a problem with MAME files with ONLY CHD not being imported in Launch box which I believe is a related issue. MAME 0.78 works just fine with the ROMS in one directory and the CHDs in another directory, but Launchbox does not properly import the game because it does not have an associated .zip or .7z file with the name in the ROM directory. One example is "Golden Tee Fore Complete" It is a subset of the GTEAGLE.zip rom and has a separate CHD file in a directory called gtfore06. The only way I was able to get the game listed in launchbox was to create an empty text file called gtfore.zip in the ROM directory. Then is was properly imported with the metadata. As there are MANY games with CHD only it would be very tedious to do this for every file.
-
Hi Guys, Ive just downloaded a bunch of CHD games (450gb!) These are all .CHD files only. So my issue is i have a folder say called 'Area 51', in that folder i have 2 .chd files lets say 'area51a.chd and 'area51b.chd if i try and import these into launch box it recognises them as 2 seperate games, if i try to launch 1 file it asks for the other and visa versa. is there a way to make launchbox recogise the folder only to keep these files grouped? Thanks in advance x
-
I don’t see any need for this, MAME supports multiple rom directories. I download the torrents, edit mame.ini and add the separate roms/bios/chd locations. Done. In LaunchBox, you just need to point to the appropriate rom. Mame will find the CHD.
In my case, I have rompath set to:
E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 ROMs (bios-devices);E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 ROMs (merged);E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 CHDs (merged);E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 Software List ROMs (machine-bios-devices);E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 Software List ROMs (merged);E:\Users\Paul\Downloads\MAME 0.225 Software List CHDs (merged)
-
Sorry I replied too soon, seems I’ve missed the real point here!
-
- changed status to invalid
Thanks, Paul This was way way back in 2016 and is fixed now. Have a great day!
- Log in to comment
So I don't quite know what you mean by this... there should be nothing that needs to be done on the users part besides supplying the CHD, otherwise MAME will find it automatically. For example, Gauntlet Legacy 1.6. gauntleg.zip is the "rom" in LB's case and it references its chd file that is in "gauntleg". The CHD is also gauntleg.chd. This is something that would not be easily achieved. When you try to launch a game it should tell you if a chd is missing, and if it is what the name of it should be of the one it is looking for. Either the chd should be in a folder named after the rom you are loading or in a folder that is named after the chd as far as I can tell.