which DAT download to use for what situation

[ssybesma]

I  grabbed the latest (2019-05-10) package in the "Datfiles" section of the following page thinking I could use it in ROMVault.

https://www.tosecdev.org/downloads

My goal is to have a complete DAT file that represents at least all known MAME ROMs, but Consoles (home video) DAT would also be nice to have.
However, I noticed there were only various PC and Console (home video) DATs in that download.

ROMVault gives an error even when I point it to one of the 3 folders that have DAT files in them. For example the following error:

"Path: DATRoot\Arcade\MAME\DATs\TOSEC Not Found"

I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.  There are indeed almost 1,900 DAT files in that folder.  By far the most of the three folders.

What I want is a complete set of  Arcade/MAME ROM data. Console (home video) data is a plus. Will I get that error depending on what DAT files are in the folder?

I don't want to deal with anything on a torrent. I already have ROMs I want to check.

I just need a DAT file that covers Aracade only (and later on Console [home video] only) that is authoritative so ROMVault can use it.

That's why I thought using TOSEC's DAT files would accomplish what I was trying to do.

Steve

[Maddog]

TOSEC does not actually provide MAME/Arcade dats.
We dat roms for consoles and computers.

You can find MAME dats in other places, like https://www.emulab.it/rommanager/datfiles.php or http://www.progettosnaps.net/dats/MAME/
I have not personally tested any of them, so don't have an opinion on how good they actually are.

It is also possible to get the needed information directly from the MAME executable, using ClrMAME Pro. This is what I normally do.

[ssybesma]

OK, thank you. I really appreciate the reply which shed some light on this.

So can your DAT files be used with console and computer ROMs using ROMVault, or should another app be used?

[Maddog]

Yes, of course they can!
I actually prefer RomVault to maintain my TOSEC collection, as it's easier than ClrMAME Pro when dealing with 1000s of dats and roms, like ours.

See a previous post that I did, which gives a decent-ish description of the procedure: https://www.tosecdev.org/forum/general-discussion-3/batch-files-in-the-scripts-folder-to-do-what-you-want/msg7086/#msg7086

[ssybesma]

The create folder batch file created folders where I didn't expect.

The move batch file wiped everything out because I can't find where it moved everything to.

I'll have to figure out the instructions better as to where to put everything before I get started.

==========

UPDATE: got it right on the second try...instead of copying the folders containing the batch files, I copied the two batch files themselves to DATRoot\TOSEC so they're all in the same folder

[ssybesma]

Despite being able to load MAMEs and TOSECs DAT, I've not gotten any of these 1,379 ROMs to show up in ROMVault yet.

The zip file is called:  "1379retrobit games.zip"

It's located here:

Link removed-copyrighted content

They seem to be a mix of home videogame console and arcade. I know for sure some home videogame console ROMs are there.

The ROMs work on the Retro-Bit Super Retro-Cade but they were not created for it. They were just gathered together. My hope was to run it through ROMVault and straighten them out if any are not quite right.

That Retro-Bit device uses a Retroarch front end, but the emulator is not known...even Retro-Bit apparently doesn't know what emulator was used in that device:

https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/retro-bit/

[Maddog]

I had to remove the link you posted, since it contains copyrighted games and we can't allow that in our forum.

Before removing, I did take a look. The zip you posted seems to contain only MAME roms and nothing else. Possibly it is not getting picked up by RomVault because you have not unpacked it (it is a zip containing other zips which in turn contain the actual roms). As far as I can tell, it does not contain any home console games.

[ssybesma]

OK, I apologize for that...won't do it again.

I got much further with this and got ROMVault to scan, find and fix them...sort of.

What really ended up happening is that I started out with 1,379 ZIP'ed ROM files but I end up with 2,468.

I'm guessing that ROMVault uses the DAT files to not only fix whatever ZIP'ed game files it can recognize, but it seems to try and build brand new ZIP'ed games files from ROMs in the existing ones.

I learned that many individual ROM files are common to many games. The differences would be in a few of the ROMs which apply directly to the game's details.

I understand the ROM files represent individual chips that were dumped from the game's motherboard.  Some games had more chips than others. Some only have one.

So, the behavior of ROMVault was not what I was hoping for.

I simply was trying to run an app that recognizes what I have, what kind of machine it originally made for, and whether the contents were all there or not (and perhaps be able to fix them).

Steve