A little confused about MAME usage within retrobat. Can someone confirm my thoughts in this post and give guidance if I'm not thinking right

Hello all!!,

Thank you all for any guidance you can on the below.

I just wanted to make sure, if I get "full non- merged" roms, but some are from 078 and some from 261, can I put them both in the same rom folder "mame" and everything will still work properly?

I imagine this may not be good practice (as it would be easier to keep up with if I only had one version of all of my mame roms) but back to the question, 

Will I have to select which core to use for each rom or will retrobat be able to choose the proper core based on the version that the rom is?

Hello,
You can create a subfolder inside the Mme folder for mame2003, at least it won't be too disorganized.

@tartifless. Thank you for your response!!

Can a chore be chosen on a subfolder basis?

And the second followup I have is, is there a way to keep mame on retrobat a 0.261? And force it not to update with retrobat.

These questions come because I really don't want to have to mess with rom sets when mame updates.

And lastly, the current stable retrobat 5.3, does it use mame 0.255?

Will 6 stable be using 0.261? 

I apologize for all of the questions but I just want to make sure I understand all of the implications of mame within retrobat.

And I guess this would kind of apply to fbneo also since it also has the emulator and roms having to match by version.

Hello,

6 will use 0.261 (or later depending on timing).

It's unfortunately not possible to choose a core based on subfolders, only for the full mame system or game per game.
However for Mame, if you leave on auto, it will automatically choose the more appropriate core based on an xml database file.

@tartifless, oh wow, I didn't know that last part.
So to make sure I'm understanding. RetroBat will choose the appropriate core based on an xml.--> if I have an 078 folder, 078 roms, or mame 2003 and a 0.261 folder (mame);; retrobat is smart enough to choose the proper core?

And the only part I didn't see a response to, is there a method to stop retrobat from updating mame once Ii get everything how I like is (for current mame)
.
I'm trying to not have to update my roms Everytime retrobat updates the mame emulator version.

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding something.

Thank you again @tartifless!! You have been so helpful!!

Hello,

You can keep a copy of the lr-mame libretro dll file and put it back again in later retrobat versions...

@tartifless

Ahhh I think I follow you. But I thought libretro was only good for mame 078?

Or this has no relation to mame only to retrobat?

So if I wait for the v6 update and would like to keep my mame at .261. I just need to keep the dll you speak and replace it each time after I update?

Sorry, just looking for confirmation on this.

Or keep the V6 installer, as the .dll of the core is provided with the RetroBat installer, so this is the 0.261 for the libretro core.

Libretro has several cores : mame2003 that uses the 0.78 romset, mame2010, mame2015, and current mame (that is aligned with standalone mame).

When you let retroBat with "auto" under mame section, it will choose the best libretro core for the game, MAME.exe (the standalone emulator) will only be used if you asked RetroBat to use it.

@tartifless
Now I 100% follow you. Thank you so much for the helpful explanation!!

wtstreetglow wrote:I'm trying to not have to update my roms Everytime retrobat updates the mame emulator version.

wait... what if I never update my mame/rom folder? Won't the older roms still work with the newer versions of mame? I could have sworn I've read online countless users who have old roms being used with newer versions of MAME.

Hello
Mame need a little knowledge to handle it correctly (and understand all)
You can start by reading this short introduction

Btw you don't have to update roms if they work correctly. In any case, they will always have a core version that match to your romset