To understand non-merged sets, it helps to compare them to the three primary ways MAME sets are distributed:
However, given the low cost of modern terabyte-scale hard drives and micro-SD cards, this storage penalty is a minor inconvenience compared to the plug-and-play convenience it provides. Summary: Which Set is Right for You? Merged Set Non-Merged Set Low (High Duplication) Stand-alone Clones Yes Ease of Curation Impossible Excellent Best For Low-storage devices Archival storage Custom builds & Frontends
Run a scan, then select "Fix." ROMVault will extract the necessary parent files and inject them into the clone zip files, creating a fully self-contained set. Summary Table: Non-Merged vs. Others Non-Merged Self-Contained Only Parents File Redundancy Storage Space Ideal For Frontends/Portability General Use Limited Space
The main version of a game (e.g., Street Fighter II ). Clone ROM: A variant (e.g., Street Fighter II (Japan) ).
While it takes up significantly more disk space due to file duplication, the benefits for specific users are massive: Ultimate Portability: You can grab a single ZIP file (e.g., pacman.zip non merged mame rom set
The "missing files" error is the most common issue when using MAME, but it is the least likely to happen with a non-merged set. If you do encounter a problem:
of games from the full library without dealing with dependencies. How to Create a Non-Merged Set (Using ROMVault)
: If you only want 50 favorite games out of the 10,000+ available, you can simply delete the ones you don't want. In a non-merged set, deleting one file never "breaks" another game.
: Any necessary system files (like the Neo Geo BIOS) are copied into every game ZIP file that needs them. Easy Management To understand non-merged sets, it helps to compare
Because parent files are duplicated in every clone, a full non-merged set takes up significantly more space than merged or split sets.
You never need a separate neogeo.zip , qsound.zip , or parent ROM. Everything is inside each game’s ZIP.
Because MAME archives tens of thousands of arcade machines—including mechanical games, quiz games, and fruit machines—a full non-merged set is incredibly large. While a standard split set might take up roughly 40GB to 70GB (excluding CHD massive disk-image files), a full non-merged set can easily double or triple that size due to the sheer volume of redundant data. What about CHDs?
If you are aiming for a full, "complete" ROM set (a set-of-all-sets ), non-merged is inefficient. The total size can be nearly double that of a split or merged set due to duplicated data. 2. Harder to Update Summary Table: Non-Merged vs
MAME updates monthly. Ensure your ROM set version precisely matches your emulator version (e.g., MAME 0.265 emulator needs a v0.265 ROM set). If they do not match, games will fail to launch due to updated rom dumps.
This is the most straightforward format. . Each ZIP includes all the necessary ROM files, BIOS, and device files required to run that specific game independently. This eliminates any dependency on other ZIP files.
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A vital rule for any MAME collection is that your ROM set must match the version of the emulator you are running. MAME updates frequently, and with those updates come changes to how the ROM data is named, verified, and structured.
To understand a non-merged set, you first need to understand how MAME handles arcade games.