Posted by Mojo2000 on 1, 2001 at 7:52 PM:
In Reply to: Re: What are sets? posted by Matthew C. Waterman on 1, 2001 at 2:16 PM:
The reason you sometimes (often?) have to download the bootleg in addition to the original ROM is because www.mame.dk uses Parent and Clone sets. That is, only the Parent has complete data to run the game in an emulator. In order to save space, the Clone ROM only has enough data to differentiate it from the Parent, but also requires the Parent to be present in order to run in conjunction with it.
One more step: if the Parent could not be decrypted but the Bootleg WAS (as in the case of Alcon/Slap Fight or Bloxeed), then you still need both.
The concept of Split Sets saves room on your hard drive, but can make things a tiny bit more complicated. I believe Arcade@Home runs things differently in that they offer Merged sets - Parent data and Clone data combined into one autonomous file.
: One reason that there are different "romsets", I believe, is explained somewhere in the mame faq. Esentially each set is a different version of the game. Lets say you were Midway, and you made the rom for pacman, but you don't think the game is difficult enough. So what you do is reprogram the game a little, then make a new "set" of roms to replace the original. Thus the original is referred to as "set one", and the harder version is "set two".
: A Bootleg rom is when you have a game that features some type of security encryption to keep people from copying your romset. You remove the encryption so that it can be copied. A Bootleg is usually the actual dump of a copied game.
: Hope that clarifies a little.