Separate .ini files for Mame and FBNeo Arcade game folders

Ideas Not Happening
1

Currently, via the assign.json file, fba/fbneo and mame arcade games that are in folders with the same name as the assign.json file use the same .ini file, even if the ROMs in each folder are different:

“arcade”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadecps1”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadecps2”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadecps3”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadefba”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadefbneo”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadefinalburnalpha”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadefinalburnneo”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcadehbmame”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame2000”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame2003”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame2003plus”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame2010”: “arcade.ini”,
“arcademame2016”: “arcade.ini”,
“cps”: “arcade.ini”,
“cps1”: “arcade.ini”,
“cps2”: “arcade.ini”,
“cps3”: “arcade.ini”,
“fba”: “arcade.ini”,
“fbneo”: “arcade.ini”,
“finalburnalpha”: “arcade.ini”,
“finalburnneo”: “arcade.ini”,

This configuration has a serious problem: The ROMs inside Arcade start with fbneo, the default core, and everything is fine, because the ones I put there are FBNeo ROMs, but the ROMs inside the Mame folder, which in my case are from Mame2003Plus, try to use fbneo and with that break.

Apparently, you can’t change the linked core for folders in the root of the roms folder. At least I tried here and it’s not possible, even for folders that follow exactly the expected naming convention: I tried changing the core of some other folder that is correct in the root and it won’t let me, like the “Sega Dreamcast” or “NEC PC Engine CD” folders, but MuOS won’t let me. I have to go in and change it one rom at a time.

Since the assign.json file apparently blocks this linking of the folder name (the folder that I left with just the name Mame appears in the navigation with the name MAME Arcade, but it calls the fbneo core) with the Arcade.ini file, there’s no way to change the core for the entire folder. It forces the user to change the game by game, and the MAME and FBNeo sets are usually different.

And I was taken by surprise because I like to create folders using the nomenclature contained in the MUOS assign folder and there is no mention of Mame there, so I understood that the folder should be manually set to Core, but it is not possible.

As it currently stands, trying to automate the linking of ROMs to a core using the standardized folder name becomes the worst possible situation for the Arcade system.

2

Hey there, thanks for the detailed report.
It seems what we have is actually just a misunderstanding as to what the assign.json is for.

Its sole purpose is to assist with auto-assigning a core.

MAME and FBNeo are not discrete systems, they are simply arcade cores. So the default assignment fits fine. We don’t create new auto-assign configurations for different cores for the same system (Snes9x and Supafaust are both SNES-SFC for example.)

Naming your folders based on the nomenclature in the assign folder isn’t recommended or required. You gain nothing by doing so.

You can assign a new core to a whole folder or a folder and all sub-folders by using X or Y on the core assignment screen. Pressing A here is why you got the single ROM assignment behaviour.

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