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DAT file support

While Retool understands both LogiqX and CLRMAMEPro-formatted DAT files, it only has support for DAT files released by certain groups based on their naming conventions.

Supported

DAT files are supported from the following groups.

No-Intro

No-Intro DAT files are supported, in both LogiqX(ish) and their newer XSD-validated format.

Clone lists exist for the more popular sets, and contributions are always welcome for both maintenance and providing new lists.

Redump

Redump DAT files are supported in both LogiqX(ish) and CLRMAMEPro formats. DAT files derived from Redump that keep the same title names are also supported.

Clone lists exist for most sets except IBM PC Compatible, which is too huge and has far too much activity without community contribution to maintain.

Unsupported

While anything not in the supported list should be considered unsupported, there are two sets in particular that need to be called out, as from time to time there are requests to add support. It is unlikely Retool will ever support these DAT files.

MAME, FBNeo, and other arcade sets

There's a reason there isn't a decent 1G1R solution for MAME and FBNeo DAT files — the data structure doesn't lend itself to that sort of processing. The lack of naming standard in the DAT descriptions also makes it extremely challenging to automate anything, meaning the most likely path for 1G1R is an inflexible, curated, massive, high-effort list that needs frequent updating. This isn't a path Retool is going to take.

You can, however, get a filtered MAME DAT file with the following options:

  • Do a web search for All killer no filler. These are lists and tools that filter MAME's ROMs to only the top games as defined by their authors.

  • Arcade Manager can handle filtering MAME sets, including removing bad and non-working ROMs, and comes with built-in lists for the "top" sets and "all killer no filler".

  • RomLister and Lightspeed Game List Generator haven't been updated for a long time, but there are a lot of options in them to sate your filtering desires.

TOSEC

While TOSEC DAT files are in LogiqX format, support for their naming system hasn't been built into Retool.

Support is technically possible, but largely pointless to implement without also supplying clone lists. This isn't a small effort — with over 3,000 TOSEC DAT files as of 2022, and with TOSEC's tendency to include many, many variants, there'd have to be significant community effort not only to bridge that gap, but to test the clone lists too. At this point in time, the momentum doesn't exist to justify the work.