feature request: games-emulation/sdlmame multi-slot support

[fpemud]

Just like app-emulation/wine, MAME roms may not work after a new games-emulation/sdlmame version is installed. Multi-slot support can greatly improve the user experience.

[jorgicio]

I don't think may be a good idea due to files conflict between versions. Also, I don't know what games are not working with recent versions of sdlmame. In my experience, I tried several versions of sdlmame, and I didn't have any issue (unless they may be patched). If you're have problems with some ROMs in recent versions, you could try advancemame in the meanwhile. Also, I don't know what kind of benefits may bring when slotting sdlmame. Frontends like qmc2 should be able to detect them too.

[fpemud]

Thanks for replying.

For example, I can do this when I upgrade sdlmame-0.220 from sdlmame-0.219 if sdlmame supports multi-slot:

1. Install app-emulation/sdlmame-0.220
2. Use "sdlmame -verifyroms" command of sdlmame-0.220 to verify all the game rom files. This command checks game rom files according to the hash files in mame-0.220 package.
3. Before I finished updating all the not-compatible roms, I can still play all the games using sdlmame-0.219
4. Now all roms are updated. I can remove app-emulation/sdlmame-0.219 finally.

[jorgicio]

Mmmm... I don't know, I'm not kinda convinced about that. Also, when I sed "file conflicts", I meant at installation moment. If I have to slot, this means lot of tricks to do in order to save files using the program-version naming format. Also, after I read this comment, it says updates are not the cause of breaking ROMs, so it may be something else. This may help too.