What are dat files?

[tekyta]

Hi I do not know which topic to post this question, mods please move to relevant forum. I am a complete newbie to roms and romsets and I want to know what "dat" files are which are associated to rom sets and their purpose for roms? Are they important and do I need to download these dat files to use the roms?

Thanks

[Zorlon]

dat files contain information that can checked against zip files with the roms inside with tools like clrmamepro that most dat files are made for use with

there are other programs that can use dat files though they may use a different format to what clrmamepro uses, programs like romcenter that is a much more gui auditing program but can also act as a front end

If it was me though I would stick to auditing with clrmamepro to make sure nothing goes wrong, romcener is a nicer program to look at but it is also very buggy

What you can do with dats and clrmamepro

A simple scan of basic rom sets and it will tell you if you are missing anything
You can also create a fix dat that can be used by others to help you find missing roms

Advanced features are mostly for MAME sets, when updating or repairing sets
e.g. you can rebuild sets from an update pack, it will scan through the update pack and add roms to the MAME set where applicable, this handy because each mame game zip hols lots of roms not just one file per zip