Associate the same media for parent Arcade ROMs and their clones to save storage space

Available since version 2.0.3.5 beta 6

When scraping arcade ROMs, you may come across ROM clones that share the same media as the parent ROMs. As a result, you'll download the same media but with different names, which can quickly overload your storage space.

The solution may be to delete your clone ROMs before scraping.
If you still want to keep them, here are two solutions that will allow you to save storage space.

First solution

The Arcade Clone Parent name checkbox available under the Rename Artworks button allows you to rename Arcade ROM artwork files identified as Arcade Game Clones using the media from the Parent ROM.

This checkbox is only enabled if the Image as ROM checkbox is checked.

For example:

On Mame, the following games are all clones of the parent game: sf2ce (Street Fighter II: Champion Edition)

sf2koryu
sf2mdt
sf2rb
sf2red

When scraping with the Image as ROM option, you will get the following media images, which will be the same because they come from the sf2ce clone:

sf2ce-image.png
sf2koryu-image.png
sf2mdt-image.png
sf2rb-image.png
sf2red-image.png

To save space and reduce the number of duplicate media, you can:

check the Image as ROM checkbox in the Scrape Options

Check the Arcade Clone Parent Name checkbox in the Selected ROMs panel
Select the ROMs to process
Click the Rename Artworks button in the Selected ROMs panel

You will get the following image for each clone ROM (each game will have the same media as the parent game: sf2ce):

sf2ce-image.png

Once this operation is completed, you will no longer be able to return to the previous step, i.e., to have a different image for each ROM by unchecking Arcade Clone Parent Name and applying the Rename Artworks button.
If this is what you want, you'll need to re-run a scrape to recover these images.

Second Solution

If your clone ROMs all have the same game name (game title), then it's best to use media with the game name and not the name of the clone ROM file or the parent ROM file.

To save space and reduce the number of duplicate media, you can:

uncheck the image as ROM checkbox in the Scrape Options tab

select the ROMs to process
click the Rename Artworks button in the Selected ROMs panel

Once this operation is completed, you will no longer be able to return to the previous step, i.e., to have a different image for each ROM by clicking the Rename Artworks button.

If you wish to do so, you will need to re-run a scrape to retrieve these images.

Searching for missing images when loading a gamelist

When loading an arcade system, if arcade clone parent name is checked and media exist? Or search missing images are checked, ARRM will try to find media whose name is that of the rom parent.

To activate the checkbox Arcade Clone Parent Name , it is necessary that image as Rom 'is checked