Someone who knows about mame please read this!

[realworksuks]

I found a mame "chds" file that is 30 gb or so that I want to download. The only thing is I don't know what CHDS are. On this other site they said I need to download the roms, and then patch the CHDS's onto the roms or something. Can anyone clear this up for me? What are the CHDS files, and why do you need them to play the roms in the goodset?

[KingVendrSnatch]

There is no "Goodset" for MAME.

CHD stands for "(C)ompressed (H)unks of (D)ata" - the odd acronym owes it self to the fact that the format was originally "(C)ompressed (H)ard (D)isk" but has subsequently be expanded to fit a variety of media storage (CD-ROM, etc.). These files are not technically ROM files, since they contain a drive image, rather than a ROM chip image. Some games had disk drives in them with extra data, large hard disks, or CDs are substantially cheaper than large ROM chips. Because of this, CHD files will typically be much larger than any ROM files you have.

[Allnatural]

http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/mameguide/mamechd.htm

[smcd]

If you're after playability and not "collecting," most CHD games are not worth the trouble - they run far too slowly.

[realworksuks]

so chds files are stand alone games for mame? That means you don't need Chds files to play roms then?? I am downloading a rom collection for mame of 10 or so gbs, but the CHDS files that i am downloading seperately are 30. The guy told me I needed both. Tell me more about this stuff so I can fully understand what they are, and what they are used for.

[Agozer]

To play a CHD game in MAME, you need both the CHD file and the romset.

[realworksuks]

do you have to patch them or something, how do you do it

[Agozer]

No, you don't have to patch anything. Like I said, you just need the romset and the CHD.