Best way to setup emulators/ROMs

Hi, I have been using emulators for years, but about a year and a half ago I built my first gaming computer with an SSD for the OS and a 2TB data drive. I was wondering how most people have their emulators and ROMs set up, as in, where do they install their emulators and what folder they keep their ROMs in. I was hoping to find a way to use portable emulators where ever possible and maybe copy over the whole installation folder ever time I reinstall Windows instead of having to resetup the emulator configuration every time. That way i could configure the controllers, video, paths, etc once and be able to just copy to my C: drive when ever reinstalling - or maybe even run it from my data drive. Good idea or bad? And again, where should I put the ROMs? Put them all together in one folder or put them in separate folders according to emulator? AS you can see, I am very OCD. Please help. Thank you.

Nobody knows how they have theirs set up?

I usually have all my emulators in a folder on my desktop, and have my roms separated by system and in order based on the alphabet. I don't like any of my emulators in the programs folder simply because it makes it harder to get to the plugins.

I do what your thinking. portable apps where ever possible. There's no need of an emu app not to be portable so I'm always suspicious when they arn't. Tho of course sometimes theres no alternatives. If its portable you should beable to cut and paste it anywere and have it run no matter the location, unless of course theres security limitations setup on your OS like mine for example with MS SoftwareRestrictionPolicy setup, exe executables can only run from predesignated locations. and depending on the setup only certain exe's can run. That aside tho, Emu's arn't that large of an app so you probably wouldn't notice any difference between SDD and HDD loading them, once they start its all the same cause there running from Ram, Your biggest wait time would probably be the initial Loading of the game ROM file, but once the game is loaded into Ram theres also no performance diff concerning Drive location. I personaly use my OS partition to launch the Emu exe's, but thats just cause I don't allow exe's to exacute off my storage drive.

I run the Roms and everything else that the Emu allows to run off the storage data drive tho, the Emu Config files that usually need to be in the same location as the Emu I just create a Backup to Storage after setup.

Since Roms can usually be used on any emulator designated for that system, I don't seperate them by Emu, catagorize them by system instead like Mupen64Man said, but i first catagorize them by Type then Brand then System. example.. some Roms are only #Arcade then others are available on all #Consoles, so i seperate them,
Acrade may then contain #neogoe #cps2 #sega folder etc, and then
Console may contain #nintendo #sega etc, and then
Nintendo may contain #gb #snes etc, etc
,etc

Side note, just incase you don't do so already.. once you have your OS partition setup, Instead of re-installing windows, you can Back it up by Cloning it with a Disk Imaging application. I know windows has a built in backup function but its really BS. Theres a bunch of opensource free apps these days that do so pritty easily, mostly linux based. Im not up on the latest, I use the slimmest app i found that works and never changed. which is the 'ntfsclone' command in linux. If ur not familiar with linux basics there are GUI based apps such as 'clonezilla'. I could be wrong but would assume most linux based imaging apps are probably a frontend or fork of ntfsclone, since most if not all linux apps are live bootable these days that command can be run on any live booted linux app. For example, Gparted live is just an app for formatting partitions, but the 'ntfsclone' command will still be available since ntfstools is standard. Like i said i havnt' looked in a long time but fyi historically these were i think maybe the most popular all in one live bootable linux utilities... SystemRescueCD, PartedMagic, Knoppix.


[EDIT]: oh yeah, If you use a front end that organizes Mame roms this is irrelivant, but if not, just fyi this is a way it can be dont without a front end from command prompt: using mames -lb command, ill use "mvsc" marvelVScapcom just for example to seperate all cps2 roms. Once u know the name of any rom in the set u can use the cmd no matter if the rom exists, it will search for all (-lb)brother roms in the set. Have to replace the example PATHs i used with the proper ones of course and press enter after the first line.

Code:

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set _VAR=D:\Path\To\Mame\Roms
FOR /F "skip=1 tokens=2" %a IN ('""C:\Path\To\Mame\mame.exe" -lb "mvsc""') DO (FOR %b IN ("%a.zip") DO (IF NOT "%~$_VAR:b"=="" (move /-Y "%_VAR%\%~b" "D:\Path\To\cps2\roms\")))

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Thank you so much for your reply, you've given me a lot to think about and i love it! I've got some organizing to do!