Managing Roms

[stupot]

I can see both sides of the argument here, I think when i was younger with the Gp32 or on the PC i was dl every rom for every system for the sake of it, but obviously not having time to play all those games and only really playing the best games or the ones i remember, so all i do now is for each system, go on a site e.g for Amiga, Lemon Amiga and go through the A-Z (yes it takes a while, say 2-3 weeks on a hours lunch at work) and list my favs, classics and some i wanted but never got, then dl them when i get home) so instead of 5000 odd Amiga games, I've got around 400 which i can trim down a bit by playing them when my Pandora arrives.....same for other consoles, we have 8 weeks to it arrives, get sorted now i say, by the time it arrives, all the best and classic games will be waiting for you to enjoy on that lush screen!

Problem with that as i understand it is that the Emu's for Pandora we dont know what version of the Roms e would need! so doing it all now could be wasted time couldnt it?

 

[3n19m4]

I thought a rom was standard, as in a rom should work for every emulator that emulates that specific system?
So as long as the emulators get ported and work any rom for those systems should be ok right?

Could be wrong tho I guess but any rom I have downloaded in the past worked and I have never seen different versions.

 

[joa]

you're right 3n19m4, they are. Some emulators can also read roms within compressed archives such as rar,zip,7z

You can expect a genesis emulator to read all .gen rom files extensions providing the rom is not corrupt.

 

[stupot]

you're right 3n19m4, they are. Some emulators can also read roms within compressed archives such as rar,zip,7z

You can expect a genesis emulator to read all .gen rom files extensions providing the rom is not corrupt.

he isnt right my exsisting Mame roms didnt work on the GP2x although they worked fine on my PC, I dont know why but I know the solution was to download them again.

I have also seen people talking about version 375b of a romset and stuff like that!? or am I dreaming.

 

[3n19m4]

I could actually understand if you downloaded a .rom file from the net on a windows os then tried to play it on a device that was linux that it might not work because I guess the file systems are different?
This could be why you needed to re-download the file.

I don't know what to think now.
Can anyone clear this up?

 

[joa]

Yes he is right, there may have been no fault with the rom at all, or it could be have been a overdump, a bad-dump, a corrupt rom. There are different versions of each rom, ofcourse, it would be been improved and bugs removed (on occasion), it would have been released in several languages.

They are different versions of the same game, all just rom dumps. Of course not all are working!! this is emulation.

 

[joa]

I could actually understand if you downloaded a .rom file from the net on a windows os then tried to play it on a device that was linux that it might not work because I guess the file systems are different?
This could be why you needed to re-download the file.

I don't know what to think now.
Can anyone clear this up?

A filesystem will determine how the data is stored and mapped. It will not determine what the data is.

Have a rom on a Linux box using ext3 and an XP box using NTFS, the data is exactly the same on both filesystems.

common sense really. :lol:

 

[Lamb]

you're right 3n19m4, they are. Some emulators can also read roms within compressed archives such as rar,zip,7z

You can expect a genesis emulator to read all .gen rom files extensions providing the rom is not corrupt.

he isnt right my exsisting Mame roms didnt work on the GP2x although they worked fine on my PC, I dont know why but I know the solution was to download them again.

I have also seen people talking about version 375b of a romset and stuff like that!? or am I dreaming.

When there is a change in mame version, is often adds new files that need to be present in your roms for them to work. If you have ever tried to run an old rom set in a new version of mame, you will often get an error message that says "missing 00215-c.bin" or something to that effect. Now some times you can get around that by renaming some of your old .bin or .rom files to match the ones that are missing, but this can take bloody ages. There is however programs that can updated your rom sets for you "Clrmame" for example...Sorry not a very good explanation, but the best I could do..

 

[stupot]

When there is a change in mame version, is often adds new files that need to be present in your roms for them to work. If you have ever tried to run an old rom set in a new version of mame, you will often get an error message that says "missing 00215-c.bin" or something to that effect. Now some times you can get around that by renaming some of your old .bin or .rom files to match the ones that are missing, but this can take bloody ages. There is however programs that can updated your rom sets for you "Clrmame" for example...Sorry not a very good explanation, but the best I could do..

So the fact is then I could download Roms that wouldnt work with a pandora version of an Emulator!

A good example of this is I have Bubble Bobble for MAME and it works fine on my GP2x but I put it on Zodttd's Mame Emu for iphone and it came up with "missing XXX.bin" i looked into it and found that I need a different version of that Rom.

So If I start sorting collections now for future Pandora EMU's teh possibility exists that they wouldnt just work, but would require editing or new versions downloading. Correct?

 

[Lamb]

When there is a change in mame version, is often adds new files that need to be present in your roms for them to work. If you have ever tried to run an old rom set in a new version of mame, you will often get an error message that says "missing 00215-c.bin" or something to that effect. Now some times you can get around that by renaming some of your old .bin or .rom files to match the ones that are missing, but this can take bloody ages. There is however programs that can updated your rom sets for you "Clrmame" for example...Sorry not a very good explanation, but the best I could do..

So the fact is then I could download Roms that wouldnt work with a pandora version of an Emulator!

A good example of this is I have Bubble Bobble for MAME and it works fine on my GP2x but I put it on Zodttd's Mame Emu for iphone and it came up with "missing XXX.bin" i looked into it and found that I need a different version of that Rom.

So If I start sorting collections now for future Pandora EMU's teh possibility exists that they wouldnt just work, but would require editing or new versions downloading. Correct?

Yes exactly, you got it. Of course it all depends on what version of mame is ported to the pandora.

With your Bubble Bobble rom that worked with your gp2x but not your iphone, you could re-name one of the files in your rom to the xxx.bin that it asks for on your iphone, you need to re-name the right bin, but it isn't to tricky to work out, and if it's just one or two roms you want to make work, it's not a bad method. Now if you will excuse me I'm late for work AHRRRRRRRRR

 

[3n19m4]

Ok cool, but other roms such as PSX, Amiga etc should be fine though right?
Mame sounds like it works slightly different or would that problem effect all roms?

Thanks for all the input on this btw.

 

[bartleby]

Ok cool, but other roms such as PSX, Amiga etc should be fine though right?

amiga shouldn't be a problem. with psx roms it might be a different story: there are different types of disk images (iso, img, bin/cue, mds/mdf, ...) for those. i hope psx4all supports all of them, like epsxe does. but i guess we'll have to wait and see. there is also a discussion on psx rom filese here btw.

 

[3n19m4]

So clueless on my own...
Power to the community!

 

[stupot]

So clueless on my own...
Power to the community!

Seconded.

Ta all

 

[dinglebery]

as far as psx images go the bin+cue is the way to go as it avoids a problem with some games .. back in the day certain games actualy had real cd audio encoded to the cd instad of as files on the cd iso's dont read that properly for most psx emus and you wind up with all the tracks lumped into track 1 or no music at all.

 

[amnesiasoft]

Oh right, and biggest reason not to have every ROM ever: How the hell am I going to find what I want?!

 

[TJSomething]

I figure you should be able to type the name of the ROM and find it that way. I think that if you did this, you would have to have a way to words in the middle of games. For example, I should be able to type, "mario" and get Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World, Super Mario Land, Super Mario 64, etc. Then, there should be options to narrow your search, like "Good Dumps," "North American," and "SNES."
You probably could accomplish this with something like the GoodTools and a database.

 

[Nightwind0]

I figure you should be able to type the name of the ROM and find it that way. I think that if you did this, you would have to have a way to words in the middle of games. For example, I should be able to type, "mario" and get Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World, Super Mario Land, Super Mario 64, etc. Then, there should be options to narrow your search, like "Good Dumps," "North American," and "SNES."
You probably could accomplish this with something like the GoodTools and a database.

Nothing is quite as satisfying as a good dump.

 

[phrosty]

well i'm sure there are people out there that can't wait to play michael jackson's: moonwalker

Don't knock it! While it was probably not it's original intention, it is so absurd that I still crack up and have a great time while playing it. Especially with a few friends. If you haven't tried it, definitely check it out

 

[jaycee900]

Problem with that as i understand it is that the Emu's for Pandora we dont know what version of the Roms e would need! so doing it all now could be wasted time couldnt it?

Well no because i only mentioned listing the games you want now, if that includes 2-3 diff versions then dl them now, you are still dl the games you only want to play, no wasted time at all imo.