guide retrogaming through emulation (part 1 organizing) - ner
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EMULATION / FEATURED / GUIDE 0
GUIDE: RETROGAMINGTHROUGH EMULATION
(PART 1: ORGANIZING)BY NILS 10. AUGUST 2014
OLLO
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GUIDEGUIDE: RETROGAMING
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(PART 1: ORGANIZING)
10 AUG, 2014
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PROJECT: UI AND
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V2.0 EMULATOR
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13 JUL, 2014
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As i wrote in my post about the EmulationStation UI, I got interested in
emulating games in 2013 when i tried to bring the games from the good
old times back to the big screen television. RetroPieon the Raspberry Pi
is a good way of doing that. But there are other ways to enjoy classic
video games, not always in front of the TV (although its the most
reasonable way). This guide aims to give you an overview from the
start.
I parted the guide in different topics (will be linked here later):
Organizing your games/ROMs
Emulator software
User interfaces and front ends
Hardware based on emulation
ORGANIZING YOUR
GAMES/ROMS
Before starting with this topic a short excursion to the basics of
emulation is necessary.
GENERAL
REPORTS OF MY DEATH
HAVE BEEN GREATLY
EXAGGERATED
20 JUN, 2014
EMULATION/ FEATURED/ GUIDE
GUIDE: RETROGAMING
THROUGH EMULATION (PART 2:
EMULATOR SOFTWARE)
2 NOV, 2014
EMULATION/ FEATURED/ GUIDE
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THE BASICS
Games from old video game consoles were often stored on cassettes,
cartridges or floppy disks. Unlike cassettes or floppy disks whichare readable and writable by the user, the chips inside cartridges are
read-only. Hence they are called ROM-chips (read-only memory).
Beyond that, cartridges have also chips for saving save games which
are of course writeable. When playing a game you always need to put
the original cartridge in to the physical console like with any other
physical media.
GUIDE: RETROGAMING
THROUGH EMULATION (PART 1:
ORGANIZING)
10 AUG, 2014
FEATURED/ PROJECTS
PROJECT: UI AND DESIGN OF
EMULATIONSTATION V2.0EMULATOR FRONT-END
13 JUL, 2014
GENERAL
REPORTS OF MY DEATH HAVE
BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED
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N64 Game Cartridge with ROM chip inside. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Emulation works different. You dont need the original consolebut you
should own the original cartridges due to copyright reasons.To do
emulation, you need to extract the contents of the original cartridges.
There is hardware to do that, for example the Retrode device which
plugs into your computer using a USB port. The included software reads
the ROM-chip of the cartridge and saves the contents to a file on your
computer. This process is called dumping, and the result is a dump in
form of a ROM file. Over time some common filetypes have emerged for
each video game system, for example ROMs of SNES titles are saved
as .sfc (meaning Super Famicom) or .smc files.
ORGANIZING
ROMs for any system are widely available on the web, but you should
be cautious you always need to own the original cartridge.Lets
assume you have a load of ROMs from whereever. The problem with
them is that there are sometimes dozens of ROMs for the same game.
Some are just faulty (bad dump from the original cartridge), some are
modified or hacked to make your alter ego in the game jump higher or
live longer. Some ROMs even are total conversions of games with a
completely different gameplay, story or new graphics. Its up to you if
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you want those ROM files too, or if you prefer only the unaltered
original games. I personally prefer only the most accurate ROM dumps,
just because I dont need hacked games.
But, who tells you if the ROMs are accurately ripped or not altered or
hacked in any way? There are three major databases/catalogues for
that. They all work the same way. Its a huge database containing meta
data of all dumps ever made (public). In combination with a ROM
collection browser software you can check your collection of ROMs
against the database to sort out unwanted files and organize the rest
(renaming, sorting).
GOODTOOLS
Windows| Linux | Mac
Rating:
GoodToolsis a windows command line application which audits your
collection of ROMs. It currently supports 35 systems and checks the
contents of a specified folder against its embedded database. Ths
means it deletes unneccessary files, renames them after a special
naming convention and saves a summary in form of a text file. The
summary tells you how many ROMs you have and how many you are
missing in comparison to the database.
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Tools:The command line can sometimes be tricky, so a guy named
solarz made a front end (GUI) for it named GoodGUI. There are
additional tools for GoodTools. GoodMergemerges all ROM files of a a
game into a ZIP or 7Z file. Because some emulators cant read zipped
ROMs, UnGoodMerge reverts this process and unpacks all containing
ROMs.
Conclusion:GoodTools is rather inconvenient to use, because its a
command line tool. GoodGUI is a great help here. GoodTools is not
compatible with ROM collection browsers because the database is
embedded in the respective executable (one for each of the 35 systems).
This means you cant organize and maintain the ROMs with a software.
The databases of GoodTools contain nearly every type of ROM, from
betas over hacks to different language versions. If you only want the
pure original games, this is not for you. In addition to that the database
is outdated. My opinion: Leave it.
TOSEC (THE OLD SCHOOL EMULATION
CENTER)
Rating:
TOSECis a retrocomputing initiative dedicated to the cataloging and
preservation of software, firmware and resources for arcade machines,
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microcomputers, minicomputers and video game consoles. The main
goal of the project is to catalog and audit various kinds of software and
firmware images for these systems. It maintains the biggest database
of its kind, currently consisting of over 280 platforms! This goes
beyond cataloguing disk images and firmware, it even includes
information about scans of magazines, manuals, box art,
documentaries, videos and more! The database is offline and
distributed as DAT files, one for each system or category. To use the
DAT files, you will need an auditing application.
Tools:As said before, you will need an auditing application to check
your ROMs and disk images against the TOSEC database. Down in this
atricle is a list of the best tools available for auditing with DAT files.
Conclusion: Its the biggest database for retrogaming and
retrocomputing. It stands out for its huge count of cataloged
Commodore and Amiga software. Plus it also includes printed media as
mentioned above. As with GoodTools, the databases of TOSEC also
includes modified, hacked or cracked disk images, beta versions,
bootlegs and different language versions. So if you dont need the
whole hacked stuff, this is also not for you.
NO-INTRO (DAT-O-MATIC)
Rating:
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No-Intromaintains a database of over 60 computer and video game
systems called DAT-o-MATIC. The databases only contain the best
available disk images/ROMs. This means that modified or hacked, beta
versions, bootlegs or any other altered or faulty disk images/ROMs are
NOT included in the databases.
Tools:Like for TOSEC, you will need an auditing application to use the
DAT files from No-Intro. You can find an overview of the best tools
available below the conclusion.
Conclusion:The No-Intro databases have the huge advantage of
discarding and deleting all altered disk images/ROMs in your collection
when checking it against the databases. This means your collection is
reduced to only the original unaltered games, just like they are stored
on the original floppy disks or cartridges. This saves much space on
your hard drive and makes your collection much more clear to browse.
TOOLS
CLRMAMEPRO
Windows| Linux | Mac
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clrmamepro menu window
clrmameprohas many features to scan, reorganize and fix your
collection. It consists of the profiler as the center of your collection
from where you can open, add and delete systems. The main modules
are the scanner which checks your collection against a database, fixes
and reorganizes it. Header files for ROMs are supported. The rebuilder
module builds a collection from a unorganized pile of disk image
files/ROMs with the help of a database. The merger module compressessimilar disk images/ROMs into one zipped file, just like GoodMerge
from the GoodTools does. Unfortunately you cant browse your
collection in a database style.
ROMCENTER
Windows| Linux | Mac
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RomCenter main window
RomCenteris an auditing application for Windows which scans, repairs
and organizes your collection of disk images/ROMs. Its in active
development and uses a Windows Explorer styled interface with a treestructure. It acts more like a catalog than clrmamepro because you can
scroll through the system and see the status of a individual disk
image/ROM. You can scan only ZIP packs or uncompressed disk
images/ROMs. You can also launch games directly from RomCenter if
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you have defined a suitable emulator before. A big disadvantage is also
that you can organize only one system at a time. If you want to
organize your whole collection, this would be a bit inconvenient,
because you would have to open and close different RomCenter
database files. It also lacks the feature of defining headers for ROMs, for
instance NES ROMs.
ROMULUS
Windows| Linux | Mac
Romulus Main window
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Romulusis very easy to use. It allows you to add all your systems to
one single Romulus database. You can open multiple systems at a time
in tabs. Its feature packed besides the usual features like reports,
scanner and builder it has an online DAT updater, a statistics module
and an embedded web browser. You can scan you collection, no matter
if its based on ZIP, 7ZIP, RAR compressed packs or just uncompressed
files. It even supports defining headers before scanning your collection.
Like clrmamepro does, it also can rebuild your complete collection to
match the used database. Its also possible to launch games directly
from the application if you have defined a suitable emulator before.
ROMVAULT
Windows| Linux | Mac
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RomVault main window
RomVaultis another auditing application and similar to RomCenter. Its
a bit confusing and has some disadvantages. The configuration of ROM
paths is confusing. There are five functions reachable from big buttons
on the left side of the main window. Your systems are arranged in a
tree view. You basically add DAT files to the DatRoot folder ofRomVault manually, set the directory where the disk images/ROMs are
and start scanning. You can also add missing files to the collection
with the Find Fixes and Fix ROMs functions. It does not support ROM
headers for scanning.
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OTHER AUDITING TOOLS
ROMINATOR
Only for Nintendo DS. Development has stopped. If you wand to
organize only DS games, give it a try.
Windows | Linux | Mac
LESMINNI
A very basic tool to organize ROMs. It does not accept DATs. Last
version 2007 so it looks like development has stopped.
Windows | Linux | Mac
GELIDE
A ROM collection browser for various Linux distributions running on
Gnome desktop environment.
Windows | Linux| Mac
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Tags: auditing emulation emulator gaming guide organizing retro
retrogaming rom rom browser rom manager
If you know other tools for auditing ROM collections, please contact me
using the contact form or comment this article. Thanks!
COMING SOON: PART 2 EMULATOR
SOFTWARE
This first part of my guide retrogaming through emulation showed you
the basics and how to organize your collection. I hope you liked it. Feel
free to give feedback and comments! In the next part I will introduce
the best emulators to use with your disk images/ROMs. Stay tuned!
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GUIDE:
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(PART 2:
EMULATOR
SOFTWARE)
1
13 JUL, 2014
PROJECT: UI AND
DESIGN OF
EMULATIONSTATI
ON V2.0
EMULATOR
FRONT-END
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