For library scanning how do the games need to be named?

RetroArch General
#1

For example, SMB or Super Mario Bros?

Also, for games (mostly JRPGs) that had one number here and another there - FF3 in US vs FF6 in Japan - what do they need to be named?

If there’s more than one version, do we need to do like Kodi/XBMC and put a year? Like Final Fantasy 6 for SNES, PS1, and other places it’s been re-released.

Thanks!

#2

The name is not important because RA gets the CRC from each rom.

#3

Good to know. But wouldn’t that be dependent on how the ROM was ripped/copied?

#4

Yes, our checksums come from the No Intro dats, which are clean, headerless images (we may have to include some other sets in the future, depending on the system and other factors)

#5

OK. Thanks for that info. At least I know I don’t need to worry about renaming. Is there a way (planned or existing) for adding ROMs that don’t go in for whatever reason? Maybe I ripped with hardware x, not hardware y so checksum isn’t right.

#6

Not yet, but the library/database stuff is just getting started. We’re planning to add a bunch of options for metadata/artwork and manual addition of content in the future.

#7

Does this work with zipped files of any name, too?

#8

Yes, our checksums come from the No Intro dats, which are clean, headerless images (we may have to include some other sets in the future, depending on the system and other factors)

I recently used the DAT files located on GitHub:

To scan/fix/rename all the roms I wanted to use with RetroArch.

However, it seems like RetroArch won’t load NES roms without a header.

I was confused, since after going through all the paces, only the NES games wouldn’t load. They were picked up in the playlist, sure. But when you’d try to load the game with any NES core, it would just drop you back at the load screen.

As a test, I tried the other available NES dat files:

Which says “for RomVault”, and:

For GoodNES.

Both the RomVault and GoodNES dat seem to be for headered NES roms. If you use either to verify your collection, then try and scan them with RetroArch, they’re picked up and play perfectly.

If, however, you take those same roms, load the No-Intro headerless dat for NES, it’ll “fix” them, seemingly removing the header, making them unplayable.

I also tried starting with “fresh” No-Intro headerless NES roms, and even ones that I didn’t apply any corrections to would refuse to load in RA if they were headerless. If I downloaded the same ROM, with header, it is still picked up by the scanner and plays fine.

On the No-intro FAQ it mentions that a lot of emulators struggle with headerless NES roms:

http://www.no-intro.org/faq.htm

So am I understanding the above process correctly, or I am doing something incorrectly?

I’m running RA version 1.6.7 x64 for Windows, on Windows 10 build 15063.rs2. I was able to replicate the same behavior on my Shield TV, Android 6.1, with the same version of RA.

I’m still pretty new to all of this, so I apologize if any of the terminology is off, but I’m happy to elaborate if needed.

#9

I believe NES is an exception where headered ROMs are preferred since that’s what works in the NES cores.

#10

That makes sense! I thought I’d mention it anyway, since if someone else downloads the dat via GitHub, they may not realize it’s the headerless version and accidentally mess up their roms like I did.