ROM sorting programs

[alexis524]

Hi all, looking for a program you might use that you would recommend to sort out/delete bad and overdumps from goodmerged sets. I'm going through the GoodNES set to sort out (U)[!], from (J)[!], from (E)[!] I'm doing the same for a few other sets and am hoping to avoid burnout. Any suggestions?

[SentaiBrad]

Well first, try No-Intro sets. A lot better than the Good Sets as it doesn't have all the extra crap. After that, just use the Windows search function, it will help cut down a lot. Try searching for "(U)" or "(J)" etc, and it will filter things out a bit for you.

[alexis524]

Thanks Brad. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my ROM sets. I like to have all [!] versions of each region if possible since there are a few regional differences that I enjoy. (i.e. With Kenseiden the main characters hair color is different depending on the region) Kenseiden (U) would go in my Master System setup and the (J) version to my Mark III set up, so the No-Intro set defeats what I'm after. I'll tinker with the Windows Search function. I did a search earlier today trying to pull just (J)[!] but it also pulled in bad and over dumps too.

[SentaiBrad]

The bad dumps are what I am talking about. All that extra crap. No-Intro sets have all 3 regions still I thought (could be wrong, it's been a while). I would think though that grabbing the single game that has these minor differences would be easier then sorting an entire set like this. Also, the No-Intro sets are comprised only of the good rips (denoted by [!]).

[m3TTwUrsT]

for filtering special files Like "MegaMan X (U!1)" ...... you can use : Attribute Changer (just google it ;-) ) with this app you can sort them out and delete them ;-)

[alexis524]

thanks m3TT, i checked it out and can't seem to set any exceptions on file names to include/exclude to sort my titles out. I'm remoting in from work and will have to look a bit deeper when i get home. Thanks for the suggestion

[alexis524]

Brad, I owe you an apology! After taking a closer look at No-Intro sets, they're what I'm after. It seems i was under the false assumption that No-Intro sets only featured the best version out of all the regions that would leave only one file per title, but after taking a look at the NES no intro set, I see more than one region per title, which is what I'm after My apologies to you my friend and thanks for pointing me in the right direction

[SentaiBrad]

No problem! I only want the regional exclusives myself, and then I prefer everything to be NTSC generally speaking, and No-Intro was a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Good Sets have their place, but they're miserable to trek through.

[alexis524]

I feel the same. I like that GoodSets are thorough and almost TOSEC-like in terms of capturing everything the platform has to offer, but good lord, it's a grind. I just don't have the time to sort through it all. I'd eventually like to game and not manage files you know I just have this lingering feeling that I have to put in check that even with a no-intro set, that I'm missing something...It's just all in my head and need to move on.

[SentaiBrad]

Some of the later No-Intro sets get updates, but I think the last updates were over a year ago, and even the GoodSets get constant updates. So yea, at a certain point just enjoy your games.

[m3TTwUrsT]

found another programm to filter my romfiles it is called "anti-twin". This programm allows you to search duplicate names in %..... in this way u can find e.g. files like Turtle (USA).rom and Turtle (Europe).rom after searchprogress is finished you can select al files you dont want and move them to another folder or delete them... i guess it is only available in german :-(

[kmccb23]

I'm sorry and I hope someone can help me out here.. The ROM stuff is so confusing to me.. In my MAME romset I downloaded I have 32,750 zip files.. Surely they can't all be games, right? I imported them into LB and it "displays" 2,803 games.. Not sure how many of those actually work.. Then, there's my Gameboy Advance rom pack I got.. It has 32,968 files.. I imported that directory into LB and it shows 32,967 games! :O Tons of duplicates even though I didn't check the "Force duplicate import" option.. I'm just at a loss here as it's confusing as hell.. Anyone help a brother out? Thanks in advance!

[Jason Carr]

Hi @kmccb23, yeah, romsets can be stupid confusing. MAME is different than most because there are a ton of extra files, and some games require several different files to run. LaunchBox has functionality built-in to ignore the files that aren't games. Other romsets usually don't have a bunch of extra files, but they often have many duplicates. My suggestion there would be to look for "no-intro" romsets as they should have all the duplicates removed and are only the best, most proper roms for all the games.