GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

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root
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GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

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Rif: 764-1 GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 30th July 2006, 12:40 wrote:

Hi all.

It's been a long time since my last post. Here it is the result of a personal project I started for building a "one title-one ROM, as localized as possible" GBA collection. I've seen SolidSnake is working on something related to this (GBA GoodMerge) and I think these lists could be useful. They also can come in handy for easily checking of naming consistency in the nointro DAT.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 30th July 2006, 12:48 wrote:

:o great thanks

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Macarro on 30th July 2006, 15:18 wrote:

Nice project, It will be really cool if we had those lists for all systemas and we could use them with our front-ends, maybe for showing different colours for parents and clones, show only parents, etc...

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 30th July 2006, 15:51 wrote:

lists for all systemas = utopia :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Macarro on 30th July 2006, 16:34 wrote:

There are no limits, just levels ;)

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 30th July 2006, 19:13 wrote:

Well Macarro, in fact I'm (hardly) building a main-clone Romcenter DAT with these lists, following the explained convention. What it really would boost the process is a tool that convert a list of game titles or release numbers like mine (order is important) to the corresponding list of CRC numbers. Then it would be a matter of column raw copy-paste-replace.

I've discovered your image renamer tool yesterday and I'm thinking in a way to use it for this but it's gonna be a bit tricky. Maybe you could make a quick modification for a simpler tool that uses/generates just txt lists?

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Macarro on 30th July 2006, 19:55 wrote:

You mean a plain .txt with names;CRC32? It will be really easy, I think. Anyway, the programmer is Geezup, let´s see what does he think.

I think a CRC32 list of parents and clones would be great, this way, name updates won´t affect the relations document. Maybe mamewah could use those relationships.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Connie on 30th July 2006, 19:59 wrote:
....What it really would boost the process is a tool that convert a list of game titles or release numbers like mine (order is important) to the corresponding list of CRC numbers. Then it would be a matter of column raw copy-paste-replace.
Edit my GBAfront dat by sorting by game names and compare it to your 'merge' dat. If the naming/order looks good, then the CRC's should be pretty accurate - the drawback being of course the multi language title dupes.

I can quite easily verify naming and CRC against xuoms GBA numbered RC DAT to make sure it's accurate for you.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 30th July 2006, 21:34 wrote:

Yes Macarro, plain .txt files. Example

input.txt contains:

2011 - Pokemon - Sapphire Version (UE) (v1.2)
0757 - Pocket Monsters - Sapphire (J)
0898 - Pokemon - Sapphire Version (U)
1092 - Pokemon - Saphir-Edition (G) (v1.0)
1105 - Pokemon - Versione Zaffiro (I) (v1.0)
1109 - Pokemon - Edicion Zafiro (S) (v1.0)
1111 - Pokemon - Version Saphir (F) (v1.0)
1237 - Pokemon - Sapphire Version (E) (v1.1)
1766 - Pokemon - Edicion Zafiro (S) (v1.1)
1918 - Pokemon - Versione Zaffiro (I) (v1.1)
1979 - Pokemon - Version Saphir (F) (v1.1)
1985 - Pokemon - Saphir-Edition (G) (v1.1)

or just the release numbers, whatever it is easier to code. Don't worry about tab indentation, it is really easy for me to remove and re-apply it.

output.txt contains: same list but just of the corresponding CRC32. The tool must NOT perform any kind of CRC checking. I think your current renaming tool just uses the info contained in the DAT for the renaming process. Sorry if this is not working this way, I've still not used the tool.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Macarro on 30th July 2006, 21:48 wrote:

Yes, the tool works as you said.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 31st July 2006, 06:31 wrote:

Oops!, I forgot an important thing. Output.txt should contain CRC32 AND rom size in bytes (info already in the DAT). I mean, for example:

CRC1;romsize1
CRC2;romsize2
and so on

There are some parents which differ in size from clones.

In the meantime, I'll be working following Connie suggestion, but it still requires a bit of care and hand editing. If just I had looked at your DAT before... When I started the lists, a serial-sorting of your DAT would have saved me a lot of hours of name comparisons, screenshots inspection and in-game tests.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 12th August 2006, 02:07 wrote:

Here is an update of the lists. They also contain a few corrections.

Generic XML Parent-Clone DAT, 1G1R DATs (EUR/USA/JPN) and GoodMerge support (XMDB file) are provided. See included readme.

It is expected that the only errors are missing associations. I mean J-only games that are not J-only ;) . We'll see...

Contributors: Cartoonite, xuom2, prince_albert, sapu1 and tetsuo55. Special thanks to xuom2 for his awesome tool ;)

My romname.lst supports EZClient (EZ-Flash I&II) and EZ4 Client (EZ-Flash IV). EZ4 Client users: please report any problems as I can't test it.

NDS No-Intro P/C DAT is available through NDS-O-MATIC (thanks xuom2).

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 22nd September 2006, 09:10 wrote:

First of all, thank you for this incredibly useful list.
I've been trying to create an xmdb file for GoodMerge for my GBA collection, and this list has been incredibly useful.

Unfortunately I don't have a complete ROM collection, so I wasn't able to test your DAT, but I did find a few possible discrepancies in the associations.

First, the "official" GoodGBA xmdb file I'm using combines 1149 - Gem Smashers (U) and 1310 - Pazunin - Uminin no Puzzle de Nimu (J) but your lists have them separated with 1310 - Pazunin - Uminin no Puzzle de Nimu (J) listed in the Japanese-only list and I was curious as to why.

Same thing with 0132 - Kiki Kaikai Advance (J) and 0709 - Pocky & Rocky with Becky.

The other possible error my friend who was helping me with testing pointed out is that 2061 - Kim Possible (J) is not a clone of 1274 - Kim Possible (E) (M4) , but rather of 2323 - Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 22nd September 2006, 13:06 wrote:

You're absolutely right Cartoonite. Thank you very much for your feedback. Your corrections have been added. Good ones (0132 & 1310) because they are from those titles with different serials.

My big mistake with 2061 - Kim Possible (J). This was easy... :oops:

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 22nd September 2006, 19:31 wrote:

i wrote a small utility that may help you.

it loads:
1) TXT file with the list of romnumbers (names will be ignored and rewritten)
2) official RC nointro GBA numbered DAT

result: 4 files with various formats.

i wrote no crash-checks (f.e., input info accuracy, existing files, and so on)
and i want to add checks about input/output data, if the utility is useful.

sorry for the big size of the exe.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
root
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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

Post by root »

Rif: 764-2 \ Rob Loach on 22nd September 2006, 21:44 wrote:

Very cool! Any chance of getting a hold of the source? I found a bug in the outputed XMDB....

Code: Select all

	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="U" name="My Little Pony - Crystal Princess - The Runaway Rainbow"/>
	</zoned>
	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="U" name="Danny Phantom - Urban Jungle"/>
  </parents>
</set>
</romsets>

You're not closing your last ZONED tag.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 23rd September 2006, 02:24 wrote:

Ok xuom2, your tool is amazing :shock: . Results after using it (generating your lists/dat and comparing with mine):

- Errors in both lists:

NONE

- Errors in the parent-clone dat:

2 naming errors -> FIXED
NO CRC32 errors
NO size errors

So as for now on, the parent-clone lists and dat are sync'ed with current GBA No-Intro numbered DAT (next update). Everybody feel free to report missing/bad parent-clone associations. It will be much appreciated.

Thanks again xuom2.

PD: Just a minor glitch: the titles for the input boxes are reversed.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 23rd September 2006, 02:26 wrote:

I found one more possible pairing that shows up in the "official" Goodmerge xmdb that is absent from your parent-clone list, kazumi213.

Goodmerge combines these 3 into a single archive:
0251 - CodeBreaker (U)
0237 - Xploder Advance (E) (Unl)
0271 - Xploder Advance (E) (Alt) (Unl)

I also found possible naming error in your DAT File:
Your file:
?1435 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (E) (M6)?1435 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (E) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6).gba?69b6f229?16777216?1435 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (E) (M6)??
Official file:
?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6)?1378 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship Tournament 2004 (U) (M6).gba?69b6f229?16777216???
It looks like you are missing "- " from the 5th section in your file.


@xuom2
Thanks for the app. I'll try to run it tonight and then compare its output against my own almost complete file.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 23rd September 2006, 02:48 wrote:

Thanks Cartoonite. Naming error in 1378 is already detected. The other one is in 2042 (second occurrence). Both corrections will be included in the next update.

In relation to CB/Xploder association, the problem is I'm not sure if they are the same device and just different localizations. Now you report as being associated in other source and due to the code format they use being the same, I'll associate them.

Could you confirm if my associations for Action Replay/Gameshark are the same in your xmdb?

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 23rd September 2006, 06:30 wrote:

update:

parent-clone03.zip
- closed the last ZONED tag (Rob Loach).
- reversed the the titles for the input boxes (kazumi213).
- added more zones (XMDB): JU, K, UCa.


shared source code: maybe i will do it, but before i need to clean it up and add comments..

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 23rd September 2006, 08:15 wrote:

Another XMDB bug is that you have to convert all "&" signs to "&" for the names.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 23rd September 2006, 08:33 wrote:
Could you confirm if my associations for Action Replay/Gameshark are the same in your xmdb?
There's no mention of either Action Replay or Gameshark in the original GoodGBA.xmdb that I modified to make my own file, which suggests that, as far as that author was concerned anyway, they are independant. When I get a little more time (next week, probably) I will do some testing with GoodGBA and the original file to see how those particular ROMs get merged.

One thing to keep in mind is that the GoodGBA list is terribly out of date, so it may just mean that they had not yet been released under alternate titles when that xmdb file was created. If all versions of a game share the exact same title and just the language designations are different, no entry is required in the xmdb file; GoodMerge automatically recognizes them as the same. Of course this does cause problems on some occasions (see below regarding the Kim Possible games).

@xuom2

I discovered one more xml error in the xmdb file. Whenever an entity (game title) uses an ampersand it must be listed in the xml file as "&" or we get a parsing error when trying to read it with GoodMerge.
Error: XML loading error.
An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line 234, position 41.
The line in question contained the following entry:

Code: Select all

<bias zone="E" name="2 in 1 - Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 1 - Spyro - Season of Ice + Crash Bandicoot 2 - N-Tranced (M5+M6)"/>
Fortunately once I ran Find/Replace on the file in Notepad and replaced all instances of "&" with "&" GoodMerge was able to parse it correctly.

The other thing that I noticed when reading through the file is that it creates multiple names for the same zone bias whenever there are multiple versions in a given region. For example:

Code: Select all

	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="E" name="Sword of Mana"/>
	  <bias zone="J" name="Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu"/>
	  <bias zone="UA" name="Sword of Mana"/>
	  <bias zone="E" name="Sword of Mana (M2) (Fre-Ger)"/>
	  <bias zone="E" name="Sword of Mana (M2) (Ita-Spa)"/>
	</zoned>

I have not yet run any tests to see what effect this will have on merging, but I did run a test on the difficult to merge Kim Possible games as a test and found that they were not merged correctly.

Here is the file output from GoodMerge and the relevant portion of the auto-generated new_set.xmdb along with the correct grouping and the code I used to get it:
File output (new_set.xmdb):
Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist
Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist (U) (b)

Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (E) (M4)
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (U) (M2) (b)

Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b)
Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b)
Kim Possible (J)

Kim Possible III - Team Possible
Kim Possible III - Team Possible (U) (M2)
new_set.xmdb

Code: Select all

	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="E" name="Kim Possible (M4) [b]"/>
	  <bias zone="U" name="Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist (b)"/>
	</zoned>
	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="U" name="Kim Possible III - Team Possible (M2)"/>
	</zoned>
	<zoned>
	  <bias zone="E" name="Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M4)"/>
	  <bias zone="U" name="Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b)"/>
	  <bias zone="J" name="Kim Possible"/>
	</zoned>	
File output (my hand-created xmdb)
Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist
Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist (U) (b)
Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b)

Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise
Kim Possible (J)
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (E) (M4)
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (U) (M2) (b)

Kim Possible III - Team Possible
Kim Possible III - Team Possible (U) (M2)
XML code used:

Code: Select all

	<zoned type="deferred">
	 <bias zone="U" name="Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist"/>
	 <bias zone="E" name="Kim Possible"/>
	 <group reg="^Kim Possible \(E\)"/>
	</zoned>
	<zoned type="deferred">
	 <bias zone="En" name="Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise"/>
	 <bias zone="J" name="Kim Possible"/>
	 <group reg="^Kim Possible \(J\)"/>
	</zoned>
No mention of Kim Possible III is required in the xmdb file because it has a single title across all releases (in this case, just 1 release). The reason the other two groups cause trouble when merging is because when GoodMerge analyizes the game names for merging it automatically disregards the common country codes like (J) or (U) and reads both "Kim Possible (J)" and "Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b)" as simply "Kim Possible," even though the games are, in fact, different.

Although the xmdb I generated using your tool is certainly a good starting place, it is unfortunately not yet 100% acurate when merging. (Having said that, I freely admit to not knowing whether or not 100% merging accuracy was your goal.) If you can correct the ampersand issue, it should be more than adequate for users who are looking just to save themselves a lot of diskspace and aren't worried about making sure ~2500 ROMs all get sorted exactly as they should.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 23rd September 2006, 09:29 wrote:

tool was only intended to help kazumi213's problems in converting his .txt list.

the XMDB support is very limited because i dont know its format..
for example, today i see for the first time

Code: Select all

	<zoned type="deferred">
	 <group reg="^Kim Possible \(E\)"/>
 

ps:

parent-clone04.zip
- converts all "&" signs to "&" for the names (Rob Loach, Cartoonite)
- converts ( ) [ ] to \( \) \[ \]

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 23rd September 2006, 15:38 wrote:

If you manually state all roms in the group, then the group reg isn't required. This is actually exactly what the parent-clone list does.
the XMDB support is very limited because i dont know its format..
If you open up the source, I might be able to help you out with it.
I have not yet run any tests to see what effect this will have on merging, but I did run a test on the difficult to merge Kim Possible games as a test and found that they were not merged correctly.
I tried out version 3 yesterday and instead of resulting in 3 files for the Kim Possible series, it resulted in 4 files:

Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b).7z
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise.7z
Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist.7z
Kim Possible III - Team Possible.7z

Now, the reason why "Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b)" is in its own set evades me. xuom2 latest fix to "convert ( ) [ ] with \( \) \[ \]" might fix it, I'll try it out..........

Compressing 1274 - Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b).gba
Compressing 2061 - Kim Possible (J).gba


Error:
move file error
Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise \(M2\) \(b\).7z
The system cannot find the path specified.

It seems that the "convert ( ) [ ] with \( \) \[ \]" fix makes GoodMerge think that they're paths. Oops.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ xuom2 on 23rd September 2006, 16:52 wrote:

parent-clone05
- removed brackets previous fix (Rob Loach)
- shared source

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 23rd September 2006, 22:54 wrote:
If you manually state all roms in the group, then the group reg isn't required. This is actually exactly what the parent-clone list does.
Sorry Rob, but this just isn't true. The problem, as I pointed out, is that the Japanese "Kim Possible" game and the European "Kim Possible" game are actually 2 different games, regardless of the fact that they have the same name.

Also as stated in my previous post, I ran the exact same test you did using the new_set.xmdb file that xumo2's tool produced, and received the exact same 4 output files:

1. Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist.7z
* Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist (U) (b)
2. Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise.7z
* Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (E) (M4)
* Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (U) (M2) (b)
3. Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b).7z
* Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b)
* Kim Possible (J)
4. Kim Possible III - Team Possible.7z
* Kim Possible III - Team Possible (U) (M2)


While you didn't post the game content of your 4 output files, I would assume it was the same. The thing that I find most interesting about this grouping is that "Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (M2) (b).gba" isn't even in the 7zip archive that bears its name.

The correct output, which my code produces, should be as follows:

1. Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist.7z
* Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist (U) (b)
* Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b)
2. Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise.7z
* Kim Possible (J)
* Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (E) (M4)
* Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (U) (M2) (b)
3. Kim Possible III - Team Possible.7z
* Kim Possible III - Team Possible (U) (M2)

Of course, the file name will vary depending on how you configure your bias zones when running GoodMerge. If you favor European names over US names, the first file would be "Kim Possible.7z" and if you favor Japanese over "English" names, the second file would also be "Kim Possible.7z." Now that I think of it, that could lead to some problems with certain bias zone configurations. I will have to remember to test that as well.


@xoum2
The reason the code I use has \( and \) instead of just ( and ) is that the group is created by means of a regular expression. Within the regular expression that defines the group the \ is needed in front of the ( and ) so that they are interpreted as a part of the string, rather than as whatever special meaning they would otherwise have with the expression. Another example is that if we wanted to include square brackets, or even a backslash itself, in the expression, we would need to use \[, \] and \\, respectively.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 23rd September 2006, 23:09 wrote:

.... But the question is, how do you adapt the reg ex into a program that just parses straight through the file?

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 24th September 2006, 00:52 wrote:

You're right, of course. That is the million-dollar question. And it is one, unfortunately, I am ill-equiped to handle.

However, it is also something that should most likely be moved to the thread you started a few days ago, and let this one remain dedicated to kazumi213's parent-clone list.


@kazumi213
I haven't had a chance to test the Action Replay stuff yet, but I did come across one more thing that might be worth mentioning.

The GoodGBA.xmdb file that I used as the basis for my own file combines different versions of the same game into a single archive, whereas your parent-clone list makes no mention of that particular relationship.

For example, one of the output files is Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire.7z and it contains all variants of either of those games, since they are essentially slightly modified versions of the same game. There is also a single archive for all translations of MegaMan Battle Network 3, and so on.

If possible, I would like to see something implented in the next version that identifies this relationship between the different titles. Perhaps something like grouping like titles together in a section separated from the other ROMs by a blank line or two in the Parent-Clone text file. Since the titles are not actual clones and I don't think RC supports version association, I would suggest leaving the dat file as is.



Edit: I found the following line in GoodGBA.xmdb that refers to Game Shark.
<parent name="Game Shark GBA"><clone name="Game Shark GBA V0.5"/><clone name="Game Shark GBA V1.0"/><clone name="Game Shark GBA Vx.x"/></parent>
I'm curious about the code choice, though, since it would seem that a group statement would be more efficient and still have the same effect:
<parent name="Game Shark GBA"><group reg="^Game Shark GBA "/></parent>
Either way, it makes no mention of Action Replay titles so it would seem that the author did indeed consider them separate. Or possibly the GoodTools just use different names for the same ROMs. I haven't had a chance to do any testing yet, so this is still just speculation.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 24th September 2006, 13:55 wrote:
For example, one of the output files is Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire.7z and it contains all variants of either of those games, since they are essentially slightly modified versions of the same game. There is also a single archive for all translations of MegaMan Battle Network 3, and so on.

If possible, I would like to see something implented in the next version that identifies this relationship between the different titles. Perhaps something like grouping like titles together in a section separated from the other ROMs by a blank line or two in the Parent-Clone text file. Since the titles are not actual clones and I don't think RC supports version association, I would suggest leaving the dat file as is.
Sorry Cartoonite, I would like to please you, but that kind of game sorting is beyond the scope and original intention of the parent-clone list. I understand what you want but I think that kind of relationships fall into the category of "personal storing preferences". These "custom" associations can be easily derived from the current list if an user (like you) want to do it.

Thanks for your interest Cartoonite. Remember all suggestions are welcome.

In relation to the AR/GS discussion, I've already come to a (hopefully) correct solution, based on hardware specifications of the different cheat devices and screenshot inspection.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 25th September 2006, 04:55 wrote:

Understood. You know what they say: "You can please some of the people all of the time..." :)


I did have a couple of other suggestions, as well.

First is game names for the dat file. It seems odd to me to group the ROMs together and then label them all with the name/number of the earliest (E) ROM. I think it would make more sense to group them together under the name of the game, and then keep the numbers intact for the individual ROMs only.

For example, using the first two pairings from your excluding J-only list, currently the DAT lists them as follows in RC:

* 0013 - Napoleon (J)
o 0013 - Napoleon (J)
o 0759 - Aigle de Guerre, L' (F)
* 0029 - Pinobee - Wings of Adventure (UE)
o 0029 - Pinobee - Wings of Adventure (UE)
o 0011 - Pinobee no Daibouken (J)

The bolded line indicates the game name, and then when we expand it we see the individual ROMs that contain that title. To my mind it would make more sense to differentiate between game name and ROM name. Making that change should allow RC to display a list something like this:
* Napoleon
o 0013 - Napoleon (J)
o 0759 - Aigle de Guerre, L' (F)
* Pinobee - Wings of Adventure
o 0029 - Pinobee - Wings of Adventure (UE)
o 0011 - Pinobee no Daibouken (J)

Again, the bold line indicates the game title and then we can expand the title to see the individual ROMs. This would have the added benefit of sorting the games in alphabetical order rather than in numerical order based on (in most cases) the european release number. IMO an alphabetical ordering is more logical than the system the current naming scheme provides.


The other suggestion is regarding the 2/3-in-1 games. I believe you'd mentioned separating them into their own parent-clone groupings, so I thought I would post a list of how I have them grouped. For formatting of the list I just copied your format of indenting any line that contains a clone. The code tags were used just because that seems to be the easiest way to get this board to recognize an indent. The "parent" in each case for my list is simply the first title alphabetically.

2/3-in-1 ROMs:

Code: Select all

2230 - 2 Disney Games - Lilo & Stitch 2 + Peter Pan - Return to Neverland (E) (M4+M6)
2007 - 2 Games in 1 - Bionicle + Knights' Kingdom (E) (M4+M2)
1867 - 2 Games in 1 - Brother Bear + The Lion King (E) (M8)
2311 - 2 Games in 1 - Cartoon Network Block Party + Cartoon Network Speedway (E)
	2137 - 2 Games in 1 - Cartoon Network Block Party + Cartoon Network Speedway (U)
2319 - 2 Games in 1 - Castlevania - Harmony of Dissonance + Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow (E) (Eng+M3)
	2299 - 2 Games in 1 - Castlevania - Harmony of Dissonance + Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow (U)
2225 - 2 Games in 1 - Columns Crown + Chu Chu Rocket! (E) (Eng+M5)
2421 - 2 Games in 1 - Crash Bandicoot Purple - Ripto's Rampage + Spyro Orange - The Cortex Conspiracy (U)
2012 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Princesas + Hermano Oso (S) (Spa+M8)
	2009 - 2 Games in 1 - Disneys Prinzessinnen + Baerenbrueder (G) (Ger+M8)
2042 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Princesas + Rey Leon, El (S) (Spa+M8)
	1827 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Princesse + Roi Lion, Le (F) (Fre+M8)
	2480 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Principesse + Re Leone, Il (I) (Ita+M8)
	1815 - 2 Games in 1 - Disneys Prinzessinnen + Koenig der Loewen, Der (G) (Ger+M8)
1940 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Princesas + Lizzie McGuire (S)
	1955 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Princess + Lizzie McGuire (E)
2325 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Sports - Football + Disney Sports - Skateboarding (E) (M5)
2213 - 2 Games in 1 - Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (E) (M5)
	2261 - 2 Games in 1 - Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (UA)
	2127 - Dr. Mario & Panel de Pon (J)
2472 - 2 Games in 1 - Dragon Ball Z - Buu's Fury + Dragon Ball GT - Transformation (U)
2288 - 2 Games in 1 - Dragon Ball Z - The Legacy of Goku I & II (U)
2327 - 2 Games in 1 - Findet Nemo + Findet Nemo - Das Abenteuer geht weiter (G) (Ger+M3)
	2459 - 2 Games in 1 - Finding Nemo + Finding Nemo - The Continuing Adventures (E) (Eng+M5)
2326 - 2 Games in 1 - Findet Nemo + Unglaublichen, Die (G)
	2386 - 2 Games in 1 - Finding Nemo + Incredibles, The (E)
2332 - 2 Games in 1 - Golden Nugget Casino + Texas Hold'em Poker (E)
	2046 - 2 Games in 1 - Golden Nugget Casino + Texas Hold'em Poker (U)
1722 - 2 Games in 1 - Hot Wheels - Velocity X + Hot Wheels - World Race (E)
	2153 - 2 Games in 1 - Hot Wheels - Velocity X + Hot Wheels - World Race (U)
2303 - 2 Games in 1 - Looney Tunes - Dizzy Driving + Looney Tunes - Acme Antics (E)
1790 - 2 Games in 1 - Die Monster AG + Findet Nemo (G)
	1956 - 2 Games in 1 - Monsters & Co. + Alla ricerca di Nemo (I) (M3+M2)
	1999 - 2 Games in 1 - Monsters, Inc. + Finding Nemo (E)
	2368 - 2 Games in 1 - Monstres & Cie + Monde de Nemo, Le (F) (M3+M2)
	1942 - 2 Games in 1 - Monstruos, S.A. + Buscando a Nemo (S) (M3+M2)
1787 - 2 Games in 1 - Moto GP + GT Advance 3 - Pro Concept Racing (E) (M6+Eng)
2391 - 2 Games in 1 - Pac-Man World + Ms. Pac-Man - Maze Madness (E) (M5)
2077 - 2 Games in 1 - Power Rangers - Ninja Storm + Power Rangers - La Force du Temps (F) (M3+Fre)
	1839 - 2 Games in 1 - Power Rangers - Ninja Storm + Power Rangers - Time Force (G) (M3+Ger)
	2134 - 2 Games in 1 - Power Rangers - Ninja Storm + Power Rangers - Time Force (E) (M3+Eng)
	2139 - 2 Games in 1 - Power Rangers - Ninja Storm + Power Rangers - Time Force (U) (M3+Eng)
2388 - 2 Games in 1 - Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time + Tomb Raider - The Prophecy (E) (M6+M5)
2333 - 2 Games in 1 - Quad Desert Fury + Monster Trucks (E)
	2138 - 2 Games in 1 - Quad Desert Fury + Monster Trucks (U)
2057 - 2 Games in 1 - Rugrats - Go Wild + SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge (E)
2133 - 2 Games in 1 - Scooby-Doo + Scooby-Doo 2 - Desatado (S) (Spa+M5)
2010 - 2 Games in 1 - Scooby-Doo! - Mystery Mayhem + Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (E) (M3+Eng)
	1936 - 2 Games in 1 - Scooby-Doo! - Mystery Mayhem + Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (U) (M3+Eng)
2083 - 2 Games in 1 - Shrek 2 + Shark Tale (E) (M6+M5)
2456 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Advance + Chu Chu Rocket! (J)
2228 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Advance + Sonic Battle (E) (M5+M6)
	2401 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Advance + Sonic Battle (J)
2218 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Advance + Sonic Pinball Party (E) (M5+M6)
	2295 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Advance + Sonic Pinball Party (U) (M5+M6)
2227 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Pinball Party + Sonic Battle (E) (M6)
	2400 - 2 Games in 1 - Sonic Pinball Party + Sonic Battle (J)
2099 - 2 Games in 1 - Spider-Man + Spider-Man 2 (E) (M3+M5)
2082 - 2 Games in 1 - SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom + Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius (E) (M3+M4)
1824 - 2 Games in 1 - SpongeBob SquarePants - Revenge of the Flying Dutchman + SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge (E)
	1935 - 2 Games in 1 - SpongeBob SquarePants - Revenge of the Flying Dutchman + SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge (U)
1825 - 2 Games in 1 - SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge + SpongeBob SquarePants - Battle for Bikini Bottom (E) (Eng+M3)
2342 - 2 Games in 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles + Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus (E) (M5)
2382 - 2 Games in 1 - Titeuf - Ze Gagmachine + Titeuf Mega Compet (F)
2476 - 2 Games in 1 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - Destiny Board Traveler + Yu-Gi-Oh! - Dungeon Dice Monsters (U) (M5)
2437 - 2 Games in 1 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - Reshef of Destruction + Yu-Gi-Oh! - The Sacred Cards (U)
	2341 - 2 Games in 1 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - The Sacred Cards + Yu-Gi-Oh! - Reshef of Destruction (E) (M5)
2030 - 2 in 1 - Asterix & Obelix - Bash Them All! + Asterix & Obelix XXL (E) (M6)
2053 - 2 in 1 - Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 1 - Spyro - Season of Ice + Crash Bandicoot 2 - N-Tranced (E) (M5+M6)
2054 - 2 in 1 - Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 2 - Spyro 2 - Season of Flame + Crash Nitro Kart (E) (M5+M6)
2186 - 2 in 1 - Crash & Spyro Super Pack Volume 3 - Spyro Fusion + Crash Bandicoot Fusion (E) (M5) [b]
2197 - 2 in 1 - Hugo - Bukkazoom! + Hugo - The Evil Mirror (E) (M12)
2394 - 2 in 1 - Spyro Super Pack - Spyro - Season of Ice + Spyro 2 - Season of Flame (U)
2041 - 2 in 1 - V-Rally 3 + Stuntman (E) (M5)
2104 - 2 in 1 Game Pack - Spider-Man - Mysterio's Menace + X2 - Wolverine's Revenge (UE)
2100 - 2 in 1 Game Pack - Tony Hawk's Underground + Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer (UE)
2321 - 3 Games in 1 - Darts + Roll-a-Ball + Shuffle Bowl (E)
2345 - 3 Games in 1 - Paintball Splat! + Dodgeball - Dodge This! + Big Alley Bowling (E)
2434 - 3 Games in 1 - Rugrats - I Gotta Go Party + SpongeBob SquarePants - SuperSponge + Tak and the Power of Juju (E) (Eng+Eng+M3)
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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

Post by root »

Rif: 764-3 Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 25th September 2006, 15:14 wrote:

Your idea for the dat was my initial intention, but it can't be done. In your example Napoleon must be the game description of an existing parent in the dat.I mean, I can change the game description of 0013 to read Napoleon, but then it will show in RC as follows:

Napoleon
???0759 - Aigle de Guerre, L' (F)
???Napoleon

This could be done in an alternate parent-clone list, not dat,. I also considered it initially, but then the problem is: which game name to use? For me it is easy, the unnumbered, untagged name of the parent. Consider this example:

Deadly Skies
???0596 - AirForce Delta Storm (U) (M4) (b)
???0646 - AirForce Delta II (J) (M4)
???0698 - Deadly Skies (E) (M4)

This again requires a convention on parent selection and, after that, forces you again to name your family pack with that parent. The convention I follow is explained in the readme, which is the convention used in all parent-clone dats I've seen, essentially World version > Continent version > Country version. I addition I decided to always use a parent which contained English language for the shake of general utility due to the lack of localizations for every game.

Due to the current list being useful to build the dat too, I favored the current option, plus the numbering system being useful for maintenance, specially for adding new entries.

What I can do is supply the game name based list as an alternate one. However it will have to wait a little bit (very little, honest ;) ) and the parent selection criteria will be the same.

In relation to the 2/3in1 games... the Logiqx forum, the guru of arcade dats, has confirmed me that it is impossible in RC or any other known dat format to have a game being the clone of two different parents. So I've decided to leave them as they are for now, and notice on this limitation in the readme. If in a near future I create dedicated entries for them, I will follow the same parent picking convention.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 26th September 2006, 02:31 wrote:

That's kind of annoying. I didn't look too closely at the DAT and the relation between it and how the games were displayed in RC, but I figured since games seem to have their titles listed 3 or 4 times that one of the sections would be used to identify the "game name" as it should be displayed in RC.

I guess I was wrong. Fortunately for me, the front end that I use supports GoodMerged ROMs and displays the archive name as a game title so I can call it whatever I want. ;)


The parent-clone list was just something I put together from the output file list from my GoodMerge session since I thought it might prove useful. The only reason the "parent" is listed as the first title alphabetically is because that is the way GoodMerge writes the output and I was too lazy to change it. If you do decide to make use of the list, I would expect you to adapt it to fit the scheme you have adapted for your list. I only posted it to save you the trouble of working out the associations for yourself if and when you decide to make that change to your list.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 26th September 2006, 11:33 wrote:

And I thank you. It is useful for me ;) .

By the way, which rom manager do you use? Is it GoodMerge? Sorry I didn't even look at this software.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 26th September 2006, 12:15 wrote:

No, GoodMerge is just a tool for combining ROMs into archives to help save disk space. By combining ROMs that contain similar data into a single archive, we can save a lot of space by eliminating duplicate data.

If you aren't familiar with the tool, here's the output statistics from my merging of a complete (as of 2 days ago, anyway) no-intro ROM set. (Compression is 7zip using a maximum of 910MB of RAM.)

Statistics
21,968,912,384 bytes in 2,491 files were compressed into
6,133,562,847 bytes (27% of original) in 1,501 files (60% of original).

Although the compression ratio of 73% (27% of original size) is based on the size of uncompressed ROMs, we can still see a marked improvement (about 45% better compression, or 55% of original size) over the non-merged size of 11,244,757,854 bytes with each ROM in its own zip archive.


The front end that I use for my emulators is called QuickPlay (http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/) It has support for 7z archives, which, IMO is a must, and supports a wide variety of emulators across many platforms. I can't really compare it to any others, since it is the only one I've used, but I am happy with it so far.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 26th September 2006, 18:36 wrote:

I got the XMDB file working, I think. Unfortunately, I had to port xuom2's solution to C# because I couldn't work in Pascal so you'll need to install the .NET Framework 2.0 Runtimes. If you don't want to install .NET or you're on Mac/Linux, it runs just fine through Mono.

This solution seems to be much cleaner, but I didn't port over the new_rc_parentclone.dat, or output.txt generator code due to lack of time. All I really wanted waqs the XMDB anyway. Also, the XMDB file is much cleaner and actually seems to work with the Kim Possible issue:

1. Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist.7z
* 0772 - Kim Possible - Revenge Of Monkey Fist (U) (b).gba
* 1274 - Kim Possible (E) (M4) (b).gba
* 2061 - Kim Possible (J).gba
2. Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise.7z
* 1563 - Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (U) (M2) (b).gba
* 2323 - Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise (E) (M4).gba
3. Kim Possible III - Team Possible.7z
* 2070 - Kim Possible Iii - Team Possible (U) (M2).gba

I've attached the source and binary of it, as well as put up a screenshot, so you guys can try it out. Tell me what you think!

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 26th September 2006, 21:56 wrote:

Thanks Rob. If you plan to keep working on this tool, please move this post into a new thread.

By the way, 2061 should be into Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise family file.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 27th September 2006, 03:21 wrote:
By the way, 2061 should be into Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise family file.
Hmmm, now that's strange.....

Code: Select all

<zoned>
  <!-- 2323 --> <bias name="Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise" zone="E"/>
  <!-- 1563 --> <bias name="Kim Possible 2 - Drakken's Demise" zone="U"/>
  <!-- 2061 --> <bias name="Kim Possible" zone="J"/>
</zoned>
Thanks Rob. If you plan to keep working on this tool, please move this post into a new thread.
I put it up here since it's a port of xuom2's tool and is almost directly related.....

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 27th September 2006, 04:05 wrote:

Once again, the problem is that you have already established a bias name of "Kim Possible" in this section, which comes earlier in the XMDB file:

Code: Select all

      <zoned>
        <!-- 1274 --> <bias name="Kim Possible" zone="E"/>
        <!-- 0772 --> <bias name="Kim Possible - Revenge of Monkey Fist" zone="U"/>
      </zoned>
I put it up here since it's a port of xuom2's tool and is almost directly related.....
Yes, your tool is almost directly related to kazumi's list in much the same way that kazumi's list is almost directly related to the official No-Intro DAT release. IMO on-going development of your tool no more belongs in this thread than kazumi's list belongs in the official No-Into DAT thread.

I agree with kazumi on this, please move further discussion of your tool to a new thread. I have some ideas that may help you address some of the possible errors I see in your XMDB file which I've already posted in the thread you started, but since you hadn't replied I assumed you weren't interested.



@kazumi
As of now I have all the Game Shark and Action Replay ROMs combined into a single archive, as your most recent release of the parent-clone list indicates they should be. If this relationship has changed, could you post the new associations here, please?

For myself I don't need a new release, just that section of the file indicating the GS/AR associations would suffice since I don't expect that much else has changed, unless there have been some new additions.

Thanks again for all your work on this. This list has certainly made my GoodMerging life much easier. :)

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 27th September 2006, 13:02 wrote:

I always wait for the No-Intro official release because it is my one and only reference. Usually it also includes naming changes.

Here are the new AR/GS associations that will be included in the next release of the parent-clone list. Your note on Xploder/CodeBreaker association is correct and will be also included as announced in a previous post:

0227 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v1.0) (Unl)
???0235 - Action Replay GBX (E) (Unl)
???0236 - GameShark GBA (U) (v1.0) (Unl)
???0244 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v1.0) (Alt) (Unl)
???0270 - GameShark GBA (U) (v1.0) (Alt) (Unl)

1177 - Action Replay (E) (M4) (v3.3) (Unl)
???1712 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v3.1) (Unl)
???2165 - Pro Action Replay (J) (Unl)

2232 - Action Replay MAX (E) (Unl)

This is based on the different capabilities of the cheat devices (hardware) containing those firmwares.

227 Family -> AR pre-v3. AR and GS were just different localizations of the same device. Cheat codes were interchangeable. 2 ROM-patch slots. GBA gamesave restoring capabilities.

1177 Family -> AR v3 to pre-v5.9. Their codes are not interchangeable with GS (AR pre-v3). 4 ROM-patch slots. GBA gamesave restoring capabilities.

2232 -> Firmware for AR Max Duo (AR v5.9 and up to who knows). Codes are interchangeable with AR v3+. 1 ROM-patch slot. NO GBA gamesave restoring capabilities, just DS gamesaves.

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 28th September 2006, 02:24 wrote:
0227 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v1.0) (Unl)
???0235 - Action Replay GBX (E) (Unl)
???0236 - GameShark GBA (U) (v1.0) (Unl)
???0244 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v1.0) (Alt) (Unl)
???0270 - GameShark GBA (U) (v1.0) (Alt) (Unl)

1177 - Action Replay (E) (M4) (v3.3) (Unl)
???1712 - Action Replay GBX (E) (M4) (v3.1) (Unl)
???2165 - Pro Action Replay (J) (Unl)

2232 - Action Replay MAX (E) (Unl)
Ouch, this is going to be fun to code into GoodMerge's XMDB. Thanks for clearing it up, anyway. The XMDB problem will be for Rob and I to work out. :)

Automerged Doublepost

One other error I think I've found in the list:

Code: Select all

0731 - Disney Sports - Soccer (U)
	0502 - Disney Sports - Soccer (J)
1021 - Disney Sports - Football (E) (M5)
	0580 - Disney Sports - American Football (J)
	0814 - Disney Sports - Football (U)
	2325 - 2 Games in 1 - Disney Sports - Football + Disney Sports - Skateboarding (E) (M5)
I'm pretty sure 1021 (and thus likely 2325 as well) should be grouped with 0731 and 0502. AFAIK the game called "Football" in Europe is the one that us fools in the West call "Soccer," and that any European game to be grouped with 0580 and 0814 would use the "American Football" name.

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 28th September 2006, 13:41 wrote:

Oops!, big one. You're right. Fixed. Thank you!

I'm gonna eliminate this kind of errors, if anymore. Euro Football and US/Jap Soccer share the same 3 letter code in their serials. Spotting time...

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 28th September 2006, 16:15 wrote:

This one I'm not sure about, but the group seems odd, to me:

Code: Select all

0049 - Top Gear GT Championship (E)
	0014 - Zen-Nihon GT Senshuken (J)
	0342 - Top Gear GT Championship (U)
	0444 - GT Championship (E)
It seems to me that 0049 and 0444 are likely different games, just because it seems odd to release the same game in the same region under 2 different names. I haven't play-tested, though, so I'm just pointing it out in case you want to review it.

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 28th September 2006, 19:14 wrote:

This association was play-tested. 0049 and 0444 are clones in the most pure sense of the word. AFAIK the only difference being the "Top Gear" in the titlescreen. They even share the 3 letter code (EUR and US versions do, but not the JAP one). Very strange, but...

Another interesting case is the 0099 family. EUR, US and one of the JAP versions (0017) share the same game mechanics, the JAP graphics being more "cartoon" like, and use the same 3 letter code. Then there is 0075 wich plays almost exactly to 0017, but has different 3 letter code (a special edition?)

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 17th October 2006, 00:29 wrote:

Here's the latest additions to the DAT. I copied and pasted from the CM DAT, just because that seems to be the more human readable of the two.

(snip)

I'm not the parent-clone expert, but I think I was able to pick out a couple of groupings.

1. Battle B-Daman - Fire Spirits
* 2414 - B-Densetsu! Battle B-Daman - Fire Spirit! Honootamashii! (J)
* (p) 2507 - Battle B-Daman - Fire Spirits (U)
2. Scooby-Doo
* 0463 - Scooby-Doo (U) (b)
* 0626 - Scooby-Doo (F)
* 1039 - Scooby-Doo (G)
* (p) 2135 - Scooby-Doo (E)
* 2508 - Scooby-Doo (S)


If there are any other new parent-clone items, my guess is it will be English versions of perviously J-only titles, and those I would be hard-pressed to spot on my own.

Cheers, and keep up the good work.

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 17th October 2006, 02:16 wrote:

Thank you Cartoonite. Both already included in upcoming #2523 update.

By the way, you missed the Naruto one (1469) ;)
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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

Post by root »

Rif: 764-4 Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Cartoonite on 18th October 2006, 02:34 wrote:

You're welcome. And thanks for pointing out the one I missed; I've added it to my XMDB. :)

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ KingHanco on 19th October 2006, 00:36 wrote:

GBA dat release #2523 have the wrong crc32 on the lates gba roms that have been release? I just now download the lates cmp394 and it seem it doesn't like the new gba roms at all. I wondering why it won't pick those new gba roms up?

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 19th October 2006, 18:52 wrote:

Sorry KingHanco, I'm not sure what's the problem. There is a #2526 (20061017) official No-Intro already available on the DATs page. Release #2523 (20061016) was showing the (wrong) CRC for the Barbie ROM. Parent-clone #2526 just uses current official No-Intro names, sizes and CRCs.

Maybe the problem is you're still using #2523 (News page has not been updated yet).

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Connie on 19th October 2006, 23:20 wrote:

Yes. I think we should slap xuom2 with some large, wet, smelly trouts for sneakily updating the dats but not informing us on the main news page. :o

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ KingHanco on 20th October 2006, 00:41 wrote:

Ok. The cmpro is busted. (cmp394) Don't use this one. :)

Romcenter is ok without a problem.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Rob Loach on 20th October 2006, 13:52 wrote:

What does the "(p) " mean?

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Connie on 20th October 2006, 17:56 wrote:
What does the "(p) " mean?
Parent ?

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 21st October 2006, 01:18 wrote:
What does the "(p) " mean?
Connie is right, it means "parent". It is explained in the readme. The new list and dat format has the following limitation: parent can't be easily identified in many cases. So I decided to use that tag. Please remember that tag is not used when fixing (renaming) your collection using my DATs.

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ ssjkakaroto on 22nd November 2006, 10:47 wrote:

kazumi is there a easy way for me to change the parents on your list? I would like to use strictly the release number as a reference, so all parent-clone relations would fall on your last rule: first released ROM is picked as parent.

Thanks

===============================================

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 22nd November 2006, 20:17 wrote:

My parent-clone list (.TXT file) is already sorted in such a way that the first ROM in each "family" is your desired parent. So you could ignore the "(p)" tag and consider the first listed ROM after the family name as the parent. The drawback here is that the family name is based in the currently (p)-tagged ROM and this could not be easily changed by you, at least if you're not familiarized with using (UltraEdit) macros.

However I can give you an easy and 100% accurate procedure to build a parent-ONLY list (.TXT file) based in the "first released" rule.

1. Open my "Nintendo GBA parent-clone (2583_RC).dat" in RomCenter v2.71.
2. Be sure to close all ROM paths (the idea is all ROMs to appear as missing)
3. Due to my dat format RomCenter picks the parent (main) alphabetically and this is exactly what you want when using the numbered dat (off-topic note: this is also the reason of introducing the (p) tag). Go to "Database->Filter" and select "Show clones".
4. Go to "Edit" and select "Select main sets".
5. Go to "File->Create datafile from..." and select "selected items". Save the .DAT in the default directory.
6. Go to the .DAT selector drop box and select the .DAT created in step 5.
7. Finally, go to "Report" and select "save missing games as...". You'll be prompted to save a .TXT file. This is gonna be your parent-ONLY list based in the "first released rule".

Hope this helps.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Connie on 12th December 2006, 11:51 wrote:

Based solely on this http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/data/936959.html due to descriptions and release dates

...I just wondered if 1913, 2298 & the new 2633 are linked? Also, the serials are in the same range. I guess it's the same dilema as with the Wi-Fi Yakuman DS issue. :roll:

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 12th December 2006, 14:31 wrote:

Of course they're linked, my problem being to determine if they're similar enough to associate them. Consider this wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_MP3_Player

It is clear for me that 2633 can't be associated with any other because it only supports music play and not video.

However, still not sure about the 1913 and 2298 association. It seems 2298 has not the original Play-Yan minigame support.

On the NDS games 0046 and 0555 (Yakuman DS question), the point is: do they play the same in single player? Does this point apply? (I mean, I don't really know if 0555 has single player or it is only multiplayer). I can't check this for myself. Maybe someone could help by in-game test on his/her console.

An example of the above is the following GBA family:

0017/0075/0093/0099

JAP (0017 and 0075) and non JAP (0093 and 0099) localizations are quite different graphically hence they have quite different hex contents. But there is no doubt they're the same game. Specifically, the 0017 and 0075 case could be the analogous of the NDS 0046/0555 case.

But without NDS in-game testing I can't give a more solid support to that NDS association.

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ JdR on 18th May 2007, 15:34 wrote:

The goodmerge XMDB system is easy and best to manage this:

The xmdb have an ignore flags (for example in N64 it ignores te version of game, kiosk demo,the language letter,version,shindou edition...)

Also it have a section for games that have different names in other regions.

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ tetsuo55 on 31st May 2007, 07:01 wrote:

Does anyone know how i can use these dat's together with clrmamepro to get a parent only set?

Also the dat's give a ton of errors when loading them into clrmame, many parent- clone relationships seem to be broken

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 31st May 2007, 13:12 wrote:

Hi tetsuo55.

I don't use CM but RC. My parent-clone dats abuses .DAT format for CM and RC so they "look" in the managers in a certain way (family name is the untagged parent name) by creating a fake parent named in such way.

It is possible that new versions of CM allow no more to use those fake parents, but RC 2.71 still reports no errors when loading my dats. I will test my dats on latest CM (I should have done so ages ago, but the CM user who suggested to exploit that possibility never reported problems).

About making a parent-only set: I don't know about CM, I will look into it. But if you use RC 2.71:

1. Load my RC (or CM) dat:
2. Set it to "Show Clones", NOT "Show Sets" (default)
3. In the main window frame, be sure the list is sorted by name. All "(p)" roms will be listed first. Select them all.
4. Go to File menu and select "Make DAT from selected"
5. Save the .DAT

I'm not sure whether CM can load RC dats, it should. In any case, you can use "DatUtil" to convert RC format to CM format.
root
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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

Post by root »

Rif: 764-5 Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 3rd June 2007, 12:04 wrote:

Ok, so my parent-clone DATs for CM are not working as intended and nobody told me... :cry:

I've tested them (numbered and unnumbered) on latest CM 3.101a and the problem is "CM Profiler" is AUTO-fixing my dat upon loading, removing all the fake parents, resulting in an non-parent-clone DAT but a copy of current No-Intro DAts with my (p) tags.

Unless somebody here know how to disable this DAT fixing feature in Profiler, I'll have to revert back to the old parent-clone DAT format, even for RC (although in RC current format is working as intended). In fact the new format was taking about 10 more times to build than old one.

Also, this is just my opinion, but CM is waaay more cumbersome to manage than RC.

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ tetsuo55 on 4th June 2007, 09:37 wrote:

For me it would be great if you could revert to a format that is compatible with both applications

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 4th June 2007, 09:50 wrote:

Ok tetsuo55, thanks for your feedback :lol:

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 9th June 2007, 21:43 wrote:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro #2750/20070608

romname.lst now supports EZ4 Client users.

Please report ANY problems.

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Re: GBA nointro 2741 main-clone list \ sapu1 on 22nd June 2007, 07:37 wrote:

Following roms are wrongly placed:

"2062 - Lilo & Stitch (J)"
is clone of:
"1797 - Lilo & Stitch 2 (E) (M4)"

"0620 - Groove Adventure Rave - Hikari to Yami no Daikessen 2 (J)"
is clone of:
"1929 - Rave Master - Special Attack Force! (U)"

EDITED: also this ones should be probably wrong (still unsure about 0262):

"2355 - Let's Ride! - Dreamer (U)"
is clone of:
"2680 - Pippa Funnell 2 (E) (M2)"

"2705 - 2 Games in 1 - Finding Nemo - The Continuing Adventures + The Incredibles (U)"
is not a clone

0262 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - Duel Monsters 6 Expert 2 (J)
is (maybe) clone of:
0954 - Yu-Gi-Oh! - Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel (E) (M6)

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Re: GBA nointro 2750 main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 22nd June 2007, 13:51 wrote:

Thank you sapu1 :lol:

Damn, I thought that kind of errors (2062) were sorted out (serial doesn't match current familly). I'll do a serious recheck to spot any error like that still present.

Good one the 0620. A missing parent-clone relation. How do you spotted it? Just curious... ;) . By the way I have to check both (J) Rave games to be sure which has the (U) dupe, but as you say, it seems to be part 2 given the boxart similarities.

If you find more errors, please feel free to report.

EDIT: You're right about 0620 being the duped one.
EDIT 2: Tomorrow I'll report the final results of the checking. So far I've spotted one additional error: 2705 is a parent itself, not a clone.
EDIT 3: I've finished checking and no additional errors have been found. Hopefully there are only missing parent-clone relations like 0620 (wrongly placed J-only).

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 11th August 2007, 23:18 wrote:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro #2764/20070814

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 4th December 2007, 22:49 wrote:
thx :P
arigatoh gozaimashita
dou itashimashite ;)

EDIT:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro 20071201.

Added GoodMerge support (XMDB file). Thanks xuom2 for making this easier.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 2nd January 2008, 21:37 wrote:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro 20080102.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 14th January 2008, 19:29 wrote:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro 20080113.

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Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list \ Lukeage on 15th January 2008, 06:52 wrote:
Statistics
21,968,912,384 bytes in 2,491 files were compressed into
6,133,562,847 bytes (27% of original) in 1,501 files (60% of original).
Just an update on the stats if anyone is interested. I ran this a few days ago so it is the 20080102 list, not the latest.

25,541,060,406 bytes in 2,851 files were compressed into
6,908,883,152 bytes (27% of original) in 1,655 files (58% of original).

The % of compression is the same with the DS set too.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 18th February 2008, 21:58 wrote:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro 20080217.

Comments:

I've tested the CM P/C DAT on latest CMPro 3.110a and the author has introduced some change so now the "nodumps" (dummy files) are created in Scanner no matter of "forcenodump" status. This was not happening in 3.109a.

This is not affecting merging as described on the included readme in my package, but interferes the updating of an already merged set when using the Scanner for this purpose, because 0-bytes files are created inside the family archives.

To fix this new undesirable and weird behaviour I just need to remove the "nodump" declarations in DAT, but I'm going to wait to next CMPro release because this seems to be a bug in CMPro and not a wanted feature.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ u_u on 27th February 2008, 03:33 wrote:

Hi, Your last attachment "GBA No-Intro 20080217 Parent-Clone.7z", probaly broken.. Everytime I get error at about 97% of progress. Please, can You reupload it?

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 27th February 2008, 12:06 wrote:

Works fine for me. Please try the following: when the "Save to" dialog appears, add the extension ".zip" to the suggested filename, so it reads

GBA No-Intro 20080217 Parent-Clone.7z.zip

then download.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ TheStripper on 3rd March 2008, 17:37 wrote:
Works fine for me. Please try the following: when the "Save to" dialog appears, add the extension ".zip" to the suggested filename, so it reads

GBA No-Intro 20080217 Parent-Clone.7z.zip

then download.
Hello :)

I've tried the thing you suggested but same problem, the file stops downloading at 98%.
I've tried using Opera and IE6 and emptying the cache, but no luck :cry:
Only on this forum I've similar problems, its strange.
If anyone have suggestions I'm here.

Bye :lol:
root
Site Admin
Posts: 738
Joined: 19 May 2008 09:26

Re: GBA nointro 2460 main-clone list

Post by root »

Rif: 764-6 Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 19th March 2008, 23:49 wrote:

Mmh, try to use a whole new filename/extension, then rename after download. Anyway I'm going to upload updated files tonight.

EDIT:

GBA parent-clone list and romname.lst updated to No-Intro 20080502.

New Logiqx's Generic XML format is used for the GBA P/C DAT. Added support for 11 countries/regions when fully merging in P/C DAT and XMDB file. See included readme.

ROM MANAGERS AND 7Z SUPPORT

RC/CM don't support 7z archive creation. But there is an acceptable workaround (thanks Lukeage) if you decide to GoodMerge (7z) your ROM collection and want to keep it updated using ROM managers.

If you set the same "Regions" settings on RC/CM as used on GoodMerge, you can use the P/C DAT to audit your 7z merged collection and identify the changed sets. Then you can move them to a different folder, rebuild from them and finally GoodMerge again only those few specific updated ROMs.

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ Screwtape on 11th May 2008, 12:37 wrote:
New Logiqx's Generic XML format is used for the GBA P/C DAT.
I tried loading this XML file with a standard XML reader (xml.etree.ElementTree in Python 2.5), and it gave an error message:
SyntaxError: not well-formed (invalid token): line 12, column 57
...which is the following line:

Code: Select all

<comment>Unofficial, Corrections by Cartoonite, xuom2 & sapu1</comment>
I'm guessing it wants the "&" to be "&".

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Re: GBA nointro main-clone list \ kazumi213 on 12th May 2008, 10:32 wrote:

I used "&" on that line, but after a DAT cleansing (generic XML -> generic XML), DatUtil v2.38 chaged it to current (wrong) "&". As a test, if I use straight "&" before cleansing, then DatUtil just removes the character (so a this is a little bug in current DatUtil).

CM properly parses both "&" and "&" on that line, and displays intended "&" on "Comment".

I will change that line to use "&" on next update. Thanks again ;)
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