Collecting vs. Renaming - why do ppl collect tosec?

General No-Intro related discussions.
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root
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Collecting vs. Renaming - why do ppl collect tosec?

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Rif: 1275-1 Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ daishadar on 3rd April 2007, 07:06 wrote:

I'm relatively new to this scene, and I've been trying to amass a collection and understand what are the pros and cons of various sets. Like I've heard stated here before, GoodSets are like the plague, and chances are most novice collectors start with those. When I looked into No-Intro sets I quickly realized that GoodSets are composed mainly of garbage. Really, the purpose of GoodSets are to identify garbage, not collect it. So it makes sense to me to focus on No-Intro sets instead, and let GoodSets be a tool to datters and dumpers.

Why haven't people woken up to the fact that TOSEC is just for identification, and not collection? For collecting, it seems you would in the extreme case go the route of No-Intro (redumping, verifying, etc) in reprocessing TOSEC sets. But in the 1% effort case you could write a script that simply filters out all the crap roms from TOSEC so that people could focus on collecting playable, useful roms (or the best copy of a given rom), which would save everyone a lot of time and bandwidth. TOSEC could still coexist (much like GoodSets do) as an identification tool.

Has this been proposed before? Would TOSEC maintainers be pissed if someone just filtered out the crap in TOSEC and made new dats (with full credit of course) so that people could download only useful stuff?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ FitzRoy on 3rd April 2007, 08:03 wrote:
Why haven't people woken up to the fact that TOSEC is just for identification, and not collection?
Do you see any statements on TOSEC's website saying anything of the sort? Even when newbs find out what all those [] tags mean, it takes a higher order of thinking to understand the futility of trying to complete something which can be infinitely created. The rationale behind including bad dumps and user modifications for identification purposes is full of holes to begin with, but Cowering and TOSEC can easily blame the user for their continued distribution and collection by simply not educating them. Doing so would vastly reduce their userbase, because if all you do is mindlessly collect, you are content with either either db so long as you remain ignorant to their problems.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ daishadar on 3rd April 2007, 09:13 wrote:
Do you see any statements on TOSEC's website saying anything of the sort? Even when newbs find out what all those [] tags mean, it takes a higher order of thinking to understand the futility of trying to complete something which can be infinitely created. The rationale behind including bad dumps and user modifications for identification purposes is full of holes to begin with, but Cowering and TOSEC can easily blame the user for their continued distribution and collection by simply not educating them. Doing so would vastly reduce their userbase, because if all you do is mindlessly collect, you are content with either either db so long as you remain ignorant to their problems.
True, TOSEC and Cowering are not explicit about explaining what their tools are meant to do. Then again, no one else is very explicit either (other than the No-Intro page, which isn't really much of a tutorial for your average newb).

We could probably debate for a long time whether or not the lack of educating the public is elitist (Cowering is too 1337 to explain stuff to n3wBz), whether TOSEC and Cowering are afraid of their "audience" decreasing (seriously, if you spend this much time dumping roms in your basement you better be doing it for yourself), etc. Whatever the reason, I don't think many of us can argue that they are doing a service to the community that is useful in some way (e.g., identifying roms that are crap so people won't submit them).

My point is, at least now there is an alternative to GoodTools with No-Intro, and I think newbs out there are starting to understand what it is and why they should download it instead. Why isn't there a similar alternative to TOSEC, and should someone do the minimal effort it takes to reprocess TOSEC sets with all the junk left out?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ resxto on 3rd April 2007, 09:22 wrote:

Here's an excerpt from a mail Grendel sent me, because I asked him if he could clean the tosec dats:

> And why do you have got 346 copies of Super Mario World ???? No one
> would ever download them


heh, you'd be surprised...personally i wouldn't, but you'd be surprised of the amount of people i see on irc who are trying to find each and every file we have in our dats. i think roughly 90% of the people who collect files don't even know what they have and i'm willing to bet that over 50% of those people haven't actually loaded more than 20~30 games in an emulator.



there is only a relativly small number of people out there who look for specific files and for files for specific systems; most of them just try to get what they can...

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Yakushi~Kabuto on 3rd April 2007, 10:21 wrote:

As you said cowering prime goal is to identify everything, unlike No-Intro.
And even tho it's not our primary objective, it is true No-Intro sets are better for collecting purpose.

However, please don't think we are merely extractors and rippers of cowering. :oops: We have continuously redumped and verified unchecked dumps. And we also have very high quality people like BigFred and NGEfreak who are doing a job of a rare accuracy and quality in this scene.

In the future, I hope we will be the reference in rational documentation of dumps, altho it is very hard to get everyone started. :lol:

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ FitzRoy on 3rd April 2007, 10:35 wrote:
True, TOSEC and Cowering are not explicit about explaining what their tools are meant to do. Then again, no one else is very explicit either (other than the No-Intro page, which isn't really much of a tutorial for your average newb).
Yes, and I too am aware of that. I don't entirely affiliate myself with No-Intro because I disagree with certain things (the website presentation among them). But as far as having achievable goals and prioritizing the integrity of actual commercial games, they're getting things done. Neither TOSEC nor GoodTools do that, and they don't have public forums devoted to verification, let alone transparent documentation of such.
Cowering are afraid of their "audience" decreasing (seriously, if you spend this much time dumping roms in your basement you better be doing it for yourself), etc. Whatever the reason, I don't think many of us can argue that they are doing a service to the community that is useful in some way (e.g., identifying roms that are crap so people won't submit them).
If it were a completely personal project, he wouldn't make his tools public. As for whether GoodTools benefits the community today, I don't believe it does. Don't even get me started on the identification of bad roms. If Cowering had a robust, public verification system like No-Intro does, there wouldn't be any need to document bad dumps. I can screw with a rom a zillion different ways, so what makes the ones he databases more deserving of inclusion than others? Patches should be distributed separately and applied to the verified dumps already in the database, so there's no need to database hacks and translations either. Basically, Cowering just has a rom fetish. There's no other way to make sense of it.
My point is, at least now there is an alternative to GoodTools with No-Intro, and I think newbs out there are starting to understand what it is and why they should download it instead. Why isn't there a similar alternative to TOSEC, and should someone do the minimal effort it takes to reprocess TOSEC sets with all the junk left out?
I see No-Intro as an alternative to the inclusion schemes of both TOSEC and GoodTools, so I'm not sure what you're looking for.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ tetsuo55 on 3rd April 2007, 10:46 wrote:

As it seems to me No-Intro is the only no-junk verified by several people, all extra info group.

When looking from an emulation standpoint, every emulator actually needs to know the pcb mapper info to get the most accurate emulation. This information was never collected in the past.

It's so true that people do not play the 1000's of games one can collect for a system. Even a full No-Intro set is overkill. This is why I am lobbying for a parent-clone system in all the dats, this way you could just keep the parents and delete all the clones, this would result in a 1 unique rom per game set.

You could even go as far as to create a parent-clone dat thats spans all the systems, You could clean up the set even further cross-platform. The end result would be a few thousand games, not repeated on any system. You could choose to keep this final set or clean it up even further. By this i mean play the games, and delete those you don't like.

Eventually you could have a set of a few 100 games, all verfied to be perfect dumps, and the best version of the game on any system. You could make your own dat for that final set, and keep a backup of the dat somewhere so when something goes wrong you can rebuild it.

The only thing missing to make this perfect is a frontend that will list all the games, without splitting them per system, the system should be mentioned in the game info section, ofcourse sorting per system should be possible, just not the default view.


EDIT:
Fitzroy:

I completely agree, all patches should be converted to "Ninja" format. Ninja doesn't care what state the rom is in, it just finds the right places to patch and patches it, also ninja can be included in any emulator for on the fly patching. When i created an update patched-romset it took me hours to manually patch the games, ninja format patches took seconds.. (i believe Byuu is also involved with ninja) (i should probably make that some kind of side project after my quest for parent-clone dats is finished)

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Macarro on 3rd April 2007, 13:06 wrote:

I think no-intro has a little problem with his name. "No-Intro" for newbies could indicate that "our" games are truncated.

99% of people doesn?t know anything about roms, they just want to play and later, to collect all the roms. They use cowering?s and when they realized a lot of his roms are crap, they start to look for a new project.

"Perfect ROMs" will be an ugly name for sure, but in my oppinion it?ll attract more people to this project.

I made a lot of efforts in marcianitos.org trying to convince about No-Intro. I have links in my signature to this page and to the N.I.S.A. site, but few people seems to care about those extrange "No-Intro" sites.

EDIT:

Tetsuo55, my front-end worked this way. But I got stuck when I get to the data section, I didn?t know No-Intro and actually, the same game can have different names in differente systems.

I?m starting to recode from zero the front-end and I would like to implement features like parent-clone relationship and also single list for all systems. But this task can?t be useful since there are not dats or list with that information.

I?m planning to use simple csv files.

http://alphafrontend.pbwiki.com/

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ BigFred on 3rd April 2007, 15:04 wrote:

It actually is by far more complicated to dump and verify computer-based software that is delivered on floppy discs etc. Chucking out (b) from tosec won't get the result we are aiming for. Actually (b) is often just a guess - for example in the Amiga ADF dats and based on bugs in emulators that were often enough later reveiled to be emulation issues. Also even if no (b) tag was there it was 99% a cracked copy with pirate intros/trainers or things removed.

Good copies just came up with the CAPS project and that's one of the few computer-systems we support for now. There is no way we could handle most of the systems right now. When SPS is supporting other systems we will be glad to deliver dats for the software they dump.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Macarro on 3rd April 2007, 15:31 wrote:

A little bit offtopic:

Actually there is a project for PC games called TOSAC. It?s currently almost private. They have a huge database and a front-end to show games information.

It?s a good project, since they oranize games by Game, Version, Disk (Monkey Island, Monkey Island 16 col., 1/4 for example). They also have 8 char name and long name and a lot of stuff more.

The only doubt I have about the project is the format chosen for disk images, I?m not sure now wich it?s. I?ve talked with one of their founders and he told me PC disks are different from Amiga ones since they have allways the same structure and PC disks can be created 1:1 with a standard floppy unit. So, SPS won?t be needed for PC games, but since I don?t know anything about it, I have no solid oppinion.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ daishadar on 3rd April 2007, 16:30 wrote:
It actually is by far more complicated to dump and verify computer-based software that is delivered on floppy discs etc. Chucking out (b) from tosec won't get the result we are aiming for. Actually (b) is often just a guess - for example in the Amiga ADF dats and based on bugs in emulators that were often enough later reveiled to be emulation issues. Also even if no (b) tag was there it was 99% a cracked copy with pirate intros/trainers or things removed.

Good copies just came up with the CAPS project and that's one of the few computer-systems we support for now. There is no way we could handle most of the systems right now. When SPS is supporting other systems we will be glad to deliver dats for the software they dump.
Ok, this is interesting, I didn't realized that dumping computer software is more involved than carts.

Let me ask my question another way. Let's say you took the TOSEC set, and examined all the roms, attempting to keep only one unique rom per set (i.e. just eliminating duplicates). You take the best rom based of some priority ([!] > [o] > [f] > [a] > > [cr] > (b) or something, I dunno exactly, just so long you are public about what you're doing). Would the resulting set have any value? Would this be a waste of time? This would take zero effort and yet it would provide people with a set for collection rather than identification purposes.

Automerged Doublepost.
If it were a completely personal project, he wouldn't make his tools public. As for whether GoodTools benefits the community today, I don't believe it does. Don't even get me started on the identification of bad roms. If Cowering had a robust, public verification system like No-Intro does, there wouldn't be any need to document bad dumps. I can screw with a rom a zillion different ways, so what makes the ones he databases more deserving of inclusion than others? Patches should be distributed separately and applied to the verified dumps already in the database, so there's no need to database hacks and translations either. Basically, Cowering just has a rom fetish. There's no other way to make sense of it.
It doesn't have to be a completely personal project- it just that for a project that is so time intensive, it should be that he is far more motivated internally to dump roms rather than please a lot of people. Basically yeah, if you're going to do something this big you should have a rom fetish. That's ok, different strokes for different folks. I'm sitting here arguing on a rom forum for Gods sake!

And really, you believe that Cowering adds zero value to the community today? I mean, he doesn't have to have a public verification system if he doesn't want to, although it's completely obvious why having one is better. Be honest here (with yourself and me): is it true that zero No-Intro roms are due in some part to Cowering? I don't mean to be defending Cowering- I know people have a thing against him and he seems like a crazy to me. I'm just trying to understand what's going on here. From a innocent bystander perspective I read quotes like this on his forum:

"They would not even HAVE ROMS to translate without people like me spending huge $$$ to save carts before they rot away."

and think, ok, this guy is clearly some kind of power-tripping weirdo, but he's got a point. So is he lying or something?

(On a side note, as I'm just starting to get into No-Intro sets, I'm going to try to rebuild No-Intro sets from GoodSets, and I'll post the statistics later for those who are interested).

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ xuom2 on 3rd April 2007, 17:41 wrote:
I think no-intro has a little problem with his name. "No-Intro" for newbies could indicate that "our" games are truncated.
99% of people doesn?t know anything about roms, they just want to play and later, to collect all the roms.
"no-intro" name came out when the main "job" (hoho) was removing pirate intros from GBA.
i know this makes confusion: i remember friends with "no-intro cd-romz" that asked me: hey, these games have intros removed? (they meant the developer's original game intro XD)
this name is pretty used around the net, and it's fool to change it now :P
seems that the only problem related to this name is the confusion that scares 99% of the leechers.. the fact is that i don't care about leechers and how much the sets are spread around.
the force of our project is not set by how many times a clean dump is downloaded, but by this community devoted to validation and support. leechers could be banned from forum IMHO :lol: j/k
plus, leechers are too lazy to read our pages: in home you get a small explanation and a link to our whoule history.. what can be done more? a YouTube video tutorial? XD

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Macarro on 3rd April 2007, 18:39 wrote:

But leechers are a way of promoting the project :cry: .

This is the reality in internet, you need to get to 1000 persons to find just one who?s gonna help you.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ daishadar on 3rd April 2007, 19:12 wrote:
plus, leechers are too lazy to read our pages: in home you get a small explanation and a link to our whoule history.. what can be done more? a YouTube video tutorial? XD
Coming from someone who is trying to turn the corner from being a leecher... the problem isn't that leechers are lazy and stupid. Well, I'm sure that there are lots like that, but I'm speaking for myself now, and I'm not lazy or stupid ;) The problem is that when I first clicked on your webpage I couldn't really identify the value added by this project between drunken looking watermelon guy and the very brief explanation of "What is No-Intro". I'm sitting there with my GoodSets thinking, what's going on with this project? Why are the sets larger but have fewer roms? Do I already have all of the No-Intro roms in my GoodSet? Why is there a 2600/7800/Intellivision GoodSet but no corresponding No-Intro sets? Etc etc. Maybe it would be useful to add a comparison page explaining what the difference between GoodSets, TOSEC sets, and No-Intro sets are. I think that would help a lot (In addition to the main page being a little clearer :) )

I did look through the history, and I don't mean to be rude, but it's much more of a storytelling device. It doesn't concisely convey the essential information + data as to what's going on with No-Intro sets.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ kazumi213 on 3rd April 2007, 19:21 wrote:

Regarding GBA and NDS parent-clone relations I could make for you 2 lists in .CSV format. These relations are based on numbering (numbering is ugly but numbering is useful, see the following example). This solution comes from Connie, who has it implemented on his GBAFront databases for GBA and NDS:

Code: Select all

ROM#|Related ROMs                            |ROM Name                             |
====|========================================|=====================================|
0001|0001, 0262, 0492                        |Electroplankton (J)                  |
0002|0002, 0041                              |Need for Speed Underground 2 (U) (M5)|
0003|0003, 0013, 0015                        |Yoshi Touch & Go (U)                 |
0004|0004, 0021, 0078                        |Feel the Magic - XY-XX (U) (M2)      |
0005|0005, 0018, 0077                        |WarioWare - Touched! (U)             |
.
.
.
Column names and relative order are just examples, use whatever you want. All dupes share the same "Related ROMs" info so when the list is sorted by "Related ROMs" column, all dupes appear grouped, without worrying about naming or serial.

Note also that this way it is not required to define a parent, so you could code some sort of "user dupe selection preference" (i.e. S>UE>E>U>..., in a "move up/move down" fashion from a list of all country tags, see OfflineList) and then apply this filter for the list to just show the preferred dupes.

If you're interested on the above .CSV, tell me.
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Re: Collecting vs. Renaming - why do ppl collect tosec?

Post by root »

Rif: 1275-2 Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Macarro on 3rd April 2007, 19:49 wrote:

Thanks, Kazumi.

About your ideas and suggestions:

1.- I don't like numbering the games. Yes, everything will be easier but I don't know how to put those number and also I don't want to maintain a parallel database. How would you number the games?

2.- About your related games, I like it because as you said, anyone could select wich criteria will follow for parents. But I have a doubt, if 001 and 002 are related you should have 002 indicated in 001 and 001 indicated in 002?

Another advantage of this system is you could use to indicate sagas.

3.- I was thinking in a csv structure like this:

Code: Select all

System: SNES 
CRC32: AB430214 
ROM Name: Super Mario World (U) 
Parent ROM: 

Game Name: Super Mario World (USA) 
Publishing Year: 1991 
Developer: Nintendo 
Publisher: Nintendo 
Number of Players: 2 
Genre: Platforms 
Controls: Digital Pad 

Rating: 9 
Own: Yes
If there is not parent rom, the front-end will consider it's a parent rom

In a clone rom, every field about the game (publishing year, developer... Controls) will be inherited from their parent if there is no new information. I'd like to consider "parent" the first released cartridge.

The Own field will be used to show not owned roms in different colour or to hide them totally (to be chosen in the configuration of the FE)

Finally, the system field is not going to be used by now but I put it because in the future I'd like to be able to show all the games in the same list. This will lead to a big problem: parent-clone relationships between diferent systems :cry: .

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ FitzRoy on 4th April 2007, 09:20 wrote:
Be honest here (with yourself and me): is it true that zero No-Intro roms are due in some part to Cowering?
If you go back and see my post, I'm very clear to say "today," and not years ago when Cowering's idea and implementation of uniform databases across all systems were the first and only ones of their kind. Because he was the first, there's no question that his tools served as a foundation for the evolution into DATs. But now that ROM based systems are dead and dying, and practically all games for them have been dumped (not even 5% by cowering, mind you), GoodTools today serves only to appease mindless collectors. All those games that Cowering claims to have personally dumped... don't matter. Because without a public and documented verification system, we can't carry over ANY of his verifications. That means everything he claims to have done has to be repeated regardless of whether he did them or not. That makes his current work ineffectual.
"They would not even HAVE ROMS to translate without people like me spending huge $$$ to save carts before they rot away."
lol.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ daishadar on 4th April 2007, 09:40 wrote:

I see your point. It's impossible to verify what Cowering has done because he doesn't document it. Kind of hard to verify everything via one person who's a little crazy 8-)

One followup question... why do I frequently see the comment "we'll wait until GoodXXX comes out" before we post dats or before a dat can be completed? I've seen that comment for proposed No-Intro 2600 dats, the new NES dat, etc. If Cowering is dumping less than 5% of roms, and most of it is junk that has to be redumped and reverified, and the assertion is that the GoodTools serve no useful purpose today, then where are these missing roms and why are they coming with the next GoodSet update? :?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ FitzRoy on 4th April 2007, 11:54 wrote:
One followup question... why do I frequently see the comment "we'll wait until GoodXXX comes out" before we post dats or before a dat can be completed? I've seen that comment for proposed No-Intro 2600 dats, the new NES dat, etc. If Cowering is dumping less than 5% of roms, and most of it is junk that has to be redumped and reverified, and the assertion is that the GoodTools serve no useful purpose today, then where are these missing roms and why are they coming with the next GoodSet update? :?
Presumably because many dumpers and people still exclusively ally themselves with GoodTools and will only share their roms with Cowering. There's no question that Cowering himself still personally provides new dumps. The problem is, any new dump out of his camp comes as unverified, so we'll simply have to dump them again anyway. And if it has to get redumped later anyway, then tell me: what's the point of him doing anything at all? To have earlier in hand something that's questionable? If all you care about is playing games with the hope that they work, that'll do people fine. But as a verifier, there's nothing more loathsome than having to clean up after someone else's mistake, especially someone who touts himself so highly for preserving "rotting" carts.

Also worth keeping in mind is that most of these new ones are super rare and not particularly desirable from a gameplay standpoint (either because they are some obscure japanese game or are simply another region of an existing dump), so it doesn't really score any points with me to have an unverified version of these games listed sooner in my dats. If you want to call this kind of "take my word for it" dumping in 2007 a contribution, well, I'd just have to disagree.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ kazumi213 on 4th April 2007, 16:37 wrote:
Thanks, Kazumi.

About your ideas and suggestions:

1.- I don?t like numbering the games. Yes, everything will be easier but I don?t know how to put those number and also I don?t want to maintain a parallel database. How would you number the games?
First of all, when you said ".CSV" I assumed a different structure for your database. For me a .CSV is something like a RC DAT (without the header part) but using ";" instead of "?" that you can open i.e. in Excel, each line in the .CSV being a row and the data between 2 ";" determining a column. I mean, a database in table format, so that's why I talk about "columns" and "sorting by columns". I assumed your FE was going to allow to sort by column i.e. like when you sort "by size" on Windows Explorer.

So according to my example, the first 5 entries in the .CSV would look like this:

Code: Select all

0001;0001, 0262, 0492;Electroplankton (J)
0002;0002, 0041;Need for Speed Underground 2 (U) (M5)
0003;0003, 0013, 0015;Yoshi Touch & Go (U)
0004;0004, 0021, 0078;Feel the Magic - XY-XX (U) (M2)
0005;0005, 0018, 0077;WarioWare - Touched! (U)
Regarding the numbering: I don't see the problem. I'm not saying your FE has to display the numbering but to read the info from the database to find the dupes. How to number? How about alpha-sorting then assigning a number? But for simplicity shake, what's wrong with using No-Intro numbering? I has the advantage of being useful when looking for ROMs out there plus I currently base the suggested format on it. Otherwise I would have to renumber the ROMS prior to create the .CSV (one more step, but I could perfectly do it).
2.- About your related games, I like it because as you said, anyone could select wich criteria will follow for parents. But I have a doubt, if 001 and 002 are related you should have 002 indicated in 001 and 001 indicated in 002?

Another advantage of this system is you could use to indicate sagas.
Yes, it should be the same (repeated) info for the proposed simple but effective solution to work, i.e. A, B and C are related, then "A, B, C" should appear in the "Related ROMS" field for the 3 entries.

You could add sagas or whatever just by using additional fields "Sagas", "Blonde Main Character" and filling them in a similar way as "Related ROMs" field.
Finally, the system field is not going to be used by now but I put it because in the future I?d like to be able to show all the games in the same list. This will lead to a big problem: parent-clone relationships between diferent systems
One possibility could be independently numbering the ROMs for each system and then adding some kind of code i.e., you'd have GBA1079 and NDS1079.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ BigFred on 4th April 2007, 18:17 wrote:
then where are these missing roms and why are they coming with the next GoodSet update?
For example bootgod who is redumping all US and some other region NES-games hands his dumps exclusively to Cowering. All we know is the dump info. Together with next goodnes these will all go public.

Not that we don't do similar things either ;) It's fun to surprise people with some goodies in a new dat release. Simple as that.

About the website presentation: I agree. A bit more neutrality would help us get into the right direction and look more professional. Though more porn would attract more people hmmm... :lol:

My opinion about identifying bad roms: Times of websites spreading doubtful dumps from unknown sources have ended long ago. Today we should focus on getting things right for the important stuff. And to achieve that every info has to be publically available.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ xuom2 on 4th April 2007, 19:15 wrote:
But leechers are a way of promoting the project :cry:
true, but our stats are growing :)
when I first clicked on your webpage I couldn't really identify the value added by this project between drunken looking watermelon guy and the very brief explanation of "What is No-Intro". I'm sitting there with my GoodSets thinking, what's going on with this project?
feel free to write something that is able to capture earch random visitor :P i will adopt it asap!
I did look through the history, and I don't mean to be rude, but it's much more of a storytelling device. It doesn't concisely convey the essential information + data as to what's going on with No-Intro sets.
history explains ALL. except comparisons with other sets..
Yes, and I too am aware of that. I don't entirely affiliate myself with No-Intro because I disagree with certain things (the website presentation among them).
suggestions? i uploaded a new crazy stars-texture for the pleasure of you all :P :P

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ tetsuo55 on 5th April 2007, 07:37 wrote:

Macarro, kazumi213,

what about this? (the sha1 code are not correct, but should be in the real dat)

Code: Select all

game (
	name zelda3
	description "Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (Usa)"
	year 1992
	manufacturer "Nintendo"
	system snes
	rom ( name Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (U).smc size 1048576 crc 777aaC2f sha1 87117ba5082cd7a615b4ec7c02dd819003fbd669 )

)

game (
	name zelda3j
	description "Zelda no Densetsu - Kamigami no Triforce (Japan V1.2)"
	year 1991
	manufacturer "Nintendo"
	system snes
	cloneof zelda3
	romof zelda3
	rom ( name Zelda no Densetsu - Kamigami no Triforce (J) (V1.2).smc size 1048576 crc b28b2f77 sha1 0c4d0bee858b97632411c440bea6948a74759746 )
)

game (
	name zelda3e
	description "Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (Europe)"
	year 1992
	manufacturer "Nintendo"
	system snes
	cloneof zelda3
	romof zelda3
	rom ( name Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (E).smc size 1048576 crc 04d55e12 sha1 87117ba5082cd7a615b4ec7c02dd819003fbd669 )
My parent-clone selection method was, newest revision, english version, other version. In this case i also added a 8char name, this would help a lot with screenshots, boxarts. Imho we should also add pcb and cart serial numbers to the dat.

Code: Select all

game (
	name zelda3
	description "Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (Usa)"
	year 1992
	manufacturer "Nintendo"
	system snes
        pcb serial sns-34d-dgd
        cart serial sns-34d-dgd
	rom ( name Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (U).smc size 1048576 crc 777aaC2f sha1 87117ba5082cd7a615b4ec7c02dd819003fbd669 )
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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ kazumi213 on 5th April 2007, 11:37 wrote:

But that means you'd have 8char named compressed ROMS? Like MAME?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ tetsuo55 on 5th April 2007, 12:53 wrote:

You could, but its not mandatory. If the frontend uses crc32 or sha1 hashes to verify the file, the actually name shouldn't really matter

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Macarro on 5th April 2007, 13:18 wrote:

kazumi213

Yes, I want to use a .csv using ; to separate fields. I wrote the info in a different way to put it more clear.

About numbering, I'm thinking, what about to simply use CRC32 as rom numbering scheme? I think it'll be the best option.

By now, I won't take care about multisystem lists but I like your idea of system code + number for rom references. I'll use system code + crc32 .

tetsuo55

This way to stor information is nice for reading and updating purposes. But I think I'll lead to much bigger files.

I'm planning to add two kind of lists in my front-end: internal and external.

When you download the front-end, you should download also the official lists of roms wich will be in the format you show.

Then, when you configure the front-end, it'll create the internal lists in .csv format using your configuration (no clones, only owned files, etc...)

Adding a CRC32 system for recognizing files will be the best way, but I don't want to be too involved in such king of things.

Maybe in the future...

I'll try to start coding this weekend, I want to see some stuff moving in my screen :lol:

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ kazumi213 on 6th April 2007, 16:28 wrote:
You could, but its not mandatory. If the frontend uses crc32 or sha1 hashes to verify the file, the actually name shouldn't really matter
Oh, well tetsuo55 I like to see my collection properly named.

Apart from the obvious preservation objective by listing the proper dump of each title (i.e. accurate CRC-32, SHA-1 info), the main and hard task of the datters around here is to properly name those titles. From your point of view, of course we could even use the release groups filenames. I can't agree with you here.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Sotho Tal Ker on 11th April 2007, 12:37 wrote:

Just think a little, where the name for the "Good"tools come from. I won't spoil it for you. ;)

Anyway... Goodtools and TOSEC are merely there to be a catalogue of all existing roms, nothing else.

As it says on TOSEC website:
TOSEC is a group of people dedicated to preserving old (as in OLD) software for all of the various computer systems which were around before the IBM pc became the standard of computing and windows95 the most used operating system.

to accomplish this we search the web for software which has been transferred from it's original medium (cassette, diskette, cartridge, etc) to pc, "dump" software ourselves so we can archive it and do research to find as much information about the software as we can.

the found info is used in so called "dat files" which can be used to check one's own collection of found files and rename the recognized files to the names we created based on the info we have of those particular pieces of software.

The names we use for our files are compiled based on strict guidelines which are described in the TNC, the TOSEC Naming Convention.
Preserving in this case means "collect every file we find and include it in our dats". Unlike the SPS project, most of the files in TOSEC are not verified.

Cowering at least tries to have new dumps verified, by only working with trusted dumpers. But it does not hinder him from including other roms that actually serve no real purpose than to be collected.
See the thread "How do new dumps get into Good Tools?" in the goodtools forums. (I cannot post a like because this is my first post here :P )
The goal of the no-intro project is to provide a list of the best known dumps of games - to preserve clean, non-hacked games for history purposes. ;)

There are other projects like SPS (where the dat with public available games is adapted by the no-intro team) and the PsxDB project (which sadly uses bin/cue format instead of ccd/img/sub or mds/mdf) that do the same for other systems.
No-Intro was first meant to be console-only, but now, with verified computer system files, those get included aswell. (Although (as example) ipf are not "the real format", they provide the best solution for storing every information needed to recreate the original disks)

The reason that computer disks are harder to dump/verify is quite simple: Computer systems are not as limited as consoles. The same thing that happens with game media today (copy protections like securom and others) already existed in the past. That is the reason so many cracked amiga games are out there - you could not copy the protection so you crack it (Though the cracktros are usually quite nice). SPS did invent special tools and hardware to get around this issue. For other computer systems it was done aswell (C64, IBM PC).
Note on C64: If you take a look at gamebase64.com, they currently list 18800 entries - all unique. Many unreleased stuff in there, but overall this database contains mostly cracked and trained games.

Another reason why it is so hard to get verified copies of computer system games: Sometimes people just saved on their play disk or install disk or whatever disk is there - thus altering the original state and rendering the image practically as "not original".

Enough with that, there are more important things to do - like sleep. :P

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ resxto on 11th April 2007, 13:18 wrote:
...and the PsxDB project (which sadly uses bin/cue format instead of ccd/img/sub or mds/mdf) that do the same for other systems.
ccd/cue/img/sub is a totally crappy format, look at this ccd-file:

ccd

Code: Select all

[CloneCD]
Version=3

[Disc]
TocEntries=4
Sessions=1
DataTracksScrambled=0
CDTextLength=0

[Session 1]
PreGapMode=2
PreGapSubC=0

[Entry 0]
Session=1
Point=0xa0
ADR=0x01
Control=0x04
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=32
PFrame=0
PLBA=6750

[Entry 1]
Session=1
Point=0xa1
ADR=0x01
Control=0x04
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=1
PSec=0
PFrame=0
PLBA=4350

[Entry 2]
Session=1
Point=0xa2
ADR=0x01
Control=0x04
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=64
PSec=2
PFrame=13
PLBA=288013

[Entry 3]
Session=1
Point=0x01
ADR=0x01
Control=0x04
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=0
PSec=2
PFrame=0
PLBA=0

[TRACK 1]
MODE=2
INDEX 1=0
as for mds/mdf: why should it be better?

Bin is the best format at the moment, read this Wikipedia-excerpt:

WIKI
The .BIN/.CUE image file format, developed by Jeff Arnold for the CDRWin program,[citation needed] consists of two files which contain binary data and metadata, respectively. The filenames typically match (e.g. image.bin and image.cue).

The .BIN file contains an exact copy of all data stored on an optical disk in raw, unprocessed form. For this reason, some programs use the .RAW suffix for these files. The file contains all data stored on the original disk - not only its files and folders, but also system-specific information such as boot loaders, volume attributes, error correction codes and other metadata on the disk itself. Of the 2352 bytes in each CD sector, only 2048 contain user data; the additional 304 bytes per sector primarily contain error correction information. Other formats, such as .ISO, do not store all this (mostly redundant) information, resulting in a smaller file. The .BIN format is useful for exotic disks, such as those containing multiple tracks or mixed track types (Audio+Data or Data+Audio), and for non-PC CDs (e.g. PSX, VCD, Mac).
beside of that, very good article, dude ;)

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Sotho Tal Ker on 11th April 2007, 13:55 wrote:

Very easy to say: No subchannel information is saved in bin format. Of course, many games do not need subchannels, but some use it for copy protection.
If you do not have subchannel info, copy protected games (those with libcrypt) will most likely not work.
Omitting this information makes the list basically not-useable, except you tag which games need subchannel data and which not. But it would be far easier to store it with all games, regardless if they need it or not. ;)
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Re: Collecting vs. Renaming - why do ppl collect tosec?

Post by root »

Rif: 1275-3 Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ resxto on 11th April 2007, 14:18 wrote:

You're right, therefore Dremora works on a new format capable of this:

"The next step is dealing with LibCrypt-protected discs and making new CD layout format, which, like cue, will allow to keep tracks separately from each other (clean RAW files), but will also have support of subchannels and sessions."

Link: http://psxdb.com/

Like said, bin/cue has got all information but one, subchanneldata, therefore I think it's the best format at the moment

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ layzee on 11th April 2007, 15:20 wrote:

While we're on the subject of CD "perfect" dumping, is there a "perfect" way of dumping PS2 CDs and DVDs?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ BigFred on 11th April 2007, 15:39 wrote:

Shouldn't be chd the best choice for CD-based systems?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ yoshizuki on 11th April 2007, 17:25 wrote:

Actually, all dumped ISO sets (TOSEC mainly) are bad dumps. "they don't include full raw subcode data and they don't rip data tracks full raw. (R.Belmont)".
Best format is CHD from MAME/MESS.

About collections everything is good or bad:

TOSEC renaming is senseless
GoodTools renaming is ugly

Cheese

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Sotho Tal Ker on 11th April 2007, 17:27 wrote:

That still requires an image to created in a certain format from a CD. Then it can be compressed as CHD. But if a CHD does not contain subchannel data, it is no better than any bin or iso - just "compressed hunk of data". ;)

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ resxto on 11th April 2007, 19:18 wrote:
While we're on the subject of CD "perfect" dumping, is there a "perfect" way of dumping PS2 CDs and DVDs?
DVD-dumping isn't a problem, since DVDs don't contain any RAW data


from the isobuster-help:

Raw Data

The entire block (without any subchannel data)
Blocks come in many modes and sizes an mostly only a fraction contains the real user data that contains the files and folder data.
The raw data also contains the sync, header, subheader and error correction bytes.

Therefore all CDs in the PSXDB except discs with Audio-tracks & Copy-Protection (both are stored in the Subchannel data) are gooddumps.

If you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc_subcode


UPDATE:
Very interesting:
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/sub-cha ... 6209.html?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ xuom2 on 12th April 2007, 18:29 wrote:

now the main page is more more more easier. now i autoquote myself:
feel free to write something that is able to capture earch random visitor :P i will adopt it asap!
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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ cmel on 9th July 2007, 21:53 wrote:

Just to let you know

The TOSEC-guys just startet to (re)-dump Dreamcast-GDs. As this is TOSEC, we can assume quite accurate images. If DC-Emulation envolves, the TOSEC-DC-Set would be the better choice in contrast to the old 'selfboot scene-release ripp-off' images

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ alcoatjez on 10th July 2007, 16:06 wrote:
If DC-Emulation envolves, the TOSEC-DC-Set would be the better choice in contrast to the old 'selfboot scene-release ripp-off' images
Both sets will co-exist, since the scene releases are the only dumps playable on a real DC.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Arbee on 11th July 2007, 16:34 wrote:
Both sets will co-exist, since the scene releases are the only dumps playable on a real DC.
Someone needs to come up with a way to hook a normal DVD-ROM to a Dreamcast (the protocol is ATAPI so it should be possible, maybe with a little BIOS hacking) and run "full" dumps on it. In the meantime, the Guru's Naomi and DC GD-ROM dumps will definitely be the full discs (which I assume is also what TOSEC is doing).

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Ktiger41 on 11th July 2007, 23:23 wrote:
It's so true that people do not play the 1000's of games one can collect for a system. Even a full No-Intro set is overkill. This is why I am lobbying for a parent-clone system in all the dats, this way you could just keep the parents and delete all the clones, this would result in a 1 unique rom per game set.

You could even go as far as to create a parent-clone dat thats spans all the systems, You could clean up the set even further cross-platform. The end result would be a few thousand games, not repeated on any system. You could choose to keep this final set or clean it up even further. By this i mean play the games, and delete those you don't like.
This is a very good idea. ;)
Actually, all dumped ISO sets (TOSEC mainly) are bad dumps. "they don't include full raw subcode data and they don't rip data tracks full raw. (R.Belmont)".
Best format is CHD from MAME/MESS.

About collections everything is good or bad:

TOSEC renaming is senseless
GoodTools renaming is ugly

Cheese
Well as far as PSX images go, as long as they play in emulators who really cares, except to 1:1 guys. As for Dreamcast those all need to be re-ripped b/c most scene releases wont play on emulators or an original DC b/c of missing GD-ROM data.

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ ChilliBean on 7th September 2007, 10:16 wrote:

Hi, No-Intro,

I started my collecting by dl'ing tosec sets and then found No-Intro. Sorting the packs with No-Intro dats was a godsend. (Amazing how much crap is out there)

I hope the chd format becomes standard across the community, why have iso's, bin & cue, gdi, when a single easy to create and use format is there.
Plus you know accuracy can be achieved when mamedev are involved in creating the format. Let's hope emulators start to support this.

Regarding TOSEC & GoodSets, they are just not worth considering now as the time between updates is way to long.

Thank you to everyone at No-Intro for making collecting a breeze

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ Dremora on 13th September 2007, 11:53 wrote:
I hope the chd format becomes standard across the community, why have iso's, bin & cue, gdi, when a single easy to create and use format is there.
Plus you know accuracy can be achieved when mamedev are involved in creating the format. Let's hope emulators start to support this.
Mamedevs are accurate in everything except for dumping discs. All current CD-based games in MAME are actually bad dumps, simply because mamedevs "don't trust in offsets" (or don't want to trust).

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ ChilliBean on 15th September 2007, 13:40 wrote:

"don't trust in offsets"

Please tell us more, I always thought Mamedev considered accuracy paramount!

What aboute "PerfectRip" they say images will be perfect, another step or is it a leap?

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Re: Collecting vs. Identifying/Renaming - why do people collect TOSEC? \ gigadeath on 15th September 2007, 13:51 wrote:

Yeah that's the only thing I think Mamedev did wrong in these years, I can't believe they went apeshit-anal about Laserdisc support, and then every week they add support for gigabytes of wrong CHDs just because they feel "they are good enough anyway". A double standard that I didn't expect from them. I think all will be restored the good way once Haze and Aaron get hold of the process, they seem more CD-issue conscious than SMF. Problem is that right now kids are downloading and spreading 50+ gigabytes of useless shit.
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