Back online

By admin on 01-02-2023 09:58

At the beginning of 2022, the website moved to a more modest server. The expense on the previous one wasn't justified by the traffic of the web. Everything went well for a while until a sudden increase of visits at the end of the year rendered the web almost unusable. Some quick fixes were tried with no luck, so it made sense to close the doors, properly analyse the issues and start working on the solutions.

One of the main focus areas have been improving the generation and cache mechanisms of large contents like the indices of versions (which can contain up to nine thousand elements), and complex ones such as the index of sagas. Original generation times of around 20 seconds have been reduced to just 1-2 by tweaking the views and adding better cache techniques. The website seems to be working fine now but we will continue monitoring the performance now that we're open again.

News regarding MAME

By admin on 04-12-2021 09:48

As you may know, each version in ROMdb is identified by its CRC32. To be more specific, by its "clean compound" CRC32: a) some files are not included (e.g. .cue files in optical disc dumps), and b) when versions are composed of multiple files, the sum of all relevant files' CRC32 is computed.

That approach wasn't good enough for MAME because BIOS ROM files are included in each game. Any new BIOS file in a new version of MAME would change the compound CRC32 of all the games including it. That situation would inevitably render all affected game entries in ROMdb obsolete and create new ones completely empty of metadata (parent game, release year, screen title, screenshots...). A good example of this issue were the dozens of Neo-Geo games.

The problem has been solved now by ignoring BIOs files. Unfortunately and inevitably, in the process all versions with BIOS files have changed (for the last time) their CRC32 with the last .dat update of MAME to version 0.238. You will see many obsolete ROMs in arcade versions index that eventually have to be manually deleted. The process will be slow and tedious but it'll pay off in the mid-long term.

Pseudo-annual activity report

By admin on 23-06-2020 16:19

Almost two years have passed since we open ROMdb and although there have been some unintentionally hidden activity, we never communicated it using the front page. Let's fix it now with a brief summary:

40 .dat files have been imported into the website. You can check all the available platforms. Short term plans include the creation of a .dat for MSX tapes from tsx.eslamejor.com and import it into the website. I hope it'll help to promote such a fantastic project and the proper dumping/validation/preservation of videogame cassette tapes in general.

The total number of versions in ROMdb at the moment is 67.855. It really impresses me the efforts put up by the dumping/verifying community to preserve these pieces of history.

During this time, 1.389 games and 252 sagas have been created to organize the versions. It's when you look at some of the games like "Street Fighter II - The World Warrior" with their numerous versions when you realise how important is not just to preserve ROMs, but also to give them system-wide structure.

An automatic backup process have been put in place so every other month the entire website is uploaded to archive.org.

I also want to dedicate a couple of lines to talk about the latest addition to the website, PC games. I recently discovered The Good Old Days project which is dedicated to dump, verify and catalogue floppy disk games, something I've been missing for many years. I recommend to visit it regularly and please consider dumping any missing game you have before it's too late.

Hello, World!

By admin on 25-11-2018 21:00

Finally online, after 3-4 months ~1.5 years of intense work!

Welcome to ROMdb, a project to expand and interconnect differerent ROM databases created by projects like MAME, No-Intro, and Redump. Let me recap a bit and explain you what the origin of this site is:

I never bothered too much about fancy configurations for videogame emulators. I simply opened the videogame I wanted to play and manually adjusted the configuration to my liking. But two years ago when I finally configured my own "console" based in Linux+RetroArch I realised there was an extra difficulty for systems like NES and Master System, the overscan.

Check out this youtube video of Super Mario Bros. 3 in the NES. Did you notice the graphic garbage appearing on left and right borders of the screen? That's caused by the limitations of the original hardware to do scrolling. When using an old CRT TV, you probably didn't notice it because they had some sort of zoom, leaving the affected area out of our sight; but in modern TVs or when using emulators, the problem is pretty obvious.