So I have been yabbing on about the new GAME format for a while haven't I. Well the next release is where most of the features of it will actually be used.
Firstly to answer some questions, what is GAME? It's a new emulator ROM format, designed to allow accurate emulation of the game and its features. Currently emulator authors are somewhat in the dark as to what ROMs can actually do, relying upon internal databases (sometimes) or just guessing in others. Basically it isn't too good.
There is also an issue with associating DATA to these games, like covers, manuals, etc. In the old ROM setup it's very hard to do it properly, you pretty much need to invent a new format for this alone. And finally for reasons that will be obvious in a few weeks once some new features in RetroCopy rollout, you need to know valid GAMES from invalid games, you need to be able to know if games are corrupt, etc.
Beginning in the next version there is a change to the ROM loading screen, finally you'll be able to see some differences between games. Also changed is grouping together of similar games, the new GAME format supports bundling similar ROMs together to save massive amounts of space. Now you won't see 5 versions of Alex Kidd In Miracle World, we group them together and then you can select the one you want :-
This will make it easier to track down if the conversion process broke or anything of this nature. Tommy and myself have been working on the Sega Master System database so that all those games should be accurately covered. In previous versions it was done in a limited fashion, v0.700 will be the first to have it nearly completed and perfect. It will also allow the online cover downloading to start in RetroCopy, so if you don't have an account here yet make one so that you can use this feature in the next version.