Well what is there to report since the last update? Nothing too exciting unfortunately, unless you're the kind of person that gets excited by databases. I have been working on the revision to the GAME format and basically how that integrates into RetroCopy.
As everyone who reads this would know, RetroCopy uses a new ROM format that is designed to place the burden of information on the ROM file rather than internal emulator databases. Every decent emulator has their own database that they update on their own basis, which is fine in some ways if the games remain static but they don't really.
The other drawback to this database system is people who create new games (homebrew) for these systems usually limit what they can do to the "basic" machine so that their games will run without tweaking on these emulators. Take for instance a lightgun game, if you wanted to make one currently you would have to edit databases (if they are external) for all the emulators you want to support. Then what happens if a new version of the emulator comes out and doesn't include your update? It's a major pain. Some people say "if you had a global database it would solve this problem", of course that implies every emulator wants to support this global database format and that whoever maintains that database will respond quickly to requests for additions.
But anyhow the GAME format solves all these issues and also adds its own benefits. The new version I'm working on is going to take all similar ROMs and pack them together into a single file. An example, you may have :-
Transbot v1.0 - 32KB
Transbot v1.1 - 32KB
AstroFlash (Japanese version of Transbot) - 32KB
All these files are very similar with very few bytes changed. Now uncompressed they take up only 96KB of space but it will show what I'm talking about. If you compress each one individually it goes down to about 64KB, the GAME format will take it down to 25KB for all 3, which is at least twice as good as simply compressing each file. If you have more versions of the same file then the advantages just keep increasing. Now Master System games aren't such a concern because they are relatively small, but arcade games, megadrive, super nintendo, etc are much larger and in some cases they have up to 10 different versions. This means you will be storing 40+MB for a single game, but with the GAME format it will be around 2-3MB instead.
Another issue with the existing "lack of proper ROM format" is a naming issue. Now naming games is a rather contentious issue, as the NO INTRO crowd will tell you. One thing I didn't like about the way I was doing the GAME format is that you still have similar game names wasting space. Is it really necessary to show all versions of a game in the main list? Do I need to see :-
Phantasy Star (BR)
Phantasy Star (JP)
Phantasy Star (KR)
Phantasy Star [v2]
Phantasy Star [v3]
Phantasy Star [MEGADRIVE FM]
It's the same game just in different regions, yet it's taking up at least 6 slots in the game list. The GAME format will now solve this problem, not only will it pack all these files into one file (massively reducing disk space) it will also now only show one Phantasy Star entry in the game list, when you click on that you can select the version.
The current issue with GAME format is that only RetroCopy supports it, which is fine because I haven't finalized it yet and it needs to be pristine before I unleash it to other authors. Also using the existing GAMEConvert.exe is too painful for an emulator which is supposed to be easy to use, so I will be making RetroCopy automatically convert ROMs on startup if it detects any plain jane SMS/NES/etc files. This way the average user just has to dump their ROMs into the respective directories and they are away. I have also been working on a new platform independent DATABASE editor, because MFC is just too painful compared to my GUI code, but this will only be used by a few people who maintain databases or create new games not the general user.
In unrelated news my dog is about to give birth. She wanders around the house all fat and barrel like, it is quite a sight. Some people are interested in my workspace, so I took a photo showing my current setup, two computers, two monitors and both Master Systems, running through one of the computers. I use a program called Input Director to use the one keyboard/mouse for both computers which is pretty neat. The other keyboard is there in case I need to enter the BIOS.
