How to determine if ROMs are named correctly

[Koop]

I'm still new to the emulating community, but from what I can tell the file naming of MAME ROMs is very important so that they can be recognized correctly and so forth. Do ROMs for other systems follow the same strict rules? I'm asking because I have a set of ROMs for a console that do not seem to be named correctly. I think some are named correctly, while others look like they're definitely wrong (the title is correct, but doesn't seem to follow any naming standard). In fact, I believe this to be true because when I use the EmuMovies download utility to download snaps for the ROMs I have it often does not download snaps for many of these games (probably because they are incorrectly named).

Does anyone know of a list of correct ROM names for consoles? Does anyone know of a program that can help me recognize and automatically rename ROMs?

Thanks.

[fRequEnCy]

There are applications called rom managers that handle this. They use dat files that are based off the file and named based on that naming convention. There are many naming conventions out there, So really depends on what you're after.

[Koop]

great thanks. I'll search the internet for ROM managers. This site seems like a good start: http://www.romcenter.com/

[nullPointer]

No-Intro sets are a very good starting place for console based systems IMHO, especially if you're just getting into emulation. The other popular options in this category are GoodSets and TOSEC sets. GoodSets attempt to include every known version of every known ROM. That sounds great until you realize that half of them are bad dumps, half-baked hacks consisting of palette swaps, and unlicensed Asian games that won't play right in any emulator. TOSEC is sort of the same thing only less so. The nice thing about No-Intro is that the sets include the single 'best' version of any given ROM (-mostly- no bad dumps, no hacks).

No-Intro DATs can be found here: DAT-o-MATIC

As far as ROM managers go don't forget clrmamepro. It's the 'old standard' of the community, so it's not a bad idea to become at least somewhat familiar with its operation.

[AlphaUMi]

Very good explanation nullPointer! I feel to strongly suggest no-intro sets, they are clean sets and seem to be the most pupular nowdays.

Koop, unless you are a game archeologist or a collector of everything game-related, no-intro sets should be your cup of tea...

[Koop]

Thanks, so it looks like I download the dataset from Dat-o-matic and somehow use that with the CLRMame Pro program. Unfortunatly it doesn't look like they have the Atari 2600 system (unless that is contained in the 5200 set?). But it does have NES and SNES!

I have no idea how to use CLRMame Pro, but as you said, I should probably get familiar.

[fRequEnCy]

Thanks, so it looks like I download the dataset from Dat-o-matic and somehow use that with the CLRMame Pro program. Unfortunatly it doesn't look like they have the Atari 2600 system (unless that is contained in the 5200 set?). But it does have NES and SNES!

I have no idea how to use CLRMame Pro, but as you said, I should probably get familiar.

No-intro doesn't have a 2600 set. So then I would go onto building them in the GoodName (GoodSet) convention. CLRMame Pro is a powerful program and good to learn if you know what you're doing. RomCenter is a bit on the easier side. So to each their own. There's lots of tutorials around and lots of us who are familiar if you get stuck.