Ok . . Why don't roms ever match with snaps/videos?

[Forty0ztoFreedom]

I know this isn't strictly a GameEX issue, but I figured someone here would have an answer.

I've acquired lots of rom-sets, and lots of snaps/videos packages. The names of the roms never match the names of the snaps/videos. For instance, I just subscribed to emumovies, and the snaps and videos are organized like "Sonic The Hedgehog (U)!" . . But all the rom sets I get are usually just "Sonic The Hedgehog" . . or even "Sonic the Hedgehog #" or "Sonic the Hedgehog SMS/GG/SCD, etc"

I'm assuming places like emumovies are getting the names of their snaps from the names of ROMS, right? So are there Rom-sets named like this? (I'm NOT requesting a rom-set) What is the name of the "(U)!" type romsets? Goodsets? No-Intro? What? I'd rather find that romset and have everything neatly matched than the mess I have now.

GameEX does match the names pretty good, when they're not exactly matched . . but still, its not perfect.

Thanks.

[bkenobi]

I just finished going through this a couple weeks back. I feel your pain! To compound that problem, No-Intro just changed their formatting as well. They used to use (UJ) to represent a USA and Japanese release, but now it's (USA, Japan). That means that older No-Intro formatted snap sets will be different than current ones.

If there is a .dat file associated with your sets (yeah right, that would be too easy) then you can use clrmamepro or romcenter to rename them to something else. Since they don't, all I can say is what I was told when I asked the same question a few weeks back..."your in for some work!"

Here's what I can suggest though (and this is what I did).

1) Go grab PimpDaddyStu's FuzzyTextMatch Utility.

2) Create a text file for each of your sets (one file for each type of content: roms, snaps, titles, etc) that contains just the base name for each game (no extensions).

3) Put the rom file in list 2 of FuzzyTextMatch.

4) Put one extras file (snaps, boxes, titles, etc) in list 1.

5) Deselect "Remove brackets"

6) Run the tool (this can take a few minutes for larger sets.

7) Check both check boxes on the right and put an extension appropriate for the extras type (.png, .jpg, .avi, .pdf, etc).

8) Check to make sure everything matches appropriately. This can take some time but it's better than doing it manually! I went through 2-3 times per pair, once for each column. I sorted by the first column and checked for accuracy and duplication. Repeated for column 2. Then I sorted by column 3 with lowest percent on top. Titles below ~65% can be wrong. Above that are *usually* right.

9) Export the list to a batch file. I gave things an appropriate name (e.g., NES-Snaps.bat), but you don't have to.

10) OPTIONAL - create hard links for all content you are planning on messing with. This way you always have the source if you need to update your set or things get screwed up. This also doesn't take up the space that copying would.

11) Once you have your batch file, you can drop it into the directory containing the content (NES snaps in this case) and run the batch file.

11) OPTIONAL - If you want, you can remove anything that wasn't renamed. I created a subdirectory called "-=UNUSED=-" and moved all files that weren't renamed into it. The easiest way to do this is to run the batch file and move all files from the top of the explorer window down to the directory (these are the only ones that haven't been touched). If you have 100% matches, those will be moved out as well, so you might want to make a batch file to move anything that matches exactly back...

Repeat for each set and you're golden!

[headkaze]

There is also the Generic Artwork Renamer

[bkenobi]

Hmmm, it might have been nice to remember about that tool

Still, I like my final solution better even though it took a bit of time.