What exactly does [!] mean in a ROM name?

[Jorpho]

I've been seeing [!] in ROM names for some time now, but I never actually found out what it meant. I suppose it was some convention adopted early in the development of the Good_ utilities, like (J), (U), (E), or (NG-Dump Known), but its meaning is not obvious.

So what's the deal?

[Pantechnicon]

I believe it means good confirmed dump. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Gast]

It's a perfect dump, perfect replica of the cart. In other words, only download Roms with that tag, everything else might be faulty

[Jorpho]

Are there really that many imperfect cartridge dumps out there? I did not know it was such a challenge.

[Bratwurst]

Are there really that many imperfect cartridge dumps out there? I did not know it was such a challenge.

It's very easy to double/triple dump the image of a rom if you don't know what you're doing, among other things.

[Jorpho]

Wouldn't something like that be just as easy to correct afterwards?

[kai123]

Are there really that many imperfect cartridge dumps out there? I did not know it was such a challenge.

It's very easy to double/triple dump the image of a rom if you don't know what you're doing, among other things.

How do they know they did that? Do they have to wait until someone else dumps it?

[Bratwurst]

Wouldn't something like that be just as easy to correct afterwards?

Not necessarily, after the rom has been spread to about a hundred other users, servers and websites, etc, the damage has been done.


How do they know they did that? Do they have to wait until someone else dumps it?

Redundant data caught in a hex editor filter, repeated graphics in a tile viewer, so on so forth.

[Ed Oscuro]

Wouldn't something like that be just as easy to correct afterwards?
If you've ripped a number of ROMs in parallel three times over, and then recombined all the overdumped ROMs into one image - well, it would work the same way with a single-chip game, just substitute "memory address" for "ROM."

[whoisKeel]

the readme's always help me out.



..................
...............: STANDARD CODES ::...............
: :\
: [a] Alternate [p] Pirate :\
: [b] Bad Dump [t] Trained :\
: [f] Fixed [T-] OldTranslation :\
: [T+] NewerTranslation :\
: [h] Hack (-) Unknown Year :\
: [o] Overdump [!] Verified Good Dump :\
: (M#) Multilanguage (# of Languages) :\
: (###) Checksum (??k) ROM Size :\
: ZZZ_ Unclassified (Unl) Unlicensed :\
:...............................................:\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

.................
................: SPECIAL CODES ::...............
: :\
: .-----Gameboy-----. .----Super Nintendo----. :\
: [ [C] Color ] [ (BS) BS ROMs ] :\
: [ [S] Super ] [ (ST) Sufami Turbo ] :\
: [ [BF] Bung Fix ] [ (NP) Nintendo Power ] :\
: `-----------------' `----------------------' :\
: .--------Atari---------. :\
: .-----Genesis-----. [ (PAL) Euro Version ] :\
: [ (1) Japan ] `----------------------' :\
: [ (4) USA ] .---------GBA----------. :\
: [ (5) NTSC Only ] [ [hI??] Intro hacks ] :\
: [ (8) PAL Only ] `----------------------' :\
: [ (B) non USA ] .--------Coleco--------. :\
: [ [c] Checksum ] [ (Adam) ADAM Version ] :\
: [ [x] Bad Checksum] `----------------------' :\
: [ [R-] Countries ] :\
: `-----------------' :\
: .--------NES/FC--------. :\
: .--NeoGeo Pocket--. [ (PC10) PlayChoice 10 ] :\
: [ [M] Mono Only ] [ (VS) Versus ] :\
: `-----------------' [ [hFFE] FFE Copier fmt] :\
: `----------------------' :\
:...............................................:\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

.................
................: COUNTRY CODES ::...............
: :\
: (1) Japan & Korea (4) USA & BrazilNTSC :\
: (A) Australia (J) Japan :\
: (B) non USA (Genesis) (K) Korea :\
: (C) China (NL) Netherlands :\
: (E) Europe (PD) Public Domain :\
: (F) France (S) Spain :\
: (F) World (Genesis) :\
: (FC) French Canadian (SW) Sweden :\
: (FN) Finland (U) USA :\
: (G) Germany (UK) England :\
: (GR) Greece (Unk) Unknown Country :\
: (HK) Hong Kong (I) Italy :\
: (H) Holland (Unl) Unlicensed :\
:...............................................:\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

.......................
.............: STANDARD CODE NOTES ::............
: :\
: [a] This is simply an alternate version of a :\
: ROM. Many games have been re-released to :\
: fix bugs or even to eliminate Game Genie :\
: codes (Yes, Nintendo hates that device). :\
: ------------------- :\
: [b] A bad dump often occurs with an older :\
: game or a faulty dumper (bad connection). :\
: Another common source of [b] ROMs is a :\
: corrupted upload to a release FTP. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [f] A fixed game has been altered in some way :\
: so that it will run better on a copier :\
: or emulator. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [h] Something in this ROM is not quite as it :\
: should be. Often a hacked ROM simply has :\
: a changed header or has been enabled to :\
: run in different regions. Other times it :\
: could be a release group intro, or just :\
: some kind of cheating or funny hack. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [o] An overdumped ROM image has more data :\
: than is actually in the cart. The extra :\
: information means nothing and is removed :\
: from the true image. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [t] A trainer is special code which executes :\
: before the game is begun. It allows you :\
: to access cheats from a menu. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [!] Verified good dump. Thank God for these! :\
:...............................................:\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

......................
.............: SPECIAL CODE NOTES ::.............
: :\
: **** SNES **** :\
: (BS) These Japanese ROMs were distributed :\
: through a satellite system in Japan :\
: known as the Broadcast Satellaview. :\
: They were transmitted along with a TV :\
: show which was connected to the game in :\
: some way. These games were only playable :\
: during the show, and thus stop after an :\
: hour, and many were timed so that only :\
: certain time periods were playable. :\
: ------------------- :\
: (ST) The Sufami Turbo device allowed two :\
: GameBoy sized carts to be plugged into :\
: the SNES. Certain carts combined into :\
: new games much like the Sonic & Knuckles :\
: lock-on technology by Sega. :\
: ------------------- :\
: (NP) Nintendo Power has been known to release :\
: games only available to its subscribers. :\
: Most of these ROMs are Japanese, as this :\
: practice occured mainly in Japan. :\
: ------------------- :\
: :\
: **** Genesis **** :\
: (1) Carts with this code will run on both :\
: Japanese and Korean machines. :\
: ------------------- :\
: (4) While this code is technically the same :\
: as a (U) code, it is a newer header :\
: format and represents that the cart will :\
: run on USA and Brazil NTSC machines. :\
: ------------------- :\
: (B) This country code indicates that the :\
: cart will run on any non US machine. :\
: ------------------- :\
: [c] This code represents a cart with known :\
: faulty checksum routines. :\
: ------------------- :\
: :\
: **** GameBoy **** :\
: [BF] Bung released a programmable cartridge :\
: compatable with the GameBoy which could :\
: hold any data you wished to play. :\
: However, many games do not function on :\
: Bung v1.0 carts and have to be 'fixed.' :\
: ------------------- :\
: :\
: **** Nintendo **** :\
: PC10 The PlayChoice 10 was an arcade unit :\
: which played exact copies of NES games :\
: in an arcade cabinet. The machines had a :\
: choice of 10 games to choose from and :\
: ran for about 3 minutes on 25 cents. :\
: ------------------- :\
: :\
: VS The Versus system ran on similar hard- :\
: ware to the PC10 machines, but simply :\
: allowed you to play against each other. :\
:...............................................:\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

[Joelius]

whoah, sweet, thanks for the readme, now i actually know a thing or two about ROMS...other than get the (E) ones and no (J) ones

[hydr0x]

uh yeah, let me clear a few things up

[!] SHOULD mean it's a verified dump, but as GoodSNES totally sucks there are some [!] roms that are NOT correct dumps at all

go to http://nsrt.edgeemu.com/ and download the latest NSRT version, it's superior to GoodSNES, it's db doesn't include thousands of bad dumps and all that stuff, go check it out (it also lets you fix those wrong dumps)

[Psycho Mantis]

i never knew that.

[classic gamer]

I tried using the Good tools and was able to filter out what I wanted. But when I selected move and clicked execute (or whatever the command is) it eded up moving all the ROMs.

Is there a way of moving only the dumps I want (i.e. verified, US, NTSC, etc.) so I don't have to move them individually or delete the unwanted ROMs manually?

[zektor]

I tried using the Good tools and was able to filter out what I wanted. But when I selected move and clicked execute (or whatever the command is) it eded up moving all the ROMs.

Is there a way of moving only the dumps I want (i.e. verified, US, NTSC, etc.) so I don't have to move them individually or delete the unwanted ROMs manually?

If you use any of the goodtools with the "dirs" switch when you rename it will split all of the roms into seperate directories such as USA, World, Bad, Overdumped..etc.

[classic gamer]

If you use any of the goodtools with the "dirs" switch when you rename it will split all of the roms into seperate directories such as USA, World, Bad, Overdumped..etc.

What happens when a ROM has multiple tags, such as [E] [!].

I think I have seen many ROMs like this. Or it could have been just my imagination.

[Jorpho]

Then it's a "Verified Good Dump" of the European version of the game.