An all encompassing Rom/Emulator Database

[hotsammysliz]

Hello All!

This may be my 1st forum post but I've been a long time emuparadise fan for at least 8 years now or something like that I can't even remember lol. Basically I love this place and figured this is the best place to ask something like this. A few friends and I are working on a project or maybe I should say planning to work on a project of a friendly user interface rom/emulator manager program. I know hyperspin is already out but I actually wanted to make a program like this before I even knew hyperspin existed so I'm trying to do this anyway not for competition or comparison but more of a personal feat and now as a school project.

ANYWAY as for the post title. I am curious if there are any kind of databases out there that are available openly for games/roms/emulators that are quite thorough as in they include and wealthy amount of games along with information such as box art, release year, developer and/or publisher, game genre, etc. And if there aren't any kind of databases that have everything like that any kind of pointers to something even remotely close would be awesome. Something like just every box art or a list of all games with release dates or anything like that. I did find datomatic.no-intro but that seemed to just be hosting titles along with md5 checksums and a couple of stats similar to that which is also useful. Any help on this will be awesome and as far as sharing this project when it is either in development or finished emuparadise will definitely be one of the first places I share this program. Thanks!

Also mods please feel free to move this or tell me where to repost this or anything if this is in the wrong place. I wasn't really sure where this belonged.

[Zorlon]

You want to look at dat databases for games http://datomatic.no-intro.org/ is good one that just has pure games (i.e. not modified) for CD based systems then you want a site like www.re-dump.org neither has roms by the way, they are just database sites no-intro is aimed at collectors and there dats also check crc infomation via clrmamepro

For emulators, you are best off researching that often there is more than one emulator needed to get the full spectrum of compat

For release dates ect just look on www.GameFAQs.com they also have cover art who released the game and whatever other info you could want (the best part is they also have unreleased games listed also with the little info they have for those handy because some of those games are available to play in the form of a rom or iso)

I used to use http://www.romcenter.com/ back in the day, works good as a front end for everything you through at it aswell

Basicly if you can make a prog that can take no-intro dat and other dat files/info and give box shots and other info that can be updated when the dat's are updated, this is more like something that will last, also have it open to use any emulator as restricting it will give problems later as new emulators and updated emulator arise, it would be best to use dat mostly because it would take years to redo what they have already done

I have seen plenty of front ends come and go alot of them are great but due to limitations they get left in the dark and unused

There are other dats by the way no just no-intro

[hotsammysliz]

Thank you so much for all of the information I will definitely check out all of those resources. And like you said I would like this program to be as compatible as possible with new emulators and such being released. I will keep this updated with my findings. Again thank you.

[Zorlon]

Wow bad typo's in my last post :p

check out romcenter though if just for the way it lets you use it as a frond end really it's just a rom audit tool though but does show you all the games you have or don't have

it would be worth you looking at a few front end type bits of software and see how they work to get a better idea of what needs to be done specially as some emulators could do with some command line options aswell

[WitchHunter]

Tosec also have dats: http://www.tosecdev.org/

Frontends: for arcade machines look for MameUI or Mess. Another frontend is Gamebase: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/GamebaseZX/ (some screenshoot from Gamebase ZX Specturm project).