Allow several ROM entries for the same game version

[vadosnaprimer]

855 was mainly for general mumbling, so let's have a workable feature request here.

Traditionally we would use a single ROM file and run it in an emulator, and managing its metadata was enough. But with PSX and PC games, as well as linked GBx, we need to manage metadata of several files at once, and they are all required to get the movie to sync.

PSX examples are cue/bin, and sometimes there are several track files. PC games just tend to consist of several files, and sometimes there's quite a lot of them!

And for DOS, simply providing the resulting hash of the compiled image won't help, because you need to know hashes of actual files you're compiling. The JPC movie lists individual file hashes, but then that's not in the site DB.

[adelikat]

I think this is mistitles. You can have as many rom hashes on a game as you want. What you want is to tie multiple hashes to a submission or publication

[vadosnaprimer]

Tying multiple hashes to sub/pub is indeed implied. What I meant is we need is ability to tell the system some set of files is one whole version of one game.

[RetroEdit]

I think there are two distinct relevant features here:

1. Single games that comprise multiple files, relevant for PSX and DOS among others, as mentioned.
2. More robust game entries for publications for the select few pubs with multiple games in one movie (8 currently; 11 total including obsolete), which is a bit broader than just linked GB movies. Individual game entries for the constituent games usually exist; it's just a matter of documenting that a particular game for a publication compromises multiple other game version entries. 2a. (Also, arguably linked GB movies with the same game multiple times can already be cataloged as the game.)

[YoshiRulz]

see also TASEmulators/BizHawk#3428

[vadosnaprimer]

Maybe I forgot about multigame submissions, but they don't represent several files that constitute one version of the game. They represent unrelated games involved in one movie. So they can't be a part of this ticket.

[RetroEdit]

I mentioned this because linked GB was brought up, but I'll open a new issue.

[vadosnaprimer]

Oh right. Yeah initially they felt like the same problem, then the catalog system happened, and game versions became a new thing, which made GB link a separate entity.