[Beta Feedback]

[rufotheone-fr]

Hi UP and congratulations for this v2! The QoL improvements and the processing speed are really good.

I'm encountering several little issues:

• Redump dat, Retool is filtering both (Europe) & (Europe, Australia) tags;
• Redump dat, Retool is filtering both standalone & compilations (ex: Metal Slug 4/5 + Metal Slug Anthology)

[unexpectedpanda]

Thanks for trying it out! I need a little more info though -- the word "filtering" can have many meanings here :)

Could you describe what happened, and what you expected to happen? Make sure to include settings and title names if you think they're relevant.

[Jaylinx]

Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System (Headered) (20230309-223505) (Retool 2023-03-11 14-32-07) (1,816) (-y) [-AaBbcdDekmMoPpruv].zip

Overall design is good, system settings is a welcome addition.

I'm having a bug that I can't reproduce on V1. I have latest updates on Retool, latest No-Intro dats. I ticked everything on the exclusion tab. And even with everything ticked, I have plenty of "Pirate", "Homebrew" and "Aftermarket" roms on my created DATs. I don't understand !

Here is an example fater scanning the Nintendo NES No-Intro latest DAT.

[Nioh8]

just to echo what @Jaylinx said, i am also still getting "pirate" roms in my dats after, also the option to "prefer licensed over unlicensed" seems to still give me a few homebrew in my nes and snes dat list.

[unexpectedpanda]

just to echo what @Jaylinx said, i am also still getting "pirate" roms in my dats after, also the option to "prefer licensed over unlicensed" seems to still give me a few homebrew in my nes and snes dat list.

That option only chooses a licensed alternative (potentially from another region) if it's available. It doesn't remove unlicensed ROMs. So if a homebrew version of a title is the only version, it's included. To strip out homebrew ROMs, you need to select Unlicensed in the Exclusions tab. Except...

And even with everything ticked, I have plenty of "Pirate", "Homebrew" and "Aftermarket" roms on my created DATs.

Confirmed this is an issue. I'll need to dig a little to find out what's going on.

[Nioh8]

@unexpectedpanda thank you for explaning that, now I understand that option is working correctly after checking the list.

All exclusions are ticked, but reading the last part of your respone there seems to be a issue there with the exclusions, the post report on my snes dat doesnt exclude any pirate roms, even when the exclusion is ticked, thanks

[unexpectedpanda]

Okay, as of beta 4 aftermarket, homebrew, pirate, and unlicensed titles are removed again when you select Unlicensed in the Exclusions tab.

I think there's an opportunity to improve how that works in the GUI in the future, but for now this should do the trick. Let me know how you go :)

[Nioh8]

@unexpectedpanda working fine now thank you :)

[rufotheone-fr]

Thanks for trying it out! I need a little more info though -- the word "filtering" can have many meanings here :)

Could you describe what happened, and what you expected to happen? Make sure to include settings and title names if you think they're relevant.

Sorry for the delay.

When using those settings (everything else are default or blank), Retool sometimes keeps both (Europe) & (Europe, Australia). When writing this report, I've come to something: maybe Retool keeps both versions when there is something different (more languages, ver number) For example:

• redump wii => Disney-Pixar Cars 2 (Europe) (Fr,De,It) + Disney-Pixar Cars 2 (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,Es,It,Nl) / Hot Wheels - Track Attack (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl) + Hot Wheels - Track Attack (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl) (Rev 1) / LEGO Star Wars III - The Clone Wars (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Da) + LEGO Star Wars III - The Clone Wars (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Da) (Rev 1) etc...

[Jaylinx]

Thanks for the update.

I have another question ! So my settings are the one by default and everything ticked in exclusion tab. After scanning I have several roms that are selected in my DAT that seems a strange choice for me.

For example, in the NES DAT, a lot of roms have the (Namcot Collection) and (Castlevania Anniversary Collection) version selected over the parent ones. In SNES DAT , I have Trials of Mana from (Collection of Mana) selected over Seiken Densetsu 3. In GBA DAT, I have several (Pokemon Box) roms selected over originals. And many (Virtual Console) games selected in several other DATS.

Maybe I'm wrong but are these games considered as Aftermarket ? Even with "prefer licensed over unlicensed", I have the same results.

What is the status of games released on modern platforms after the lifespan of the original hardware ?

[unexpectedpanda]

I guess they're technically aftermarket. They're usually not explicitly marked as such (although in the NES set Gaplus from the Namcot Collection is).

Usually you'd get those modern platform rereleases if you turned on "Prefer titles ripped from modern rereleases". Sometimes, though, they turn up if they're the only English releases and English is high up in your language priority (even if you don't set a language priority, there's an inferred one from your region order). This looks to be the case here.

Looking at NES, all the Namcot Collection titles that show up are (World) titles that only have (Japan) equivalents released during the console's lifespan. The Namcot titles get selected because No-Intro has Mappy, Galaxian et al recorded as supporting Japanese only, despite this not being the case. Or at least, they historically did -- that database is no longer available for download (a different thing to the DAT file, too much load on the server to offer it, apparently), and I can't search Dat-O-Matic at the moment to verify as that system is locked.

The right way to go about this I think is to get No-Intro to modify their entries to reflect the actual language used by the title (and then I would have to get my hands on that database to turn it into metadata). Sometimes they've flagged titles where the language is not as you would expect in the filename, which helps too (for example, Mappy (Japan) (En)).

Seiken Densetsu 3 on SNES is legitimately in Japanese, which is why Trials of Mana is selected. Pokemon Box wasn't recognized by Retool as a modern edition (I've fixed that thanks to your post -- update your clone lists), so it's more likely you're getting duplicates there than the Pokemon Box version of Sapphire and Ruby being selected.

FWIW, you can check out why Retool is making the choices it is with the trace option:

I think there's a case for including modern rereleases in the definition of aftermarket, but I'll need to think through any potential filtering implications.

[unexpectedpanda]

• redump wii => Disney-Pixar Cars 2 (Europe) (Fr,De,It) + Disney-Pixar Cars 2 (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,Es,It,Nl) / Hot Wheels - Track Attack (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl) + Hot Wheels - Track Attack (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl) (Rev 1) / LEGO Star Wars III - The Clone Wars (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Da) + LEGO Star Wars III - The Clone Wars (Europe, Australia) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Da) (Rev 1) etc...

This is a pretty weird bug. I don't fully understand what's going on yet, but I do know that Retool is unassigning those titles as clones as it thinks the (Europe) and (Europe, Australia) titles have been set as clones of each other, which isn't allowed (it also claims they're all simultaneously clones of Hot Wheels - Track Attack (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It,Nl), which I suspect is just a logging error). This one's going to take more prodding than usual.

[unexpectedpanda]

@rufotheone-fr, the Europe/Australia issue is fixed in beta 5.

[Nioh8]

So in beta 5 processing the dat like i normally would i end with these compilation titles that replease the original game like super mario on the nes

i see in the changelog for beta 5 "Added an extra filter stage for compilations, checking for which title has more of the user's languages" is this something i can change manually or is it automatic? or is what i'm seeing the intended behaviour.

same with snes, these compilation titles are replacing the original game, where as in beta 4 no problem with that. also with unusual naming conventions.

[unexpectedpanda]

All the compilations processing is automatic... although NES got a lot slower. It's time to fix that. I don't think beta 5 should have changed what you're seeing from beta 4, but I will check.

It is intended behavior for compilations to often outrank individual titles — the plan is to add a feature that preferences individual titles though (and it's likely to become the default). There are some cases where you don't want that (some compilations are an upgrade), but I'm yet to sort the mechanics of that.

You shouldn't be seeing the virtual name of the compilations though (a prefix of V followed by one of the individual titles)... that's a new one to me and a bit worrying. ~I can't replicate that -- what settings do you have?~

Edit: I've replicated the virtual title issue. Looking into it now. Edit 2: Definite screw up on my behalf. I'll have beta 6 out shortly.

[ghost]

All the compilations processing is automatic... although damn NES got a lot slower. It's time to fix that. I don't think beta 5 should have changed what you're seeing from beta 4, but I will check.

It is intended behavior for compilations to often outrank individual titles — the plan is to add a feature that preferences individual titles though (and it's likely to become the default). There are some cases where you don't want that (some compilations are an upgrade), but I'm yet to sort the mechanics of that.

You shouldn't be seeing the virtual name of the compilations though (a prefix of V followed by one of the individual titles)... that's a new one to me and a bit worrying. ~I can't replicate that -- what settings do you have?~

Looks like you're using RomCenter? Not that that changes anything, just curious.

Edit: I've replicated the virtual title issue. Looking into it now. Edit 2: Definite screw up on my behalf. I'll have beta 6 out shortly.

Hello, First of all, thank you for creating this tool. It is very useful. I am having an issue with compilations and a few other random roms. It happens specifically with GBA, NDS, NES, SNES and Sega Master System No-Intro sets. I create 1G1R DATS with only English as a language and all of the exclusions applied. When I load any of these DAT files in CLRMAMEPRO I get the message "Issue: Double description

Description will be changed to 'whatever the roms name is'" For a bunch of the compilation games and a few other roms.

When I try to scan a set CLRMAMEPRO removes those roms and then shows them as missing.

[unexpectedpanda]

@veritas5 this is the same problem as Nioh, it's just manifesting differently in CLRMAMEPro. Working on the fix now. Thanks for the heads up :)

[unexpectedpanda]

Fix is up in beta 6!

[rufotheone-fr]

Currently testing my dats.

Some ideas:

• could it be possible to add a drag'n drop feature to the dat list?
• if you add some dats to the queue and launch and update for the clone lists, the update process will be started for every single dat (for example, if you add 5 dats, Retool will fetch 5 updates)

[unexpectedpanda]

could it be possible to add a drag'n drop feature to the dat list?

I'm guessing you mean treating it like a drop target, so you can drag files from a file explorer. I'm not sure if that would interfere with its current behavior, I'd have to check it out.

if you add some dats to the queue and launch and update for the clone lists, the update process will be started for every single dat (for example, if you add 5 dats, Retool will fetch 5 updates)

Currently the update just grabs all new clone lists/metadata. Are you wanting to reduce download time? I have async downloads on my to-do list, which should speed things up (although I don't know when I'll get to it). Additionally, seems a bit of a pain to have to update the clone lists for each system as you add them, instead of getting the bundled update.

Perhaps what you're after is an automated update check when you click the Process DATs button or add a DAT to the list. That has some pretty rough implications for testing clone list updates. It means any changes you've made get wiped out by the download.

[unexpectedpanda]

You can now drag and drop files into the DAT list.

[unexpectedpanda]

I'm going to close this thread down for now -- new issues can go in their own threads :)