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[Poobah]

(I apologise if this is considered too non-Xbox-related, but I was in need of a program like this when I wanted to get all the PAL SNES ROMs from my computer (in GoodMerged 7z archives) into a convenient format (ZIP) so that I could play them on the Xbox, and extracting everything would use up far more HDD space than I had available. It also would take hours to manually go through each game and work out which version I want. I've seen a lot of other people with similar situations here, so perhap this program could help until the 7z format is more widely supported.)

Download here. (45 Kilobytes)
Get the source code here.

This program allows you to select a folder that contains 7-Zip archives. It then goes through each one, performs optional filters to skip unwanted things such as bad dumps, allows the user to choose which files to use, extracts the chosen files, and optionally re-archives each one using either ZIP or JMA. This program makes it very convenient to convert a large amount of GoodMerged 7-Zip archives into formats that emulators can read.

Features and reasons to use:

• Most emulators don't support 7-Zip archives, and most users would only want one or two ROMs from each archive.
• Extracting large amounts of entire 7-Zip archives is slow and wastes HDD space. This program makes sure to only extract the desired files, and each one is compressed straight after extraction.
• The filtering options save a lot of time.
• The filtering options are careful; they do not filter out files if they are the only variants available. (This excludes non-translated files whose country codes are in the unwanted country codes list, and translated files that are translated into languages that aren't in the desired languages list; the program also tries to make sure you only get ROMs in languages that you can interpret.)
• The program features tooltips, so working out how to use it and what each option does should be trivial.
• An "unwanted country codes" list is available. It contains the country codes that use languages that the user cannot interpret. If the program find a ROM that uses one of these country codes and isn't translated, it is filtered out. (Other non-country codes such as "Hack)" can also be used if they aren't wanted at all.)
• A "desired translations" list is available to filter out all translations other than the ones in it.
• A precedence list is available. It contains a list of desired country codes such as (U) or (E) in prioritised order. If a particular ROM file name contains one of these, and one with the same name (excluding the codes) has another, the one with the lower precedence will be removed.
• An automated batch file is generated after choosing the files wanted. This way the user can leave the batch file running while he/she does something else, because extracting and compressing is slow.

Requirements:

• 7-Zip -- either the whole lot or just the command-line version (7za.exe)
• NSRT, if you want to use JMA compression, which is a widely supported SNES compression format that works better than ordinary 7-Zip.

Please take a look at the following screenshots to get an idea of what the program is capable of and how it works:
(IMG:http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/7360/ungoodmergezi3.th.png)(IMG:http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/6488/ungoodmergeoptions1ky6.th.png)(IMG:http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3384/ungoodmergeoptions2nh1.th.png)(IMG:http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/7569/ungoodmergeoptions3qd6.th.png)

As you can see in the first screenshot, it filters down the original list of 277 files from Super Mario World.7z to a mere 14 files. The hacked dumps are present because they are the only variants available. (For all the program knows, "Super Mario World Coning Edition" could have been a re-release of Super Mario World.) As the third screenshot shows, there is an option to remove all hacked dumps, which would result in Super Mario World being filtered down from 277 files to just 1, but this is disabled by default because there's an extremely small chance that a hacked dump of a game may be the only version available.

I'm happy with this program, and have added all the useful filtering options I could think of. It is very fast at going through a large amount of archives with the default settings (which are what most English speakers would prefer), and filters out just about everything that is unwanted.

I've added a "show all items" button for users who are worried about what was filtered out. If you don't trust the filters, just try going through a few archives and then have a look at the batch file to see if it chose what you wanted.

[nes6502]

That's a very cool utility. Thanks.

[enderandrew]

Just this week I went through my GoodNES collection (11,000 roms) and deleted all the bad dumps, overdumps, etc and redundant roms, and I am organizing them and zipping them one by one.  I was wondering if there was a good way to individually zip thousands of roms.  I'll have to look at this.

[nes6502]

QUOTE(enderandrew @ Sep 23 2006, 04:19 PM)

Just this week I went through my GoodNES collection (11,000 roms) and deleted all the bad dumps, overdumps, etc and redundant roms, and I am organizing them and zipping them one by one.  I was wondering if there was a good way to individually zip thousands of roms.  I'll have to look at this.

1) Install Winrar
2) Select all your roms
3) Right click any one of the selected games
4) Choose "Add to archive"
5) On the General tab click "Zip" as the type.
6) On the files tab check "Put each file to separate archive"
7) Click ok

All 11,000 files will be individually zipped one right after another.

[VampX]

QUOTE(enderandrew @ Sep 23 2006, 05:19 PM)

Just this week I went through my GoodNES collection (11,000 roms) and deleted all the bad dumps, overdumps, etc and redundant roms, and I am organizing them and zipping them one by one.  I was wondering if there was a good way to individually zip thousands of roms.  I'll have to look at this.

Dude.. i made an entire faq on how to do all of that super fast..

[enderandrew]

QUOTE(nes6502 @ Sep 23 2006, 04:23 PM)

1) Install Winrar
2) Select all your roms
3) Right click any one of the selected games
4) Choose "Add to archive"
5) On the General tab click "Zip" as the type.
6) On the files tab check "Put each file to separate archive"
7) Click ok

All 11,000 files will be individually zipped one right after another.

Thanks.  I don't have WinRar installed because 7-zip does everything I need, as is legally free.  Despite the fact that I enjoy emulation as a means of software preservation (I only emulate old systems) I'm not a fan of piracy.  I have yet to meet a person who registered Winrar.  People always ask why I don't just crack it.  I tell them that I prefer to run open-source, legal, free software.

But for this, I will download the WinRar trial.

[VampX]

QUOTE(enderandrew @ Sep 23 2006, 08:00 PM)

People always ask why I don't just crack it.

haha my winrar isnt cracked either, somehow that little "please register" box isnt that anoying for me everytime i run winrar.  

[enderandrew]

QUOTE(VampX @ Sep 23 2006, 07:02 PM)

haha my winrar isnt cracked either, somehow that little "please register" box isnt that anoying for me everytime i run winrar.  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

True, but the license legally only allows you to use it for 30 days.  Most of my boxes are Linux, and I am a big proponent of legal, open-source software.

If you posted a FAQ, I somehow missed it.

[nes6502]

QUOTE(enderandrew @ Sep 23 2006, 07:05 PM)

True, but the license legally only allows you to use it for 30 days.  Most of my boxes are Linux, and I am a big proponent of legal, open-source software.

If you posted a FAQ, I somehow missed it.

Then honestly, you shouldn't be involved in the emulation of anything. Old or new, classic or nextgen, game or application, it's all piracy. You can get into legal trouble just as easy for Atari 2600 roms as you can with Xbox 360 games as you can with any PC application. Sure, you're probablly less likely to get into trouble with older games, but either one fits into the definition of piracy. One just gets more attention than the other because the owners of the IP are still in a position to make money from them. There's a reason Nintendo is charging for games downloaded on the Wii. That's because there is monetary value still in those games.

[VampX]

QUOTE(enderandrew @ Sep 23 2006, 08:05 PM)

If you posted a FAQ, I somehow missed it.

Its in the stickied topic, Here's a link.

[sand_man]

I cant seem to open it.
http://users.on.net/swcheetah/sam/UnGoodMerge.zip
"Unexpected end of archive"

[Poobah]

QUOTE(sand_man @ Sep 24 2006, 11:13 AM)

I cant seem to open it.
http://users.on.net/...UnGoodMerge.zip
"Unexpected end of archive"

I've re-uploaded it, and tested the archive, and it works now. Thanks for letting me know. Thanks also for showing interest.

Regarding bulk-archiving multiple files, Windows' command-line can do that just fine:

CODE

FOR %i IN (*.nes) DO 7z a -tzip -mx9 -mm=Deflate -mpass=5 -mmt=%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS% "%i.zip" "%i"

That should work if the path to 7z.exe is in the PATH environment variable, otherwise you'll have to specify the full path to it. I actually made a program that generates a batch file to do this very same thing, if you would care to take a look. (It's a console program.) It generates a batch file that re-archives each file, and for each one that was archived properly, it deletes it afterwards, leaving just the zip files. The program uses the maximum compression settings, though, so it may take a while. If you don't want maximum compression, just use the Windows console command above, and change the -mx variable to use a number less than 9.

[uberzone]

I tried 7zip once, only because it was free.  It was very slow and the user interface was rather poor.  I still don't understand why people swear by it.

Those of you who insist on using because its free, there is a much better alternative.

Zip Genius:  http://www.zipgenius.it/eng/index.php

Multiple format support, great UI and simple to use and best of all, free.  

I realize I sound like a commercial right now, but its only because I despise 7zip.

[enderandrew]

7zip's interface really isn't that much different from WinRar.  And 7-zip is slow because it uses a better compression technique.  The files end up smaller.  If you don't want to use a slow form of compression, then adjust the settings.

[Poobah]

Sorry for bumping up this old post. I just thought I should mention that I've updated this program. Here is the change log and some screenshots. The most significant change is that it now supports all ROM sets, whether or not they're GoodMerged.

(The URL's the same as in the first post, but here's the link again.)

Version 1.1:

• Added support for the GoodMerge XMDBs for non-goodmerged sets of ROMs.
• Split the 'filter unwanted tags' option up into each individual tag.
• Added support for zipped GoodMerge sets.
• Added support for directory recursion.
• Added support for uncompressed, zipped and 7-zipped non-goodmerged sets.
• Fixed problems that occurred when files had '%' characters in their file names.
• Stored options are now always stored in little-endian format.
• Improved unwanted tag filtering.
• Made the default settings more comprehensive.
• Added support for
  • and [BF] tags.
  • Added platform-specific filtering options.
  • Added the UNIF-prioritisation NES-specific filter.
  • Added the Gameboy colour-prioritisation GBx-specific filter.
  • Improved overall filtering algorithms.
  • Added an "omission list". This one contains text that causes files containing it to be filtered out.
  • Added two GBA-specific filters.
  • Fixed a couple of bugs.
  • Added a new icon kindly provided by Pablo Carrau.
  • Fixed memory leaks.
  • Interface enhancements.
  • Fixed more bugs.