Like it or hate it - we've switched the naming to No-Intro's convention.

Comments from staff:

After careful considerations and several votings we've decided to change to the No-Intro naming convention. No-Intro has promised to come with a new version of their convention soon, so chances are that this will lead to some more changes. If you find any issues with the current naming or have any suggestions/corrections/additions, please post them in the forum.

Nice.  I've always liked the No-Intro naming convention.  Although I've seen they can't seem to make up their mind on some of the version naming.  From Rev A, to Rev 1, to v1.0, back to Rev 1, back to Rev A...  My poor HDD cries everytime they change it, lol.

Are the serials being totally removed though?  Some people don't want the serials gone, like, for PSX since they are so used to it.  And will PSP naming be identical now?  They (no-intro) seem to have stopped updating the PSP dats.  Maybe because of the so often rumored merge? smile

Good riddance. Serials are neither unique nor accurate, two things that make serials useful. I have yet to be informed of any significant data in the serial that can't be conveyed in a far more apparent form in the rest of the filename. I also prefer No-Intro's explicit region labeling as opposed to cryptic single-letter codes.

I, for one, welcome our new No-Intro naming overlords.

a lot of games have the same version with different serials so i can understand that choice. as long as there is a unified naming convention i am happy

All my posts and submission data are released into Public Domain / CC0.

5 (edited by tossEAC 2009-07-06 09:27:57)

How on earth are we going to rename everything, when most of it is in compressed format.

And all my PAR's are totally useless now as they use the old names.

I wouldn't have minded the switch if it was done along time ago, but to do it when we have 7000+ dumps, is a total nightmare. yikes

Renaming for the next month was not on my agenda.

He who controls the SPICE... controls the UNIVERSE!
The SPICE must flow.

Ouch tossEAC.  You don't really have to redo the QuickPars if you don't want to.  Of course, they wouldn't match the dumps 100% but at least they will match the hashes which is what's really important.  After that you could just rename whatever you needed to recover. smile

Of course, it's always good to have everything 100%.  But if I were you, I wouldn't make it a priority right now.  Maybe leave it for when you have some free time or something.

Please continue the discussion about the region and language tags in the general forum. Thanks

initial versions such as v1.0 should not be visible in .dat, i guess

The Official No-Intro Convention 2007-10-30 wrote:

3.5 Version
Optional
This flag shows the version (vX.XX) or revision (Rev X) of the game. It is put in
parentheses. Revision is used instead of version when applicable. Numbers
and/or letters can be used depending on the system or program approach.
The flag is only added if the version/revision is greater than the initial release.
Source is usually ROM header or cartridge stamps.

hopefully it can be done from db code instead of renaming every time

and (Demo) (Taikenban) should change to (Sample) i guess

The Official No-Intro Convention 2007-10-30 wrote:

3.6 Development and/or Commercial Status
The flag (Sample) is added to samples, demos, instore demos, etc.

though (Demo) seems to be used a lot more often in no-intro .dats than (Sample) but definitely not (Taikenban)

also there are (Genteiban) and alike flags in no-intro .dats
i.e. 'Additional' flag describing release or edition as i understand it
but they do only appear when those files are different
e.g.
"Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (Japan)"
"Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (Japan) (Genteiban)"
"Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (Japan) (Rev 1)"
so for example instead of
"King of Fighters '96, The (Japan)"
"King of Fighters '96, The (Japan) (Alt)"
2nd one would have to be
"King of Fighters '96, The (Japan) (Doukonban)"

The Official No-Intro Convention 2007-10-30 wrote:

3.7 Additional
Optional
This flag will be only added if it is required to differentiate between multiple
releases. It is put in parentheses. Additional information can be added here
(ex. Rumble Version, Doritos Promo)

this does not apply well to redump.org though, since for example final 'Original' edition can be similar to later one
http://redump.org/discs/system/psx/regi … asoukyoku/
http://redump.org/discs/system/psx/regi … evolution/
http://redump.org/discs/system/psx/regi … ch/tekken/

also as it is now, relation with bonus media is unclear
for example:
"Akumajou Dracula X - Gekka no Yasoukyoku (Bonus CD) (Japan)"
"NOeL - La Neige (Bonus CD) (Japan)"
"NOeL - Not Digital (Bonus CD) (Japan)"
those do not come with all editions
(also 'Bonus CD' doesn't hit any no-intro flags, btw, i don't know, maybe it should be moved to 'Special'?)
would you add edition to those records only, like
"NOeL - Not Digital (Bonus CD) (Japan) (Limited Edition)"
they would stand out from actual game CDs, IMHO
"NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 1)"
"NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 2)"
since those have no editions at all

so i hope those editions are added later after all - it's the only way to fully describe record, imho

about those Bonus CDs / Editions
there were:
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.0) (Disc 1)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.0) (Disc 2)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.0) (Disc 3)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.1) (Disc 1)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.1) (Disc 2)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (v1.1) (Disc 3)
and
NOeL - La Neige (Bonus CD) (Japan)

which tells little, since v1.x is an artificial separator not related to any characteristics of medium - worst option, imho

i've changed those to:
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (Disc 1..3)
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (Special Edition) (Disc 1..3)

NOeL - La Neige (Bonus CD) (Japan) comes only with Special Edition
so since it's last CD of this specific game from specific region & specific edition
and (Bonus CD) is clearly an flag, not part of the title but first flag according to no-intro should be region
imho it would have to be:
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (Special Edition) (Bonus CD) <- this syntax is not possible in current db
or
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (Special Edition) (Disc 4) <- this is

also similar case to this is with Photo Genic, i just haven't added Special Edition yet

but then ther's also:
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 1)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 2)
NOeL - Not Digital (Bonus CD) (Japan)
again Bonus CD comes with Special Edition only this time game CDs of both editions match, so:
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 1)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Disc 2)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Special Edition) (Disc 3) <- doesn't make much sense anymore, imho.

also ther's:
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Disc 1)
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Disc 2) (Memory Bank Disc)
it's Limited Edition, ther's also Original (not currently in DB) not having 2nd CD
and most likely it will match with CD1 of LE

so i think it would have to be:
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Original, Special Edition) (Disc 1)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Original, Special Edition) (Disc 2)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Special Edition) (Bonus CD)

and
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Original, Limited Edition)
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Limited Edition) (Bonus CD) (Memory Bank Disc)

respectively

if (Disc X) flag would be used for bonus media, records like last one would mess up
it would seem like 2nd CD of Original exists but isn't dumped yet:
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Original, Limited Edition) (Disc 1)
Dungeon Creator (Japan) (Limited Edition) (Disc 2) (Memory Bank Disc)

but as i mentioned this, in my opinion best syntax, is not currently possible
and generally squeezing everything in 'Version (datfile)' field won't work imho

no-intro defines those flags:
Title (Region) (Languages) (Version) (Devstatus) (Additional)(Special) (License)
currently we use:
Region
Languages
Version
Devstatus (Demo, Promo, etc.)
Additional (Editions, Rings, Serials, etc.)
License (Unl - e.g. Game Guru is unlicensed silver)

curently 'Version (datfile)' can hold only one of those flags at a time
so i'd say sooner or later we'll run into problems,
and i think db needs structural changes to be able to handle no-intro at all
and of course it would be better if db would output those flags to .dat automatically (well, as much as possible)

edit:
btw we could drop 'CD' from Bonus CD and go with just (Bonus), it would attain more general meaning then,
similar to (Demo), (Promo), etc.
and also we could add names for Bonus media in 'Disc title' field, maybe
i.e. it would be:
NOeL - La Neige (Japan) (Special Edition) (Bonus) (Prelude)
Sentimental Journey (Japan) (Bonus) (Parallel Seasons)
Akumajou Dracula X - Gekka no Yasoukyoku (Japan) (Whatever Edition) (Bonus) (Music Collection)
Nostalgia 1907 (Japan) (Bonus) (In North Atlantic Sea)

Clap clap!

This is the chaos that will be and why I don't agree with the change. Who cares if Bonus CD is in a Limited Edition or not? It's archived in DB, what else do you need? So why not adding even dates (please in this case insert also "A.D.", it's more cool!), company and so on like tosec shit?

Themabus, this oddity again?

so i think it would have to be:
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Original, Special Edition) (Disc 1)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Original, Special Edition) (Disc 2)
NOeL - Not Digital (Japan) (Special Edition) (Bonus CD)
...

And so we have to write a poem? Why not adding even the birth date of Publisher's dog as I said?

My patch requests thread
--------------------------------

This is the chaos that will be and why I don't agree with the change.

well, anything is better than serials though

Who cares if Bonus CD is in a Limited Edition or not? It's archived in DB, what else do you need?

like, what do you mean 'archived in DB'?
as far as i know no miracle happens when you press 'submit'
what does happen though is record gets added so other people can compare their CDs to this one
as if to the other physical medium
so it's basically db of hashes to provide people means to verify and index CDs of their own
so if relation or db record structure is not clear it's not functioning right, that's how i see it
like if this Bonus CD relate to whole set of editions, not just one, i'd expect to find it there when i'll buy any of those
though it won't be most of the time

So why not adding even dates (please in this case insert also "A.D.", it's more cool!), company and so on like tosec shit?

because you're not being rational, Rocknroms
would this information be neccessary - provide additional characteristics,
it would be inserted, in this case in Additional flag
for example, if there would be
Tetris (Japan) & Tetris (Japan)
by 2 different companies those records could look like:
Tetris (Japan) (Square) & Tetris (Japan) (Enix)
ther's nothing wrong with that, imho
TOSEC covers a lot of system where sometimes such generic names collide -
so they have to use this very generalized naming
but we won't need it most likely
since ther's only one Alundra or Final Fantasy or Tekken
editions do merge currently though, that's what i'm concerned about
and definitely i like 'EDC' vs 'noEDC', 'ring1' vs 'ring2', 'edition1' vs 'edition2', etc. better
than synthetic 'v1.0' vs 'v1.1' or 'Alt'

12 (edited by DJoneK 2009-07-18 22:24:09)

I can only say, if there's no actual indication of a (v1.0) or a (v1.1) in the disc itself, it shouldn't be even used.  Instead put the real difference between the two disc.  Be it (Greatest Hits) or (GH) or whatever.  If 2 discs are the exact same version (Original) and they somehow got different hashes for whatever unknown reason, THEN should the (v1.0), (v1.1) be used or even that hated "(Alt)" tag.

This is if the discs don't have a version somewhere in itself, like PS2 discs.

(v1.0) or  (v1.1) can be indicated by time stamps

PX-760A (+30), PX-W4824TA (+98), GSA-H42L (+667), GDR-8164B (+102), SH-D162D (+6), SOHD-167T (+12)

iR0b0t wrote:

(v1.0) or  (v1.1) can be indicated by time stamps

Obviously.  But, why is it v1.1 instead of say, v2.0?  Or Rev B?  It's a "made up" version number, not something visible on the discs themselves.  I truly don't mind if it stays the way it is.  I'm just trying to give my humble opinion on the matter.  In case anyone cares anyway. cool

Because.. Rev is used when it's stamped on the actual chip.. we use the standard naming of v1.0 and v1.1.. that's also how gameshark sites etc. make the distinction.

16 (edited by layzee 2009-08-12 17:30:08)

DJoneK wrote:

Obviously.  But, why is it v1.1 instead of say, v2.0?  Or Rev B?  It's a "made up" version number, not something visible on the discs themselves.  I truly don't mind if it stays the way it is.  I'm just trying to give my humble opinion on the matter.  In case anyone cares anyway. cool

Actually DJoneK makes a good point I think. It makes sense to use version numbers for PS2 media because the version number is actually in the system.cnf file and physically stamped on carts, but using v1.0, v1.1, v2.0, Rev A etc... seems kinda arbitrary for PS1 media.

Jackal wrote:

Because.. Rev is used when it's stamped on the actual chip.. we use the standard naming of v1.0 and v1.1.. that's also how gameshark sites etc. make the distinction.

Yes, and I repeat, that all (or almost all) the Saturn CDs and at least Japanese Sega CD and 3DO discs have the revisions in their ringcodes.

Also, No-Intro guys aren't perfect in their conventions. http://blog.goo.ne.jp/ototo2006/c/9c953 … 5e25166cee -- look at the marks on pokemon yellow covers (GBC), clearly A, B, C, D letters (revisions), but their GBx dat uses 1.0/1.1/etc. version naming.

I love the No-Intro naming but I'd like to suggest a little change for multi-disc game names to improve it.

Today multi-disc games are named that way:
GameName (Region) (Disk DiskNumber)
eg : Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1)

I think it would be clearer if the total disc number was added to the name:
GameName (Region) (Disk DiskNumber of TotalDiscNumber)
eg : Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1 of 3)

Subscribe.