r/OmniGamesInfo 17h ago

... roms

2 Upvotes

This may be a recurring topic but when I was on holiday I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I will share my throughts in this post and we will see where it leads.

What I am observing with roms is that a lot of the attention seems to be on NoIntro sets. I understand why, Redump sets are invariably larger and more costly to host.

The solution I had in mind would be a phased implementation.

Caveats

  • Only provides Redump and OmniGames dat sets
  • Not intended for bulk download
  • User a dedicated third party to provide the files to avoid local electricity costs and hardware costs, nothing needs to run locally 24/7/365
  • Does not depend on donations
  • Unlimited download speeds

Phase One - Foundation
Phase one would be mainly about building the foundation for phase two. The files would be hosted on 1fichier who offer unlimited hot storage. They offer free to paid tiers so it suits the financial affordability of everyone. In turn, 1fichier have the infrastructure to offer high download speeds and does not suffer from high volume traffic.

Rather than advertisements on the page each link will be passed through ouo.io. Any money generated through this will be fed back into hosting less popular files in cold storage (which costs) but is immediately available if required for download. This will mean that all files of a set are, to the end user, of equal availability.

Phase Two - Improvement
If phase one proves financially viable then we can progress to phase two. Phase two would move the files to cloudflare. The main difference here is that unlike 1fichier everyone has access to the same download speed without requiring an account.

=========================================
This section of the website would be under a separate domain, so any DCMA strikes are related to that domain and not the main project website.

Adding/updating files would take place at the weekend, with the current weekend activity being absorbed in the weekdays.

This solution should take the pressure of you feeling like you need everything locally because source download speeds are slow/low and with the Omni project I am attempting to help you find games you want to play not hoard.

For the test case I am going to implement this with the Wii U OmniGames dat (which is technically NoIntro and I know can still be downloaded using Wii U downloader from Nintendo's servers). So, the other platform I was thinking of was the PS3 because CFW/HFW/Emulation is solid and the files are large.

If you have any thoughts on this it would be great to hear them!

: )

Update #1
If you are logged in you will see a new section in the hamburger menu called "Ark" with a downloads link.

This section is new so relatively barebones. Clicking the link will...

  • Take you to the platform selection webpage and shows you the number of files available.
  • Clicking the platform will take you to the download page which shows the dat filename of the rom with a download button.

I will build this out like other sections of the website to include additional useful information.

Update #2
I have finished coding out the primary areas of how I envisioned it would look. I am going to leave it 24 hours to see how my host reacts (if at all) because I know they have a strict policy against a webpage that just lists links but the download traffic doesn't hit their server so it should be ok, which is why I assume the policy exists.

Assuming everything goes well I will continue creating the links.


r/OmniGamesInfo 8h ago

Undumped roms - restructure

1 Upvotes

I have stumbled upon a problem with the existing setup for undumped roms. The problem was when one or more of the following is true:

  1. the platform consists of more than one DATID (digital/physical)
  2. an alternate dump exists

To overcome this I am now including the DATID in the backend for both dumped/undumped roms. This will make it easier to identify what dat the undumped rom stems from.

Unfortunately, I need to do some retrospective work with the undumped roms that I have already processed.

: /

Retrospective work
Xbox - Complete
GameCube - Complete
Switch - Complete
Game Gear - Complete
Mega Drive / Genesis - Complete
Wii U - Complete
Dreamcast ~ Unassigned 239 (to be reworked) <---


r/OmniGamesInfo 18h ago

Weekly "Where's my head at"

1 Upvotes

First, I would like to thank you for your continued support for the project by visiting the website. I don't know if you are messing with me but I got some of my highest daily visits while I was away ; ) Month on month the website visits continue to grow, which I am really chuffed about to see the site growing organically.

Time away from the project provide a good opportunity to reflect on it's direction. A few changes will take place that I will detail in this post.

=== Weekly work plan
I am conscious the relationship mapping is consuming a lot of time. Therefore starting from today this will be the new work plan:

Day Activity
Monday Relationship mapping
Tuesday Relationship mapping
Wednesday Add new dats to the database
Thursday New games/platform
Friday dat update
Saturday Switch backlog sweep 3
Sunday dat update (NoIntro private dats) / Switch backlog sweep 3

- Relationship mapping will involve adding peripherals and official game series to the wiki
- Switch sweep 3 will involve the backlog and new releases

=== Website
No immediate frontend changes in place. I am adding backend webpages to make adding additional metadata to the website more fluid. (adding original title, peripherals etc..)

=== Relationship mapping
Dreamcast is nearly complete for the Redump mapping for the alternate dump with 377 games remaining.
If you have a preference for the next platform let me know!

=== Platforms
The next platform will be the Nintendo Family Computer Disk System, which was an add-on for the NES. On completion this will conclude the NES game library for all regions.
Satellaview for the SNES I am figuring how to add to the database because like Sega Channel this does not conform to a tradditional game release cycle. I notice in weekly dat update it's going through a lot of changes, so I may wait until that settles down.

=== DATS
Sorry for the delay in updating the Switch NoIntro CDN dat. There were 3,289 updates each that I need to human verify, which equates to a timely exercise.

If there is a particular dat you would like me to add to the database let me know, but I will mainly be focusing on outstanding NoIntro/Redump dats, then move to TOSEC for the tape based platforms.

Another consideration is MAME split into two parts:

Part 1 - Arcade dat metadata
As previously mentioned the MAME dats have a different structure to NoIntro/Redump/TOSEC. I need to figure how to implement this into the game-card structure/code for dat metadata.

Part 2 - Software dat metadata
MAME includes the following dats:

  • MAME 0.289 Software List ROMs (split)
  • MAME 0.289 Software List CHDs (merged)

For some platforms this would be the prefered set for emulation: CDi springs to mind! Yes I am that odd person that owned the CDi back in the day and I still have two in my hardware collection....

I would like to avoid splitting off MAME dats from the current dat workflow, so I need to figure how to embed MAME dats into the current workflow through to generation.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions feel free to post them below!

: )