MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Random Emulation Questions (Mostly MAME)

> > There is another website. Renascene. They listed the PS One Classics, PSP, PSV and
> > PS3 dump data base there. I use this website to check and see a dump that I found
> > good or not. PSP and PS One Classics.
>
> Since PS One Classics contain a number of non-genuine dumps that clearly look like
> pirate/hand-edited dumps, I don't think it can be a good target for any serious
> preservation project. Check their Mad Stalker - Full Metal Force image, for example.

Right, a lot of official collections just pulled roms from websites, often old collections too (probably because they ended up download some 'BEST 1000 ROMS1!!!11' pack or something, and just using what was in there when half the times those packs are put together by some random 12 year old kid with no knowledge of the field to get youtube clicks.

Beyond that sometimes the emulators aren't very good so they had to use old images with hacks that made things work in older, buggier emulators.

This is one reason I'll always tell people to use the latest MAME, not old versions of MAME. The excuse of 'my roms work with old versions' is a bad one, they don't work with newer ones, typically because they were wrong and have been replaced. Recommending people keep using old sets, and keep them looking current when they're not is just bad for preservation in general because people new coming to emulation, especially from commercial backgrounds etc. end up seeing the (stupid) raving 'THESE OLD VERSION ARE THE BEST!!!!' fanboys, without really understanding that it's a complete fallacy mostly propagated because people are too lazy to do want to do things properly, or don't want to invest in proper hardware.

The problem with console emulation is *far* worse however because most of the dedicated emulators have no way of rejecting known bad dumps so people blissfully keep using them and spreading them. This to some people makes the console emulators better, because they never need to update their ROMs, but in reality, it just keeps a long-term problem going and causes things like what you're observing here to happen.