> Why are they needed? Why can't console software be treated like Arcade stuff, where > you have an approved set of roms, with recognized hashes and a Parent/Clone > relationship? > > Parent: ngaiden (NTSC-J) > Clone: ngaiden (NTSC-U) > Clone: ngaiden (PAL-E) >
as pointed out by anikom, this is exactly the reason why softlists exists: to document properly PCBs found in console (and computer) carts and to document the best-to-our-knowledge dump for each system and to introduce parent/clone relationship where it makes sense.
as such the hash definitions are hardcoded, only they are hardcoded in separate external xml files instead of the internal source, so to reduce the exe size of the emulator. the fact we ship the XML together with the emu and it is the team to manage most of the softlist and not some external group should be a warranty that things are done properly. I cannot see anything missing in softlists among your requests.
IMHO you are confusing the fact that we allow loading of non-hardcoded roms into the home system emulation (a must, since half of the fun of home computer emulation is to run homebrew games/utils that don't always belong to the software list, or to run your own programs into the emulated machine), with having a set of verified dumps. We have the latter, it is just physically distributed in the hash/ folder rather than inside the exe: this allowed for instance to add a lot of info fields (usage tips, original titles, part ID for multidisk software, etc.) that could not have fit the exe and it allows an easier way to external contributors to help the team without even the need to compile the emulator
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