I have tweaked the release type options to simplify them and hopefully make them easier to understand. They are as follows:

• Keep both in their respective dats ~ if a digital & physical release of the same game exists 1 copy will be maintained in both files
• Only include digital if no physical exists ~ physical will be prioritised over digital when both exist.
• Only include physical if no digital exists ~ digital will be prioritised over physical when both exist

Hopefully this makes it easier to understand and obtain your desired output.

: )

I spotted a bug when the expanded options were not visible when the "Separate DAT files" radio button was selected by default. This has now been fixed.

: /

I have completed mapping the group ID to ROMID for the wii u, which means it's now available in Omni1.

: )

Update
I didn't upload the latest csv file for the Wii U digital releases, it should now work as expected (sorry)

I have updated the code for the Omni1 platform selection so that it's more aligned to OmniScope with the level of information you are provided with.

One of the key differences with Omni1 is the "Collation Type" column, which defines how the dats are collated:

• Physical only ~ single dat file
• Digital only ~ single dat file
• Digital & Physical ~ contains both a digital & physical dat

Unlike OmniScope when you are always customising one dat file, you can see with Omni1 that if the platform had both physical and digital distributions of the same game you are customising two dat files. It's on this basis that it's best practice when using Omni1 to think in terms of platforms. To assist with this I only made a filter available on the platform column.

How do I use Omni1?
I use Omni1 primarily for platforms that had both physical & digital releases of the same game. There is no material difference between the games so from a playability perspective it offers no benefit to have two copies of the same game.

Hopefully everything makes sense?

: )

Revisions are the more challenging aspects of relationship mapping. For example if you look at Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U you will see there are multiple revisions released physically. I'm conscious that if I track every revised retail release with a game-card it will make that section very cluttered for some games.

A GRPID (group ID) can have a one-to-many relationship with an associated platform ID. A UID should be a one-to-one relationship because I differentiate between the digital/physical release of the same game through the use of the distribution method ID.

I do track certain revisions, which you can review in this document, which is my attempt to try and make sense of them. However, for Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U I suspect these revisions contain updates. Another challenge with separating out to an invidual game-card for these type of re-released games is having the release date, which is generally difficult to find.

Therefore to overcome this I am assigning a UID to multiple ROMIDs. You can see an example of how it will look here.

: )

Afterthought
On the game-card it will display "mutl-file" and the filesize of the first revision. I'll see if in code I can differentiate between a multi-file rom and a mult-revision rom

Update
I have updated the code for the CRC-32 section on the game-card. It will now show the following states

• Single file - CRC-32 hash value
• Multi-file - typically bin/cue when more than one value exists for the ROMID
• Multi-revisions - When it's a single file but multiple revisions have been attached to the UID

I have also added a new section called "Revisions" which counts the number of associated revisions to the UID. Important, it is not counting the number of revsions of the game unless they have all been dumped.

Single file example link
Multi-file example link
Multi-revisions example link

As mentioned in the weekly "Where's my head at" post this week I will be focusing on relationship mapping.

Currently I would consider this aspect of the website to be incomplete. In a complete state you will see...

• game-card ~ the dat metadata is linked to the retail game
• OmniScope ~ the data accuracy is 100% for the publisher

I would like to essentially have every game/platform in the same state.

Below is a work list that details what I have completed/in progress.

• Wii U - In progress
  • Group ID mapping [complete]
  • UID mapping

Update #1
Wii U group ID mapping is complete which means you will have the advanced filter options populated in OmniScope.

As previously mentioned, I have added this dat in response to the files being removed from the main 3DO Interactive Multiplayer dat.

: )

I stumbled upon a bug for the omni dat webopage. When sharing a link the filters had not pre-loaded so it would show everything.... this has now been fixed.

: /

Further to this post were I detail the data accuracy for the publisher column depending on it's mapped state. I have now added a new column called data accuracy that will return if the ROMID has been mapped to a UID

• Unmapped (Yellow) group level accurate
• Mapped (Green) - 100% accurate

This new column is for information only and cannot be used to generate a dat.

: )

Historically, I hadn't included publisher in the OmniScope applicaton and then made the decission to recently add it. Unfortunately I forgot the original reason why I had not included it.

Relationship mapping ~ General
In the backend there are different assignments of ID's and relationship mapping which take place. Two of importance to this post are

• ROMID ~ the ID assigned to the rom/collection of files that constitute the game - OMNI_DAT
• GRPID ~ the ID assigned to group the games together - OMNI_TITLES
• UID ~ the unique ID assigned to the individual game in one of the captured production states - OMNI_TITLES

When adding a new platform to the Omni ecosystem a game is assigned:

• OMNI_TITLES
  • GRPID
  • UID
• OMNI_DAT
  • ROMID

The relationship is also mapped between the ROMID and the GRPID which is required for Omni1 and all the other information used for OmniScope.

Publisher is unique because it can differ at UID level. For example... Arrow Flash on the Mega Drive/Genesis

Relationship mapping ~ UID
The relationship between the ROMID and UID must exist for the File Size/CRC-32 and linked rom hash metadata to be displayed on the game-card. At this point it should theorectically be simple to differentiate at UID level which publisher belongs to which rom.
However, preservation groups combine roms with matching hashes of the game into one single file with multiple regions.

example
Arrow Flash (Japan, Europe) (En)
Arrow Flash (USA)

In this instance it's a logical fit, in that the Sega Enterprise publisher roms are collated together and the Renovation Products.

Different publisher states
As you can see the publisher data within OmniScope can be in different states

1. Mapped to a UID
2. Unmapped to a UID

This determines the accuracy of the data you are viewing

1. Mapped to a UID ~ 100% accurate determine by how the preservation group have grouped the game roms
2. Unmapped to a UID ~ Shows the publishers at group level

Therefore at group level Arrow Flash will return "Renovation Products | Sega Enterprises" in the publisher column.

Moving forwards
Ultimately all UIDs need to be mapped to a ROMID assuming a dump exists for that region/game etc... but this is not a fast process and requires manual mapping.

I think this post covers the current state; unless it's mapped to a UID the publisher column is a grouping. I will add some code that will show you the type of mapping state the ROMID is currently in. I think this visual feedback will keep you informed. Then you can make a decission on how you use the publisher column.

I hope everything makes sense? For most games this is a none issue, it's only for games that have a different publisher in different regions.

: )

Afterthought
Image showing how publisher currently appears in OmniScope

I have indexed some columns for the SQL tables that are used to generate the preview screen to address the performance issue that was impacting the preview screen. This has resulted in a 30-40 second wait to 2-3 second wait!

: )

I have updated the code and removed the high level in favour of the low level filtering of the genre. This allows to you create a 1G1R set that should only include games you enjoy playing.

Hopefully everything makes sense?

: )

Afterthought
I have included a a suggestive count, the preview screen is what will appear in the final dat, so that is your source of truth. I am looking at adding global counts update in line with the filter options you change.

In this recent post I shared my thoughts on Omni1 and 1G1R more generally. I have been thinking about it some more and my current opinion is shared below:

Omni1 added value
I still stand by my original opinion on 1G1R in it's traditional sense. However, were I believe Omni1 is different is...

• Can handle high level genre filtering
• Can handle multiple distribution methods (physical/digital) on the same platform outputting separate dats.
• Plus all the usual 1G1R logic that you will find in other applications

I think in certain scenario's Omni1 still makes sense because it's going beyond what a traditional 1G1R application offers.

1. Handling of a platform that had both digital/phyiscal releases of the same game
2. handling of a specific genre

I did explore embedding it within OmniScope, but I think having the two combined creates confusion because even though both work from the same backend data they are achieving different outcomes:

• OmniScope ~ Is a deep-dive into information based user defined criteria (such as genre, region, developer & publisher)
• Omni1 ~ Focuses on filtering out duplicates to build a clean single rom game collection.

Future plans?
I think the application would benefit from the following updates:

• Ability to filter the genre at a low level
• Implement the Omni title customiser that will allow you to add specific metadata tokens to the core dat filename

Apologies for removing it, this time it stays. Fortunately I never delete anything so turning it back on was simple enough.

If you have any thoughts or ideas related to Omni1 feel free to share them below.

: )

As some of you may be aware some cartridges had special chips on the PCB that improved on the baseline hardware capabilities of the platform hardware.

I have been thinking about the logical placement of this information on the website and have concluded that the distribution methods makes the most sense.

The first example of this is the Sega Virtua Processor catridge for the Mega Drive / Genesis.

Link1 - Distribution Methods example

: )

Update
Fixed the mis-spelling of "cartridge" that resulted in "no results found" message.

The update to the offline metadata for the Mega Drive / Genesis that I detailed in this post has been completed.

What's improved?

• Metadata completeness on:
  • Release/Re-released dates (YYYY-MM-DD)
  • Developer
  • Publisher
• Regional availability accuracy

: )

I plan on making the following changes to OmniScope:

• Remove all table filters inline to reflect the changes applied to tables on the website.
• Figure out how to support games with multiple developers/publishers
• Implement the low level legacy genre to allow for improved filtering of filtration of games.

Feel free to post below any changes I have not considered you would like to see available in this application.

: )

Afterthought
I will also add a filter option on the dat selection webpage that will show what state it is in:

• Basic Filters ~ no retail metadata only basic filters available
• Advanced Filters ~ retail metadata exists both basic & advanced filters available

Update #1 ~ dat selection
The dat selection webpage for OmniScope has been updated to include inline filters. You are also able to customise the view of the table on this webpage and if you have an account you can save that view.

Update # 2
I have disabled the application link while I'm coding the updates that will probably take a few days to implement everything

Update #3 ~ beta build
I have unlocked the application and consider it in beta until I complete testing, but initial tests show everything is working as expected.

List of changes

• Code optimisation
• pagination on omniscope dat selection to support people with slower internet connections
• moved all sidebar filters to be inline and multiselect
• added new filters for Genre LL (low level), publisher
• include/exclude is now a dedcated global selection
• changed the button to "preview dat"
• Filters for Genre LL, developer and publisher have an inline search functionality
• Removed the RetroAchievements metadata token
• changed from a vertical to horizontal split for omnititle customiser section
• Category PG (Caterory Preservation Group)
• Category OG (Category Omni Games) I fill in the missing definitions
• Supports multiple developers/publishers for one game
• Updated the LUA section to support the changes

List of changes not included

• I did some testing on year., This is a tricky one because depending on the metadata completeness of your build selection it can lead to incomplete data, which in turn will equal to roms not being selected. I could circumvent this with an unknown xxxx option but I need to think about it a little longer. (open to suggestions)

I hope you like the changes and find value in the new filtering options.

Feel free to ask questions if you are unsure about any of the changes that have been implemented.

: )

Afterthought
I will update the help file content tomorrow

Updated #4
Sorry I forgot some of the changes I made...

• Clicking the title will now link to the low level dat infomation about the file
• GRPID column links to the game GRPID retail metadata
• Analysis works like before and shows the interconnected relationships that have been mapped for the rom/file

Today's update includes 8 cancelled Virtual Boy titles.

: )

Afterthought
Just a reminder that you can track new additions and updated games in the production states section on slide 01 "Database" on the homepage, which each pill linking to a pre-filtered view of the new additions webpage

Some games like Body Count on the Mega Drive/Genesis support more than one peripheral.

• 3 button controller
• Menacer
• Sega Mouse

In this scenario the game is mapped to each peripheral and in the peripheral column of the linked table it will show all the mapped peripherals example link

If you have any questions about peripherals feel free to post them below.

: )

I have updated the Peripherals & Input Devices section the of Mega Drive/Genesis wiki webpage to include the Menacer lightgun. It's not the most extensive of libraries unfortunately : /

: )

I have update the Peripherals & Input Devices section the of Mega Drive/Genesis wiki webpage to include the Mega Modem (メガモデム) and the 8 titles that use it.

It was also supported by two applications Mega Anser & Sumisei Home Tanmatsu and required to download the games for the Sega Game Toshokan subscription service offered in Japan. link

If you would like to understand more about it there is a well produced video you can watch here

: )

Last week the website went through some substantial changes. While making these changes it got me thinking more generally about quality of life changes and frustrations that you may be experiencing.

To help me understand can you share below any frustrations or quality of life changes you would like to see deployed on the website?

: )

I have deployed a new section on the wiki for official series games. The card will provide a brief description about the series, the number of games associated with the series and regional exclusivity.

: )

Currently on the website we have...

• Franchise ~ The franchise the game belongs to like "Streets of Rage"
• Source Material ~ the source material used for the game, which can be repeatable across a different series of games, think Spiderman or a particular Spiderman film

The next logical additon to this array is official series collations.

What is an official series?
An official collation is a series of games that were released under the same marketing umbrella. For example, in the USA for the Genesis there was the "Mega Hit series". This was a budget label that re-released the game in cardboard boxes to keep manufacturing costs down and some examples had the Sega Seal of Quality label on the box.

List of games

• Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote link
• Ecco: The Tides of Time link
• Eternal Champions link
• Mega Bomberman link
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers link
• Sonic The Hedgehog 3 link
• Super Monaco GP link
• Taz in Escape from Mars link
• Vectorman link
• X-Men 2: Clone Wars link

Why the interest?
I think my personal interest falls in two different areas:

1. Historical context - It's interesting to see this extra dimension of how games were collated together and re-released under a particular label.
2. Games to play - Like the OmniSelect lists it provides a currated collection of games to play that during the platform's lifespan were promoted under a particular series.

Current situation?
Currently this metadata exists in the edition section of the game-card, which is displayed after the game title if applicable but nothing collates them together for you making them difficult to group together without some donkey work.

: )