Why so many different dumps of a ROM?

[EmuNoviceUser]

I am not sure of the right place for this, so I will put it here.

I have found rar files that sometimes hold 30 different dumps of the same ROM. Each dump is obviously different but how different can they be overall assuming they are good dumps? Why would someone want to redump a ROM that has already been two-dozen times or collect all of these dumps together?

Wouldn't a lone dump of each ROM make it easier for those who program emulators to do it well instead of having to focus on perfecting the little details and changes between them in the emulator?

[Doomulation]

ROMs are games. Games are games. ROMs are not made for emulator; it's the other way around. They don't rip the games for the emulators; they rip them for their own reasons. That's why there might exist 1000 different roms for the same game (although not likely).

[Agozer]

One of the reasons is that there isn't a single copier used to dump ROMs. Each copier dumps the same game in a different way. Also, regional differences, no matter how small, are always there.

[Allnatural]

In addition to the above, the dumping procedure is often knackered, giving us bad dumps and overdumps. Then there are the numerous hacks and fixes, all of which are cataloged by GoodTools (something I've never understood).

[Agozer]

Yeah, GoodTools catalogs everything (which personally I'm not very fond of), but I guess it's good that some tool keeps track of every dump out there.

[EmuNoviceUser]

An overdump? Is that a dump with more information than is required increasing the file size unnecessarily?

One of the reasons is that there isn't a single copier used to dump ROMs. Each copier dumps the same game in a different way. Also, regional differences, no matter how small, are always there.

I assumed as much.

Thanks!

[Agozer]

An overdump? Is that a dump with more information than is required increasing the file size unnecessarily?

An overdump is a dump that has useless extra data in it. So yeah, it's basically what you said.

[WhiteX]

Yeah, GoodTools catalogs everything (which personally I'm not very fond of), but I guess it's good that some tool keeps track of every dump out there.

Defies the purpose of a rom being "good" if every hack or translation gets cataloged, a "good" rom should be the purest, yet working, rom you may get.

However you also may want to get your hacked, updated or translated rom sorted out, so there´s the mess.

[Allnatural]

However you also may want to get your hacked, updated or translated rom sorted out, so there´s the mess.

I can *sort of* understand including those, but I wish the bad dumps and overdumps would be ignored. Downloading and sorting the sets would be a lot faster if I didn't have to weed out the crap myself.

[WhiteX]

It could just delete them, i believ some tools do it already.

I´m struggling to get a good DS tool, i was on nintenren but the updates are too
rare to say the least, i dunno how CRC check the roms, i´ll guess i´ll try to figure it out and go help the guys at Pocket Heaven.