/rom-properties

ROM Properties Page shell extension

Primary LanguageC++GNU General Public License v2.0GPL-2.0

ROM Properties Page shell extension

This shell extension adds a few nice features to file browsers for managing video game ROM and disc images.

License: GPL v2 AppVeyor Build status
Coverity Scan Build Status Crowdin
CodeQL CodeFactor codecov

v2.4

Thunar showing Wii U packages.

Major changes in v2.4 include:

  • Support for Palm OS executables.

  • Support for Wii U NUS packages.

  • Support for Analogue Pocket ROM images. (slightly modified variant of Nintendo Game Boy ROMs)

  • Support for CDI-format Dreamcast disc images.

Translators wanted; if you can translate rom-properties from English to another language, check out the Crowdin project. (If you would like to translate to a language not currently listed on the Crowdin project page, file an issue here on GitHub with the requested language.)

See NEWS.md for a full list of changes in v2.4.

Feedback

This is a work in progress; feedback is encouraged. To leave feedback, you can file an issue on GitHub, or visit the Gens/GS IRC channel: irc://irc.badnik.zone/GensGS

Or use the Mibbit Web IRC client: http://mibbit.com/?server=irc.badnik.zone&channel=#GensGS

Installation

Currently, the ROM Properties Page shell extension is compatible with the following platforms:

  • KDE Frameworks 5.x and 6.x
  • XFCE (GTK+ 2.x, GTK+ 3.x)
  • GNOME and Unity (GTK+ 3.x)
  • GNOME 43 (GTK 4.x)
  • MATE Desktop (1.18+; GTK+ 3.x)
  • Cinnamon Desktop
  • Windows 7 (and later)

The following platforms are still compatible, but may not receive as much support:

  • KDE 4.x
  • Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista

On Windows Vista and later, you will need the MSVC 2015-2022 runtime:

On Windows XP/2003 and earlier, you will need the MSVC 2015-2017 runtime:

For instructions on compiling from source, see doc/COMPILING.md.

Linux

Install the relevant .deb package, depending on what desktop environment you are using and what your CPU is.

After installing, the plugin needs to be enabled in the Dolphin file browser:

  • Close all instances of Dolphin.
  • Start Dolphin.
  • Click Control, Configure Dolphin.
  • Click the "General" section, then the "Preview" tab.
  • Check the "ROM Properties Page" item, then click OK.
  • Enable previews in a directory containing a supported file type.

If installed correctly, thumbnails should be generated for the supported file type. You can also right-click a file, select Properties, then click the "ROM Properties" tab to view more information about the ROM image.

Windows

Extract the ZIP archive to a directory, then run install.exe. The installer requires administrator access, so click "Yes" if requested. In the installer, click the "Install" button to register the ROM Properties Page DLL.

Note that this will hard-code the location of the DLL files in the registry, so you may want to place the DLLs in a common location.

To uninstall the plugin, run install.exe again, then click the "Uninstall" button.

Current File Support Level

Game Consoles

System Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Images
ColecoVision Yes Yes N/A No
Commodore 64/128 .CRT Yes Yes N/A Title
Intellivision Yes Yes N/A No
iQue Player ticket files Yes Yes Icon, Banner No
Microsoft Xbox (XBE) Yes Yes Icon No
Microsoft Xbox 360 (XEX) Yes Yes Icon No
Microsoft Xbox 360 (STFS) Yes Yes Icon No
Microsoft Xbox Game Discs Yes Yes Icon No
NES Yes No N/A No
Super NES Yes Yes N/A Title
Nintendo 64 Yes Yes N/A No
Nintendo GameCube Discs Yes Yes Banner Disc, Covers
Nintendo GameCube Banners Yes Yes Banner No
Nintendo GameCube Saves Yes Yes Icon N/A
Nintendo Wii Banners Yes Yes No No
Nintendo Wii Discs Yes Yes No Disc, Covers
Nintendo Wii WADs Yes Yes Yes* Title, Covers
Nintendo Wii Saves Yes Yes Yes N/A
Nintendo Wii U (Disc) Yes No No Disc, Covers
Nintendo Wii U (NUS) Yes Yes Icon Disc, Covers
Sega 8-bit (SMS, GG) Yes Yes N/A No
Sega Mega Drive Yes Yes N/A Title
Sega Dreamcast Yes Yes Media No
Sega Dreamcast Saves Yes Yes Icon, Banner No
Sega Saturn Yes Yes N/A No
Sony PlayStation Discs Yes No N/A Covers
Sony PlayStation EXEs Yes No N/A N/A
Sony PlayStation Saves Yes Yes Icon N/A
Sony PlayStation 2 Discs Yes Yes N/A Covers

* Internal images are only present in Wii DLC WADs.
* Sega Mega Drive includes Sega CD, 32X, and Pico.

Handhelds

System Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Images
Atari Lynx Yes Yes N/A No
Bandai WonderSwan (Color) Yes Yes N/A Title
Neo Geo Pocket (Color) Yes Yes N/A Title
Nintendo Game Boy (Color) Yes Yes N/A Title
Nintendo Virtual Boy Yes Yes N/A No
Nintendo Game Boy Advance Yes Yes N/A Title
Nintendo DS(i) Yes Yes Icon Covers, Box
Nintendo DSi TADs* Partial No No No
Nintendo 3DS Yes Yes Icon Covers, Box
Palm OS Yes Yes Icon N/A
Pokémon Mini Yes Yes N/A No
Sony PlayStation Portable Yes Yes Icon, Banner No
Tiger game.com Yes Yes Icon No

* The Nintendo DSi TAD parser supports development TADs that are normally imported using DSi Nmenu. It does not currently support DSi exports from retail systems.
* The PSP parser supports both PSP game and UMD video discs, as well as several compressed disc formats: CISOv1, CISOv2, ZISO, JISO, and DAX.

Texture Formats

Texture Format Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Scans
ASTC container Yes Yes Image N/A
Godot 3,4 .stex Yes Yes Image N/A
Leapster Didj .tex Yes Yes Image N/A
Khronos KTX Yes Yes Image N/A
Khronos KTX2 Yes Yes Image N/A
Microsoft DirectDraw DDS Yes Yes Image N/A
Microsoft Xbox XPR Yes Yes Image N/A
PowerVR 3.0.0 Yes Yes Image N/A
Sega PVR/GVR/SVR Yes Yes Image N/A
TrueVision TGA Yes Yes Image N/A
Valve VTF Yes Yes Image N/A
Valve VTF3 (PS3) Yes Yes Image N/A

Texture Codecs

  • Assorted linear RGB formats, including 15-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit per pixel.
    • Most of these formats have SSE2 and/or SSSE3-optimized decoders.
    • RGB9_E5 is supported, though it is currently converted to ARGB32 for display purposes. The decoder is also slow. (Contributions welcome.)
  • Dreamcast: Twiddled and Vector-Quantized
  • Nintendo DS: Tiled CI8 with BGR555 palette
  • Nintendo 3DS: Tiled and twiddled RGB565
  • GameCube: Tiled RGB5A3 and CI8 with RGB5A3 palette
  • S3TC: DXT1, DXT2, DXT3, DXT4, DXT5, BC4, and BC5 codecs.
    • GameCube 2x2-tiled DXT1 is supported in GVR texture files.
  • ETCn: ETC1, ETC2 (RGB, RGBA, RGB_A1), EAC
  • BC7: Supported in multiple texture file formats.
    • The implementation is somewhat slow. (Contributions welcome.)
  • PVRTC: Supported in multiple texture file formats.
    • PVRTC-II: Partially supported. The hard transition flag and images that aren't a multiple of the tile size are not supported.
  • ASTC: Supported in multiple texture file formats.

Audio Formats

System Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Scans
Atari 8-bit SAP audio Yes Yes N/A N/A
Atari ST SNDH audio Yes Yes N/A N/A
CRI ADX ADPCM Yes Yes N/A N/A
Commodore 64 SID Music Yes Yes N/A N/A
Game Boy Sound System Yes Yes N/A N/A
Game Boy Ripped Yes N/A N/A N/A
Nintendo 3DS BCSTM and BCWAV Yes Yes N/A N/A
Nintendo Sound Format Yes Yes N/A N/A
Nintendo Wii BRSTM Yes Yes N/A N/A
Nintendo Wii U BFSTM Yes Yes N/A N/A
Portable Sound Format Yes Yes N/A N/A
Super NES SPC Format Yes Yes N/A N/A
Video Game Music Yes Yes N/A N/A

Media Formats

System Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Scans
Commodore DOS Disk Images Yes Yes GEOS* N/A
ISO-9660 Disc Images Yes Yes No N/A
Windows Image (.wim) Yes No N/A N/A

Notes:

  • Commodore DOS currently includes the 2040, 3040, 4040, 8050, 8250, 1540/1541, 1571, and 1581 disk drives, in D64, D71, D80, D82, D81, D67, G64, and G71 formats.
    • File icons for GEOS files are supported.

Other

System Properties Tab Metadata Internal Images External Scans
Executable and Linkable Format Yes No N/A N/A
PUC Lua binaries Yes No N/A N/A
Mach-O Binaries Yes No N/A N/A
Nintendo amiibo Yes No N/A Media
Nintendo Badge Arcade Yes Yes Image N/A
Windows/DOS Executables Yes Yes No N/A

Notes:

  • Internal image refers to artwork contained within the ROM and/or disc image. These images are typically displayed on the system's main menu prior to starting the game.
    • "N/A" here means the ROM or disc image doesn't have this feature.
    • "No" indicates that the feature is present but not currently implemented.
  • External scans refers to scans from an external database, such as GameTDB.com for GameCube and Wii.
    • "No" indicates no database is currently available for this system.
    • Anything else indicates what types of images are available.
    • For amiibo, "media" refers to the amiibo object, which may be a figurine, a card, or a plush.
  • Windows executables may contain multiple icon sizes. Support for Windows icons will be added once support for multiple image sizes is added.
  • Sega 8-bit only supports ROM images with a "TMR SEGA" header.

A configuration program, rp-config, is available to configure rom-properties using a graphical interface. This program allows you to configure which images will be used for thumbnails on each system, as well as other functionality.

External Media Downloads

Certain parsers support the use of external media scans through an online database, e.g. GameTDB.com. This is enabled by default, but you can customize which scans are downloaded for which systems by running the configuration program, rp-config.exe.

Downloaded images are cached to the following directory:

  • Linux: ~/.cache/rom-properties/
  • Windows XP: %LOCALAPPDATA%\rom-properties\cache
  • Windows Vista+: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\rom-properties\cache

The directory structure matches the source site, so e.g. a disc image of Super Smash Bros. Brawl would be downloaded to ~/.cache/rom-properties/wii/disc/US/RSBE01.png. Note that if the download fails for any reason, a 0-byte dummy file will be placed in the cache, which tells the shell extension not to attempt to download the file again. [FIXME: If the download fails due to no network connectivity, it shouldn't do this.]

If you have an offline copy of the GameTDB image database, you can copy it to the ROM Properties Page cache directory to allow the extension to use the pre-downloaded version instead of downloading images as needed.

Decryption Keys

Some newer formats, including Wii disc images, have encrypted sections. The shell extension includes decryption code for handling these images, but the keys are not included. To install the keys, create a text file called keys.conf in the rom-properties configuration directory:

  • Linux: ~/.config/rom-properties/keys.conf
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\rom-properties\keys.conf

The keys.conf file uses INI format. An example file, keys.conf.example, is included with the shell extension. This file has a list of all supported keys, with placeholders instead of the actual key data. For example, a keys.conf file with the supported keys for Wii looks like this:

[Keys]
rvl-common=[Wii common key]
rvl-korean=[Wii Korean key]

Replace the key placeholders with hexadecimal strings representing the key. In this example, both keys are AES-128, so the hexadecimal strings should be 32 characters long.

NOTE: If a key is incorrect, any properties dialog that uses the key to decrypt data will show an error message instead of the data in question.

Nintendo DS Secure Area

To encrypt or decrypt the Nintendo DS Secure Area, the Blowfish key must be named nds-blowfish.bin and placed in the same directory as keys.conf.

MD5sum: c08c5afd9c6d9530817cd2033e3864d7

Unsupported File?

If you have a file that you believe should be supported by ROM Propeties, or would like to see support added for a new type, file an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/GerbilSoft/rom-properties/issues

License

ROM Properties is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2. Some bundled components have other licenses:

  • basisu_astc: Apache License 2.0
  • googletest: BSD 3-clause
  • GCR_CMake: GPL-3
  • inih: BSD-3-clause
  • libmspack-xenia: LGPL-2.1
  • lz4: BSD 2-clause for lib/; GPLv2 for others
  • microtar: MIT
  • minizip-ng: zlib
  • PowerVR: MIT
  • rapidjson: MIT
  • TinyXML2: BSD 3-clause
  • unice68: GPL-3
  • uniwidth: LPGL-2.1+
  • zlib-ng: zlib
  • zstd: BSD 3-clause

GCR_CMake is only used at build time, and is only necessary for the GTK builds, so I believe it does not make the entire program GPL-3 licensed.

unice68 is linked in during compile time, but can be disabled. All builds with unice68 are therefore GPL-3+. unice68 is only used for Atari ST SNDH files, so this can be disabled if a GPL-2+ build is desired: -DENABLE_UNICE68=OFF

On Windows, the following bundled components are also used:

  • GNU gettext: GPL-3+
  • libwin32darkmode: GPL-3+

While the use of gettext can be disabled with -DENABLE_NLS=OFF, libwin32darkmode is currently always enabled, so Windows builds are always GPL-3+ at the moment.

Credits

Developers

  • @GerbilSoft: Main developer.
  • @DankRank: Contributor, bug tester.
  • @CheatFreak: Bug tester, amiibo support.

Translators

  • @DankRank: Russian, Ukrainian
  • @NullMagic2: Brazilian Portuguese
  • @Amnesia1000: Spanish
  • Slippy: German
  • @CyberYoshi64: German
  • @maschell: German
  • @WebSnke: German
  • @TheOneGoofAli: Russian
  • @NotaInutilis: French
  • @xxmichibxx: German
  • @ThePBone: German
  • @ionuttbara: Romanian
  • @MaRod92: Italian
  • Motwera: Arabic
  • Chipsum: Arabic
  • spencerchris8080: Spanish

Other Contributions

[This list is incomplete; if you think you should be listed here, file an issue.]

  • @Tpot-SSL: Assistance with the game.com implementation.

Websites