ROM tags..

[Willypill]

What exactly is an overdump of a rom?  I have been deleting all of the ROMs which have the [o1], [o2]..ect.  I don't need these ROMs, do I?

I've been deleting all of the overdumps [o1], alternate dumps [a1], pirate dumps [p1], bad dumps [b1], hacked dumps [h1], and trained dumps [t1] in my collection of ROMs.  Please tell me I don't need any of these...

[elvis]

99% of the time you don't need these.

ROM dumping can sometimes be difficult, especially if manufacturers put in various copy-protection chips into games (Midway was a good one at doing this, especially on SNES).  It basically fools any cartridge dumping or conversion hardware (Action Replay, import carts, etc) to not work unless the underlying hardware matches.

End result is that there are ROMs floating around that aren't dumped correctly.  Do you need these?  Not really.  I'm in a PAL region (Australia) so for me I only really care about the PAL/Euro versions for authenticity of what I used to play on the actual hardware.  All the o/a/p dumps don't interest me, and I delete most of them for sanity.  ROM collecting for trophy-hunting reasons is pretty silly really, but so many people insist on it.  At the end of the day we play games because they are fun, and not for some pissing contest to prove you have more files on your hard disk than your neighbour.

[Willypill]

Awesome reply.  Thanks man.