Converting SNES ROM formats?

[SoulBlazer]

So I've been using SNES9X for many years as my main emulator for the SNES. A couple years ago, I obtained from a friend online in a trade a couple CD's filled with SNES roms -- not only US releases, but translated ones, Europe and Japanese games, popular hacks -- the works. Because SNES9X suports the ZIP format, I just left them that way when I copied them to my HD and been playing them off that. If I unzip the ROM file, it's in .SMC format.

 

Recently I've been urged to check out the BSNES emulator, only to run into the snag that I can't load any of my games. From the author's webpage:

 

"bsnes will only load SNES cartridges ending in the ".sfc" extension, BS-X flash cartridges ending in the ".bs" extension, Sufami Turbo cartridges ending in the ".st" extension, and Game Boy (Color) cartridges ending in either the ".gb" or ".gbc" extension.

 

The most popular SNES extension is ".smc", and this tends to be used for not only SNES cartridges, but also for BS-X flash cartridges and Sufami Turbo cartridges as well."

 

He goes on to explain why he did this, and I understand his reasons, but it's left me in a bit of a bind, since I don't know what to do with the +1000 ROM's that I have sitting on my HD.

 

I'm faced with two seperate problems here:

 

1) A easy way to unzip all of these ROM's at once. PowerArchiver (the paid program that I use) can only do it one at a time.

2) A way to then convert all of these .SMC formats to .SFC

 

Short of mucking around on a BT site looking for all these games in the requsted format to download AGAIN, can anyone help me out with some tools, advice, suggestions, etc. so I can check out this emulator?

 

Thanks in advance.

[+thegoldenband]

I could be totally wrong about this, but would a batch script to remove the first 512 bytes of every file work? Am I right that that's the only significant difference between the formats? You could try using a hex editor to do that on a few of the ROMs first to test it out.

 

EDIT: Or maybe this?

Edited May 22, 2011 by thegoldenband

[+stephena]

What I'm about to explain is for Linux and OSX (ie, Unix-like systems), but I'd be very surprised if similar tools weren't available for Windows:

 

1) A easy way to unzip all of these ROM's at once. PowerArchiver (the paid program that I use) can only do it one at a time.

Create a commandline script file to do it. For Linux or OSX, that would be a 'bash' script; for Windows, a normal .bat file. You'll need a commandline version of zip, which should be freely available and easy to find.

 

2) A way to then convert all of these .SMC formats to .SFC

You'll need to determine what the differences are, and find a conversion tool that converts between them. Or, if you simply need to truncate some data from the file, find a utility that does that.

 

Basically, you need tools to do this once, and these tools need to work from the commandline (so everything can be automated). When you get that part working, doing it for 1000 files is trivial.

[SoulBlazer]

I got this figured out, guys, thanks. Turns out PowerArchiver does have a multi-folder function, and there's a program on the BSNES site called SNES Purify that will convert them.

[HuckleCat]

Yeah, I had to figure this one out too recently. Purify should come with newer versions of BSNES. A few weeks ago I went through all my SNES stuff and cleaned everything for use with BSNES. If it runs good for you, there's really no need to use any other SNES Emu.

[captcapcom]

Hey I have a weird question about this topic (at least I hope it fits here) ... I have a Super Disk Interceptor for my Super NES, it plays games from old Floppy Disks. What Format does the ROM have to be for the Super Drive to See it? And How can I split up larger ROMS to go on Multiple disks?

[mbd30]

I haven't bothered with the newer Higan. BSNES version .087 plays every SNES game perfect, and the roms are easily converted with snespurify.

 

EDIT: Oops. I didn't notice that this topic is several years old. Disregard.

Edited March 30, 2014 by mbd30