What's coming up next for TopRoms...

I’m currently hard at work expanding and assembling the TopRoms collection to include even more goodies. The collection is getting quite large, but stay reassured that only quality content will make it to the package. Here’s a taste of what’s coming up next:

  • Japan only releases that are translated into English. This will be very time consuming because the Japan region has been the recipient of a swath of great RPG games. I know these are very popular so expect them to be included eventually.

  • Addendum: I forgot to mention that I will be adding sport games as well since virtually none are included in the collection.

  • Investigate CHD CD images that are failing to load in certain emulators. Almost all the disc-based systems have been converted from ISO to CHD but some have reported issues using them. The systems still ISO work fine.

  • Add more high-quality and playable games. Thanks to the emails from my readers with suggestions. I’ll also be taking a deeper look on the web and magazines to find even more great games.

  • Attempt to add every system that has an emulator working up to the fifth generation (PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn and so on).

  • I know some of you really want more modern systems but I don’t have the disk space to actually include those systems too and finding good dumps for them is still challenging. Emulation isn’t that far either for these newer systems.

If you have noticed, the torrent has become much more reliable and provides better download speeds. I moved everything to an actual physical server on a good internet connection. My experience with seedboxes has been sour with broken software and limited bandwidth. The higher bandwidth servers are even more expensive. Hosting it on a VPS is out of the question because of the cost of storage.

Stay tuned but this may take a while to take shape. Keep seeding and sharing the collection with your friends!

TopRoms Torrent Back Up

Looks like we’ve been having quite some downtime with issues for the TopRoms download. Mega has provided to a hassle but torrents as well.

My seedbox provider has accidentally brought down my instance and lost all my data. So I’m currently working on migrating to another provider so the torrent is brought back to life again.

I really apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll also make sure that torrents isn’t the only way to download the collection. Thanks for your understanding.

UPDATE: I’ve moved to another seedbox provider and currently uploading a new torrent. It should be available in a few hours and I’ll provide the updated torrent.

UPDATE: The torrent has been migrated to the new provider. You can download the torrent here or on the TopRoms page. Keep in mind, this is a new torrent, so you need to use this one instead. Again, you can use your torrent client to reuse the same files that you already downloaded. Email me or leave a comment if there are still issues to know what seedbox provider I should sue next!

TopRoms Massive Update (Black Friday Edition)

TopRoms has received a massive expansion with a huge selection of new systems. I spent a good chunk of the past few weeks working on the upgrade of the collection. Over 20 new systems have been added into the collection. There has been more addition to existing systems, including forgotten ROMs for Pokémon games on GBA.

At this point, the collection has compilations for 45 systems. Most of the new systems have smaller sets because their obscurity and small selection of quality games.

Again, as a reminder, TopRoms attempts to go from the most ancient video game systems all the way to PlayStation 1. There’s some more systems I’d like to add but this will take more time and further research. As usual, if you find missing games or suggestions, send them to toproms@cdahmedeh.net

Again, you can find the torrent on the TopRoms page. The older torrents will stay active as long as seeds are available, but I won’t be hosting them myself. Please remember, for the first 24 hours since posting this, the torrent might download slowly and hang a few times.

I originally had a target size for the collection at 128 GB and then 256 GB. However, it is now at 329 GB, so you’ll need external storage, probably a 512 GB SD Card. Unless your cellphone has massive eMMC storage. Remember to use your torrent client to download only the systems you want.

In addition, many CD-based systems have been converted from ISO to CHD for better compatibility with emulators and slightly smaller file size.

Finally, a BIOS file collection was included for running the games through RetroArch for BIOS-based systems. All you need to do is put the files in the ‘systems’ folder.

One thing I’m considering is adding a set for Japan exclusive games and translations.

Starting with TopRoms which is for cartridge-based systems, the following systems have been added:

  • Atari Jaguar

  • Atari Lynx

  • Bandai WonderSwan

  • Bandai WonderSwan Color

  • Coleco ColecoVision

  • Game Park GP32

  • Maganvox Odyssey 2

  • Mattel Intellivision

  • NEC SuperGrafx

  • Nintendo DS

  • Nintendo Famicom Disk System

  • Nintendo Virtual Boy

  • SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color

  • Vectrex

For TopArcade, a new “Legacy” collection was added that includes ROMs for MAME 0.37b5 (or MAME 2000 in RetroArch). That older version of MAME uses much less resources and runs better on low-powered devices such as some lower-end Raspberry Pi

  • Arcade - MAME Legacy

TopIsos has also gotten some love with new systems. These collections take considerable space:

  • 3DO

  • Atari Jaguar CD

  • Sony PlayStation Portable

TopHacks has been expanded slightly for SNES. I’m trying to avoid ‘quality of life’ improvements that only provide minor differences.

  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System Hacks

TopPc is a new collection for PC-based systems or desktop computers. These have been tested the least, still contain a subpar collection of games and need the most configuration for emulators.

  • Commodore Amiga

  • Commodore 64

  • Microsoft MS-DOS

  • Microsoft MSX

  • Microsoft MSX2

TopBios is a new set that contains the BIOS needed to run all the systems above through RetroArch. Simply put them in the ‘systems’ folder.

  • BIOS RetroArch

TopRoms now includes TurboGrafx-CD (November 2022 Edition)

A new torrent file was added to the TopRoms page.

You may point your client to the directory of your existing download. Files that you already have will be skipped.

The collection now includes a curated set of TurboGrafx-CD games. This was a very time consuming endeavour due to the large amount of high-quality games for the system. Unlike the Sega-CD, the TurboGrafx-CD didn’t fall into the same path of mediocrity as the Sega addon. Too bad it wasn’t very popular and sold poorly because many are missing out.

Please subscribe via email if you want to get updates on TopRoms

The torrent may take some time to be fully uploaded to the seedbox. Sorry I’m making you wait! The older torrent file will still be available but I cannot make any guarantees about availability of seeds.

TopRoms now available as a torrent! (Fixed)

I just uploaded a torrent to download the entire TopRoms Collection including TopRoms, TopIsos, TopArcade and TopHacks. Everything is consolidated into a single torrent. Use your torrent client to pick what systems you would like to download.

Checkout the TopRoms page for the torrent file. It is served by a SeedBox so you don’t have to worry about having enough seeders or peers, your connection will be fully saturated.

More improvements are coming as I promised in a previous post.

Issues

I’ve gotten several emails that the torrent is stalling when downloading, I’ve been able to reproduce the issue and currently investigating the problem.

Fixed

A new torrent file has been uploaded in the TopRoms page and should fix the issue. To avoid redownloading, simply point your torrent client to the original folder where you downloaded before.

The issue was due to the tracker URLs not properly formatted in the .torrent file.