TopRoms Enters A New Generation

December has been a crazy month for me as I painstakingly undertook probably the most ambitious project for TopRoms yet. I know you’ve been secretly dying to see this addition to your beloved collection and I’d like to announce this massive edition of TopRoms. A set of games from a generation that brought forward some of the most definite classics in gaming history. An era that put four gaming titans in an arena for the fight of taking over your living rooms and no matter what team you chose, you had hardware with a lineup of absolutely excellent software.

Enough beating around the bush, take a deep breath!

Introducing the sixth generation of consoles! A carefully curated set of must-haves for Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox are now part of the collection bringing these unforgettable titles on the screens of your choosing. All of the files have been converted to formats not only with reduced space usage but also compatible with emulators out of the box. This has come, of course, with quite the size penalty, expanding TopRoms by about 1.2 TB.

If you can’t contain your excitement, the torrent is ready to go right here. As usual, use your torrent client to select what consoles you’d like to download. In some clients, you will be able to see the size of each of the sets. This time, the files are being hosted on a dedicated seedbox rather than my home server meaning much improved download speeds and reliability.

TopRoms – 2025 Edition – Torrent Download (1.57 TB)

While you wait for this extremely lengthy download to finish, you can find out about the changes and additions to TopRoms.

Sixth-Generation Consoles

• The Dreamcast was technically a commercial failure after customers lost trust in Sega due to their disastrous launch of the Saturn and the embarrassing attempt to put the Genesis on life support with the 32X. However, retrospectively, the console did have a sizeable amount of unforgettable and innovative classics and now it’s considered Sega’s final swansong before exiting the hardware business in 2001. The platform was home to many definitive arcade ports, unique exclusives and was the birthplace of timepieces that would have sequels on other systems. Games are provided in CHD format which is compatible with the excellent Flycast emulator that is also available as a RetroArch core.

• Nintendo didn’t disappoint with their GameCube bringing excellent first-party games to your living room in addition to many great third-party contributions. Many of the entrants have been considered the best of all time and are enjoyed still thoroughly today with many of them still played as part of esports and charity competitions. All games have been compressed with the RVZ format, which is native to Dolphin, an emulator that was impressive even in its infancy.

• Of course, the sixth generation could not be forgotten without the extremely popular PlayStation 2, which ended in a solid lead in terms of hardware sales making it the best selling of all time at 160 million units. As a tradition of Sony, there is a swath of exclusive titles that only found a future on their subsequent consoles. Due to the very long life of the system, almost 5000 games were released, so narrowing them down was quite difficult. As a result, the PlayStation 2 is quite massive at more than 300 games and 650 GB of space. The images are in CHD format compatible with the PCSX2 emulator which provided mind-boggling compatibility, excellent performance and enhancement features like higher resolution and wide-screen hacks. A separate folder is included for sport games.

• Last but not least, Microsoft’s entrant to the console world started with the Xbox, which took some time to become a hit. Being the most powerful of the four, it did bring graphics to the next generation though many of them didn’t take full advantage of the hardware because they were ports from other consoles or PC. Nonetheless, there were still quite a few titles only released for the system. In the end, the Xbox was more well known for being an excellent modding platform for turning it into a media centre and emulation machine. After 20 years, there was great progress in the emulation scene, but performance and compatibility still remain to be desired. All the games have been converted to XISO format for compatibility with the xemu emulator with a separate folder for sport games. Xbox Live made online gaming and DLC mainstream in the console world and I’ve included disc images to install them. You can also find the appropriate BIOS files in the “BIOS - Standalone” folder.

Arcade Systems

• I made an embarrassing mistake in the 2023 edition of TopRoms. I wanted to ensure that all games would run and in order to do that, they would need dependencies to work. I mistakenly used the 'merged' collection which intuitively would be the right set but it is actually the 'non-merged' version. The archives have been migrated to 'non-merged' and should solve issues with games not starting. Now compatible with MAME 0.272.

• Also, the set relied on some games that were disc-based and I didn't include the appropriate CHD files which are now there in a separate folder.

New Additions

• Just like with the Super Famicom addition last year, a set of fan-translated Japanese RPGs have been integrated into the collection. Many of them are unknown to the Western world though I bet many of them are fondly remembered in the East. They are in a separate folder for convenience.

• There was a collection of games that were released in the early life of the Nintendo Famicom only in Japan. While not very ambitious, they were highly memorable and quite fun. Some might not want to include them so they are collected in a separate folder. Ironically, these were made famous in the West in pirate multi-carts and terrible clone consoles sold at some malls.

• A well-remembered micro-computer in Europe, the ZX Spectrum, was strangely omitted during my compilation of TopRoms. Some of those unforgettable classics have been included now. The images have been stored in TZX format for compatibility with the FUSE emulator which comes as a libretro core in RetroArch.

• The Philips CD-I is now part of TopRoms as well. This is a controversial inclusion as some of the Nintendo franchises have been massacred into awful cartoon animations. However, some of these games are actually acceptable once you put the Nintendo IP aside and skip the cutscenes. When using the SAME CD-I emulator, you will see a blank cyan screen at first. It isn't broken, you must wait about a minute for the CD-I inferface to show up and then you can select Play to run the game. You can speed this up by using the fast-forward feature in RetroArch.

Fixes

• Jaguar CD games can be hard to run especially in the normally used ISO or CHD formats. The well-developed BigPEmu emulator has its own format for disc-based games. These images have been converted to the BigPImg format which works perfectly with that emulator.

• Commodore Amiga games were included in the incorrect format for compatibility with emulators. They have been converted into the LHA format. The emulator PUAE which is available in RetroArch works perfectly with them.

• I neglected to test Commodore 64 games in the previous release extensively. Tape images are now in the TAP format which is compatible with the VICE emulator available as a RetroArch core.

So that’s it for TopRoms. Please email me at toproms@cdahmedeh.net if you have any questions or issues with the download. I’ll continue working to improve and polish TopRoms this year and release incremental updates. Late holiday greetings for all!

TopRoms 2023 Edition - A Collection Full of Surprises

I know many of you have been waiting for this but the time has finally come for a new TopRoms release. I was hoping to release something like this earlier, but some of may know that life happened. However, we can put that aside for now and announce this exciting edition.

What's New:

- A Super Famicom collection for some of the most amazing Japanese RPGs patched and translated into English by fans. I got so many requests for Final Fantasy V, so obviously, it's in there!

- Homebrew games for the NES. It's amazing how there are still some fan developers who make games for a thirty-plus year old console. I only included freely available homebrew games since many of them are still for sale.

- The addition of some of the best sport games ever released both franchise and non-franchise titles. For the NES, Genesis (in its own folder) and PlayStation (in its own folder too).

- A sprinkling of some additions of more great games for various systems. Things that have been suggested by you and others that I've discovered.

What's Fixed:

- Moving the MAME collection from split to merged so that all games have their dependencies included in the ROM archive. Some games wouldn't start without them and it's really hard to tell what game needs what, especially with how big the MAME collection is.

I got many emails about people showing me how they use the collection such as turning the Steam Deck or Switch into a mean emulation machine, filling their dedicated emulation handhelds, or to populate their HTPC with awesome games. I personally use the collection on my smartphone and my HTPC.

One thing to keep in mind is that the only emulator I test TopRoms with is RetroArch. If you have issues with other emulators, let me know and I’ll look into it.

The torrent can be downloaded below or on the TopRoms page. Remember, you can point your torrent client to the existing TopRoms Collections folder and it will only download the changes. Please seed the collection since the initial upload is only on my local server.

TopRoms - 2023 Edition Torrent Download

Keep those emails with requests coming and I'll do my best to make TopRoms even better. Let me know about any issues you encounter downloading or using TopRoms! Send to toproms@cdahmedeh.net

I hope you enjoy this new release!

Thank You!

I really didn't expect that I'd get so much responses and support after posting March's rant. My inbox got flooded with emails quite quickly and I'm going to have to respond to each one of you. I kind of cried a bit. I appriciate so much what you have sent me, it means a lot. It's nice to know that outside of my circle, that other people care about me. Thank you!

Things are looking up at this point, after doing additional assesmments and put on more pills and other adjustments. My life is about to resume it's normally scheduled program, and soon enough the projects will resume, just not yet.

Also in the way is not having a good machine to work with. I had to say good bye to my Lenovo ThinkPad P16, which honestly was a mixed bag. I'll leave the rant for another time, but let's say some design flaws got into the way of actually getting things done. So for now, I'm typing this from a 9 year old computer, I don't know how I'm going to survive with 4GB of RAM for a few weeks.

Stay tuned for more. Cheers!

Breaking Point

I have to apologize for the recent silence and lack of progress in my various projects. My mind hasn't been wired properly for a while now and going to difficult and troubling times. I mentioned before that I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline but my symptoms have reached their peak in somewhat recent times. I was promised that my illness would be a prodrome to grow bigger and bigger and they were absolutely correct. My onset of thirteen years ago never hinted at me that I'd be battling a monster that vies to be victorious over my frailty.

This is a very sensitive and personal subject for me and it's guaranteed to make me vulnerable and a target for all sorts of missed opportunities. However, I'm at a breaking point where I just can't hold in the tears anymore. I have to spit everything out in the most embarrassing of places, my blog. At the end of the day, I'm a human being who's going through some tough challenges and if this is a point of judgement for you, please move on and don't waste my time. At least I'm brave enough to put this in public for everyone to learn about.

The subject is graphic both emotionally and physically so I'm going to throw some massive trigger warnings here for those who hold trauma or are so neurotypical that thoughts like these never entered their minds. If you fear seeing a drop of blood coming out of your body or the most painful thing you've ever had was broken nail, this is not for you. In other words, if you've never suffered and take everything for granted, we're just not going to vibe.

My account starts with something in the present. Permanent marks and cuts on my arms that will never heal. I'm not ashamed of them nor do I regret committing the act. It has become part of my story giving a glimpse into who I am and the pain that I had to endure. I've had the bravery this fall to wear short-sleeves for all to see and had people courageous enough to ask me questions about it. It doesn't take much to explain other than admitting that it's self-harm and that 80% of my kind engages in activities like these.

A select few have asked me why I would do something like that. My answer was always the same: because I had to. It's impossible to feel emotional and physical pain at the same time, so this act provides me with consistent relief and distraction from what's going on inside my head. Never has blood looked so tantalizing to me seeing it flow down my arms spoiling my blanket. In my naïve years of teenagerhood, I though that something like that was just so stupid, but now I have total respect for it and fully understand how necessary it is.

Last weekend, I developed a panic attack because I knew I was about to have a psychotic break. No matter how much I was trained to recognize them, they still scare the shit out of me knowing that soon, my reality will melt and I'm going to be in a strange world. The delusions became so real and the paranoia started to hunt me down. I watched the world getting foggier and foggier and losing track of the real world becoming derealization. Imagine yourself not being able to trust your thoughts anymore and everything fading to obscurity revealing a new existence that even a bad trip on psychedelics can't recreate.

That night, my delusional self was keeping me away from my treatment. I thought that something mysterious took over me and that magic will banish it to eternal suffering. However, I had to do what they call opposite action, a very difficult technique that is ingrained in your psyche so deep learned in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy. I struggled to convince myself to get off my couch with all the colours swirling everywhere and swallow giant doses of antipsychotics. It took five hours to regain my consciousness, so to speak, and end the day with bedtime. I was still afraid.

So that's what happened recently, but the cocktail of symptoms has been presenting me with surprises and put me on the path of relapse. A mixed episode out of nowhere collapsed onto my taking me over along with the dreaded short shots of emotions from borderline personality. However, this one wasn't going to be covered by massive doses of Seroquel, it was going to last and for the past few months, I've been in it. The darkness is seeping in dimming even the dimmest of lights, I just can't anymore.

My functioning and cognition took the biggest hit, the thing that I value the most in my mind, is starting to fade away. There's no trigger, it's just the genetic switches that keep being turned on, one by one, and it seems like it's still growing. Every night, I dissociate because of how hopeless I feel and realize that I just had another empty day of nothing. It hurts, a lot.

Throughout my career of mental challenges, I would get lapse of relief, thinking that whatever combination of medications has settled me down. Sometimes it was relief but other times it was just a hypomanic episode giving me the illusion of a cure.

Where I am now is a painful but empty existence. There's nothing inside me, I feel nothing but a void. There are emotions but I can't feel them except through the filter of borderline, and my mood swings are just something to witness through the state of the world around me. Every morning, I start hallucinating and it ends when I go to sleep. However, my symptoms still haunt me in my dreams because the nightmare is both when I'm awake and when I'm asleep.

But, I'm trying to be hopeful and care-seeking. I want to get better and resume my life, but it won't be an easy path. The expression 'live day by day' is insipid and an extreme insult for me, because you can't plan a mental illness like that. The episodes last weeks and months, with no end in sight even if you are aware that there will be finality, but only for that episode. Because, another one is lined up for me.

My condition has taught me to be strong and forced me to become resistant of the ramblings of my mind. I can't get them out of head, or even ignore them, but just let the demons live inside my head and have the party they so badly want. I've brushed death and literally met it a few times so I know what it's like on the other end. I've learned to keep myself safe but the thoughts will never leave me, not even for a day.

On the other hand, I can't let myself submit to my circumstances but I have to cope with them in the best way possible, even if it means hitting the pause button for a while.

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!