Wiki - Test roms page

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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Sour
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Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

I've started a new page for the test roms here (since this was the only thing I was allowed to edit when I started - permissions are fine now though, thanks!)
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/User_talk:Sour

It lists pretty much every test I could find on my computer - some might still be hidden somewhere on the forums/wiki, if you know of any, please edit the page.
At the very least, it contains everything on the current test rom page + everything I test Mesen releases against + a few more I found while checking the various test rom folders that have piled up on my computer.

Ideally, I'd want to add a download link for each, and a link to the forum thread for the test, when one exists.
Is there any way to host a file directly on the wiki? If not, I can host them on mesen.ca, but it might be best if they were hosted somewhere on nesdev.com.
Or actually, maybe adding them to a github repository would be best? (Like Nesicide did - that was a great way to get my hands on most of the tests originally) This would need to be a repository that several NesDev people have access to, though.
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koitsu
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by koitsu »

Sour wrote:Ideally, I'd want to add a download link for each, and a link to the forum thread for the test, when one exists.
Is there any way to host a file directly on the wiki?
Yes, you can upload attachments of some types. If something doesn't get accepted, you can ask Tepples or Memblers on the Wiki Issues page to add a new permitted extension.
Sour wrote:Or actually, maybe adding them to a github repository would be best? (Like Nesicide did - that was a great way to get my hands on most of the tests originally) This would need to be a repository that several NesDev people have access to, though.
That would work too, but remember: GitHub is not a "binary repository" service. It is intended for source code. Yes, some things that involve binaries (ex. images, etc.) are permitted, but the GitHub folks get quite upset if you make repositories exclusively for binaries and nothing else. (I know this first-hand from my previous job, where GitHub got quite pissed at us for sticking nothing but binaries up in a repository. Admittedly it was a very large amount of data, but they were very clear in their complaint/message)

The other downside to GitHub is that whoever owns the repo is ultimately responsible for maintenance of it all. I'm stating the obvious, I know, but the point with the Wiki is that it's a collaborative tool -- someone else later on with an account could upload a new fix/binary/zip and change the links -- while unless you're giving all the nesdev people access to said GitHub repo, that kinda defeats the purpose.
tepples
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by tepples »

Perhaps someone can create an "organization" for NESdev, and then that hosts forks of all the test ROMs that have source code, such as allpads and Zap Ruder.
Sour
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

koitsu wrote:That would work too, but remember: GitHub is not a "binary repository" service. It is intended for source code.
In this case though, virtually all of the test roms also contain the source code - so it'd be like hosting source code + a release of it. I think that would probably be acceptable under GitHub guidelines? (Plus every test I currently have put together is 50mb or so at most)
koitsu wrote:while unless you're giving all the nesdev people access to said GitHub repo, that kinda defeats the purpose.
I agree the Wiki is better for collaboration in general. GitHub does offer an easy way to download everything easily + view the source code online, while the Wiki keeps everything in 1 place.

I'm fine either way, both solutions would work and have up & down sides - just need to decide which we want.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by rainwarrior »

This forum is already a fine place to upload binaries (as attachments). If you made a thread about a test ROM you wrote, it's pretty good cause you get the documentation and discussion all in the same place. You can also update it if needed.

I don't see why you'd want to put any of it on github. If you want to collaboratively work on something specific with people I could understand starting a test suite project there, but I don't see the point in using it to collect a mishmash of ROMs written by various unrelated people at unrelated times for various purposes. (Not to mention whether any of the original authors would object-- I certainly wouldn't like to see any of the test ROMs I've posted on this forum treated that way.)
Sour
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

rainwarrior wrote:...
Aight, nevermind then, we can keep things as they are.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by FrankenGraphics »

A linked reference to each corresponding thread means the wiki doesn't need to update as often - the content of the thread does that for it.
Sour
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

I've updated the list with download links (from either their original author's site, a link to a forum attachment, or as a last resort a link from cpow's GitHub repository when I could not find the rom anywhere else). The SNES mouse test linked on the current wiki page is a dead link, though, and I do not know of anywhere else to download it (I don't have it either), so the test has no download link.

I also added links to the forum threads containing the tests when one exists (I am sure I missed a few/lot of them, though).

If this looks fine to everyone, I'll replace the Emulator Tests - Validation ROMs part of the wiki with this.
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koitsu
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by koitsu »

@Sour -- Looks awesome! Recommendations:

1. Rename "Forum" column to "References" or "Resources" (your choice). I'd also suggest changing the word "link" to something more description, e.g. "nesdev forum"; there will certainly be cases where people will want to put more than one Reference/Resource in that field.

2. I wish the Author field had been placed before the description (e.g. Name, Author, Description, References). Changing this is painful (a lot of editing) -- trust me, I know. So you can dismiss this one given the amount of work you did, but I just happen to think Author should come after Name.

3. Please use class="wikitable sortable" so that the columns can be sorted individually. Many people would want only the ROMs by blargg to be shown at the top, etc...
tepples
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by tepples »

For tests with source code in a public version control repository, such as allpads and Zap Ruder that are on GitHub, would it be better to link to that repository? That way, if a test is still maintained, one can be assured of getting the latest version.
Sour
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

I added the sortable class, renamed the "Forum" column to "Resources", and the forum links are now named "thread". I also added a "GitHub" link in that column for the 2 projects tepples mentioned + replaced the download link to be a direct link to the rom in the GitHub repository.

Also moved the author column to be before the description column.
This is actually easy with regexes, so it didn't take more than a couple of minutes:
(.*?)\|\|(.*?)\|\|(.*?)\|\|(.*) -> $1||$3||$2||$4
Sour
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Sour »

I went ahead and updated the actual test rom wiki page with the changes.

If any new tests are posted on the forums, it'd be great if people could take a minute to add them to the page.
I don't read every single topic posted here (and typically only read the nesemdev subforum), so I probably won't be able to keep the list up-to-date on my own (although new test roms don't exactly get posted every day!)
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koitsu
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by koitsu »

This looks awesome. Your efforts are highly appreciated!
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Banshaku
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by Banshaku »

Very nice effort to put everything in one place. Thanks for updating the wiki!
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rainwarrior
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Re: Wiki - Test roms page

Post by rainwarrior »

Do we have a standard for whether links to the forum should be http or https?
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