Verify Game 5.0 is a major update, accumulating many changes since the last official release nearly five years ago. The full changelog is below, but here are the major highlights:
Report Mode
The new -r option enables report mode, which compares your local file names against the verified names from No-Intro/Redump and reports on any mismatches. This can be customized to support a personalized naming convention by using -R instead, but requires use and setup of an additional configuration file. More details included in the Verify Game page and in the source code.
Group Mode
Group mode, enabled with -g, enables verification of a group of related files as a single unit. E.g., Wii U DLC and updates are provided as a bundle of files, each DATted separately. Verifying each individually can be done but is messy. With group mode, you can now give it a directory containing all of the patch files, and it will report on verification as a single unit rather than individual files. -v and -a can be used to enable more verbose display of all individual matches if desired.
Group Mode for CDs
This is handled automatically (no need to specify -g) - if a multi-track CD is detected, individual tracks are validated as described above, but Verify Game will now report the results as a single unit for the CD vs. individual tracks as done previously. -v and -a can again be used to display details of individual tracks if desired.
Additionally, new logic is implemented to determine and report the "correct" name for verified CD tracks. Many games contain individual tracks that may be used in different games, such as common data tracks that may be present in different regional releases of a game, or very commonly a "this is not a music CD" track present on a great many early CD-ROM titles. If all tracks are verified, Verify Game now reports only the correct matching name for each track rather than all matching names. This logic also applies to group mode for DLC/update files.
SHA1 used by default
Most modern CPUs include a SHA instruction set (sha_ni) to accelerate SHA1 hashing. This means SHA1 checksums can be computed faster than MD5, despite SHA1 technically being a slower algorithm. Verify Game now uses and defaults to SHA1 instead of MD5 for faster verification, but you can use -c to switch back to MD5 if preferred.
Verify Game script name change
verify_game.sh has been renamed to verify-game.sh. This does not result in any functional change, but note the change and delete the older version when updating to version 5.0.
Here's the full changelog:
- Add support for new ROM formats:
- Atari 5200, 7800, and 8-bit; Amiga IPF and and CD32; Switch NSP; Vita PSVgameSD
- Add support for new compression formats:
- CHD; ZST; RVZ (Wii/GC); NSZ (Switch); NBZ (Commodore 64)
- Add support for Aftermarket and Private DAT files
- Add support for report mode to identify misnamed ROMs; additionally add support for optional 'personalized' reporting with -R
- Add support for 'group mode' to validate a bundle of related files (such as a Wii U DLC or updates);
- -e can be used to specify unique files like certs that should be excluded
- Add support for auto-excluding known unique files with group mode
- Add support for choosing hashing algorithm (SHA1 or MD5);
- Add support for verbose flag to print additional details in output
- Change name to verify-game.sh
- Change default hashing algorithm to SHA1; this is faster than MD5 on modern CPUs with sha_ni instruction
- Change handling for some DAT files and platforms:
- Merge psp, psp-psn, and psp-psn-dec; ps4-psn and ps4-upd; vita-psn and vita-psn-dec
- Rename 360-dlc to 360-cdn; wiiu-dlc to wiiu-cdn; vita* tp psv*
- Remove 3ds-digital (3DS (Digital)) DAT support
- Update platform detection logic to improve auto-detection
- Update disc handling to verify and report as a single object
- Update output to show DAT game title instead of DAT file name; use -f option to revert to file name output
- Update the following to support newer DAT file names and formats:
- 3DO; Atari platforms, NGPC, 3DS Updates and DLC, SNES, Wii WAD, PS3 PSN
- Update WUX decompression to use JWUDTool; requires java, and must define path to JWUDTool.jar in $JWUDTOOL
- Update error handling logic to fix some errors and improve output
- Update multi-file matches to filter on original filename; should, e.g., prevent common audio tracks from spewing multiple matches;
- added '-a' option to revert this behavior and show all matches
- Update CUE handling to assume all Dreamcast-games are CUE-based; this will break GDI-based images, which need to be re-compressed
- Update cert strip process to eliminate extra copy operation
- Update verbose output to show both original and extracted file names
- Update platform detection to walk directory tree for matches
- Update -V option to trigger debug output instead of showing version; includes performance metrics; does not delete temporary files
- Update script to use common directory for all temp files