ROM Validator

A Windows desktop application for validating ROM files against DAT files and generating new No-Intro compliant DAT files from your collection.

Documentation: https://purelogiccode.github.io/RomValidator/  |  Release notes: see docs/release-notes.md

📸 Screenshots

Features

• ROM Validation: Validate your ROM collection against No-Intro XML DAT files
• DAT File Generation: Generate new No-Intro compliant DAT files from your ROM collection
• Duplicate Detection: Identify duplicate ROM files in your collection
• Multiple Hash Support: CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256 hash verification
• Archive Support: Read ROMs directly from .zip, .7z, and .rar archives (SharpCompress), with the bundled 7za.exe / 7za_arm64.exe as a fallback for archives SharpCompress cannot read or create
• Fluent Dark Theme: Modern dark UI built on WPF-UI (Windows 11 style)
• Screenshot Capture: Press F8 to save a screenshot of the active window to the Screenshot\ folder next to the executable (falling back to %LOCALAPPDATA%\ROM Validator\Screenshot when the application folder is read-only)
• App Data Button: the App Data button in the top-right corner opens %LOCALAPPDATA%\ROM Validator in Explorer — logs (Logs\) and fallback screenshots (Screenshot\) live there, always writable even when installed under Program Files
• Version Checking: Automatic GitHub version checking at startup, with a prompt to open the release page when an update is available
• Robust Error Handling: Retry-based temp-directory cleanup, binary-format detection for wrongly selected DAT files, and automatic bug reports (Serilog) — all Warning, Error, and Fatal events are forwarded to the bug report API

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 (x64 or ARM64) — WPF application
• .NET 10 Desktop Runtime — the release zip is framework-dependent
• 7-Zip standalone executables (7za.exe for x64, 7za_arm64.exe for ARM64, 7-Zip 26.03) — included for the archive fallback

Installation

1. Download the zip for your architecture from the latest release:
   • release_<version>_win-x64.zip
   • release_<version>_win-arm64.zip
2. Extract it to a permanent folder and run RomValidator.exe. The application refuses to run directly from a zip archive or a temporary folder.

Each zip contains a single-file RomValidator.exe (framework-dependent), the bundled 7-Zip fallback executables, and LICENSE.txt, ReadMe.md and WhatsNew.md.

Full instructions: Getting Started.

Documentation

The complete documentation lives in the docs/ folder and is published to:

• Documentation site: https://purelogiccode.github.io/RomValidator/
• GitHub Wiki: https://github.com/purelogiccode/RomValidator/wiki

Section	Contents
Getting Started	Install, first run, quick start
User Guide	Validation, DAT generation, duplicates, archives, data
Reference	Formats, troubleshooting, build, architecture, CI/CD
FAQ	Frequently asked questions
Contributing	Bugs, features, pull requests

Usage

Validating ROMs

1. Launch the application
2. Navigate to the "Validate ROMs" tab
3. Load a DAT file (No-Intro format, .dat or .xml)
4. Select your ROM directory or archive
5. Click "Start Validation" to begin
6. Review the results: matched, failed, unknown, renamed, and duplicate files, with live progress stats

Generating DAT Files

1. Navigate to the "Generate DAT" tab
2. Select your ROM directory
3. Configure output settings (name, description, author)
4. Click "Start Hashing" to compute hashes, then "Export DAT"
5. Save the generated DAT file for use with other ROM management tools

Tips

• Use F8 anytime to capture a screenshot of the active window.
• Click App Data (top-right, next to About) to open the folder where logs and fallback screenshots are stored.
• DAT files must be No-Intro XML; ZIP archives, binary images, and ClrMamePro/MAME formats are detected and rejected with a clear message.
• If a file is temporarily locked (e.g. still being written), the app retries automatically and cleans up leftover temp folders in the background.

Dependencies

• WPF-UI (4.3.0): Fluent design system and dark theme
• Serilog (4.4.0) + Sinks (Debug, File): structured logging and automatic bug reports
• SharpCompress (0.50.4): zip/7z/RAR archive reading and zip/7z archive creation
• 7-Zip 26.03 (7za.exe / 7za_arm64.exe): fallback for archive operations SharpCompress cannot perform
• xUnit (2.9.3), Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk (18.10.1), coverlet.collector (10.1.0): testing

Tests

The solution includes unit and integration tests (models, services, hash calculation, archive handling, temp-directory cleanup, serialization). Run them with:

dotnet test

Continuous Integration

Workflow	Purpose
CI	Builds and tests every push and pull request
Release	Publishes the single-file win-x64/win-arm64 zips (with license, readme and what's new) and checksums on release_* / v* tags
Docs	Publishes the documentation site and mirrors docs/ to the wiki

See CI/CD for details.

What's New

See WhatsNew.md for the latest release highlights and Release Notes for the full history.

Acknowledgments

• No-Intro for the DAT file format specification
• SharpCompress for archive support
• 7-Zip for the standalone fallback executables
• WPF-UI for the Fluent design system

Contributing & Support

• Donate: If you find this project useful, consider supporting the developer.
• If you like this project, please give us a star on GitHub! ⭐

📜 License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3 License – see the LICENSE file for details.

Copyright (C) 2026 Peterson Fernandes – PureLogicCode.com