Skip to content

Introduction

What is a ROM?

From Wikipedia:

A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, or used to contain a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's main board. The term is frequently used in the context of emulation, whereby older games or firmware are copied to ROM files on modern computers and can, using a piece of software known as an emulator, be run on a different device than which they were designed for.

ROMs are complete copies of game data stored in cartridges or on discs.

A game may consist of multiple ROMs. For example, arcade cabinets, which contain multiple chips, or disc-based games that have multiple tracks on the disc.

What is a ROM manager?

ROM managers are applications that serve two main purposes:

  1. Help you organize your video game ROM collection
  2. Help you understand what video game ROMs are missing from your collection

all additional features help serve these two purposes.

Most ROM managers can automatically read & write many different ROM types, including those in archives and those with headers so that you don't have to do much pre-work.

Most ROM managers rely on DATs, files that catalog every known ROM that exists per game system. DATs are published by release groups dedicated to keeping these catalogs accurate and up to date. DATs help ROM collectors name their ROMs consistently as well as understand what ROMs may be missing from their collection.

What is Igir?

Igir is a ROM manager for the modern age.

Most ROM managers are only built for Windows, and some offer workarounds for running on macOS and Linux. Most of these managers have confusing GUIs that make batch-able, repeatable actions difficult. Igir is a command line tool that works on any OS.

In addition, Igir has features that aren't found in any other ROM managers, such as ROM patching.

Info

See the alternative managers page for a feature comparison between Igir and other ROM managers.

Next steps

See the installation page for instructions on getting Igir installed.