A common question is what kind of names are needed for RetroX to match a game with its artwork. Use this document as a reference for how the name matching works.
The basic operation is to normalize the name by removing any part of it that may or may not be present when referring to the same game. All the text inside the following characters is removed from the name: [, ], {, }, (, ). Then, lowercase is applied and only alphanumeric characters are preserved: 0-9, a-z.
Here are some examples of original names turned into a matching code:
Street Fighter II (JAP) -> streetfighterii Street Fighter II (EUR) -> streetfighterii Bishōjo Janshi Suchie-Pai -> bishjojanshisuchiepai F1 Racing [!] (J) (V1) -> f1racing F1 Racing (J) (V2) -> f1racing Advanced V.G. -> advancedvg Gunple: Gunman's Proof -> gunplegunmansproof
The final code is then used to find the matching artwork. Note that at this point, regional information is being removed, and only one version of the artwork is used regardless of the region — though that may change in the future.
DOS and multi-disk games
These games have many files for just one game; in this case, the folder name is used as the game name.
MAME and FBNeo
These games already have a standard code; that code is used instead of the matching described above. Some games are different versions of the same game; in that case, if there is no artwork for the specific game, the artwork for the parent game is used.