Seeing as games companies are using AI to mass report sites for DMCA I figured it'd be a good time to circle the wagons around safe sites you can use for your roms needs. Here's my list I have bookmarked so far:
https://vimm.net/ (recently got hit with a dmca and had to remove stuff)
https://r-roms.github.io/ (megathread of roms stuff)
https://gog-games.to/ (my go-to for GOG games)
https://edgeemu.net/ (lots of classics)
https://fitgirl-repacks.site/ (excellent modern PC games)
Of course we also have archive.org which I hope most people know about by now.
For fun here's some video game private servers:
https://github.com/XiPrivateServers/Servers/blob/main/SERVERS.md (final fantasy xi private server listings)
https://www.eqemulator.org/index.php?pageid=serverlist (everquest private servers)
https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX (source port of diablo 1, hosts multiplayer games)
https://slashdiablo.net/ (diablo II private server)
https://cp.payonstories.com/ (best classic ragnarok online server I found)
If you guys are wondering what games got removed from Vimm's, a poster on r/roms compiled a list of what franchises were affected and by whom:
spoiler
Nintendo of America
Mario Zelda Pokemon All the different regions of these franchises were removedSega Corporation
Sonic Yakuza Shin Megami Tensei/Persona The North American and European versions of these roms have been taken down, but the Japanese roms are still upLEGO Juris A/S
LEGO only targeted certain systems it seems like. Namely the Wii,Xbox 360 and Gamecube, a lot of the earlier Lego games seem to be pretty good and while the libraries on other systems aren't guaranteed to be complete, the three I listed have the most missing.Entertainment Software Association
Ace Attorney Ace Combat Assassin’s Creed Battlefield Batman Arkham Bioshock Borderlands Call of Duty Castlevania Contra Devil May Cry Doom Diablo Donkey Kong Dragon Age Dragon Ball Z Dragon Warrior/Quest Elder Scrolls Fallout Far Cry Final Fantasy Fire Emblem God of War Gran Turismo Grand Theft Auto inFamous Jak and Daxter Just Cause Kingdom Hearts Madden Mass Effect Max Payne Medal of Honor Mega Man Metal Gear Metroid Minecraft Monster Hunter Mortal Kombat Need For Speed Nier(Drakengard is ok) Pac-Man Plants vs Zombies Pro Evolution Soccer Ratchet and Clank Red Dead Redemption Resident Evil Scribblenauts Soul Calibur Super Smash Bros Tales of Tekken The Last of Us (Sony actually removed this one themselves) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Uncharted Watch_Dogs Wolfenstein Like with Sega, the American and European roms were targeted but the Japanese roms stayed.All shit I wanted to try out or revisit at some point too, wonderful.
I hoped it was just shovelware that got the ax it figures it's games people actually want to play.
Honestly thought "rom" was short for romantic when I first read the title and expected a bunch of leftist dating sites
I have stumbled upon this website that I have never seen talked about, yet seems to have an extensive library with easy navigation: https://myrient.erista.me/
Is anyone familiar with it?
Why do I see it mentioned so rarely then? Is it because it's focused on retro/early modern games, and discourse is mostly interested in sites with contemporary titles?
Nice find, can't vouch for it though as this is the first I've seen it.
the roms megathread linked in the OP links to myrient for a lot of categories
I don't know if it's good for roms, but myabandonware can have free downloads for older titles floating around; I snagged MechWarrior 2 and 3 off of it along with a few others
https://www.myabandonware.com/
💿❤
I'm using top-of-the-line obfuscation methods to throw off the insidious corporate AIs that are doubtlessly scanning this very post
Took me a bit but I got the joke. I thought cdromance stopped hosting roms?
They never did, they did however briefly switch over to a system where they removed downloads from the main site and replaced them with codes that you'd enter at another site to get the download. In their case they weren't DMCA'd by publishers, but rather told by Google they would need to clean up their act or they'd be delisted from searches.
The changes have been reverted and I don't know how they resolved that problem
https://vimm.net/ (recently got hit with a dmca and had to remove stuff)
I don't download roms all that often, but aaaah. Vimm's Lair is my go to for roms. I'll have to check whats around next time I get the itch to download something, but this is a nice list just incase I have to look for anything I can't find.
CDRomance is great for hacks, non-US games, and fan stuff!
https://www.retro-exo.com/index2.html exodos, exowin etc, basically a very big collection of DOS/windows3.1 games for the serious data hoarder with lots of hd space to spare
https://steamrip.com/bunch of steam games, must use adblocker for it to be safe
https://dodi-repacks.site/ dodi's repack site, sometimes a fitgirl repack won't work for my rig, but dodi's will, and vice-versa.
https://rentry.co/megathread-games useful mega
Not so safe: https://cs.rin.ru/forum/viewforum.php?f=10 good forum with mix of access and troubleshooting, high post counts tend to be safer to attempt anything with
EQemu community is chuddy as your average
tends to be, generally not as ridiculous as WoW private servers but still not good. You'll probably be ok on most of the smaller servers, just be wary there are some rifts to the abyss out there and some of the larger ones like P99 are toxic, foul vats.I really miss that search via torrents.csv from lemmy, the uploader 360p knew the bad internet/old rig struggle for movies.
https://www.annas-archive.org for when gaming is just too much
1g1r dumps are great if you want full system rom sets https://archive.org/details/hearto-1g1r-collection
I'm a dum dum who uses Microsoft Edge on a recently bought Windows laptop.
What's the best browser with ad- block and other protections to visit these sites safely?
add in turtle wow for an eu-based wow classicish private server: https://www.turtle-wow.org/
i been playing for a week or so now. it's a little buggy, but there's a lot of cool new content the team have made. and it's completely 100% free just sign up and you're in. will absolutely scratch that classic wow itch for any who miss that.
Thank you so much for posting these! I found some good NeoGeo roms off edgeemu.net
But can someone please help me find NeoCup 98 Road to Victory and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo?
I've searched and experimented for hours now and I'm a total noob with roms and emulators so I don't know what I'm doing. I'm using Lemuroid and it seems like ngc files work for NeoGeo games but bins and such don't work. I don't know what to do and I just want to nostalgia game.
Edit: Actually I got Super Puzzle fighter to work by downloading the GBA version from cdromance or roms pure, can't remember. But still can't find NeoCup 98 Road to Victory, not to be confused with the regular NeoCup 98. Also, is there a good place to download arcade games generally?
