What is the RetroArch "roms" folder?

[Arcitec]

Hi, I'm looking at the RetroArch branch:

https://github.com/Abdess/retroarch_system/tree/RetroArch

The folders you've provided are as follows:

1. ~/.config/retroarch/system/ : This folder makes perfect sense. It's where all emulators search for their BIOS files. Most of them do a recursive search for a BIOS file matching their expected name. All is good here.
2. ~/.config/retroarch/saves/ : This also makes sense. A few modern emulators basically need a "bootstrap save" that has a basic system configuration in it, before you can begin playing. All is good here. Except that it hasn't been updated in 2 years, so maybe it's a bit outdated with old console files?
3. ~/.config/retroarch/roms/ : This one makes zero sense. First of all it's not an official RetroArch folder, so emulators don't search in it since they don't even know that it exists. Secondly, it was part of the initial RetroArch commit 2 years ago without any changes since then. Thirdly, it's a bunch of zip files instead of unpacked BIOS files.

The questions are:

1. Is saves still up-to-date for those emulators that use system-saves?
2. What on Earth is the roms folder? I did a thorough search online to try to answer the roms folder mystery myself but I can't find any references to any emulator using that folder. My best guess: Perhaps it's a dump of the "home menu" ROMs from those consoles, to let people launch the "system menu/home menu" firmware of some old consoles if they just wanna browse old menus or run things like "System BASIC" programming language on old computers for fun/nostalgia?

In fact, some of the files in the weird "roms" folder are also properly placed in the "system" folder, such as "roms/hod2bios.zip" which is also in "system/dc/hod2bios.zip", although the filesizes differ.

I also checked some other BIOS packs and saw that they only use the "system" folder, such as this one.

Any chance of filling in the gaps in my knowledge? :)

Thanks for this project, by the way. I appreciate it greatly!

[dananothername]

roms folder are retroarch/system
if you open settings then cores
you would see what does the core want of bios and it's md5

[Grkfrk69]

Brotha I am in the same boat im lost

[zchjhnsn]

Yea I am also lost on what to do with the roms folder since they are all zip folders.

[JiaShuen]

Anybody able to explain what should be done with the ROMs folder?