File extension Query

[thehood]

Hey chaps, a friend recently gave me a number of ROMs, but I noticed that there were a large number of duplicates, the only difference being the extension (.z64 or .v64). I want to delete the duplicates, but does the extension make any difference? I.e are .v64 files more reliable than Z64 or vise versa or is it just purely a naming convention with no bearing on the ROM itself?

[rswedlow]

The extension marks the byte order.
Byte-swapped V64 rearranges the order of bytes.

Z64 is linear.

There still isn't difference while you're playing the game, but some emulators on some systems load byte-swapped (V64) images faster.

The extension is just a symbol. According to how the game was dumped or when the byte order is converted to something else the extension may be automatically renamed as appropriate (or manually and misleadingly renamed to something else), but the true byte order is still detected upon initialization.