Zombeaver

January 15, 2020

11 hours ago, Elwyndas said:

This is great stuff. However, how do I access the VICE/Retroarch menu? On my machine I have weird issues. Random slowdowns of the emulator.

You can press numpad minus + F1 or back + xbox button on a controller.

I can give you some specific suggestions that are likely to fix it though - I've been meaning to mention this in the opening post [EDIT: Added them under a section called "Performance"]. If you're having performance problems, you should go to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch\config\VICE x64 and open VICE x64.cfg. There are three lines at the bottom that you should try adjusting:

The first thing you should do is adjust video_frame_delay down by 1 at a time, down to 0 if necessary, and see if that fixes it (it probably will).
If that doesn't work, the second thing you should do is set video_hard_sync to "false".
If that doesn't work, try setting video_threaded to "true". I really don't recommend that unless absolutely necessary though. The previous two will produce a small amount of additional input latency, but threaded video increases it more significantly. It does have the benefit of letting it work on basically a toaster, however.

January 14, 2020

Haven't tried it, but I'll add it to my to-do list.

January 14, 2020

While I'm sure this won't be particularly "exciting" for most people, I've taken some time to make some updates to the code in my automation tools so that they're now... even more automated. I wrote these to help cut down on a lot of the tedious manual work and they've helped immensely in that regard, but there were still a few things that had to be done in conjunction with them, like updating the .bat files to contain the correct .cmd name and making alterations to the .cmd files if using a filetype other than .d64 - both of these are no longer necessary as it now injects the correct .cmd name automatically in the case of the former and auto-adjusts the filetype in the .cmds in the case of the latter. The only scenarios that really require any manual adjustment at this point are 1) multi-disk games as these need to be setup with .m3us and 2) games that need to have the .prg name specifically named in the .cmd in order for the correct program to start (these are fairly few and far between - it's most commonly seen in cases where there are a couple different games on the same disk).

The end result of this is simply that the setup process on my end takes even less time now so... yay!

If you're one of the few people who has any interest in messing with these for yourself, I've attached them. These go in the C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Utilities\Creation Tools folder. Just delete the !Base folder there and replace it and the .bats there with what's in the zip. !Automator.bat and !Automator - Batch 100.bat are likely the only ones that would be of any interest for anyone as these are for setting up the games themselves, all the others are for things like magazines, demos, etc.

Now all you have to do is take your .d64s, .t64s, .d81s, .crts or whatever, make sure they're named the way you want them, and just drag them all onto !Automator.bat (for 10 or less) or !Automator - Batch 100.bat (up to 100) and then place the resultant folders into C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Games and you're done.

Creation Tools.zip

January 13, 2020

It has no way of knowing what the root folder of the game is - the game folder is whatever you tell it (or don't tell it) it is. The only thing it knows upon start is where it (DOSBox) is located, so any relative paths (.\ ..\ etc.) are based on DOSBox's location. This is the same way relative paths in Launchbox work, FYI.

Some versions of DOSBox (like Daum) do have auto-mounting paths based on the location of an .exe you specify (drag and drop .exe starting), but not standard DOSBox. Even then though, that doesn't make .\ = the game's folder, it just auto-fills the path correctly relative to DOSBox's location.

January 13, 2020

If the built in mapper is insufficient, I use Antimicro. It's free, open-source, easy to use, has a nice GUI, and has worked with every controller I've used it with. I actually use it any time I need an external mapper for anything.

January 8, 2020

The update has been delayed because I sold/bought/moved houses. We literally moved in yesterday. It's a disaster zone of moving boxes at the moment. I'll get back to this once things are back in some semblance of order but the IRL stuff has to take precedence for the time being. That said, this hasn't been forgotten.

January 3, 2020

Version 0.18 of C64 Dreams is now available. It features 300 additional games plus a number of improvements.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Local copies of the magazines are now in a separate module here. These are not required. If you want to use them, just extract them into the C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams folder and merge with the Magazines folder. More information in the "New" section below.

The game details spreadsheet has been updated accordingly.

Version Updates:
- Artillery Duel - replaced with Remember version
- Black Lamp - replaced with Remember version
- Bounty Bob Strikes Back! - replaced with 2011 version by Avatar
- Bruce Lee - replaced with Remember version
- Castle of Terror - replaced with Remember version
- Cauldron - replaced with Remember version
- Championship Wrestling - replaced with Easyflash version by Excess
- Clik Clak - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Coil Cop - replaced with +1D version by Underground Domain Inc.
- Conan - replaced with Nostalgia version
- Cosmic Hero - replaced with Alpha Flight version
- Cosmox - replaced with Easyflash version (Fred's Pentalogy) by Master
- Count Duckula - replaced with 2019 +5DP 101% version by Fairlight
- Dark Fusion - replaced with Easyflash version by The Joker
- Darkman - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Dino Eggs - replaced with Remember version
- Dragon Breed - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Dragon Spirit - replaced with Easyflash version by The Joker
- Dragon's Lair - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Dragon's Lair II - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Enforcer: Fullmetal Megablaster - replaced with Easyflash version by Hokuto Force
- Forgotten Forest - replaced with V1.1 (10/31/19) by The New Dimension
- Forgotten Worlds - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- G.I. Joe - A Real American Hero - replaced with Remember version
- Gauntlet II - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
- Green Beret - replaced with Remember version
- H.E.R.O. - replaced with Remember version
- Hunchback - replaced with Remember version
- Killer Bees - replaced with 2019 V4 version by Excess
- Koronis Rift - replaced with Remember version
- Law of the West - replaced with Easyflash version by Excess
- Lazy Jones - replaced with Remember version
- Lumberjack - replaced with Deluxe version by Genesis Project
- Mayhem in Monsterland - replaced with Easyflash version by EDK + SAM
- Neutron - replaced with V1.3 +2D version by Genesis Project
- Popeye - replaced with Remember version
- Prince of Persia - replaced with official v1.1 version
- Quedex - replaced with Remember version
- Racing Destruction Set - replaced with Easyflash version by Excess
- Rock 'n Bolt - replaced with Remember version
- Smash TV - replaced with Remember version
- Spelunker - replaced with Remember versin
- Wizard of Wor - replaced with +9DGH 101% version by Hokuto Force
- X-Out - replaced with 2019 .d81 100% version by Hokuto Force
Changes/Fixes:
- Fixed Bad Blood which was incorrectly referrencing a previous version in the .bat (and not working, as result)
- Replaced Alternate Reality: The Dungeon disks with version from Gamebase64 - previous version seemed to stop working after the intro
- Removed unnecessary file from Cargo (old version)
- Removed custom cropping from Cyberball (not sure why I had this to begin with)
- Corrected Skyfox to use port 1
- Corrected Blades of Steel to use port 2
- Changed Ballblazer default joystick port to 1 and added custom screen cropping
- Added custom polling type / turbo period / duty cycle to The Detective Game which makes fire button behavior much more consistent (it's not very responsive in Retroarch by default); applied this same fix to Spellbound Dizzy
- Fixed some problems with Thrust controller settings and changed controls - read Retroarch notes for details
- Changed input polling type from early to late - this has resulted in a pretty noticeable improvement to input latency
- Made some adjustments to input settings which should make more controllers usable (although hotkeys are not guaranteed to work)
- Removed vicerc0 and tempsave files as they're no longer necessary (about 1500 files)
- Renamed all .ef files back to .crt - this was a holdover from the time when I was still using CCS64, as I wanted to differenciate between normal .crt files (which CCS64 supports) and Easyflash .crt files (which CCS64 does not support.
- Changed AHK scripts to wait until after Retroarch has started to perform MouseMove instead of before, so that it's not potentially sitting in that moved position a few seconds before the game actually starts (i.e. if it takes Retroarch a couple seconds to start)
- Changed disk names for some multidisk games because the core shows the name of the inserted disk now, so using specific names makes it easier to tell which one you need to switch to now; games updated are: 221B Baker St, Alter Ego - Female Version, Alternate Reality, Alternate Reality II, Bard's Tale II, Bard's Tale III, and Wasteland
- Added blank Character Disk to Alternate Reality II
- Unified font between XMB and OSD messages (pixelFJ8pt1_.TTF) and it now references an internal location so it's not a font that you need to have installed previously
- Added autoloading savestates for some Easyflash games that are part of multi-game carts, so that the correct game is loaded without having to make any selection (Summer / Winter Games, Leaderboard / World Class Leaderboard, etc.; doesn't include games that have saves like Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, The Uninvited, and Deja Vu as this breaks traditional saving for Easyflash games)
- Deleted some duplicate images from Launchbox
- Reduced default volume
New:
- Savestates! Additional controls for states have been added to the controller reference image and to the controls/notes images in Retroarch.
- Some games are now setup with an autoload savestate which will be loaded as soon as the game is started - this is primarily for games that require true drive emulation (longer load times) so that they'll start at a point after the initial load has completed. A new column has been added to the game details spreadsheet called "Autoload state?" to indicate where they're used.
- Added Blast From The Past collections 1-25; these are multi-game collections that most C64 fans will be familiar with. Some of the featured games are already present in C64 Dreams individually, some aren't - I've added these partially out of novelty and personal nostalgia and partially as a way to quickly test out more games to potentially add individually to the collection; they all require TrueDrive to be enabled so I've setup autoload savestates to the game selection menu for each one; I can't guarantee all the included games work correctly as I haven't tested them all. Note that these are not incorporated into the Launchbox library currently, but they're available by going to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Games\!Blast From The Past and then starting the .vbs files within each folder.
- Games that use only keyboard inputs (like text adventures) now use an alternate bezel that indicates this with a keyboard icon in the bottom right corner.
- Games that have custom notes now use an alternate bezel that indicates this with a note icon in the bottom left corner.
- Incorporated web versions of the magazines, which load from Archive.org, and made this the default launch option - local storage versions are still available as a separate module; the rationale for this is that roughly half (4GB) of the total storage requirement for C64 Dreams (8GB) is due to the magazines, and this will only increase over time - the storage space occupied by the rest of the collection should only increase by very small amounts over time because of the size of the files, but each additional magazine is between 40-60MB so they add up quickly. Both the web versions and the local versions are accessible via the right-click/additional apps menu for each magazine. If you don't have the local version, you'll get an error when trying to start that version in the right-click menu - just press okay and then Escape to exit.
Misc:
- Updated Retroarch to version 1.7.9
- Changed custom notes overlays from jpgs to pngs as the jpgs have some weird graphical corruption in newer versions of Retroarch; the file sizes are, unfortunately, a bit larger as result
- Added custom keyboard controls to The Eternal Dagger
- Added custom joystick controls for Every Second Counts, Fairlight - A Prelude, and Frank Bruno's Boxing
- Added PRG/Group info and CSDb.dk links for many games, covering a total of 1070 games (63%) in the collection currently.
New custom notes:
- Eternal Dagger
- Every Second Counts
- Fairlight: A Prelude
- Frank Bruno's Boxing
- Thrust
New configs with custom dimensions:
- Ballblazer
- Masquerade
- Planet Golf

Just a reminder, but if you're not using 1080p, you're going to need to change the resolution setting via C64 Dreams > C64 Dreams > Utilities > Screen Resolution Adjustment and then starting one of the .bats. There are options for 1080p (default / complete), 1600x900, 1440p, and 4k. For games that have custom dimension settings (there are 28 of these), the dimensions will need to be adjusted to meet your resolution needs. @jophran has made them for 1600x900 for most of these, but none of the others are covered. If anyone who has access to a 1440p or 4k monitor would like to assist with this, please let me know.

New games in v0.18

1917
2000 Kung-Fu Maniacs
4M Arena
Agent USA
Alien 8
Alien Research Centre 2
All New Family Feud
Alloyrun
Antarta
Arcana
Bandits
Basket Master
Bergbert der Rächer
Bergbert III - The Blue Knight
Berks Four
Blastopia DX
Bloodwheels
Bug Out 2019
Chopper Command
Crypt of the Pharaoh
Dallas Quest, The
Dam Busters, The
Dandy
Death Weapon
Deep, The
Dice Skater
Didrik The Diver
Duel, The
Dungeon Crawl
Dungeon Explorer
Dungeon Trials
Dungeons of Ba
Dunwich Horror, The
Dunzhin
Dylan Dog - The Full Moon Nights
Dynamite Dux
Dynamix
Dynamoid
Dystopia
Dyter-07
E-Swat
Earth Orbit Station
Echelon
Echo Hawk
Edd the Duck
Eggman
Eight Feet Under
Election
Electro World
Elektraglide
Elektrix
Elevator Action
Elf Caper
Elidon
Elite Squad
Ellak's Tomb
Elsoliado
Elven Warrior
Elvira - Mistress of the Dark
Elvira - The Arcade Game
Elvira II - The Mistress Strikes Back
Emerald Miner
Empire of Karn
Encounter
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Enduro Racer
Energy Manager
Entity
Enzyme
Epsilon IV
Equinox
Erebus
Escape (Timsoft)
Escape from Arth
Escape from New York
Escape from Paradise
Escape from SEUCK
Escape from Stank
Escape from the Dark Prison
Escape from the Killer Robots!
Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters
Escape from the Shire
Escape New York
Escape or Bust (Tunnel Escape)
Escape Route
Eskimo Games
Espionage
Espodill
Eszkimo
Eternal Dagger, The
Eureka!
Every Second Counts
Everyone's a Wally
Evil Crown
Evil Dead, The
Evil Garden
Examination, The
Exceleron
Exodus
Exorcist
Expedition Amazon
Experience
Exploding Wall
Explorer
Eye of the Gods
F-14 Tomcat
F-15 Strike Eagle
F-16 Combat Pilot
F-18 Hornet
F-Clash 64
F1 GP Circuits
F1 Tornado
Fabuland
Face Ache
Face Off!
Fairlight - A Prelude
Fairy Well
Falcon - The Renegade Lord
Falcon Patrol
Falcon Patrol II
Fallen Angel
Falling
Family Feud
Famous Five, The
Farstar
Fast
Fast Break
Fast Eddie
Fast Food!
Fast Future
Fast Tracks
Fearless Fred and the Factory of Doom
Federation
Fellowship of the Rings
Fernandez Must Die
Ferrari Formula One
Ferris' Christmas Caper
Fetris
Fifteen 3D
Fifth Quadrant, The
Fight for Thurn
Fight Night
Fighter Bomber
Fighting Soccer
Fighting Warrior
Final Blow
Final Encounter, The
Final Fight
Final Tennis
Finders Keepers
Fire and Forget II
Fire Ant
Fire Bug
Fire Eagle
Fire Fighter
Fire Galaxy
Fire King
Fire Track
Firebird
Fireflash
Firehouse Rescue
Fireman Sam - The Hero Next Door
Firepower
Firequest
FireTrap
Firezone
First Starfighter, The
First Strike
Fish!
Fist Fighter
Fist II - The Legend Continues
FlaschBier
Flash Flood
Flash!
FlawShow
Flight of the Albatross
Flight of the Albatross II
Flintstones, The
Fliptris
Floyd the Droid
Flubble and Squij
Flummi's World
Fly Harder
Flying Cobra RX
Flying in on the Big Bird
Flying Shark
Flying Shark II
For Speed We Need
Forbidden Fruit
Foreign 2, The
Foreign, The
Forest of Doom, The
Forester
Fort Django
Fortress of Narzod
Fortress of the Witch King
Fortune Hunter
Fourth Protocol, The
Fox Fights Back
Frank Bruno's Boxing
Frankenstein
Frankie Crashed on Jupiter
Frantic
Freak Attack
Freak Factory
Fred
Fred the Fruiter
Fred's Back
Fred's Back II
Fred's Back III
Fred's In Trouble
Freddy Hardest
Freddy Hardest II - In South Manhattan
Frenzy
Frexel
Friday the 13th
Frightmare
Frogger '93
Frogs in Space
From Out of the Snow
Frost Byte
Frostbite
Fruity
Fugitive
Fun Duel
Future Bike Simulator
Future Dungeons
Future Fighter
Future Knight
Galactic Assault
Galactic Chaos
Galactic Games
Galactic Muncher
GalactyForce
Galax-I-Birds
Galaxia 7
Galaxibirds II
Galleon, The
Get Witchy
Ghettoblaster
Gogo the Ghost
Haunted House
Hunter, The
Ice Cold Beer
Insectophobia
ISS Emergency!
Jack the Nipper
Jack the Nipper II
Jimmy Business
Killer-Ring
Legion of the Damned
Legion of the Damned 2
Legion of the Damned 3
Little Sara Sister Trilogy
Luna
Masquerade
Micro Hexagon
Morpheus
Neutralizor
Ninja Master, The
Nukenin & The Ronin
Orpheus in the Underworld
Out of INK
P0 Snake
Pagoda Warrior 2
Planet Golf
Pocket Dungeon
Pocket Rockets
Pooyan
Race Through Space
Railroad Tycoon
Relentless 64
Rettenthetetlen - Fearless
Robots Rumble
Rocket 'N' Roll
Rocky Horror Show, The
Rogue Trooper
Royal Hunt, The
Sceptre of Baghdad
Search for the Nether Regions, The
Sentinel
Silverfish
Slaterman
Space Knight
Space Orbs
Space Trip 2086
Split Second
Spy Who Loved Me, The
Stercore XD
Strike Force Harrier
Super Goatron
Super Tau Zeta
Take Down
Total Eclipse
Total Eclipse II
TRogue64
Trojahn
Valentino
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
Wizard Willy

*these games are still commercial so the roms are not supplied

New Demos

Demolution by Lethargy
Dive, The by Genesis Project
Elder Scrollers, The by Booze Design
Thera by Atlantis

New SID

Amazing Discoveries by LMan
Aslång på Skansen by Fegolhuzz
Cakewalk by Jangler
Dawnstar Ascendant by Nightbeat
Every Bit You Take by Mythus
Free Fallin' by Soya
Half-Half by Artline Designs
Ikebukuro by Mibri
M2-V7 by Tracker
Neutron Bouncer by dLx + Stinsen
Psi Pi by SMC
Shadows Falling by Flotsam
Smoke and Mirrors by dLx + Stinsen
Touch the Sky by Flex
Wrath of Yamo, The by Abaddon

January 2, 2020

I generally prefer Retroarch over standalone emulators barring a few specific instances, and the number of those has only gotten smaller with time, not larger.

-I used to prefer standalone C64 emulators, but now use Retroarch - the VICE core is actually very, very good at this point.
-Demul used to be the go-to Dreamcast emulator, but I actually prefer Flycast (Retroarch) at this point. Standalone Redream is a close second, but it doesn't have sound interpolation like Flycast which can make some games sound really awful.
-I always used to use the standalone Atari800 emulator for Atari 8-bit and 5200 games, but the Atari800 core is quite good now so I prefer it at this point. It used to be kindof convoluted to setup in Retroarch, but that's not really the case anymore.
-I used to prefer XM6 Pro68k for x68k emulation but that's since shifted to PX68k in Retroarch. Like the Atari800 core, this one used to be kindof convoluted to setup in Retroarch, but it's simple now.

I use MAME in Retroarch as well, although I'm probably in the minority on that one.

PPSSPP and Dolphin are still better in standalone in my opinion. I just did some recent comparisons between the current cores and current standalones for these and I think the statement still holds true - they still have issues. PS2 emulation basically isn't covered in Retroarch - they technically have Play! but that barely even counts in its current state (in or outside of Retroarch). I do primarily use DOSBox in Retroarch at this point but it comes with some caveats (like no built-in soundfont implementation, although this isn't really a problem if you use something like VirtualMidiSynth) and limitations (namely with Windows 3.1+ emulation) and it creates some additional complications to the point that I probably wouldn't recommend people use it over say DOSBox ECE. I definitely prefer FS-UAE over PUAE in Retroarch for Amiga. Same for Steem over Hatari in Retroarch for Atari ST. The 3DO core has compatibility issues with a couple games, but in the cases where it works correctly (which is the majority of them), I do use Retroarch.

The general rule of thumb is that unless a core has something definitively wrong with it (and there are a few of those), you're better off with Retroarch than standalone because of all the benefits that it brings across the board. If something literally doesn't work or doesn't work well in Retroarch then obviously you'll want to look elsewhere, but those just continue to get fewer and farther between over time.

December 31, 2019

Eh, I'm not thrilled with the idea of people having to scrape a bunch of media for this stuff - 1) that's an extra step that just shouldn't be necessary 2) there's a ton of stuff in here that doesn't even have a db entry (in some cases I'm just searching Google Images for something, in others I'm using a screenshot from the Gamebase64 collection, in some cases the game isn't even on Gamebase64 and I'm using a screenshot from csdb.dk) 3) some of the media that is there for some of these is questionable 4) scraping for this stuff in general can kindof be a nightmare when you consider you can have like 7 different games all called "Castle" or "The Castle" etc. The db is never gonna be perfect for this stuff, there's just too much.

Putting the media in a separate pack wouldn't serve much purpose either, I mean you still need it, so why not just include it in the first place? The entirety of all the images included only accounts for 900MB~, so it's not a big deal either way. For the magazines, however, there are only 76 magazines included so far and we're at just shy of 4GB, so that would only get more and more out of hand over time (there will probably be a total of about 200 magazines included when all is said and done). Using the web versions provides the same functionality as what's already there (even has a nice little built-in reader) while cutting the total size literally in half, and if people still want the local versions they'll still be available.

I've made it a point to try and trim as much fat from this thing as I possibly can, and there's not a whole lot left at this point. The good news is that now that the necessary infrastructure is in place, the size should only go up in fairly small amounts going forward. For just the games themselves it's only 400MB for all 1700 of them. The media will of course grow by a greater degree over time but I don't think that will ever be anything too crazy. I tend to do a fair bit of trimming by hand there as well.

December 31, 2019

So I made a bit of an executive decision here and am opting to strip the local copies of the magazines out by default, and make them available as a separate module, and make the launcher default to web versions which are viewable on Archive.org (like this for example) - this is where I get them from anyway, before reducing the size/quality a bit to make them more reasonably sized. The rationale for this is that roughly half (4GB) of the total storage requirement for C64 Dreams (8GB) is due to the magazines, and this will only increase over time - the storage space occupied by the rest of the collection should only increase by very small amounts over time because of the small size of the files, but each additional magazine is between 40-60MB (after I'm done with them) so they add up quickly.

As I said, I'll have a separate module available for local copies that'll let you just drag, drop, and merge with the existing collection. I'll make both the web and local versions accessible via the right-click/additional apps menu.

December 30, 2019

Alright y'all, v0.18 is basically done, I'm just doing some final testing and a bit of cleanup at this point. Should have it out in the next day or two.

December 26, 2019

I'm not sure what's going on with that screenshot but that doesn't look right at all. It may be a difference in resolution, I'm not sure. These were designed for 1080p. There's something very wrong there though, I can tell you that.

The dark parts at the edge are a vignette, which is intentional. There are non-vignette versions of some of the presets, but not for all of them.

You can increase sharpness by increasing the value of scale_x6 = although this can make things look off in some situations.

EDIT: Looks like you've got sharpness set to 5 instead of 1 which is probably why it looks so weird. Looks to me like the sharpness hack is working, it's just not working the way you want it to. You should set that back to 1.

December 17, 2019

5 hours ago, Elwyndas said:

So Antimicro is running to intercept the Xbox controller, and translate the buttons into the inputs required by the game?

In some cases yes, in most cases no. Most of the time it's just used to map the arrow keys to the right stick. Everything else is handled within Retroarch. In some cases where a game literally doesn't have any joystick controls, like Spellbound Dizzy, it is used to assign specific keyboard inputs to different buttons to essentially provide controller support for games that have none natively.

5 hours ago, Elwyndas said:

Couldn't you just save a custom Vice settings file that specify those inputs for each game where it's needed? Then the inputs would be managed natively by Vice.

Again, this does not use VICE. It uses the Retroarch VICE core. This is a significant distinction. The majority of the controls are handled within Retroarch, but these are not files that translate to anything other than Retroarch. It's a combination of Retroarch remap files and core option files. These are Retroarch-specific files that standalone VICE does not use. Remapping capability is fairly robust in Retroarch, but with that said there are some situations where it's insufficient and Antimicro is used to fill in the gaps. As an example, one of the games that's going to be in v0.18 is a game called Fairlight: A Prelude. It has no native controller support (well, basically none other than moving around). You have an inventory and to switch between inventory items you normally have to press numbers 1-5 to pick the specific item you want to select. With Antimicro, I've set it up to, among other things, let you switch item slots by pressing LB and RB. The only way to do this is to use pages of controls that are swapped between by pressing LB or RB, so when you start it's on page one and pressing RB would send a 2 input or LB would send a 5 input. So if you were to press RB, it'll send a 2 input and it'd be on the second page, if you were to press RB again it'd send a 3 input or 1 if you pressed LB, this continues on through 5 pages so that every time you press RB or LB it uses the next or previous number, and then circle back around once it gets to the end. There's no way to do this sort of thing with native mapping functions. This sort of scenario is fairly rare though, and most of the time the normal mapping functions in Retroarch are sufficient (other than mapping the right stick to arrow keys, which is handled through Antimicro for everything).

Retroarch has a lot of advantages from very wide ranging controller support, to extremely low input latency when configured correctly (lower than basically anything else out there), the ability to custom tailor essentially every setting from core options like SID type and controller port to customized overscan cropping on a game by game basis, bezel support, shader support, etc. so that's what this is designed to use. I experimented with many, many C64 emulators when work on this project began, from multiple standalone versions of VICE to Hoxs64 to bizarre stuff like using the DOS version of CCS64 in DOSBox (which, prior to converting to Retroarch, was actually my preference) and none of them provided a satisfactory experience. None of them allowed me to make things as simple and seamless for the end user as Retroarch, so that's what the project will continue to use going forward; because of that, unless you're within the context of a PC that's using Retroarch, all you'd have left is essentially a curated set of games (which is significant in and of itself, but that's only a portion of the purpose/scope of the project).

December 12, 2019

It uses the Retroarch VICE x64 core (uses the normal one, not sc, although the sc core would presumably work as well). I'm all for the work being used elsewhere, although I'm not sure how compatible any of this stuff would be outside of the specific context that it's in; the reason being that I'm using a variety of tools to achieve the final result. This integrates both Antimicro and Autohotkey in addition to Retroarch, for example, and it uses both .bat and visual basic scripts to tell the PC what to load. Taken purely as a source of a large curated set of games, that could certainly be migrated anywhere, I'm just not sure how much of the rest of it would work elsewhere.

Thanks for mentioning the Easyflash version of Racing Destruction Set. The next update has quite a few version updates, but I hadn't seen that one - will add it to the update.

Just to give people an update as to why v0.18 isn't out yet - I'm currently right in the middle of selling/buying/moving houses. We put our house up for sale last week expecting it to sell in about 6 months... it sold in 5 days and now we've got to be out by 1/5. We've negotiated the purchase of our new house, but there's still inspection stuff to be done, more packing to do, movers, yada yada yada and it's been a madhouse. So uh... that's been my entire world lately

Once things get settled down again I'm looking forward to finishing this up and getting it out.

December 1, 2019

It's not deleted. It's attached to the bottom of the post.

November 29, 2019

I linked the last version on Google drive on the previous page.

November 27, 2019

18 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Oh well, thats gonna piss people off, not.

Haha, you never know

I was moving at a pretty good pace and wasn't too far off from finishing F so I figured I might as well keep going. It's also, in part, because 17 games in the update are text adventures - more than normal in these updates - so I figured the extra buffer would be needed since I know those aren't everybody's thing. Some of them are actually very good though, and will be in the current "Best of" playlist - hopefully I can encourage at least a few people to go a little outside their comfort zone

But this of course means that the next one will have to be 300 as well. Bringing it to 1900 would just trigger my OCD. That just won't do.

November 27, 2019

Alright y'all, not too far off from v0.18 now.

In a bit of a break from tradition, the next update will be 300 more games instead of 200 (1700 games total). Those are all done. I actually made it through all of E and F and have started into the G's so yay for that.

I've got PRG / Group / Version info complete for 1000 games now (phew) and I'm calling that good enough for this version. The rest will continue to be filled in over time.

I've got autoloading states for 89 games right now. I'm probably going to be making a few more of these before release.

I've fixed/improved quite a few things which will be detailed in the proper update notes. Some noteworthy things are input latency improvements from some settings adjustments and custom bezels that are used where appropriate to indicate (bottom left or right corner) whether a game uses keyboard input only, has special notes, or both. All the current bezel variations (Project Firestart, Black Tiger, Retrograde, and Supremacy) have been updated, and you can still swap them out just like before. This should help avoid some confusion in some instances.

Normal:

Keyboard control:

Special notes:

Both:

I have some minor things that still need to be done like adding custom controls for a couple games, adding custom notes for a couple games and then doing some cleanup and final testing.

The main thing left to do at this point is metadata, as I haven't imported any of the new stuff into LB yet, so that's going to take some time to get sorted. My guess would be this weekend, but I can't say for sure.

November 25, 2019

Nope. You should really talk to Frode on Discord as he's the one that could potentially fix it. You can find his Discord server here.

November 21, 2019

The upcoming update is using 3281, yes.

Newer builds might be okay too, but they make some major changes on occasion so I can't say that for sure. All of my testing for the update has been on 3281 (well, about half 3281 and half 3265, but most of the changes between those two are minor), so I'll be attaching that specific version here when I push the update through (though you can find it on the buildbot as well). Chances are the latest would be okay too, I'm just not comfortable recommending it without having tested it. There are a few minor regressions from 2711 (the build the current batch of configs is based on) for example. There are several instances where things are vastly improved as well, mind you. In the handful of cases where things are a bit worse, I'll be including the ideal settings for both 2711 and 3281 on the updated spreadsheet so that you can use a separate version on the rare occasion it's preferred.

November 18, 2019

I recently got the Retrobit 2.4ghz wireless Genesis controller and generally like it quite a bit after using it for about a week.

Pros:

-The face buttons and d-pad feel great, very much like the original
-Comes with adapters both for PC (and some other USB-capable consoles) as well as original hardware
-2.4ghz adapter as opposed to bluetooth means lower latency and generally less connectivity issues; it's also preferable if you're using Windows 7 which doesn't do Xinput over bluetooth unless you're using a custom driver
-Seems to last a long time on a single charge
-Has shoulder buttons, unlike a standard Genesis controller, which means you actually have enough buttons to do things like Saturn and Playstation emulation as well
-A number of switch macros (accessible by holding down certain button combinations) to change how buttons are mapped internally, change whether the d-pad corresponds to d-pad, left stick, or right stick, etc.

Cons:

-The shoulder buttons feel pretty terrible - they barely depress at all, so they don't feel like something like a SNES pad's L and R buttons at all. Mine also had a "sticky" L button at first too, although this seems to have worked itself out after using it for a while and just repeatedly pressing it.
-Unlike 360 or XB1 dongles, the controller is treated as connected at all times so long as the dongle is plugged in - regardless of whether or not the controller itself is connected to it. This is kindof a no-no as far as I'm concerned as it can cause problems with Retroarch controller order. I've gotten around this by connecting it to a USB hub that has toggleable power switches for each port, so I leave it toggled off until I'm ready to use it.
-For original hardware, while there shouldn't be any issue on the model 2 or 3 Genesis, if you're using a model 1 and are outputting your audio from the headphone jack in the front (and I mean, of course you are, because who the hell wants to listen to mono?) then the dongle creates a REALLY loud buzzing sound in the audio when it's plugged in. I've ordered a cheap $3 Genesis extension cable which I'm going to try plugging the dongle into to see if that removes it, but I can't comment on whether or not that works as it hasn't shown up yet.

November 18, 2019

On 9/22/2019 at 11:01 AM, Pixel said:

@Zombeaver How can we use those automators? Is there any guide on this?

Hey dude, sorry I missed this.

Okay so it's pretty simple:

1) Take several .d64 files (can be other types but we'll get back to that*), make sure they're named the way you want, and then drag them onto !Automator.bat. If you've got more than 10, use !Automator - Batch 100.bat

2) Go into each of the resultant folders, and open Game.bat in a text editor, and where it says REPLACE.cmd, change REPLACE to the name of the game, so Bruce Lee.cmd or whatever

3) Move the folders to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Games

That's it!

*If you're using something other than .d64, like .t64 for example, you'll also need to edit the .cmd file in the game's folder and change the reference from Disk1.d64 to Disk1.t64. If you have a bunch of .t64s that you want to do in bulk, go into the !Base folder then the !t64 subfolder and copy Base.cmd into the !Base folder and overwrite. You'll probably want to change it back to the .d64 one (from the !d64 subfolder) once you're done.

*If you're using a .d81 or .crt file, delete the .cmd file in the game's folder name the game file itself to [the game's name].d81 or [the game's name].crt and in the Game.bat change the reference from REPLACE.cmd to [the game's name].d81 or [the game's name].crt. Look in the folder for Card Sharks for an example of .d81 and in the Bug Hunt folder for an example of .crt.

If you're using a multi-disk game, delete the .cmd file in the game's folder and you'll need to create an .m3u file (just a text file, renamed from .txt to .m3u) that references the game's disk files in order. Then change the reference in Game.bat from REPLACE.cmd to [the game's name].m3u. Look in the folder for 221B Baker Street for an example of this.

November 18, 2019

Hey y'all, I've been working on this again lately. I'm currently at 1485 games and I've made it to the E's (that might not sound like much, but between # and C there are 9227 images in Gamebase64 ? ). If anybody has any specific requests, let me know, otherwise I'll just keep on truckin' as usual.

I've also fixed/improved a few things here and there, added some new demos and SID tracks, and updated versions on some games. I've also been continuing to add group/version info (not reflected in the public spreadsheet yet) and am at 688 complete, so a little less than half. That process is quite tedious but it'll be worth it in the end as it'll help me quickly parse out whether or not I might want to update something to a different/newer version. I've also been adding Blast From The Past collections (not included in the 1485) kindof on a whim. Most people probably aren't going to care about these, but these have a lot of nostalgic value for a lot of C64 fans, myself included. Obviously there will be quite a few instances where they'll have games that are already in the collection individually, but there will certainly be some that aren't too.

Retroarch has also been updated as well as the core, and this comes with the significant addition of savestates. This is particularly nice because it allows me to create autoloading states to bypass the initial load for games that require TrueDrive emulation. You can of course create your own states as well, and I've added new controller hotkeys to do this. There will be a new field on the spreadsheet for "Autoload State" which will indicate when a game has one. I've created them for about 60 games so far. Obviously this is overkill for most games, but for those pesky TrueDrive games or ones that have particularly long/obnoxious cracktros this can be quite handy.

November 18, 2019

I can't comment on or help with Linux, but they definitely work (and are visible) in 1.8.1 on Windows:

You might need to check on the Retroarch forums/Discord, but it may be that the Linux builds don't support CG by default.

November 17, 2019

It's 1) core-dependent and 2) video driver-dependent.

Some cores will work with cg shaders, some will not. Most will though. BSNES, SNES9x, Genesis Plus GX, Mesen, MAME, FBA, VICE, Beetle PSX, Beetle Saturn, and Beetle PCE Fast for example work with them. There are a few like Flycast and Dolphin that don't.

They will only work when your driver setting is set to GL in Retroarch. They will not work if it's set to something like D3D or Vulkan.

Even once they're visible, they won't work if you don't have the necessary hardware to use them i.e. you're using onboard/Intel video.

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