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Zombeaver

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Posts posted by Zombeaver

  1. Alright y'all, the first 100 games in the next update are done. Working on the games themselves has probably been the least time consuming part of the process so far haha. I have a long blog post on my site going over some upcoming features and plans, so check that out for more info. You can find it here. The TLDR version is that I'm incorporating per-game Zzap!64 reviews i.e. you right-click on a game and then are taken directly to the review for that game, either in the web or local version depending on which shortcut you start. I'm also working on a (somewhat stripped down) version for RG351 devices (I picked up an RG351V recently and have had a lot of fun with it) which could be crossed over fairly easily to other devices like a Pi.

    Anyway, like last time I'll be posting the specific game additions as I add them for the purposes of any potential LBGDB metadata improvements in the interim. I have the feeling there will be less need for that with this update than there normally is since I'm focusing on titles reviewed in Zzap!64 this go round rather than just going through GB64 as I normally do. I'll definitely be getting back to that in the future but given the focus on the review integration I'm going through and adding anything that was reviewed but wasn't in the collection already. Here's the first batch:

    Airwolf
    Almazz
    Antics
    Ark Pandora
    Astonishing Adventures of Mr. Weems and the She Vampires, The
    Battle for Normandy
    Beatle Quest
    Blizzard! Part I - Commando Libya
    Brian Bloodaxe
    Brian Jack's Superstar Challenge
    Bristles
    Bulge, The
    Castle Blackstar
    Castle Dracula
    Chickin Chase
    Chopper
    Circus Circus
    Combat Leader
    Crillion
    Crossroads II
    Crystal Frog
    Cylu
    Emerald Isle
    Estra
    Fighter Pilot
    Fire One
    Five A-Side
    Fix It Felix Jr.
    Flight Simulator II
    Flyer Fox
    Gettysburg - The Turning Point
    Glider Pilot
    Graham Gooch's Test Cricket
    Grand Larceny
    Great American Cross-Country Road Race, The
    Herbert's Dummy Run
    Hi Bouncer
    Ian Botham's Test Match
    Jump Jet
    Kayak
    Knight Orc
    Knockout
    Lands of Havoc, The
    Lost City, The
    Merlin
    Mindshadow
    Mindwheel
    Monster Trivia
    Moon Cresta
    Mordon's Quest
    Nick Faldo Plays the Open
    Nutcraka
    On-Court Tennis
    On-Field Football
    Operation Swordfish
    Operation Whirlwind
    Out on a Limb
    Pac-Man
    Penetrator
    Percy The Potty Pigeon
    Poker (Duckworth Home Computing)
    Pole Position
    Raskel
    Realms of Darkness
    Red Moon
    Richard Petty's Talladega
    Ripper!
    Rupert and the Toymaker's Party
    Scoop!, The
    Scroll of Akbar Khan, The
    Shades
    Shoot Em Up
    Skyjet
    Software Star
    Solo Flight
    Sorcerer (Infocom)
    Space Shuttle - A Journey Into Space
    Spitfire 40
    Spooks
    Star League Baseball
    Starfire
    Stop the Express
    Stringer
    Subsunk
    Super Gran - The Adventure
    Super Huey
    Super Zaxxon
    Taskmaster
    Tim Love's Cricket
    Time Search
    Tir Na Nog
    Tracer Sanction, The
    Valkyrie 17
    Velnor's Lair
    View to a Kill, A
    Vortron
    Web Dimension
    Whirlinurd
    Witch's Cauldron, The
    World Series Baseball

    • Like 6
  2. Just FYI I've been working on the next update for the last month. I've still got a ways to go but it's coming along. I'll have some more specific progress details soon. Like last time I'll be posting games added as I go, probably in blocks of 100 or so, to give the folks that work on the LBGDB a heads up beforehand.

    • Like 1
  3. The images just need to be merged in with your existing images folder. If they're not showing up the only thing I could guess is that you've inadvertently changed their paths in the process of changing the paths for the games. Either that or you didn't merge in the lines for the platforms.xml correctly from Platforms XML Insert.txt

    The image paths are specified in the platforms.xml in the MediaType fields i.e. MediaType Box - Back has a FolderPath of Images\C64 Dreams\Box - Back etc. repeated for each image type and for each relevant platform (Games, Magazines, etc.)

  4. On 5/27/2021 at 3:00 AM, Morris Schaffer said:

    I was under the assumption the whole reason you made that video explaining the UUID and such was precisely for the reason that disk swapping could be avoided when running FS-UAE via Launchbox. 

    I have no idea what you're talking about here by the way. I definitely never said anything of the kind, in the video or here.

    FS-UAE has its own configs database that you link to when you scan your games into it. That includes both adf and WHDLoad games. But that doesn't cover 100% of the library, and sometimes the games it does cover have configs that aren't actually correct. I go over examples of both in the video. In these cases you need to make your own configs. So both are necessary.

    Disk swapping has nothing to do with any of that, honestly. If it's multi-adf format you're still going to swap disks. If your disk images are recognized on scanning and there's an existing config in their database for it, it'll have all the disks attached appropriately, but you'll still need to swap when prompted. If they aren't recognized or a config doesn't exist, you'll have to make your own.

    The entire point of UUIDs, custom configs, and separate emulator entries is that you need to be able to accommodate both scenarios, both cases where you can use FS-UAEs own configs and cases where you can't.

    • Like 1
  5. Because, as is explained in the video, UUIDs specifically launch the internal configs from the OAGD/OpenRetro. That's well and good until you run into a scenario where those are wrong or don't exist to begin with, in those cases you need a custom config. And the UUIDs and custom configs require separate emulator entries to work - because they have to have different checkboxes checked. You direct UUIDs to one and custom configs to the other.

  6. 6 hours ago, Morris Schaffer said:

    I'm vaguely familiar with the term WHD load roms, but not knowledgeable enough to know the ins and outs.

    There's nothing to know. It's just a different format that entails no disk swapping and faster loading times. There's really no reason to use .adfs unless there's no WHDLoad version available. Just Google WHDLoad roms and you'll find them. My specific suggestion would be to use Retoplay's WHDLoad set, you can find it on the EAB here:

    https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61028

  7. On 5/22/2021 at 8:35 AM, Morris Schaffer said:

    Is that what I need to import into Launchbox as a so-called rom

    Yes. You need to direct it to a separate emulator entry setup as FS-UAE UUID as I show in the video though, if you're not already. UUIDs require different checkboxes than just directing the raw files or custom configs to FS-UAE, that's why they're mutually exclusive.

    Is there some particular reason you're not using WHDLoad roms? That's going to make your life a lot easier and make the play experience significantly better.

    There really isn't much to the process from beginning to end - import into FS-UAE, export the UUIDs, import the UUIDs into LB, direct them to the right emulator entry. The majority of the time spent is in the initial setup. If it isn't working correctly, chances are you haven't setup something correctly with the emulator entry. My suggestion would be to look there. You don't need the custom launcher anymore, the bug that that was meant to address has since been patched, you just direct it to the normal FS-UAE .exe. You still have to have separate emulator entries for FS-UAE (custom configs or raw rom files) and FS-UAE UUID (exported UUIDs) though because, again, the checkboxes used for each of these scenarios are different.

  8. You can launch either through the right click menu. It just defaults to the web versions until you overwrite your xml to default to the local ones (because that makes more sense as a default given that the local versions are optional). xmls to change the default launch behavior are in the magazines folder. Use the Default Local one if you want it to default to those.

  9. Septerra Core: Definitive Edition Patch is now available.

    1694572271_SepterraCore.thumb.jpg.a0c8f1ec16813712621846a2ec89ee4c.jpg

    - Patches the game to use the static recompiled version of Septerra Core (improves compatibility with modern OSes and hardware)
    - Fixes cutscenes in Steam version (which don't work at all in that version) and improves the quality of the cutscenes in the GOG version
    - Allows the game to correctly run in its native resolution with bilinear scaling to your native resolution as opposed to forcing it to run at your native resolution with nearest neighbor (which looks terrible) as it does in the GOG version
    - Custom controller support via Antimicro
    - Reshade support with my own custom presets, options (can be modified through the Launcher), and custom bezel (which can be disabled)
    - A high quality 600dpi scan of my personal copy of the manual
    - ASuite for management

    • Like 2
  10. 16 hours ago, omnikam said:

    Awesome collection, but the game numbers look way low. None of the Might and Magic games are included

    As is explained in the opening post:

    1) This is a curated collection so yes, of course the "numbers are way low", that's kindof the point; even when it's "done" (which it's only at about 35% at this point) it will never be near something like GB64's numbers by design, because one of the goals of the project is to filter out the extreme amount of noise in a collection like that. My estimate when all is said and done is something like 8000 games.

    2) I'm making my way through Gamebase64 in alphabetical order and am currently working through "K", which means that I haven't gotten to Might and Magic yet. It's why out of a collection of 2500 games nearly 1700 of them fall within # and J.

    16 hours ago, omnikam said:

    One question, how do you flip a disc?

    This is also explained in the opening post in the usage section. It's also shown on the controls reference image.

  11. 21 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

    @Zombeaver Will need to fix this issue with C64 Dreams. Apparently he mistakenly distributed it with his games database account connected to it.

    Yes, this will be corrected in the next update. It's not an issue even in the current version if the import instructions are followed correctly (settings.xml isn't something that's supposed to/should be imported into an existing collection). Well, unless someone decided to use C64 Dreams as a starting point and imported their library into it I guess (not sure why anyone would do that though).

    I got zugswang sorted out. Just needed to log out through the cloud menu and then back in with his info.

    • Like 1
  12. 3 hours ago, CMOSS said:

    Besides the rules that you've laid out, the only one that has been added to name the media is the Launchbox ID, right?

    I wasn't aware you could use that. If so, it must be new-ish. I'm not aware of any others.

    3 hours ago, CMOSS said:

    Also, when you talk about matching the rom file name minus the special characters for the rom name... is this just removing everything from the rom name after a bracket?

    Yes, anything after a bracket or parenthesis.

    • Thanks 1
  13. Thanks @neil9000

    Yes, I did some digging and it looks like the instance of LB that's distributed with C64 Dreams is logged into my db account although this shouldn't affect anything for anyone so long as the import instructions are followed correctly. The only scenario where it would matter is if you were to use C64 Dreams as a base and imported all your platforms into it, and not the other way around (and I don't know why anyone would do this). That said, I'll make sure this is remedied in the next update.

    None of the files that are imported when you import into an existing library should result in you being logged into my db account. To my knowledge that's locked to the settings.xml which isn't something you're supposed to import. The list of files to import are listed in the C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Files to import.txt. After that you paste some lines into the parents and platforms xmls.

    You should be able to fix it by going to cloud > disconnect from the db and then connect with your info.

    • Like 1
  14. @RosieTheB Okay so, yeah, I'm not sure what you did but you must have done something wrong because I just tried it and everything worked as expected. You just have to drag all the files from v17 into the install folder and overwrite all. Then start the game with Biosys.bat (not pcem.exe).

    image.thumb.png.146a24753ad135b390247945d971ce0d.png

    You're going to want to make a few settings changes afterwards though. Press Ctrl + Alt + PgDn to switch to windowed mode. Now make the following changes:

    Video > Render Driver > OpenGL 3.0
    Video > Output Stretch Mode > 4:3
    Video > OpenGL 3.0 renderer > Input Stretch Mode > 4:3
    Video > OpenGL 3.0 renderer > Input Scale > 4x

    Now you'll be all set. If you still have any performance issues afterwards, there are some further tweaks that can be made.

  15. 10 minutes ago, RosieTheB said:

    @Zombeaver quick reply, thanks! I downloaded and unzipped the latest PCem and dragged all the files across to ../Games/Zomb's Lair/Biosys and overwrote but no good. Opening Biosys now just runs PCem with a blank window.

    Sounds like you've done something wrong then. Should work exactly the same as it does before. I'll take a look tonight.

    11 minutes ago, RosieTheB said:

    Do I need to install PCem properly or before dragging the files over?

    No. It's portable.

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