CriticalCid

Cebion said SentaiBrad said I created a basic Moderation Guideline for the moderators. Look it over, see if there is anything else we need to add, something we need to change. I went over this post and what I was thinking of and created it. Jason's already taken a look at it and likes it. You can comment on the Doc but feel free to comment directly here. When we are ready to create a Database Subforum for the forums, this will go in a stickied thread there. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wB80CH3zecXccfQ4Et8NxYa-G1bQuo7eo1YHvkYQ728/edit?usp=sharing Looks very good. Don't forget the German USK. About the nudity part. I agree with you about Screenshots. We can always take those wihtout Nudity in it. But with the covers I disagree with you. If we manipulate the covers they're not original anymore and we destroy our whole policy of good quality submissions. I completely agree with that. @Jason Now that the Database allows cover for multiple regions I hope that means you will finally tackle on this ticket? :) #314: Differentiate between (and scrape metadata for) separate region releases of the same game About the guideline: If I understand it correctly we should be go strictly by the name on the box? For example we should prefer “David Crane’s A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia” over “A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia”? Maybe the guidelines should be linked in the moderation panel too. So if a difficult entry comes up we moderators could take a quick look on the guidelines if we should accept it or not.

Awesome! Now is your importer truly 100% perfect for my needs. I just want to say thank you for your work on this and that you share it with the whole community. It’s more than appreciated. I agree that the first line should be removed. On one hand you’re right that it is absolutely redundant and now even wrong on the other hand is the space for game descriptions in BigBox limited and it wastes 2 complete lines this way.

Wow! Just when I thought your tool couldn’t be any better you come up with a bunch of new features that I didn’t know that I want those really bad. Can’t wait to test it But I also hope you will look into the problem with the notes for the export releases when you have finished the wizard.

I guess that MAME and Arcade-History have different ways to handle the whole clone version thing. My wild guess is that Arcade-History prefers the original first release of a game. Which might be in the most cases the Japanese versions and the western versions are just get marked as a export (clone) release. Maybe your tool could check the text of each note if there is mentioned something like „For more information about the game” or something similar. If that’s the case then the importer will automatically import the notes from the version of the game which the text is referring to instead. I don’t know how practical this idea is because I guess it would dramatically increase the time to import the games.

Great to see that you’re so commited to take your importer one step further. I never even bothered to use MESS but with your tool I might give it a shot in the near future. I also have a question for the MAME importer. Do you have to plans to solve the "problem" that many western game versions only refer to the japanese version for the real game info in the notes? Or do you just leave it as it is for now? It’s currently the only flaw I have with your awesome importer. Otherwise it does its job pefect.

I've already suggested something very similar on BitBucket for BigBox. Maybe I could extend my ticket for normal LaunchBox as well: Ticket #534: Option to create custom submenus and manual sorting in BigBox

@Jason: Just created my account. The gamertag is of course CriticalCid

I don’t know if you know the YouTube channel JohnGoodGames: https://www.youtube.com/user/pcmaker2 He uploads gameplay videos of the new emulators with their most recent builds nearly every day. But you have to check on each video in the video description if it’s realtime footage or not. Especially the videos for the original Xbox are all accelerated because the games run on 2-3 fps. Sure none of the emulators could be considered as playable because all of them are still early alpha versions. BUT if you consider that some of them are not even a year old it’s pretty amazing how fast they come to this state. Especially the PS3 emulator got a huge boost in development after they changed their graphical engine to DirectX 12.

Apparently not every CHD does have a companion ROM. CLRmamepro shows me that I have a perfect complete set without missing anything and I even looked up in a current 0.171 MAME torrent and there isn’t any ROM for it either. The game starts within MAME without any problems. Also it’s a common problem in HyperSpin / RocketLauncher that a MAME audit will always show missing games because it can’t find these ROMs: http://www.rlauncher.com/forum/showthread.php?848-Hyperlaunch-Game-Audit-Fails-for-no-reason-%28possible-bug-in-Hyperlaunch-Beta-3-105-%29&s=c94f71e18bede65ccaabb247cdbe788f Edit: You can also use the missing list from the RocketLauncher thread as indicator which games are affected.

It looks for the folder name. To make it more complicated is the CHD file itself named differently than the folder name. Chaos Heat isn’t the only CHD in which that this is the case. I don’t have a list but I know that at least 20 CHD games are affected the same way.

After the CHDs were mentioned in this thread I tested a CHD game which only consists of a CHD file and doesn’t have an additional ROM file (Chaos Heat). It didn’t start. Now I wanted to test it with the new version you just posted but now Chaos Heat wasn’t imported at all.

Antropus said Yeah, this would be a platform to be imported manually for now, I think, and let LaunchBox do its thing. You will not get all the sweet metadata, but it will be imported for now. I will implement the ability to select any source.cpp and add a checkbox by its side, to allow you to bypass all filters. That way, it will force the program to import that source even if everything else is being filtered. I should have it implemented in a few days, so stay tuned! Awesome! I just tested your tool an hour ago and I love it already.These two features would just be the little extra mile to make it perfect for me

Thanks for your awesome tool. It works like a charm :) But unfortunately it’s exactly like I assumed it in my last post. Sega Hikaru doesn’t show up in sources because the unplayable filter filters out all the games for it. So I ask again if could integrate it as its own platform in the GUI. I also have another idea for a future version of your tool. Many games which are imported as the US, Europe or World version refer in the bio notes to the original Japanese version for more information’s. It would be awesome if it could import the bio notes from the original version instead of just a reference to a game version which doesn’t get imported in LB anyway (at least if you filter out all clones). Here’s a screenshot as example:

Incredible how much work you put in your import tool. And I really appreciate your attempt to get the metadata accurate as possible. I can’t imagine how time consuming this must be.

Thanks for the clarification. Glad to know that you have everything covered and under control :)

Antropus said I will leave a tiny little bit of manual work for ya ;) Sega Hikaru has a comprehensive list of... 6 games. So, not happening :) That’s true. But on the other hand has CPS3 the same amount of games (if you don’t count the clones) ;) The feature with the dropdown menu sounds great. But since you import the .cpp info as well it would be rather easy to change the platforms in LaunchBox itself at this point. So that wasn’t my point for Hikaru exactly. I try to rephrase my question. Will Hikaru be imported if I select the non-working filter and if not, could you integrate an option for it? It is a DEmul system and not supported through MAME, so the games are marked as not working in the MAME database. Because every game without a specified platform will be imported in LB simply in MAME with your tool I guess the importer will only use a MAME filter and no extra filter for DEmul games. So the Hikaru games would be completely left out without special treatment. I hope that my point is clearer now ;)

Awesome! I can’t wait to finally get my hands on your tool EDIT: I just thought that you maybe could integrate Sega Hikaru in the GUI as well. Since it can’t be emulated through MAME I guess it would need the same method as the other DEmul systems to ignore the non-working filter on the import.

Only if you download images from EmuMovies. It's true that LaunchBox does only support one path for the screenshots BUT it also supports subfolders within that path. That’s why I said that you should create a screenshot folder and move the other 2 folders within it

I just tested it with PS1 and N64(which doesn’t have any CRC values at all) and both were imported without any problems! But I also noticed that the “License” field from the filename scraper and the “Gametype” field from the synopsis scraper are containing more or less the same info. It would be great if the data from the “Gametype” field could be integrated within the “License” field instead of being a redundant entry. And in case you forgot my question: CriticalCid said Another question. What exactly are these System Ini files? Can you give an example where I can find one?

The problem is that LaunchBox only supports one path for the screenshots. Nonetheless if you create a screenshot folder and move your snaps and titles folders in it you should have both within LaunchBox.

I don’t know if there’s documentation for it. Before I discovered your tool I didn’t even know about synopsis. Like I said I guess the easiest way would be to add the option to customize what kind of Custom Fields should be imported. So you can just skip the CRC values. The CRC values are always in the first line of each game entry. Even if a game doesn’t have a CRC value the line is there and blank. So the simplest solution could be to just skip always the first line of an entry.

I tested SNES and PS1. SNES now works like a charm but the PS1 synopsis file still gives me an error. I uploaded the synopsis file so you can test it yourself. I also have a request. It would also be nice to have the option to choose what kind of Custom Fields I want to add with the synopsis files. I only care about Controller and Alternative title. Another question. What exactly are these System Ini files? Can you give an example where I can find one?

Thanks for the update! I will definitely test it soon.

If I look at the GUI I guess that this would be absolutely no problem. I think you only have to set the “Front Images” path to the folder which contains the marquees and everything is fine.

Yes, MAMEUIFX does export a listxml file. I use it with Clrmamepro and all the extra games are detected there. I searched for a dedicated info file which contains metadata for arcade systems but I didn’t find any. But the history.dat does include some data for very few systems. I guess the missing ones must be filled in manually.