ExoDOS Import

[cleverest]

So glad I have an excess of like 1.4TB in upload credit in PD!

[eXo]

I don't believe there is any drawback to changing the platform to eXoDOS. The scraper won't immediately recognize and link games when you run a scan, but as of right now... that may actually be a good thing.

[Retrofrogg]

Does anyone happen to know when the 12 days of PD FL begins?  

[eXo]

15th I believe.

[Retrofrogg]

Oh boy, long time to wait!  

[eXo]

Maybe it gives me enough time to get vol 2 out in time for it.

[Retrofrogg]

Wow, in the language of all fine chocolate connoisseurs the world over, monsieur you are spoiling us! Feel free to press that FL button on the existing torrent too, help get those seeds going....

[eXo]

Luckily I had months worth of work already sunk into Vol 1 & 2. So all I've had to do over the past few weeks is clean up metadata in the front end. I have a rough migration tool that brings some of the data over, and I have the work fistydollars has done in the range of A-H. However I'm still cleaning up the genres, series,  extras, etc... Then for the games he hasn't gotten to in the games db yet, I'm having to enter a lot more info and transfer a lot of game images. Luckily for me, the RPG volume is only a third the size of the Adventure volume. So I'm hoping to have it done by next week, depending on my shoulder.

 

For volumes 3-5, I'm still adding games, writing conf files, and creating the first pass of metadata. So I don't expect any of those to hit until January or February at the earliest.

[cleverest]

One question Exo, in your instructions to me in the reply in the last page, you said "copying the exodos folder will make the games work."

Where do I copy that folder? You mean what's IN the folder, or the entire folder? Where? In my Launchbox GAMES folder?  Thanks...

[cleverest]

Exo, one thing I noticed is that the collection does import adult games (EX: Young Stuff) without asking like it used to on the old installs...I want to import them, but I'd like to know which ones are adult so I can toggle HIDE in Launchbox so they don't show up when I demo BIGBOX to people...do you have a list perhaps of those titles in this release?

Thanks.

[eXo]

I marked every adult game with an A- Adult rating. You can use launchbox to filter by rating, and then you can select the entire A - Adult category and either hide it or delete them. If you delete them, it only removes them from the front end, it does not delete the actual game.

 

If you ever wanted them back, you could re-run the setup.bat file, which would rebuild the MS-DOS xml file with all of the games again. So deleting them from the front end doesnt cause permanent damage, but i does prevent them from being launched from the front end.

[eXo]

16 hours ago, Dan said:

eXo - I see you have a "Complete SCUMMVM 2.0.0 collection" on PD. Are the games contained within all in the eXoDOS collection?

Well, not every ScummVM game is a DOS game. So no.

ScummVM supports many Windows, Macintosh, Apple II, Atari ST, and Amiga games as well. Maybe even a C64 game or two. 

4 hours ago, cleverest said:

One question Exo, in your instructions to me in the reply in the last page, you said "copying the exodos folder will make the games work."

Where do I copy that folder? You mean what's IN the folder, or the entire folder? Where? In my Launchbox GAMES folder?  Thanks...

There are fairly clear directions available earlier in the thread, but essentially you copy your existing exodos folder into your new folder. My launchbox files are looking for a subfolder called "exodos", in which it expects to find a games folder with all of the games. If you have questions about the structure and/or my preior directions aren't very clear, then I suggest downloading the torrent but not actually starting it yet. Instead look at the intended file structure. It is really simple.

 

c:\exodos\exodos\

 

The first exodos folder is where your going to point the torrent to download. the second exodos folder is where you place your existing collection (as is, so it has meagre in the root folder, and then a "games" subfolder, etc...)

[eXo]

16 hours ago, harryoke said:

Could you upload the meagre.exe or exodus.exe or whatever it's been named from v3. So we can import our existing exodus v2 into launchbox. Rar or zip everything except the games folder as copyright material is forbidden on this forum and upload it.

Others have answered this, but I haven't addressed it myself. There are no simple files that make this work. There is a 1.4gb or so file that has all of the game covers, disc, gameplay, game title, and manuals in LB format. Then there is a batch file that actually generates the MS-DOS.xml file (which populates LB and points it to all of that metadata). It would be a 2gb file of just the stuff needed to make LB see the collection. After that you would need my updated setup files, updated util.zip file to overwrite the existing one from the old collection, and an updated gamesadv.zip file (1.2gb) in order to get the updated manuals and all of the other extras that each game sees.

There is no simple file or small pack I can put out that does this. If it was that easy, it wouldn't have taken me very long to release an LB compatible version of my pack =)

[Retrofrogg]

While we're waiting, it would be an opportune time to mention MEAGRE again - the original frontend for the eXoDOS collection. I'm glad that the collection is moving to a more modern, flexible and active platform, though MEAGRE was quite well suited for this particular use. It is able to show a number of images simultaneously when selecting a game, such as front box art, rear box art, title screen, game screenshot, CD/disk art etc, as well as game information at the bottom of the screen. This is a great way to delve into the game and be immersed in all the available media for maximum retro effect. 

I don't know if Launchbox can replicate this kind of view - I suppose it would have to be in BigBox and them with a custom theme. I had asked a question elsewhere on these forums regarding viewing all this good art/media in the game details pane within Launchbox (not BigBox). I have not yet had any replies to that question; I wonder if someone here could humour me and post a reply. 

Edited December 12, 2017 by Dan

[neil9000]

18 minutes ago, Dan said:

I don't know if Launchbox can replicate this kind of view - I suppose it would have to be in BigBox and them with a custom theme.

You are correct in that assumption, Launchbox can not be themed, what you see is what you get there. Bigbox is of course themeable so I assume that it is possible there but someone would have to create the theme with the layout that you require.

[dragon57]

7 hours ago, Dan said:

While we're waiting, it would be an opportune time to mention MEAGRE again - the original frontend for the eXoDOS collection. I'm glad that the collection is moving to a more modern, flexible and active platform, though MEAGRE was quite well suited for this particular use. It is able to show a number of images simultaneously when selecting a game, such as front box art, rear box art, title screen, game screenshot, CD/disk art etc, as well as game information at the bottom of the screen. This is a great way to delve into the game and be immersed in all the available media for maximum retro effect. 

I don't know if Launchbox can replicate this kind of view - I suppose it would have to be in BigBox and them with a custom theme. I had asked a question elsewhere on these forums regarding viewing all this good art/media in the game details pane within Launchbox (not BigBox). I have not yet had any replies to that question; I wonder if someone here could humour me and post a reply. 

I will say you can get close to this in LaunchBox by changing the view type to 'List View' and then turning on 'Game Details'. Once the metadata has been imported and the image files are put in place, that combination of settings gets you a look like this: (see attached picture).

Edited December 12, 2017 by dragon57

[eXo]

I think Dan is looking for something that shows the game cover, game back, media, screen shot, game title, etc... That example doesn't seem to show any of the above other than the game title or gameplay shot.

 

eg: the game list is small and the rest of the page is devoted to art assets and game details.

Edited December 12, 2017 by eXo

[dragon57]

2 minutes ago, eXo said:

I think Dan is looking for something that shows the game cover, game back, media, screen shot, game title, etc... That example doesn't seem to show any of the above other than the game title or gameplay shot.

 

eg: the game list is small and the rest of the page is devoted to art assets and game details.

Oh, I totally agree. I just wanted to detail out the settings in case he and others didn't know about them. A BigBox custom theme is the best way to go, IMO.

[nikeymikey]

22 hours ago, cleverest said:

One question Exo, in your instructions to me in the reply in the last page, you said "copying the exodos folder will make the games work."

Where do I copy that folder? You mean what's IN the folder, or the entire folder? Where? In my Launchbox GAMES folder?  Thanks...

Copy the whole eXoDOS folder, the one that contains the games folder. There is only one drawback with this as far as i can tell. That is if you plan on seeding this and importing to an existing LB install you will need to copy the eXoDOS folder and not move it, as the torrent wont work unless it is in the double eXoDOS folder layout. I will just leave it where it is until all 5 vols are released and ive seeded plenty and then import it all in one go. That way i wont need to copies wasting space on my hdd.

[donarumo]

Thought I would ask here since people here are fairly knowledgeable.  Every torrent I download from pleasuredome stalls and the tracker shows as not working?  Torrents from other sites download and seed without issue but pleasuredome torrents all fail.  I'm using qbTorrent specifically.  I've found a couple of forum hits via google discussing similar issues but changing settings they recommend such as turning off cache don't seem to have an affect.  Anyone have something similar happen or know a fix?  It's not a big deal, I can wait until eXo uploads to other locations.