ExoDOS Import

[SentaiBrad]

The Relative paths are relative to that entire drive. So I have my emulator folder outside of the LB folder, but on the same drive, and it uses a relative path. You can plug in an absolute path instead of you wanted, I've edited these in the LaunchBox.xml with Notepad++ before, so they work, but keeping them relative would make them more portable. They just need to be on the same drive. As long as the manuals have the same name of the game that gets imported in to LaunchBox, or the same name of the file (and in this case I actually don't know what that would be), as long as they're in the proper folders in the manual folder it should work. In DOS and 3.1's case I used the folder name as the rom name, since the folders and exe's it was grabbing are not scrapable. This leads to it being scrapable in the Database, so in that case I think if the media is named after the folder with that option checked? The database does accept just a games year also, so it must be getting downloaded in to LB that way, but it does look like LB is not flexible in that regard. We can certainly make a change to the way the date field is handled. You, or anyone else, is more than welcome to create a BitBucket ticket on any feature you'd like to see added, changed, or any bugs you come across. For the Premium features and Piracy... well we've actually already had to deal with this, and so far our efforts in this regard have seemed to deter pirates. There is an entire thread on this on the forums called Premium Pirate. Essentially someone did do this, and since we don't use DRM there is no way to deal with it, except for that we now use a method on our exe's that make them very hard to crack. We're always worried about it, and we do try to work with some of the pirates in certain cases, but at the end of the day we do know we can't stop it all, or stop anyone from doing what they really want. Yes it hurts us in the long run, but we're doing fine. As long as the users knows that they're effecting our lives and families, that's all that can be done if something like this does happen again. The Premium features we think, we've struck a good balance between free and premium. We hope that we've provided a sufficiently front end in just the free section that a user would want to support us and get even more out of it. There does need to be a value proposition and so some things do need to be created for premium, but we always ask if the feature is something that the user really needs to have LaunchBox work. Is this feature a base requirement that LaunchBox can't do without on a base level. Sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no. If you have any more questions eXo, we don't mind answering them and helping you out at all. If you'd like to contact us directly, you can e-mail us at brad@unbrokensoftware.com and jasondavidcarr@gmail.com.

[eXo]

Thanks Brad. For now I'll see if I can get things in the exporter handled. When we run up against a wall, or have it all figured out, I'll reach out to you guys to establish the path forward. If I lay the groundwork on the communities I am active in, in regards to expectations for the new front end, then I think the piracy bit is manageable. It will primarily be an issue if my previous users feel as though functionality was lost in the switchover. There is often a sense of entitlement in regards to, "I had this before, now I don't have it... I deserve it!". As long as the premium features are seen as things that are "above & beyond" the functionality they were used to, then I don't believe there will be as much of a problem.

[FistyDollars]

Hi eXo, As one of your previous users, and a longtime member of [redacted], I just wanted to tell you how excited I am by this thread, and that the eXoDOS collection took my breath away with how thorough it was. By volume 5, I was checking nearly every day for it to be released. You and Launchbox are, together, the best things that, in my opinion, have happened to emulation in a LONG time, and I'm really excited to see what happens here. And no pressure, but holy shit I'm excited that you're making progress on Win9x gaming. Just wanted to give you a long overdue thanks for what you've been doing.

[quazl]

Just wanted to add my internet high five.

Just reading the entries in this thread gets me all warm inside. It all started with @donarumo being extra giving with his time especially after some harsh words about his work. Such character! and now getting to read @eXo's entries and his willingness to use his time and effort to contribute to something that quite frankly he will never get truly compensated for is just great.

Thank you guys, so much for all the work, time, and effort that you put into your projects! I was somewhat a high seeder at PD in the past and it is just really cool to read stuff from the developers behind the files.

Again, thank you!

[rebelone]

Hi

I have some issues with importing my Exodos 2.0 games into my Launchbox Library.
I think this issue is caused by having my Exodos folder on a windows network share, e.g. \\DESKTOP01\Games\ROMs\eXoDOS.
The import of the games itself from Meagre is ok, i see all entry's in my Launchbox UI.
But besides that this are the issues i found when i import from Marge to the Launchbox XML:

• There is no media copied over from the Meagre folder to my launchbox image folders (on the same network share).
   
• For each game there is a new empty folder created in the "exodos" folder.
   
• When i try to launch a game in Launchbox, the bat says the game is not installed, and i say yes to install the game, but after that the cmd closes and nothing happens.
  When i click the bat file on the system where the share is at the game install is succesfull.

Does anybody here have also there games on an networkshare and did an succesfull Exodos import?
Or does anybody know what i did wrong, or know if i can edit some files to fix this?

Edited September 25, 2016 by rebelone

[jarpenner]

Every time I go to put the cherry on the top of my Launchbox project, I stumble across another cool post like this. I am expanding my ExoDOS collection (it is truly epic) now and cannot wait to get it rocking in Launchbox. I was busy dusting off old DOS floppy disks to get into Launchbox, but ExoDOS just saved me a huge amount of time.  Thanks to all the folks who have been working on Launchbox, ExeDOS, Retroarch, Onbroken Software Tutorials etc.  You guys are the rock stars at my place.  It is great to be emulating in fashion.

Cheers.

 

JOhn

[SentaiBrad]

Sweet, thanks for the kind words! I'm not sure we have any RetroArch devs on the forums, but I know @Jason Carr and @eXo are thankful as well.

[cleverest]

Love love love EXODOS and Launchbox working together...

Question: since Launchbox doesn't use a single XML anymore (it splits them up, right?), when I use the feature to EXPORT to launchbox, what XML do I choose?

Also, I won't want to move the location of the EXODOS games,where they reside...is it going to keep things where they currently are located?

Thank you!

- Brett

[donarumo]

Unfortunately, since MEAGRE is working off of the one XML file format, you have to do a bit of file manipulation to export to the current version of Launchbox.  What you can do is copy one of the data files (say your ms-dos.xml file for instance) into the root folder of Launchbox.  Then filter Meagre to just show DOS games and then export to this ms-dos.xml file.  That will make sure all the images get copied into the right locations.  When complete, you can copy the ms-dos.xml file back into the Data folder.

The export does not move anything.  It copies the images and extras to the corresponding Launchbox folders and leaves the games in the Exodos directories.  The various Exodos bat files are then used as the "executable" for each game in Launchbox with a hard path to each file.

[SentaiBrad]

There might be some changes, things could have changed format slightly, or things renamed, but it should theoretically work. Obviously the best solution is what ever @eXo could come up with.

[ReaperZer0]

My brain can't grok what I'm supposed to do with this. I want to like trim down the massive sets to more manageable size, then move them to Launchbox. I tried deleting all .rar files except the ones for what I wanted to keep, but then it wouldn't load. If I delete individually from within Meagre, it sometimes doesn't delete all the way, and it will take forever to go one by one anyway. Then I tried to export to LB just to get them on something else and it isn't showing up there though all the image folders moved. The games don't show up, am I supposed to import each one, and how do I do that? Can I just import the ones I want? Do I... My head is going to explode. I'm missing a step or... I'm too tired, dumb, or something. I need it explained like I'm 12 and not good at computers. Maybe I should just delete the whole thing and forget it. *sigh*

[cleverest]

14 hours ago, donarumo said:

Unfortunately, since MEAGRE is working off of the one XML file format, you have to do a bit of file manipulation to export to the current version of Launchbox.  What you can do is copy one of the data files (say your ms-dos.xml file for instance) into the root folder of Launchbox.  Then filter Meagre to just show DOS games and then export to this ms-dos.xml file.  That will make sure all the images get copied into the right locations.  When complete, you can copy the ms-dos.xml file back into the Data folder.

The export does not move anything.  It copies the images and extras to the corresponding Launchbox folders and leaves the games in the Exodos directories.  The various Exodos bat files are then used as the "executable" for each game in Launchbox with a hard path to each file.

Thank you very much, I'll try this tonight....you stated: "When complete, you can copy the ms-dos.xml file back into the Data folder."

Sorry to be thick here, but one question: is this the ms-dos.xml I just put into the root of launchbox's folder right?  Am I MOVING it or COPYING it back into which DATA folder?  Can I leave it in the LB folder too?

Thanks again.

[cleverest]

3 hours ago, ReaperZer0 said:

My brain can't grok what I'm supposed to do with this. I want to like trim down the massive sets to more manageable size, then move them to Launchbox. I tried deleting all .rar files except the ones for what I wanted to keep, but then it wouldn't load. If I delete individually from within Meagre, it sometimes doesn't delete all the way, and it will take forever to go one by one anyway. Then I tried to export to LB just to get them on something else and it isn't showing up there though all the image folders moved. The games don't show up, am I supposed to import each one, and how do I do that? Can I just import the ones I want? Do I... My head is going to explode. I'm missing a step or... I'm too tired, dumb, or something. I need it explained like I'm 12 and not good at computers. Maybe I should just delete the whole thing and forget it. *sigh*

Did you try the XML COPY/EXPORT process above that Donarumo posted two posts above yours yet, or no?

[donarumo]

@cleverest.  Sorry for the confusion.  I'm referring to the various xml files Launchbox stores under Data\Platforms.  If you don't have a given platform's xml file there, you may want to add a game to LB manually within that platform to create one.

So the steps would be

1. Close Launchbox but make sure you have a platform specific xml file under Data\Platforms
2. Copy said file to the root of Launchbox
3. Filter MEAGRE to just show that platform (under the Category menu)
4. Export from MEAGRE to copied file in LB's root folder
5. Move root folder file back to under Data\Platforms overwriting the file already there
6. Restart Launchbox

[cleverest]

Thanks Donarumo, I will try this tonight...I appreciate you weighing in on this and helping me!

[SentaiBrad]

You might need to rename the XML to LaunchBox.xml, perform the export, rename it back, and it put it back where you got it.

[ReaperZer0]

I'll try again some other time when it's not so frustrating.

[Soundtrackgeek]

Out of curiosity @eXo, how would you go about running those Windows games for your possible future Windows Collection? I have a sizable Windows games collection, but I have no clue how to utilize it in a frontend such as Meagre or LaunchBox. I've been playing with Virtualbox, creating an image for each game, but I bet you have a more clever idea than that.

[cleverest]

^ Curious about this too....Haven't tried the 5k+ game export for DOS yes, but was wondering the best way to get the 1000+ Windows games into LB as well...

[eXo]

For those trying to get exodos into launchbox, I would personally hold out for official integration.

 

The Win9x process has been somewhat complicated, but here is a very general overview of what I am doing:
A: Unique build of DosBox X with better support for 32bit Windows
B: Support for Qcow2 images. This allows dosbox to launch a parent image with the OS on it. The Conf file also directs it to load a child image, which contains the installed game files and any diffs in the main OS. Say a game installs some third party software in the program files folder, as well as files in the win95/98 folder. These would all reside in the child image, keeping the parent image a pristine copy of the installed OS. A third child image could also be mounted at play time to retain any changes made within the game world (settings, saves, etc).

At that point, it is launched just like exodos/win3XO. 

One of the downfalls of the win3x collection was each game had to have it's own copy of windows 3.1. Compressed, this only added 20mb to each game, but over several hundred games that adds up to several gigabytes. It was also a shame when I went to add a game like minesweeper, in all 20kb of it's glory, and got stuck with a 20mb zip file, due to all the win3x files.

The Win9x OS compressed is approximately 200mb. If every single game had it's own Win9x install, the torrent size would be well over a terrabyte. Probably closer to 2. And a majority of that would be duplicated files. 

Going with something like Virtual Box would have destroyed the portability of my collection. It would require the end user to install software on their machine first. That software would then eventually stop working in X amount of years. Dosbox is built in a way that makes it less prone to these issues. It is also constantly updated, so if a new version of windows down the line *does* break dosbox, I am confident a working version will then be released. I can't say the same for the majority of the virtual box apps out there, many of which have come and gone in the past 5-10 years.

 

There are still some bugs in the Win9x process. I'm still in testing on it. I'll work on it until I hit a bug, submit, and then wait a few months for a new compiled version to release before going back to it again. In that time I work on bug fixes and additions to my current collections.

 

My goals right now, in order of importance are:

• Finish the current batch of bug fixes and additions to eXoDOS
• Get eXoDOS support integrated directly into LaunchBox
• Release eXoDOS 3.0 with LaunchBox

At that point I hope to have my new set of tools complete to begin auditing\building my Win9x database. I will also update my Win3x database at that point. Depending on compatibility issues at that time, I will either begin chugging away on the 9x collection, or working on an update to the win3x collection.

Once 9x is released, I'll crawl into my grave and die, as I will likely be 80 by then