Drybonz Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Yeah, either way... it would be a great feature but I was mainly wondering if you had some insight on the conversation as well. On a side note, I was looking at what I would call "important clones" last night and I have about 10-20, so Derek's solution to "double up" and throw the split roms for those in with my merged set works. Ultimately, I agree that the merged sets seem less practical these days but they are still out there. I will go back to a split set if I can find a clean break in the action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Yeah, I think a split set is easier to maintain these days. When you need to download just new stuff to complete your collection, it's easier to find and faster to download split sets. I think frontends should support that though. If you are a Premium user you are paying for a product, so I think you should definitely ask for it as a feature in LaunchBox. All that's necessary is to read the information from the xml file, add a checkbox somewhere in the Gui like "Merged Set" and simply assign the main rom as the path if said game is a clone. Or have that option during the import wizard, so you would drag-drop your main set, check the "Merged Set" and LaunchBox would do it. Once I'm done with the new stuff I'm adding to Lightspeed I might sketch something that works :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Thanks for the input... appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted March 27, 2016 Author Share Posted March 27, 2016 I'm wondering here. Wouldn't a dummy zip file work just like what happens with the CHDs with no companion roms? Like, if you create a text file with the clone name you want to run and .7z or .zip as an extension, in theory mame should look for the roms in this file first, then look if it can find them inside of the main set and once it finds it, it *should* launch the game. I imagine that the dummy file with no contents will do the trick, since LaunchBox will pass this file (with no extension) as a parameter to mame and that's all that matters, I believe. I'm already creating dummy .zip files to run CHDs and it works great. I could, in theory, just create the dummy files for the merged clones you want to play, but I'm thinking about going all the way and creating a little tool to split or merge sets within Lightspeed. I did some tests and wrote a little concept that works like this: you drag and drop into an especial area of the gui the merged roms containing the clones you want to play. Lightspeed will then search for all related clones (from the xml) open a listview, listing all related clones available within that set, with checkboxes that you can select. You select the clones you want and then (this is the part still missing, but I think I know how to do it) Lightspeed will unzip the main set, run mame.exe with a parameter to retrieve the necessary roms to play that game and re-zip a brand new file, correctly named after the clone, containing all the necessary roms to play this specific game. It will basically create a split/merge for this clone, but without any unnecessary roms used by other clones. From that point on, those would get piped through Lightspeed to get the metadata and image paths sets, just like with the other stuff. I think it might be useful for other people with merged sets as well, but I'm doing it for the fun of figuring it out :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmyc12322 Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 Hi @Antropus I'm having trouble with this program, I loaded it up and selected my mame emulator directory etc but I just get a blank list and 0 games? I've made sure the directory for the roms folder is correct too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 @Antropushasn't been seen in months so you may not be able to get any help with this maybe there is a newer version he host somewhere since he expanded the program to work with all front-ends but we haven't seen him around here lately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmyc12322 Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 Oh I see, I'm having so much trouble getting a clean mame rom set for my launchbox it's so stress full, unplayable roms, clones everything. I've got other system's snes, genesis etc working great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 Have you watched Brad's tutorial on setting up MAME in LB? LB has it's own settings that handles clones you just have to import the roms in a particular manner which is all covered in the tutorial if you haven't seen it you should check it out. I have the full MAME set and when I import with LB it's only about 3K games to get it to work right you basically have to tell LB to use MAME as the emulator and then there should be options to not import clones hacks and all types of other stuff now it isn't as advanced as LightSpeed but it does work well 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 20, 2016 Share Posted August 20, 2016 Hey guys, is Lightspeed still somewhat broken? If so I'm thinking maybe I should remove the link from in the app in order to reduce confusion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 @DOS76 Do you have any light to shed on this? What is the current state of Lightspeed? Is it broken? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Last time I tried to use it I got to the end it generated a list of games but when I ran the importer it says it is done but no changes where made to my XML whether I did something wrong because the program changed wildly since the 1st time I tested I don't know but I couldn't get it to work for me at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CriticalCid Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 I know that the –listxml function for updating the MAME game info’s from 0.174 to the newest MAME version is currently broken and will lead to an empty output list. But that's the only issue I had and it still works absolutely fine for me when you don't use the broken -listxml function.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Okay great. Thanks Cid. We'll leave it there for now, assuming it's working fine for most people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 What a mess! I'm sorry for the inconvenience, guys. Between revamping the program almost completely and waiting for structural changes to Launchbox (folders etc) to get more stable, I put this project aside for a while. Then I started doing a major remodel in our kitchen and living room, so I've been busy building and painting cabinets, installing molding, doing demolition, installing tiles etc, as a one man crew while my wife watches the kids. On top of that, I'm co-supervising the current show I'm working on, so between home remodel, professional work and family, I've got absolutely zero time for anything else, including my hobbies I don't even know when was the last time I turned on my arcade or pinball machines. But hey, anything to make my boss (aka wife) happy!!! Jason, I think you should remove the link from the program. I mean, I really appreciate it, but this will work against you if it's partially broken, so feel free to do anything you need to do! Seems like there are already nice videos about how to import everything using Launchbox only and I really don't want to hold people back while they wait. I will get back to it eventually (I actually miss working on it), but the future is uncertain and the house remodel will surely take months to complete as I'm doing everything by myself. Sorry guys and thank you for the interest! -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Okay, thank you @Antropus. Appreciate the update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrillhouse Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 (edited) @jimmyc12322 I was getting the same issue as you and this solved it: Per Cid's post on on future ROM set versions being unsupported... I guessed that PAST ROM sets also do not work upon update. Sure enough, I just re-extracted the zip, and updated NOTHING in the "options" tab. Everything else working now. Hope this helps! Also: To Jason & the team... amazing front end. Thank you. You've won another convert! Edited September 5, 2016 by Thrillhouse 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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