Antropus Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 I decided to give priority to this version so you guys can test: Latest Version: Beta v0.7j Updated on: 6/14/2016 Self-extract: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B23vaxsfSk1yWjdXNlBoaTgwcUU Zip: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B23vaxsfSk1yaDB1MHFPQjVPVzA - Added preliminary backwards compatibility with older MAME versions. The oldest I could find for download was 0.100b, so I tested with it. Make sure to point to your older mame.exe and then update your xml file by clicking on "Mame -listxml", under options. The catch is, not everything is hooked up just yet, so unless you check all the "unknown" checkboxes on both FiltersA and FiltersB tabs, you will not be able to see anything parsed if you are using an older MAME version! - Preliminary compatibility with the latest changes on Launchbox images folder structure. Images should now be parsed just like before and this should also maintain backwards compatibility with previous versions of Launchbox - Speed improvements. A complete list (36445 entries) can now be parsed in about 21 seconds in my machine, compared to about 72 seconds in Romlister. Considering that there are many other filters being used, this was quite a bit of a boost, reflected in all parsing methods from now on. - List can now be matched against the Icons folder as well (in preparation for a new feature requested by John IV) - Eliminated the need of ControlsButtons.ini. Thinking about backwards compatibility with older MAME versions in the future, the controls are now being parsed on the fly, with no significant hit in performance - Added an "Expand Tabs" checkbox under the export tab, so you can toggle to see all the information parsed under the hood. As usual, backup your files, test and report anything funky :) @rmilyard, seems like the option to use Launchbox to force using MAME metadata is not present when you use Tootls > Download Metadata and Images for games already in your library, but it's present when you use Tools > Import > Rom Files In this case I'm not sure how to tell Launchbox to force games already imported to be considered MAME games. I will need to think about this. I would strongly encourage you to download the artwork packs for mame though, so you can have them available at all times, instead of relying on downloads in the future. Lightspeed was projected to be used in this situation and does a great job with it! -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 Ok, so I deleted everything and started fresh with version .7j, and the filter list was generated first try and export to LB appears to have been flawless, so that is great news. When I change the export box to Maximus Arcade, the Lightspeed.txt is generated, however when I drag it on the Maximus converter box no .lst file is created that I can see. *edit* At a glance, the "all killer" list is looking like a solid place to start for people that just want to set up MAME quickly and play some good games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 Drybonz said Ok, so I deleted everything and started fresh with version .7j, and the filter list was generated first try and export to LB appears to have been flawless, so that is great news. Great to know it worked! When I change the export box to Maximus Arcade, the Lightspeed.txt is generated, however when I drag it on the Maximus converter box no .lst file is created that I can see. The Maximus Arcade converter should give a little message at the bottom of the GUI, saying is the file was exported or not. Does it report as exported? I'm not at home at the moment, but I'm almost completely positive that the .LST is generated in the very same folder where the .txt was. *edit* At a glance, the "all killer" list is looking like a solid place to start for people that just want to set up MAME quickly and play some good games. It really is helpful, although I like importing everything that works and no clones, about 2667 games. I like playing random, shitty ones from time to time :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 Yeah, I definitely like building a larger list, but I think the "all killer" is a good tool. It leaves off too many older titles for my taste, however. As far as the Maximus gui, when I drop the .txt file on it, nothing happens. No report or .lst created. I also notice that if I go back to the "supported files" box later, after running an export to LB, if I drop down to Maximus Arcade, it doesn't change to the location of the Maximus related files... stays on location of LB .xml. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 Sorry for the lack of replies. Bed sick the whole day with a stomach virus :-/ I tested the Maximus Arcade exporter and everything went fine. A .LST file was generated in the very same folder from where I dragged the .txt from. I think you will need to investigate your setup, because seems like you are having trouble with processes that create files in your computer or at least in this hard drive. Permission related, anti-virus related, something like that. The fact that you could not even generate the listxml was pretty telling, now you cannot convert the txt. Not sure if I can do much from my side at this point. If someone else could run the same test, like, generate a Maximus list and convert it, that would be a good test to see if it happens in other setups as well. About the dropdown switching back to Maximus after exporting to Launchbox, it doesn't really work like that. Launchbox is the only one that auto-sets the path, because it extracts it from the path you already had set in the program. Maximus can be anywhere in your hard drive, so there's not an easy way for me to track that path down and repopulate, so you need to set it manually. I do get the message "Conversion Complete!" in the Maximus List Converter tool: -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmilyard Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 So how do I keep Lightspeed from having LB get all my media and placing it in the MAME folder now? I rather it still be where LB does it as to keep all my media files together in same place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 rmilyard said So how do I keep Lightspeed from having LB get all my media and placing it in the MAME folder now? I rather it still be where LB does it as to keep all my media files together in same place. Not sure if I understand your question. You need to tell Lightspeed where your media is. Lightspeed doesn't download media, but rather uses media already stored in your computer. No matter if you are keeping it inside of the Launchbox folder or in the MAME installation folder, you can simply browse for those folders in the Paths tab, set all paths in there and everything should be imported automatically for you (considering you already have all your media stored locally): On a side note, I understand the concept of having all artwork and ROMS stored inside of the LaunchBox folder, for portability, but this applies to less complicated emulators. When it comes to MAME though, I would strongly encourage people to keep everything stored inside of the MAME folder, ROMS and artwork. It's a standard that is being used for many years now and I don't think it should be changed just to conform to a particular front-end's philosophy. My 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 Antropus said Sorry for the lack of replies. Bed sick the whole day with a stomach virus :-/ I tested the Maximus Arcade exporter and everything went fine. Hey... hope you are ok. Take some time off... get better. :) I'm going to try setting the Maximus converter to run as admin when I have some time to play with it later. Even though it wasn't necessary for the Lightspeed.exe maybe I need to do it for the converter. I'll let you know how it goes. My antivirus has never stopped a process without alerting me, but if I need to I will kill it while running the converter to see if it helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quazl Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 I have tried everything. I completely deleted both the Launchbox and the Lightspeed folders and started from complete scratch. 1. "Installed" Launchbox 2. Extracted Lightspeed 3. Imported Mame 174 roms with all default settings into launchbox 4. I now have 2807 Roms in my Arcade Platform 5. Run Lightspeed and setup the paths for Mame64.exe, lightbox.xml, and mame roms. 6. Deleted all paths to artwork 7. All tabs in lightspeed are default. 8. Made sure that Format section is set to Launchbox and that the path to the Launchbox.xml is correct 9. Filtered and exported. 10. 2667 Roms 11. Open Launchbox 12. 3247 games I have no idea what is going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmoney Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 I was wondering if there was a way to properly import the Sega Model 2 games only into its own platform with this tool? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 quazl said 3. Imported Mame 174 roms with all default settings into launchbox Did you import those ROMS using Launchbox instead of Lightspeed? If so, then this might be the problem. What happens is that Lightspeed, at this point, is projected to be used as the main importer for Mame. It doesn't verify if something was already imported by Launchbox itself and uses a hard-coded key to define the MAME platform. quazl said 9. Filtered and exported. 10. 2667 Roms 11. Open Launchbox 12. 3247 games If I understood correctly, you are importing ROMS twice, once using Launchbox and then using Lightspeed, so now you have a platform created by Launchbox with one ID number and another created by Lightspeed with another ID number. Lightspeed can verify and bypass already present games, but that only works if you always import MAME roms through Lightspeed, instead of Launchbox. Could you please post a screenshot showing your platforms? Also, could you please send me your launchbox.xml file so I can verify? Thanks! -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 kmoney2315 said I was wondering if there was a way to properly import the Sega Model 2 games only into its own platform with this tool? Yes you can! 1) Close LaunchBox 2) Set all your filters and please remember to check "Not-working" as well. You need to do this because Sega Model 2 games are not playable in MAME yet (or are they? Not sure about changes in the latest versions). 3) Go to the Platform Tab and uncheck all checkboxes, then check ONLY the one below "Platform from Driver". Keep "Lock Emulator" checked as well. 4) From the dropdown menu right by "Platform from Driver", select "model2.cpp". A name will be populated "Model2". This is the name of the desired platform, so change it as you wish. 5) Under Export, click "Filter!". You should now see only Sega Model 2 games listed. 6) Select Launchbox for the Format to be exported and verify if the path to your launchbox.xml is correct. 7) Click "Go!". 8) Re-open Launchbox and you should see a new platform containing all Sega Model 2 games. If by any chance the list is not populated when you hit "Filter!", try changing some filters, as some might be preventing those games from showing up. -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmoney Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 Antropus said kmoney2315 said I was wondering if there was a way to properly import the Sega Model 2 games only into its own platform with this tool? Yes you can! 1) Close LaunchBox 2) Set all your filters and please remember to check "Not-working" as well. You need to do this because Sega Model 2 games are not playable in MAME yet (or are they? Not sure about changes in the latest versions). 3) Go to the Platform Tab and uncheck all checkboxes, then check ONLY the one below "Platform from Driver". Keep "Lock Emulator" checked as well. 4) From the dropdown menu right by "Platform from Driver", select "model2.cpp". A name will be populated "Model2". This is the name of the desired platform, so change it as you wish. 5) Under Export, click "Filter!". You should now see only Sega Model 2 games listed. 6) Select Launchbox for the Format to be exported and verify if the path to your launchbox.xml is correct. 7) Click "Go!". 8) Re-open Launchbox and you should see a new platform containing all Sega Model 2 games. If by any chance the list is not populated when you hit "Filter!", try changing some filters, as some might be preventing those games from showing up. -Kris Thanks so much..that worked like a charm. You really have such an awesome tool here and we are all very fortunate that you developed this and let the community use it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quazl Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Antropus said kmoney2315 said I was wondering if there was a way to properly import the Sega Model 2 games only into its own platform with this tool? Yes you can! 1) Close LaunchBox 2) Set all your filters and please remember to check "Not-working" as well. You need to do this because Sega Model 2 games are not playable in MAME yet (or are they? Not sure about changes in the latest versions). 3) Go to the Platform Tab and uncheck all checkboxes, then check ONLY the one below "Platform from Driver". Keep "Lock Emulator" checked as well. 4) From the dropdown menu right by "Platform from Driver", select "model2.cpp". A name will be populated "Model2". This is the name of the desired platform, so change it as you wish. 5) Under Export, click "Filter!". You should now see only Sega Model 2 games listed. 6) Select Launchbox for the Format to be exported and verify if the path to your launchbox.xml is correct. 7) Click "Go!". 8) Re-open Launchbox and you should see a new platform containing all Sega Model 2 games. If by any chance the list is not populated when you hit "Filter!", try changing some filters, as some might be preventing those games from showing up. -Kris That was my mistake. I assumed (incorrectly) that your tool added metadata and hid entries as needed. I much closer to getting this to work properly. Now when I start adding my Artwork Paths the process takes a bizarre turn Once I load up Launchbox and sync metadata and images, I have new directories on my "D:" drive. What could I possibly be doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Antropus said I tested the Maximus Arcade exporter and everything went fine. A .LST file was generated in the very same folder from where I dragged the .txt from. I think you will need to investigate your setup, because seems like you are having trouble with processes that create files in your computer or at least in this hard drive. Permission related, anti-virus related, something like that. The fact that you could not even generate the listxml was pretty telling, now you cannot convert the txt. Not sure if I can do much from my side at this point. If someone else could run the same test, like, generate a Maximus list and convert it, that would be a good test to see if it happens in other setups as well. I know it's been a few days but I was able to get the converter working. It turns out it was not a problem with my system, but some kind of glitch with the converter. I went to the Maximus Arcade forums and read some people saying that the converter would not work unless they had it in the exact same folder with the .lst or .txt file they were trying to convert. So, I moved my converter into the same folder as the lightspeed.txt file and it worked perfectly the first time. So, that is all straightened out now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 kmoney2315 said Thanks so much..that worked like a charm. You really have such an awesome tool here and we are all very fortunate that you developed this and let the community use it! I'm glad I can help somehow. Thank you so much for your kind words! Drybonz said I went to the Maximus Arcade forums and read some people saying that the converter would not work unless they had it in the exact same folder with the .lst or .txt file they were trying to convert. So, I moved my converter into the same folder as the lightspeed.txt file and it worked perfectly the first time. So, that is all straightened out now. So glad to know! I will change the program to advise the user about this. Thank you so much for investigating and reporting and I'm glad things worked out now! quazl said Once I load up Launchbox and sync metadata and images, I have new directories on my "D:" drive. What could I possibly be doing wrong? I really want to help you to solve any problems you might have, but I must confess that I need to know what your plan is first :) What you mean by "sync metadata and images"? The way Lightspeed works is by using images already present in your system, parsing them and adding all the necessary metadata, which is in fact more complete than the metadata coming from the database. Do you have all the images already in your system or you are planning to download the images using Launchbox? Is that what you mean when you say "sync metadata and images"? There's a website from where you can download all necessary MAME artwork at once (cannot post the link here, sorry). If you download the artwork package from there, then you can simply point Lightspeed to those folders and everything should be imported for you, including all images and metadata and you should be all set to go! There are many changes happening on Launchbox right now when it comes to image folders, so I'm not even sure what's going on now on that front. Once those features are locked, then I can update Lightspeed to reflect them. Let me know. I really want to make sure things work for you! -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Here's an important announcement I posted the other day in other forums: Based on those feature requests and some other requests I'm gathering from other forums, I think the current format is kinda exhausted, unfortunately. I thought I could keep it simple enough, but we need more features. There are things that I wish I could add here, but the format is not helping. The program was started as a fast way to help Launchbox users to import their collections and because of that it carries a lot of unnecessary legacy code at this point and it's just not as flexible as it needs to be. For this reason I decided to stop the updates on this format for now and concentrate on merging this program with my previously unreleased one, that in fact carries a lot of the features people mentioned. For example: - You can import lists - You can merge lists - You can audit many artwork folders - You have visual feedback for artwork and game status - It has a built-in rating system. - It has a more robust, faster way to filter lists - Built-in, ultra fast search - Easily merge results from any list into your final list - Resizable GUI This transition will take me some time, but I think it's worthy on the long run, because at the end you will get the best solution available, which will still combine the Wizard mentality with a very robust list manager. So, I might still update this format if something is found to be a major bug, otherwise I will keep working on this migration process, which is kinda big. Here's a preview of what Lightspeed will look like in the next update. Bear in mind that the GUI is in progress and everything is a little temporary: At this point, here are some highlights of the current progress: - I'm now generating my own database file (it will come packaged with Lightspeed). This file can be re-create every time you update MAME and run the -listxml command. Thanks to this, the XML file dropped from 182Mb to mere 10Mb. - Thanks to the above, the filters are now REALLY fast. I'm using a different approach for parsing as well and the speed difference when it comes to filtering got 100%-130% faster! - Super fast search engine. Search ANY number of strings, separated by ",",";" or "|". You can search by description, rom name, year or manufacturer at this point, but I will add a way to search anywhere as well - "&" Ampersand characters now show correctly - There are now 6 different listviews: Full List, Parents, Clones, Search, Filtered and Output. The first 3 never change and are there as data sources only. You will be able to select any number of rows and sent those games to the output list with a single click. The " Filtered" list will show just the results of any filtering you do. You can then bulk add this list to the output list or selectively do so. Thesearch listview will contain the results of your searches. As with the other lists, you can select any number of games and send those to the output list as you wish. The output list is what you will get when exporting. You can remove games from it or send games from other lists into it at any given time. - You can launch games from any list. Simply double-click a game and it will launch the game through MAME, no matter which list you are at. - Lightspeed is smart enough to remove any duplicates, so you can add games from any list right into your output list without any concern and if any entry is found to be duplicated, the duplicates will be removed - Added all other MAME artwork folders. All those folders are being parsed on startup every time you open Lightspeed, so it will list all the artwork you have and everything missing as well, which can be later on exported as missing/have lists. It's a fast process and it's already included in the 6-7 seconds that takes for the whole program to load. - Added the arcade machine artwork, which supports snap and marquee preview A lot left to do, but I will get there. Cheers, -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 I think that is great news... I've been interested in the "other project" since you first mentioned it and it seems to make perfect sense to have them integrated since they can work so closely together. :) *edit* The cabinet style art preview is great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quazl Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I really don't know how to explain this. It is very weird and must just be buggy on my system. Here is my flow. Open Lightspeed and keep all defaults except for the first "Paths" tab. I do the filter I do the Export Here is my file system before I open Launchbox After I select Arcade here is my file system. Also notice that I have no art. Is this bizarre? Very! I see that the when it adds the "Arcade" platform that the relative path to Mame is incorrect as well as the rom path as well. Just for the sake of being clear. When I try this export, I do not have an existing Arcade platform or any mame roms imported into Launchbox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antropus Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 @quazl, thank you so much for taking the time and explaining your workflow! It looks like it's indeed related to the relative paths I introduced a few versions back, based on a request by Jason. Seems like my implementation doesn't work as well if both launchbox and mame have the same folder as a parent, as it seems. I compiled a custom version for you to try. This one should use only absolute paths, as it was some time ago. Please extract it to your Lightspeed folder and run this .exe instead. The paths should be absolute now, so this *might* take care of your problems. Download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B23vaxsfSk1yZlkzNDRkRkhDSms Please test and report. Thanks! -Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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