Lightspeed: Ultra-Fast Mame Importer Tool

[CriticalCid]

13 hours ago, Antropus said:

1) You mean game description then, not the rom name? That's easy. Bear in mind that some descriptions are pretty darn long though...
2) Good find!

I fixed both as well. Should be good in the next release.

-Kris

Ah yes, I meant the description. I know that they can be very long that’s why I suggested that they only should get used if there’s really nothing else besides the ROM file name for populating the Additional Apps name.

So today I tried to import the Demul games and it seems that Lightspeed can’t properly filter out all games. I checked all filter options (except Mess SoftLists) in the both Filter tabs and only checked the Demul platforms (Sammy Atomiswave, Hikaru, Naomi 1+2) in the Platforms tab. Lightspeed filters out 245 games but when I manually add all games with the Hikaru and Naomi source driver’s I end up with 286 games.

I only noticed that something was wrong because Lightspeed only imported just 1 game for the Hikaru platform at my first try.

[Antropus]

6 hours ago, quazl said:

I guess I am the only one on an old CRT?

I might be able to teamviewer or RDP into it and get a higher resolution. If you didn't want to change up your UI, that is an option for us old schoolers.

Amazing work by the way. What IDE and language are you using to build this?

No, no , no. This is my problem, because I want people to be able to use it with their CRTs as well, especially considering that I have one in my arcade cabinet (although never tested with it... yeah, I suck!).
I will definitely look into this soon! Language is the good and old Autohotkey

[Antropus]

5 hours ago, CriticalCid said:

Ah yes, I meant the description. I know that they can be very long that’s why I suggested that they only should get used if there’s really nothing else besides the ROM file name for populating the Additional Apps name.

So today I tried to import the Demul games and it seems that Lightspeed can’t properly filter out all games. I checked all filter options (except Mess SoftLists) in the both Filter tabs and only checked the Demul platforms (Sammy Atomiswave, Hikaru, Naomi 1+2) in the Platforms tab. Lightspeed filters out 245 games but when I manually add all games with the Hikaru and Naomi source driver’s I end up with 286 games.

I only noticed that something was wrong because Lightspeed only imported just 1 game for the Hikaru platform at my first try.

 

The code is already in place, but I think I a better way to keep the format is to clip the description at around x number characters. I can use maybe 12 or so characters to represent that entry when no extra info is found, so it doesn't break the gui when the name is like 30 characters long!

I am looking into this probably with hikaru/naomi. Probably a little miscalculation on the filter parameters. I was able to generate a list showing the difference between the two so I can use it as a guide. Thanks!

[Antropus]

@CriticalCid, honest mistake
Some of those games were being parsed as "Sega" instead of "Hikaru" and so on. Sega was set to the highest priority instead of the driver name, I moved Sega up in the code and let the parser grab the driver info last, especially for all drivers concerning Sega (Model1, model2, naomi, naomi2, hikaru etc) and the problem was gone. My list shows now 286 games, as it should. The fix will be in the next version as well. Cheers!

Edited March 8, 2017 by Antropus

[quazl]

1 hour ago, Antropus said:

No, no , no. This is my problem, because I want people to be able to use it with their CRTs as well, especially considering that I have one in my arcade cabinet (although never tested with it... yeah, I suck!).
I will definitely look into this soon! Language is the good and old Autohotkey

Wow!

Do you use one the community IDE's for making the GUI like AutoGUI or AHK Studio?

[Antropus]

2 minutes ago, quazl said:

Wow!

Do you use one the community IDE's for making the GUI like AutoGUI or AHK Studio?

Nope, plain old text because I am weird

[Antropus]

22 hours ago, quazl said:

I also can't see any of the buttons to export or reset in 800x600.

Can you post a picture of your CRT with Lightspeed maximized in it so I can see what's missing? Setting up my  LCD to 800x600 shows everything, but I know CRTs are different beasts, so I will need a visual reference. Thanks!

[CriticalCid]

I’m sorry that I have to bother you with another feature request but as you already parse the LaunchBox Games Database, would it be possible to add the database ID for each game as well? With the new playlist feature for LaunchBox on the horizon, it would be pretty important to have this info because the playlists are using the ID’s to populate themselves with the right games.

[Antropus]

Sure thing. Not sure where that info lives though. Is in the specific platforms xml files?

[Antropus]

Found it. Easy to implement, no sweat.

[The_Keeper86]

On 3/2/2017 at 9:14 PM, Antropus said:

I just entered the exact same folder you defined for your wheels, exported my lists and the folder is correctly reflected into my platforms.xml.
Could you try a clean export as a test? Move your platforms.xml, emulators.xml and the whole platforms folder into a safe backup place, restart lightspeed, double check all your paths and try to export your list again. Does the path still look wrong after doing that? Please try it out when you have the time and let me know. It's my interest to squash any bug and help you guys out since I understand the frustration when it comes to a program not doing exactly what you want it to do!

Hey! Sorry for the super late reply. I'll give that a try with the latest beta. Sometimes I can't figure out how to get the roms in the filters list lol.

Edited March 9, 2017 by The_Keeper86

[Antropus]

1 hour ago, CriticalCid said:

I’m sorry that I have to bother you with another feature request but as you already parse the LaunchBox Games Database, would it be possible to add the database ID for each game as well? With the new playlist feature for LaunchBox on the horizon, it would be pretty important to have this info because the playlists are using the ID’s to populate themselves with the right games.

Implemented and will be available in the next release.

[Antropus]

Version: 0183_Beta9
Date: 3/8/2017 3:30pm

Full Installer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23vaxsfSk1yZmYtcnEzWkJDbmc/view?usp=sharing
Zip File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23vaxsfSk1yYUJLWVU0WnFCS00/view?usp=sharing

Change log:
- Two versions for download now: installer or zip file. The zip file should be used if you are planning to install Lightspeed in multiple folders in the same machine, for whatever reason.
Just bear in mind that running two instances of the program at the same time might produce undesirable effects, since part of the code relies on context sensitivity, meaning that it will operate based on the active window's name.
- Fixed a bug that was causing additional applications (clones) info and custom fields to be duplicated
- Application paths (rom paths) are now being generated at all times, even when the roms are not present in your system. Lightspeed will tell Launchbox to point to those "ghost" roms anyway and that allows for a "future planned setups", even when you still don't have the roms in place yet. 
- When no extra info is found, the Additional Application name will assume the rom description name
- Fixed a bug causing the gui to freeze every time you tried to export to different front-ends and replied "no" when asked if you want to overwrite a file that was previously exported
- Lightspeed will now parse the GameID from Launchbox's game databse assigning it correctly to all games found in it
- Lightspeed will also parse the wiki link if the game is present in Launchbox's DB
- Fixed a bug causing some of the Hikaru, Sega Model 1, Sega Model 2, Naomi, Naomi2 and Atomiswave games to be parse as "Sega" platform, producing incorrect lists when filtering those systems in isolation
- Fixed a bug causing the number of games exported to be reported incorrectly, thanks to the new Additional Applications feature. From now on if clones are being added as applications instead of imported as roms, only the parents will be counted, producing a consistent count at the end. If games are being merged, the games already present in the current library will not be counted and the difference will be reported.
- Fixed an additional bug causing a game under the Nintendo Gameboy.xml file to get corrupted thanks to a date misinformed, causing Launchbox to crash.

As always, please test and report. Thanks!
-Kris

Edited March 8, 2017 by Antropus

[Antropus]

@wirtual82, I would love to help, but I am afraid I don't understand what's going on with your system. The best way to make sure things will work when it comes to Lightspeed or any front-end, is to make sure that everything works when using MAME, not MAMEUI, but MAME itself, the official release. If you are able to run those games using MAME, then we can go from there. If you can't, then either you have missing files in your setup or your mame.ini needs to be edited and the correct paths need to be added in there.

-Kris

Edited March 9, 2017 by Antropus

[Antropus]

A question for you guys: how many of you are using Lightspeed to import software lists into Launchbox?
What I mean by that is: how many of you are giving MAME a chance to emulate consoles, instead of purely relying on Retroarch?

I would like to hear from you guys about the experience if that's the case, from emulation quality to HLSL filters, compatibility etc. I am pretty sure that in terms of setup, Lightspeed is making this as pain free as possible, even easier to setup than Retroarch. I am just curious if the experience when playing those games with MAME instead of Retroarch is comparable. My own bias opinion is that MAME will always be the king, emulating almost everything out there, but still with a lot of improvements necessary to make some systems fully playable. Still, out of all major systems, my experience is a good one with MAME and I can run more games than I will ever be able to play and it will only get better, since MAME is by far the most updated piece of emulation anywhere.

Let me know your thoughts.

-Kris

[Antropus]

@wirtual82, could you please zip the entire "data" folder under your LaunchBox installation folder and send the zip to me? What are the platforms not working again? None of the games work or just part of them? If none is working, then it might be related to the exporter itself. If part of them work, then it might be related to the parameters I am using (if the problem is coming from Lightspeed). Please send me the files and I will try to emulate the problem on my end. Thanks!

[Antropus]

What happens when you double click the games in Lightspeed? Do they launch at all? I am randomly double clicking some Apple II games and they are running fine for me, so the command line being parsed, at least for Apple II look correct.

[Antropus]

I tested double clicking the MSX and MSX2 games and they are launching for me as well. If you are using Mame64 you will definitely need to find your mame.ini file! If not in your Mame root folder, maybe under the Mame\ini folder. If you still can't find it you will need to create it manually by opening a DOS shell, navigating to your mame root folder and running "mame64.exe -cc"

[Antropus]

Once you find/create it, around line 11 you will see "rompath". Add both your roms folder and Sofware lists folder in there, separated by ";", like so:

E:\Dysk Google\Launchbox\Emulators\Mame\roms;E:\Dysk Google\Launchbox\Emulators\Mame\MESS 0.151 Software List ROMs

Now... looking at the folder name, if you are trying to use the latest version of Mame (0.183) to execute ROMS from version 0.151 (VERY OLD!) you are asking a little too much! Mame changes roms names all the time. New dumps are found, core bios changes are added etc. You need to make sure you are running the right version of Mame matched with the correct ROM set, or else you are out of luck. If I were you I would download a 0.183 complete split set.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Antropus

[Antropus]

Yeah, that's the path defined for .ini files in your mame.ini, so it will always save in there:

Quote

inipath                   ini/presets

So, what version of Mame are you using and what version of the roms are you using? Are the software list roms as indicated by the folder name (0.151)?