FS-UAE Exporter to create a folder structure for import into Launchbox

[Zombeaver]

Hey, it doesn't have to be flashy so long as it does the job.

I agree, I think this is really a fault in FS-UAE itself that Frode should address; but if you've overcome that shortcoming that's good enough for me (because who knows when/if it'll be fixed).

Thanks for your hard work!

[orac31]

Agreed and works great and allows the games to be imported with mandata I'm very happy I have two tabs one for WHDLoad and one for disks.

Again thank you so much

[Eirulan]

Btw my post about this on EAB got completely ignored... :-)

Either the guys over there did not understand what I wanted to explain or simply nobody gave a damn :-)

[Zombeaver]

Yeah I've actually checked it a couple times to see if they said anything

Like I said, who knows when/if it'll ever actually be fixed on that end. It seems like a pretty glaring oversight honestly... My guess is launching via UUID is something that was implemented but is rarely used by the average user so it's not something that most people would probably even notice.

[kyoken]

Awesome, It Works!, Thanks a lot

[Wutex]

Is everybody still using version 2.7.16dev? I switched to 2.8, works flawlessly with the UUID when started directly with the fs-uae-launcher.exe in the programs/windows/x86-64 subfolder.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Wutex
typo

[Eirulan]

I wasn't aware 2.8 is out, when did this release?

I'll try it out asap. Thanks

[Zombeaver]

6 hours ago, Wutex said:

Is everybody still using version 2.7.16dev? I switched to 2.8, works flawlessly with the UUID when started directly with the fs-uae-launcher.exe in the programs/windows/x86-64 subfolder.

Does it actually update the config_name field in the settings.ini though? They launched fine already with dev 2.7.15+ but that field didn't update when games were launched via UUID and that breaks saves/save states.

I see 2.8 listed on the site but there's no changelog for anything passed 2.6.2.

[Zombeaver]

I just tested and launching via UUID on 2.8 does not update the config_name field so no, using 2.8 doesn't fix the issue. The save state folder structure doesn't get updated when switching by UUID so your saves/save states get all mixed up/overwritten/lost when switching from game to game.

@Eirulan I was testing out your launcher last night, by the way, and it worked perfectly!

[Eirulan]

Tested 2.8 now too...

Correct save management does not work for me, neither with Launcher.exe nor with Programs\Windows\x86-64\fs-uae-launcher,exe

So my workaround-launcher is still needed, unfortunatelly...

[Wutex]

Sorry for the confusion, I did not mean the new version fixes the problem you are currently dealing with. It's just that somebody mentioned that launching games directly using the execuable and the UUID would only work on developer versions, not on stable builds.

[Zombeaver]

Well that was true prior to 2.8, and as far as I can tell 2.8 was only released very recently. There isn't a date on the download page and there's no blog post/changelog for 2.8 on the site and there's no mention of it in the development thread on the support.FS-UAE board. 2.6.2 was the latest stable up until like a week ago (maybe less) as far as I can tell.

I'm not sure when UUID launch support was added but I think it was WHDLoad zip support that was the main thing that wasn't supported at the time.

[Zombeaver]

Hey, I just figured out something neat. If you add in a file into the base directory of FS-UAE named WHDLoad.prefs you can add in global parameters that will affect any WHDLoad game you load - in my case I'm using this to override the QuitKey (the little starting screen when you launch a WHDLoad file will show you what it is for that game - it'll say something like "Press F10 to quit"). Why does the QuitKey matter when you can just press start/F12 and then press the X button to close the emulator? Because for WHDLoad games, save data (as in, normal in-game saves) is only stored temporarily in RAM until you exit the game via the QuitKey (at which point it's saved permanently). The problem is that different games use different QuitKeys - F10 is the most common but I've also seen Home, *, /, and Delete as well; presumably there are others too. If you add in a WHDLoad.prefs file to your FS-UAE folder, you can specify a QuitKey which will override it to be whatever you specify for everything. The "High Key" table that I found here seems to correctly correspond to the appropriate keys. In my case, I wanted it to be F10 so the prefs file has "QuitKey=$59". 59 would be changed to something else from that table if you wanted a different key. I've got an "advanced setting" in FS-UAE to have the right thumb-stick button send an F10 input (action_key_f10) so now that will work for every game. I attached the prefs file I'm using. It has a number of parameters that can be adjusted but all of them except for "QuitKey" are commented out on the attached.

WHDLoad.prefs

[orac31]

10 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

Hey, I just figured out something neat. If you add in a file into the base directory of FS-UAE named WHDLoad.prefs you can add in global parameters that will affect any WHDLoad game you load - in my case I'm using this to override the QuitKey (the little starting screen when you launch a WHDLoad file will show you what it is for that game - it'll say something like "Press F10 to quit"). Why does the QuitKey matter when you can just press start/F12 and then press the X button to close the emulator? Because for WHDLoad games, save data (as in, normal in-game saves) is only stored temporarily in RAM until you exit the game via the QuitKey (at which point it's saved permanently). The problem is that different games use different QuitKeys - F10 is the most common but I've also seen Home, *, /, and Delete as well; presumably there are others too. If you add in a WHDLoad.prefs file to your FS-UAE folder, you can specify a QuitKey which will override it to be whatever you specify for everything. The "High Key" table that I found here seems to correctly correspond to the appropriate keys. In my case, I wanted it to be F10 so the prefs file has "QuitKey=$59". 59 would be changed to something else from that table if you wanted a different key. I've got an "advanced setting" in FS-UAE to have the right thumb-stick button send an F10 input (action_key_f10) so now that will work for every game. I attached the prefs file I'm using. It has a number of parameters that can be adjusted but all of them except for "QuitKey" are commented out on the attached.

WHDLoad.prefs

I Thank you was doing some testing and monkey island would not save(well it would but crashed on reload) just tried your config  pressed f10 to quit then reloaded then worked fine.

 

All I have to do now is sort my games thank you both very much

[DOS76]

Damn you guys are cracking this thing wide open and getting it to do all types of stuff that no one could figure out before. Kudos on all of the work paying off.

[Zombeaver]

No problem! Yeah I was having the same issue with Perihelion so I did some reading and discovered that they're only permanently saved when the actual QuitKey is used. That doesn't bother me in and of itself but having half a dozen different keys used from one game to the next is what made it really annoying - with that prefs file you can just specify it once and it'll carry over to everything.

I haven't tested it yet (not home at the moment) but you could probably change it to the Esc key in the prefs (which should be QuitKey=$45) and then the Controller Automation quit function in LB/BB should send the QuitKey command. The only reason I didn't do that is I feel like there are probably a few games here and there that actually use an Esc input in-game.

[orac31]

sorry how so I set it so right thumb button is f10 please

[Zombeaver]

9 minutes ago, orac31 said:

sorry how so I set it so right thumb button is f10 please

Go to Settings in FS-UAE and then go to the "Joysticks & Gamepads" section. Double-click on your controller. You should then see a map of all of the key names. Whatever you want to use as the button will need to be added into the "Advanced Settings" section in FS-UAE. For mine it's something like Xinput_Controller_Button_POV_5 (I can't recall from memory, sorry) and then a space, equals sign, space, action_key_f10

So something like:

Xinput_Controller_Button_12 = action_key_f10

Another useful one to bind is "action_warp". This is the "fast forward" function

[orac31]

thanks again worked

[Zombeaver]

No problem!

I'm gonna go over all this for people when I do that tutorial video. The only thing really left to address is the LB importer bug with "use folder names" and folders that have a period in them (like "v1.2" or something; of which there are many unless you use the "Folder name without variants name" option in Eirulan's exporter). Even with the bug it's not a huge deal - you could always just delete the erroneous portion of the title on the final screen of the import, but I could see that being an issue if you're importing hundreds of games at a time. For the time being, "Folder name without variants name" is probably the easiest solution - you just have to make sure you're using the correct UUID for the version that you actually want to use (the exporter currently just chooses the first one from the list in FS-UAE to export). If it's the wrong one, you can open up the appropriate Open Amiga Games Database page by clicking on the little pencil icon in FS-UAE and then copy the UUID from there and rename your UUID file accordingly.