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

[Zombeaver]

7 hours ago, shadowfire36 said:

I got it thanks bruh. i need to update to a newer version of fs-uae to make it work

Yep, either the latest dev version (2.7.16) or the latest stable (2.8.0) will work. I use the portable (non-installer) version, but it should work with the installer versions of either of those too. I think the only difference is that the Launcher.exe may be named slightly differently. It should still be something-something-Launcher.exe though.

4 hours ago, Eirulan said:

Sorry for not being here the last days/weeks, I'm deeply buried in all kinds of stuff (mostly work related) so I didn't have time to update the apps and check for questions here.

Thanks @Zombeaver and @orac31 for helping the users out!

No worries! I understand completely.

4 hours ago, CriticalCid said:

Sounds awesome! I never used FS-UAE myself so your tutorial would be pretty useful for me as well. Looking forward to it

Yeah I actually used WinUAE for quite some time - to the point that I was actually a bit resistant to trying out FS-UAE initially. I guess I felt like since I'd already gone through the pain and anguish of learning how to setup and use WinUAE, what reason did I have to switch to something else. I have to say though, the more I use FS-UAE, the more I like it and actually prefer it overall. It's just a much more user-friendly experience and once you get the hang of it it's a breeze to get new games setup; the built-in configs from the OAGD combined with Eirulan's exporter/launcher go a long way in that regard, but even the games that don't have a built-in config are extremely easy and fast to get setup as well. Of the 200ish Amiga games I've currently got in my LB library, 13 did not have built-in configs and 10 had built-in configs that had some kind of issue that I corrected with custom configs; that means that 88.5% of them I didn't have to do any configuration whatsoever - I just imported them and they were good to go as is. And the ones that I did have to create my own configs for literally take about 5 seconds to do each. Both of these are a big step up from WinUAE as far as I'm concerned given that I was configuring every game by hand with it and each one took longer to do than in FS-UAE. WHDLoad games are also basically plug-and-play from the get-go unlike WinUAE which is really nice.

[shadowfire36]

2 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Yep, either the latest dev version (2.7.16) or the latest stable (2.8.0) will work. I use the portable (non-installer) version, but it should work with the installer versions of either of those too. I think the only difference is that the Launcher.exe may be named slightly differently. It should still be something-something-Launcher.exe though.

No worries! I understand completely.

Yeah I actually used WinUAE for quite some time - to the point that I was actually a bit resistant to trying out FS-UAE initially. I guess I felt like since I'd already gone through the pain and anguish of learning how to setup and use WinUAE, what reason did I have to switch to something else. I have to say though, the more I use FS-UAE, the more I like it and actually prefer it overall. It's just a much more user-friendly experience and once you get the hang of it it's a breeze to get new games setup; the built-in configs from the OAGD combined with Eirulan's exporter/launcher go a long way in that regard, but even the games that don't have a built-in config are extremely easy and fast to get setup as well. Of the 200ish Amiga games I've currently got in my LB library, 13 did not have built-in configs and 10 had built-in configs that had some kind of issue that I corrected with custom configs; that means that 88.5% of them I didn't have to do any configuration whatsoever - I just imported them and they were good to go as is. And the ones that I did have to create my own configs for literally take about 5 seconds to do each. Both of these are a big step up from WinUAE as far as I'm concerned given that I was configuring every game by hand with it and each one took longer to do than in FS-UAE. WHDLoad games are also basically plug-and-play from the get-go unlike WinUAE which is really nice.

do you have cd32 images working through fs-uae , i left mine still with winuae since all of my cd32 games were iso images

[Zombeaver]

6 minutes ago, shadowfire36 said:

do you have cd32 images working through fs-uae , i left mine still with winuae since all of my cd32 games were iso images

I do have a few, yeah. I've got Banshee, Benefactor, Fire & Ice, Gloom, and I think The Chaos Engine. My copy of Gloom is just a CD image (I can't recall if it's an iso or bin+cue, but it's definitely just a disc image).

The built-in configs for these seem to be a bit iffy in my experience. One problem I've seen with some of them is that they aren't setup to use the actual CD32 pad for whatever reason; and that often breaks the controls if you're using your own controller (I use a wireless 360 controller). Gloom wasn't, for example. So for that I just created a custom config for it using a default config that I use as a starting point (A1200 + 8MB Fast RAM) and going to the CD-ROM tab, clicking the "browse for file" button and directing it to the disc image, and on the "main configuration" tab under "Joystick & Mouse Port" make sure "CD32 Pad" is selected instead of "Amiga Joystick" - then you name the config in the config name field (Gloom in this case) and click the save config button.

[levellord]

On 10/10/2016 at 9:41 PM, Zombeaver said:

I've already started working on the script for the video. It'll be out this week. It's probably going to be longish but I want to go over everything, even some of the more unusual things like the half-color bug and using a custom WHDLoad.prefs file. I'll be going over setting up and importing custom configs as well, which is pretty important. I'm at about 3000 words right now and it's about 40% of the way done 

Here's the outline:

-Changes from default settings in FS-UAE [done]
-Importing Kickstart files [done]
-Adding custom controller hotkeys (warp, QuitKey, etc.) in FS-UAE [done]
-Connecting to the Open Amiga Games Database [done]
-Importing Games into FS-UAE [done]
-Creating custom configs in FS-UAE [done]
-Using a custom WHDLoad.prefs file to override the QuitKey for all WHDLoad games
-Exporting UUIDs from FS-UAE
-Setting up FS-UAE (normal/non-UUID) and FS-UAE UUID in LB
-Importing UUIDs into LB
-Importing custom configs into LB
-Fixing "half color" bug games
-Miscellaneous fixes (Hostages fix; games that use A600, etc.)

 

I believe you covered everything needed, can't wait to see it. I was thinking to do something like a PDF with some simple steps, but no need to after looking at your list.

 

Best regards,

levellord

 

[Zombeaver]

So, just to give an update. The script is done and the audio has been recorded and edited down, so now it just needs the visual aid component to be recorded and edited. That's what I'll be working on this weekend.

Just forewarning... it's at 47 minutes right now. Once the video is added in it's probably gonna be about 50. So... yeah. I'm just trying to cover everything I can possibly think of. The first 30ish minutes covers setup and usage of FS-UAE and the last 15 minutes covers integration into Launchbox.

I've got a Google Doc of the script which is divided into sections which you should be able to navigate with the section selector on the left (at least I hope that shows up for a shared view-only version...). When the video's actually done the titles will link directly to timestamps in the video.

Google Doc Script

[orac31]

3 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

So, just to give an update. The script is done and the audio has been recorded and edited down, so now it just needs the visual aid component to be recorded and edited. That's what I'll be working on this weekend.

Just forewarning... it's at 47 minutes right now. Once the video is added in it's probably gonna be about 50. So... yeah. I'm just trying to cover everything I can possibly think of. The first 30ish minutes covers setup and usage of FS-UAE and the last 15 minutes covers integration into Launchbox.

I've got a Google Doc of the script which is divided into sections which you should be able to navigate with the section selector on the left (at least I hope that shows up for a shared view-only version...). When the video's actually done the titles will link directly to timestamps in the video.

Google Doc Script

@Zombeaver

That looks great I think doing the longer video is the way to go and people will be able to watch then be of and running great stuff

[Zombeaver]

Just another status update - the first 35 minutes of the video (which is about half-way through section 10 in the script) are done. This is literally the only thing I've been doing this weekend so my guess is it's not going to be done tonight. Sorry for the delays but it's not because I haven't been working on it... believe me.

I have to say I'm quite happy with how it's coming together so far though. I think it's gonna be pretty spiffy when it's all done.

[Zombeaver]

The video's done. It's got about 3 hours of rendering to do though so I'll start the upload tomorrow morning, then I'll have to add in the timestamp links to the Google Doc, add in links and timestamps to the video description, and give the video a final once-over watch (it's 53 minutes long).

As long as everything goes okay with the render tonight, I should have it up and finalized tomorrow afternoon.

[Zombeaver]

So I woke up this morning to a crash/error message with the progress at 95%... which needless to say is pretty effing frustrating. I'm going to try rendering it in three pieces and then combining them with Youtube's editor.

[InfinityFox]

That sucks!!

Fingers crossed all works out second time around.  I'll start praying

Really looking forward to seeing the video and Thank you for all the time you've put into it! It's one of my favorite system.

 

Edited October 18, 2016 by InfinityFox

[Zombeaver]

I think it'll be okay once everything's actually in place (I tested out combining a couple of random videos from my channel and that seems to work fine), but just to add insult to injury, I uploaded all three parts (they rendered fine individually), ready to combine them on Youtube, but it just so happens that I had a music clip that was literally about 20 seconds long (out of 53+ minutes of footage, that's the only part that wasn't just me speaking or game audio), just this generic elevator music, but it got caught by the automated copyright scanner and, funny story - you can't combine videos that have a copyright claim with other videos. Yay!

So I found a royalty-free equivalent from Kevin Macleod, downloaded it, added it to my Google Drive, drove home on my lunch break, swapped the clip out, started the render on that part again and drove back to work. Double yay!

This thing has just been one nightmare after another. But by god it's gonna happen; for science and geekdom! Also because the Amiga is really cool and it's gone on for too long as this somewhat impenetrable beast for people to get into emulating, which is a shame. I've read plenty of comments on Youtube and elsewhere where people gave up in frustration because they just couldn't get it to work and couldn't figure out what was going wrong, so if it helps out even a few people to avoid that it'll be worth it. The detail that I go into is arguably overkill, but I wanted to try to address not only the things that everyone is sure to encounter but the things that people might encounter as well; hopefully answering the questions that people didn't even realize they had yet. The other priority was that I didn't want to simply provide instructions on how to get things to run (which would be quite brief), but rather how to get them to run correctly. I've only got about 200 Amiga games in my library right now, but I've tested every one. And by that I don't just mean making sure they made it passed the boot screen.

I think the only thing that I don't go into a whole lot of detail with is CD32 which is purely because my experience with it so far has been both limited and kindof hit-and-miss at that, so I kept that part fairly brief because I don't want to give out bad or misleading information (which I've seen a fair amount of for FS-UAE on Youtube - such as videos about WHDLoad games but no mention whatsoever of the fact that the QuitKey has to be used to in order for save games to be preserved). I have a feeling that I'll end up coming back to CD32 in a later video once I give it some more thorough testing. That's fine though, that can wait for another day. This should still be plenty to get people started.

I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to actually playing some stuff once this is finally done though 

[CriticalCid]

Sorry to hear that you had all this trouble. It reminds of all the wasted hours and headaches I had when I first started my HyperSpin theme recording project.

But I’m glad that you got everything sorted out in the end.

[Zombeaver]

Alrighty, it's done!

 

[dudechester]

Should ask here in the forum, in case anyone else has gone through every step to find this error I'm experiencing. It's probably something pretty straight forwards, but when launching "UUID Launcher"

"Unable to open database file" error >>>> 

What could / should I check please?

----

Hello World! <-no arguments passed->

Unhandled Exception: System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteException: unable to open database file
   at System.Data.SQLite.SQLite3.Open(String strFilename, String vfsName, SQLiteConnectionFlags connectionFlags, SQLiteOpenFlagsEnum openFlags, Int32 maxPoolSize, Boolean usePool)
   at System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteConnection.Open()
   at Launcher_uuid.Launcher_uuid.Hole_Name_aus_DB(String _uuid)
   at Launcher_uuid.Launcher_uuid.Main(String[] sArgs)

[Zombeaver]

It sounds like you haven't properly updated the paths in your Launcher_uuid.exe.config file.

I go over how to do that in the video but Eirulan also has written instructions in this post:

 

[reaper595]

how can u match gameplay clips ?

[Zombeaver]

2 hours ago, reaper595 said:

how can u match gameplay clips ?

Are you asking how your video snaps need to be named? They should be named by the library title.

If you want more in-depth look at media naming for Launchbox, you may want to look at the below post I made a while back. Video files follow the same rules.

 

[reaper595]

ahh so doing it this way i will have to remame 1800 videos all my videos are named same as whdload files

[dudechester]

On 11/24/2016 at 2:38 AM, Zombeaver said:

It sounds like you haven't properly updated the paths in your Launcher_uuid.exe.config file.

I go over how to do that in the video but Eirulan also has written instructions in this post:

 

Please ignore the WinUae in the path  That is just the old folder I used and never ended up changing.

Here you can see in screenshot,

Everything seems good to go.

The Launcher actually crashes completely when trying to run it alone even...

[dudechester]

Just FYI

- I've checked the paths, but they show in the screenshot as correct anyway.

- I've deleted the Launcher FSUAE database, created a fresh one, and tried running UUID Launcher with same result

- I've tried this with game UUID's and just the UUID Launcher on it's own with same result

The UUID Launcher crashes on launch every single time, no explanation.