Jason Carr Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 And here's beta 5, finally with the start of the combine ROMs features. For this release, I wouldn't yet try to start over on imports for your collections; testing should be done in a separate installation for now. Going forward I'm planning on adding prioritization options for the default ROM to use, as well as possibly a way to migrate your existing games to merged format. I'm not sure if the migration will make it into the next official release or not, however. Anyways, on imports, there's a new option in the wizard to "combine ROMs with matching titles into a single game", and it's selected by default. Let me know how it goes guys. 8
Peridot Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 Tested it with Ace Combat 3 in Big Box. It's working pretty well. A minor issue: When selecting "Play (USA) game" or "Play (Japan) game", Big Box doesn't show the "Loading game" screen. It shows up just fine if I hit "play". I also tried it with "Bust a Groove" / "Bust A Move - Dance & Rhythm Action" and it didn't work since the names differ quite a bit. Would it be possible in the future to manually group games together. I dunno, select 2 and right click "combine"? There are many games which the names are different depending on the region. Anyways, it's a great feature, it ties up the collection pretty nicely. MAME will benefit from this a lot. 2
Jason Carr Posted February 3, 2017 Author Posted February 3, 2017 Thanks @Peridot, all good to know. Yes, we will have an option to manually group games in there at some point, hopefully before the official release. 2
neil9000 Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 @Jason Carr, Excellent!! I have just re-imported my Atari 2600 games which I had previously deleted because that section was a mess, so many duplicates. It is now a lot cleaner with abut 450 games instead of about 2000. However I do have a few duplicate still and I'm not sure why, see attached screenshot. You'll notice I have Pitfall 2 twice even though the name is identical, it's not the only one though any ideas? Thanks for a great update as usual though.
neil9000 Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 4 hours ago, Peridot said: Tested it with Ace Combat 3 in Big Box. It's working pretty well. A minor issue: When selecting "Play (USA) game" or "Play (Japan) game", Big Box doesn't show the "Loading game" screen. It shows up just fine if I hit "play". I also tried it with "Bust a Groove" / "Bust A Move - Dance & Rhythm Action" and it didn't work since the names differ quite a bit. Would it be possible in the future to manually group games together. I dunno, select 2 and right click "combine"? There are many games which the names are different depending on the region. Anyways, it's a great feature, it ties up the collection pretty nicely. MAME will benefit from this a lot. That pick two and right click is a great idea, it could even be used for game series, for example highlight super Mario bros 1, 2, and 3 combine then rename to Mario bros nes series or similar. You could then favorite that game and all nes Mario games would be at the start of your list under one umbrella game. 1
neil9000 Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 @Jason Carr, just a little thing I have noticed, I have the "skip game details screen" checked so that my games launch without seeing that screen, I do have it set to the back button on my controller though so it's there if I need it. So is there any way you could add a prompt when I launch a game just before the "now loading" box to choose the version I want to run without having to head to that screen first to launch a game? It's just that it's a extra step needed when most games wont have other versions anyway. No worries if that seems too much work for the outcome, I can always turn that screen back on I just prefer it off personally. Just a thought.
locvez Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 1 hour ago, neil9000 said: @Jason Carr, Excellent!! I have just re-imported my Atari 2600 games which I had previously deleted because that section was a mess, so many duplicates. It is now a lot cleaner with abut 450 games instead of about 2000. However I do have a few duplicate still and I'm not sure why, see attached screenshot. You'll notice I have Pitfall 2 twice even though the name is identical, it's not the only one though any ideas? It might be worth posting the entire file names for these games so we have more info on possible issues? 2
neil9000 Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 2 minutes ago, locvez said: It might be worth posting the entire file names for these games so we have more info on possible issues? Ah good point!! I see why they are separate now, they are named slightly different. Pitfall 2 (1984) (Activision) (PAL) [!] and Pitfall II - Lost Caverns (1984) (Activision) [!] So it looks like its a 2 vs a II issue. 1
Omen Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 If I don't have any duplicates, and don't plan on importing any, will this update mess with my current setup, or should everything be ok? Like will I update and then all of my stuff is gone, and have to be reimported?
Jason Carr Posted February 3, 2017 Author Posted February 3, 2017 @OmenBoy For this beta, only imports should be affected, so it should be safe enough to use otherwise. Regular backups are always a good idea though when using the betas. 1
Jason Carr Posted February 3, 2017 Author Posted February 3, 2017 Good find @locvez and @neil9000. I guess we might want to do some fuzzy logic to help out with that kind of stuff. 1
Omen Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 (edited) @Jason Carr Ok ill update then, I have a complete backup from about a month ago, but I'll backup my artwork and LB install just to be safe. Edited February 3, 2017 by OmenBoy
ALIE Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 (edited) Hey @Jason Carr I re imported the entire NO intro Snes set and it seems to be doing a great job with merging them together. Only ones that is sticking out is Japanese versions with different names. Could this be fixed with alternative titles in the DB? Edit.. Actually some Japanese versions ev with the exact same game title is separated. 2020 super is one of them. Edited February 3, 2017 by ALIE
Jason Carr Posted February 3, 2017 Author Posted February 3, 2017 34 minutes ago, ALIE said: Hey @Jason Carr I re imported the entire NO intro Snes set and it seems to be doing a great job with merging them together. Only ones that is sticking out is Japanese versions with different names. Could this be fixed with alternative titles in the DB? Edit.. Actually some Japanese versions ev with the exact same game title is separated. 2020 super is one of them. Currently only the file names are used, so if the file names differ outside of anything in parenthesis or brackets, then they probably won't be combined. We are going to improve on this method here at some point, yes. 1
cammelspit Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 Hey, Jason, I noticed that there isn't a specific way to set a default version of the game when you launch the game by simply double clicking it. So for me, every time I double-click a ROM it opens up the European version or Japanese version on some games rather than the USA version, which would be my preference generally speaking. Also, super cool that this feature has been added. I have been waiting for this for so long, you have absolutely no idea how happy this makes me. 2
Kevin_Flynn Posted February 3, 2017 Posted February 3, 2017 ^ It would seem it needs a priority list similar to the artwork.
DR9 Posted February 4, 2017 Posted February 4, 2017 10 hours ago, neil9000 said: @Jason Carr, just a little thing I have noticed, I have the "skip game details screen" checked so that my games launch without seeing that screen, I do have it set to the back button on my controller though so it's there if I need it. So is there any way you could add a prompt when I launch a game just before the "now loading" box to choose the version I want to run without having to head to that screen first to launch a game? It's just that it's a extra step needed when most games wont have other versions anyway. No worries if that seems too much work for the outcome, I can always turn that screen back on I just prefer it off personally. Just a thought. Need a new option to "if skipcheck is true then if game_x is combined" show a prompt with a list to pick the region.
Jason Carr Posted February 4, 2017 Author Posted February 4, 2017 @cammelspit @Kevin_Flynn That's what I meant by prioritization options in the post. I actually just put out 7.7-beta-6 with those features: @DR9 We'll do something like that eventually. Closing this thread again guys because beta 6 is out.
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