A little help with Demul

[SentaiBrad]

For it to pick up the associated platform info, the names of the platforms need to match. So if you have "Naomi" as a platform, it needs to say "Naomi" in the associated platform. If you have "Sega Dreamcast", it needs to say exactly "Sega Dreamcast". What ever you called your platform, it needs to say that for the name for the command you want to run. That's always been true for any emulator you use the associated command line parameters for.

[DfknG]

23 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

For it to pick up the associated platform info, the names of the platforms need to match. So if you have "Naomi" as a platform, it needs to say "Naomi" in the associated platform. If you have "Sega Dreamcast", it needs to say exactly "Sega Dreamcast". What ever you called your platform, it needs to say that for the name for the command you want to run. That's always been true for any emulator you use the associated command line parameters for.

thanks Brad, makes perfect sense, but how do the automatic playlists fall into this? As Sega Naomi is a playlist that spun up automatically out of Arcade?

[SentaiBrad]

All of the Arcade based games are in the MAME set, and for the most part, these games will run in MAME (with some exceptions), but there are cases where they run better in something like Demul, Supermodel 3, etc. Since the games in playlists are just copies of that exact entry, they're not being duplicated, they're still in the same platform just a filtered view. You can go in to that playlist, change the platform of those to something; Say like the Naomi playlist, go in to it and bulk edit the platform while in that playlist view. The platform will change for the original games, and then you can move from there. The alternative, which is what I'm working on right now actually, is to run scripts to copy the roms from your MAME folder to a new folder, move those folders, then import them as games in to their own platform on their own. The script method is a bit more... cumbersome, but then you have all those games off in their own folder somewhere. If you do the method where you bulk edit the platform of the games in your playlist, all those games will still be in the MAME/roms folder.

[SentaiBrad]

Speaking of those Demul scripts, I finished editing them up:

 

[DfknG]

49 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

All of the Arcade based games are in the MAME set, and for the most part, these games will run in MAME (with some exceptions), but there are cases where they run better in something like Demul, Supermodel 3, etc. Since the games in playlists are just copies of that exact entry, they're not being duplicated, they're still in the same platform just a filtered view. You can go in to that playlist, change the platform of those to something; Say like the Naomi playlist, go in to it and bulk edit the platform while in that playlist view. The platform will change for the original games, and then you can move from there. The alternative, which is what I'm working on right now actually, is to run scripts to copy the roms from your MAME folder to a new folder, move those folders, then import them as games in to their own platform on their own. The script method is a bit more... cumbersome, but then you have all those games off in their own folder somewhere. If you do the method where you bulk edit the platform of the games in your playlist, all those games will still be in the MAME/roms folder.

Right, this probably is the root cause of my issue then. Because the platform name is Arcade but the Playlist name is Sega Naomi for eg that's why the associated platform component isn't working.

I'm not sure why its working the way I set it up then, I don't really care tbh but I like the explanation. I'll give your script a whirl!

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, that will do it. Playlists are an extension, a mirror image to filter out games, not a copy of the games to a new platform.

[JamesBond@ge]

5 hours ago, DfknG said:

Right, this probably is the root cause of my issue then. Because the platform name is Arcade but the Playlist name is Sega Naomi for eg that's why the associated platform component isn't working.

I'm not sure why its working the way I set it up then, I don't really care tbh but I like the explanation. I'll give your script a whirl!

I also noticed that you didn't have the "don't use quotes" checkbox checked in the very first screenshot you posted, whereas Brad has his one checked.

I don't know if this matters but it's just a thought.

***Edit. I've just looked at my own screenshot and neither do I have it checked lol. I am only running Dreamcast from Demul, so I dunno. Maybe worth a look.***

Edited April 18, 2017 by JamesBond@ge
my own douchebaggery

[DOS76]

You shouldn't need the don't use quotes box at all.

[flatuswalrus]

Despite all this great help on the forums and a few other tutorials I am falling short on getting the SEGA Dreamcast up and running. AtomisWave and Naomi are working fine in the separately created emulator I made on LaunchBox called Demul (Arcade) but Dreamcast won't work. Here are some screenshots which will hopefully help someone more knowledgeable lend a hand and fault find:

I followed the Unbroken Software tutorial on YouTube but it did not show exactly what files BIOS wise needed to be included, just the folders and zip files they were in. I have got a ton of crap I wouldn't need but surely as a result of trying to find the right thing I do have what I need:

As for the GD-ROM the only thing I have in my Demul roms folder that it accepts is a file: DC - Utopia CD Loader V1.1.nrg.

When I launch a game in LaunchBox it gets no further than this:

Can anyone see anything obviously wrong in my setup? Thank you in advance.

[JamesBond@ge]

Select the option "Config" and then "Plugins and Paths".

There is a drop down menu for "GD-ROM plugin". This needs to be "gdrImage". Possibly.

[flatuswalrus]

13 minutes ago, JamesBond@ge said:

Select the option "Config" and then "Plugins and Paths".

There is a drop down menu for "GD-ROM plugin". This needs to be "gdrImage". Possibly.

I feel like that lady right now, embarrassed and ashamed of myself but happy that I can partake in the comfort of the delicious food Dreamcast games.

Edited May 27, 2018 by Dane

[JamesBond@ge]

Haha. It is a common mistake with that emulator. I think I might have fallen for it myself. 

Also, don't be put off if the games are a bit stuttery at first. Demul caches the graphics in a folder called "scache" in real time. So the more you use the emulator, the more of the cache gets built up. Once a lot of games have been cached, Demul runs as smooth as butter. I love that emulator.

Edited May 27, 2018 by JamesBond@ge

[flatuswalrus]

7 minutes ago, JamesBond@ge said:

Haha. It is a common mistake with that emulator. I think I might have fallen for it myself. 

Also, don't be put off if the games are a bit stuttery at first. Demul caches the graphics in a folder called "scache" in real time. So the more you use the emulator, the more of the cache gets built up. Once a lot of games have been cached, Demul runs as smooth as butter. I love that emulator.

That is very interesting and great to know as the first game I tried was very jumpy indeed but the following games were less so. Thank you very much.

[vahacris]

Hi, 

I don't want to start new topic about Sega Dreamcast so I put it here. I got question about multiple disc games. I want to add my DC games collection to LB and for other platforms it was a problem so i ask before adding. How to add 2 or 3 disc games? should i only add .cdi file for disc one and keep another disc in the same directory as the disc one?

 

[OKTrashPanda]

On 5/27/2018 at 2:46 AM, JamesBond@ge said:

Haha. It is a common mistake with that emulator. I think I might have fallen for it myself. 

Also, don't be put off if the games are a bit stuttery at first. Demul caches the graphics in a folder called "scache" in real time. So the more you use the emulator, the more of the cache gets built up. Once a lot of games have been cached, Demul runs as smooth as butter. I love that emulator.

Huh...  Suddenly it all makes sense.  I'd been having problems with Blue Stinger.  Could get a little further each time but the crashing was so constant I gave up.  Thanks for pointing this out. Now I feel like I can try again.

[JamesBond@ge]

1 hour ago, vahacris said:

Hi, 

I don't want to start new topic about Sega Dreamcast so I put it here. I got question about multiple disc games. I want to add my DC games collection to LB and for other platforms it was a problem so i ask before adding. How to add 2 or 3 disc games? should i only add .cdi file for disc one and keep another disc in the same directory as the disc one?

 

That is a good question actually and one that I don't know the answer to. The reason being is that I'm quite rubbish at games and have never got so far that I've needed to swap discs, on any system lol.

I have my discs in separate archive files. I have imported them all and then they come up as duplicates in the Audit feature. I have then consolidated them in LaunchBox so that all the discs are consolidated under Disc 1. As for the method of actually switching discs while in game, I'm not actually sure about in Demul. I might try and play a game for more than an hour for research purposes so I can be of more help 

[JamesBond@ge]

34 minutes ago, strizzuth said:

Huh...  Suddenly it all makes sense.  I'd been having problems with Blue Stinger.  Could get a little further each time but the crashing was so constant I gave up.  Thanks for pointing this out. Now I feel like I can try again.

Yeah, I was really put off by this stuttering in Demul until I realised it was creating a cache of each game in real time. I've never deleted the cache either and I have transferred it to each new version of Demul that has come out. Even now, after about 3 years of using it, I'll still get the odd stutter or freeze, I guess this is when the game throws up a new texture, but it rarely happens now. I'd sometimes just run random DC games in BigBox and go away and make dinner or something just so Demul can cache it up. Infact, I'm gonna give Blue Stinger a go in a minute and see what happens. It's been a while.

FYI too, the Cemu (Wii U) emulator does a similar sort of thing. Those caches are way more involved though, with some forums created specifically for posting and trading Cemu caches heh.

[flatuswalrus]

On 5/27/2018 at 4:46 PM, JamesBond@ge said:

Also, don't be put off if the games are a bit stuttery at first. Demul caches the graphics in a folder called "scache" in real time. So the more you use the emulator, the more of the cache gets built up. Once a lot of games have been cached, Demul runs as smooth as butter. I love that emulator.

I was playing a few Dreamcast titles today and it made me think of this. I was curious if it would be possible for people to share their scache folder to help someone else's emulator perform better? I don't know if this would encroach into sharing ROMs etc. I have 843 items in my scache folder and I am sure there would be some with a ton more than that?

[DOS76]

I wouldn't think that sharing scache folders would break any rules also if you guys wanted to discuss and do it through PMs who would even know but like I said I don't think sharing them is an issue to begin with.

[flatuswalrus]

Thank you, I will be curious to hear how large other people's scache folder are then if anyone cares to divulge.