c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[Zombeaver]

@Z3R0B4NG Did you ever finish (or at least put together anything that's usable) that drop-in package of 3D boxes? Because I'm not sure how much more of this I can slog through. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I would rather be doing literally anything for this project other than the absolute tooth and nail fighting that I'm doing between LB and the DB at this point. Every other single aspect of this thing, even things that I'm fairly certain most people would consider miserably tedious, I'm completely fine with but I'm dying over here on the LB front. It's a constant dance of re-trying to match old stuff that isn't currently matched, sometimes it works and then I grab some new media and metadata, sometimes it matches the wrong game and then I have to go back and remove a bunch of media and metadata, going back through and trying to rescrape images for ones that are already matched to try to grab new 3D Boxes, finding out that some of those were matched to the wrong game to begin with (which probably had no media or metadata the last go round), removing stuff... it's just the absolute worst.

At this point I think I'm basically just going to try rescraping on stuff that just has a screenshot as a cover, get what I can get, and call it good enough for the time being. If you've got 3D boxes I can drop in I'll do it, but that basically requires a separate pass and I don't think I can do that this go round.

...Merrrrrrrry Christmas lol

[Z3R0B4NG]

oh god no... 
i knew i should have finished it ... i started from scratch like 3 times and gave up, i was at it for days and only got 185 of your 2000 games "done"  

i still have the files from the last attempt, i compressed them just now into a .rar ... any idea where i can upload a 2.5GB file?  

it is basically a bunch of *full* 3D box sets, with SOME of it renamed so it matches the names in C64 Dreams, most of it is still hit and miss and i guess there is a lot in there that isn't even in your collection, but i did clean up the sets so there isn't tons of duplicate stuff in there, so that's something.

[Zombeaver]

Hmm okay. I might still be able to get some stuff out of that.

Google Drive is usually what I recommend. I think you get like 20GB for free and there are no download limits like with Mega.

[Z3R0B4NG]

let me know when you got it.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RhI2h0H18Po5hkHuYEZEvfyEZpmIfOzd?usp=sharing

[Zombeaver]

Got it.

[Zombeaver]

Lotta good stuff in there. I made it through the first 250 games in a couple hours so not too bad.

[Z3R0B4NG]

ok, let me explain a bit what i did there

first of all those folders as they come out of the .rar i had simply in the Box - 3D folder, as you don't have your games tagged with regions LaunchBox doesn't prioritize any of these folders and while fiddling around i learned the LB doesn't look for actual region folders but takes everything that is in there.  

My idea was that the user could then decide themself which set to use and only drop that one in or two etc.  

there are some Alt 1 2 3 subfolders, those are ALSO seen by LaunchBox, those are ones that i had already sorted but that had more than one cover / region variant.

LaunchBox will see everything and randomly decide which of the variants to use when you just drop everything into the folder, and it will randomly decide each time it has to display it, you can press F5 on one of those multiple times and it will eventually change... it won't stay on that one specific box though, next time it will chose randomly again.  

There is a Alien (CP Verlag)-01.png and Zig-Zag-01.png in the root folder, those are there to stop LaunchBox from grabbing onto 3D Boxes that belong to other games with identical name but different publisher/dev. ...that was more of a test what LaunchBox would accept  "Alien (CP Verlag)-01.png" ...you see when you put a -01 behind the dev in parenthesis it will accept it only for this Alien game, if the game in LaunchBox is also NAMED like that. If you don't have the -01 it tends to ignore anything in parenthesis.  

Just something to keep in mind when you can't get rid of a 3D box that latched onto a wrong game that has no 3D box. (same naming logic applies to videos and everything else btw.)  

ok...  
some background to the folders themselve.

3D Box by marcoooo  
that was a huge set with a LOT of duplicate and broken pictures, the guy who made these just threw every cover he had into the template and didn't clean it up or did any quality control, just dumped it in the LaunchBox download section where i've found it .... there were tons of duplicates (side A B C D stuff mostly) lots of broken pictures, like covers that still had the spine and back on the front as well, those i deleted for the most part (at least the ones that instantly looked terrible).

3D Box EmuMovies  
i don't like those, ugly generic spine, this is just the set they have on EmuMovies, nobody touched C64 over there in years it seems, old set, but better than nothing.  

3D Box Generic  
same as above, ugly generic spine, better than nothing, but i don't know the original source, those were boxes that were scraped by LaunchBox and i kinda sorted them out into this folder.

3D Box LBDB  
this is what came from my new LBDB scrape... from over half a year ago, i'm sure a good amount of these have been replaced in the DB by now and a new scrape might be in order.  ...or just use as is.  

3D Box Screenscraper  
those i scraped from Screenscraper.fr (that needs an account and a scraper software, bit fiddly) that site uses a texture (with back,spine,cover) and generates these boxes on the site from a template, so when there are 500 or what more games in the collection now it would probably be a good idea to do a new scrape of those as well. (do you have a download with just the new games?)  
There was also a lot of cleanup work to do here because i didn't just scrape for your set but also the No-Intro sets and some other stuff and that database does not only use filenames but also file hashes, since your roms don't have the game name in the filename but only in the folder name that was very helpful.  

[Zombeaver]

Spoiler

6 hours ago, Z3R0B4NG said:

LaunchBox will see everything and randomly decide which of the variants to use when you just drop everything into the folder, and it will randomly decide each time it has to display it, you can press F5 on one of those multiple times and it will eventually change... it won't stay on that one specific box though, next time it will chose randomly again.  

There is a Alien (CP Verlag)-01.png and Zig-Zag-01.png in the root folder, those are there to stop LaunchBox from grabbing onto 3D Boxes that belong to other games with identical name but different publisher/dev. ...that was more of a test what LaunchBox would accept  "Alien (CP Verlag)-01.png" ...you see when you put a -01 behind the dev in parenthesis it will accept it only for this Alien game, if the game in LaunchBox is also NAMED like that. If you don't have the -01 it tends to ignore anything in parenthesis.  

I'm well aware of all that.

I've been going through and adding in/replacing existing ones with the marcoooo boxes as I think they look the best, and then following a priority order if other versions are the only option (or if there's some issue with the marcoooo one). marcoooo > Screenscraper > EmuMovies > whatever else. For games where nothing is available I'm taking whatever I'm using as a box cover and adding it to a Temp subfolder in Box - 3D so that a cover will still be visible for those games in 3D Box view. 

6 hours ago, Z3R0B4NG said:

(do you have a download with just the new games?)  

No, although the temp spreadsheet lists all the new ones at the bottom.

[Zombeaver]

First 600 games are done, so making good progress. I've also continued to add more manuals, currently at 877 with more to check from the spreadsheet so likely 900+ by the time it's done.

[Z3R0B4NG]

3 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

No, although the temp spreadsheet lists all the new ones at the bottom.

i would need the roms to scrape them from screenscraper, but ok.

also, check here again, i'm currently fixing the alt names for the games with duplicate names in the DB so it shouldn't be such a PITA to match them in LaunchBox anymore when i'm done (and now i need to fight the moderators who refuse to read the thread, even though i'm linking it all day long... aarrrgh, every damn time... as if it wasn't enough to have to schlock through 90+ pages in the DB): 

 

[Zombeaver]

On 12/26/2020 at 3:15 PM, Z3R0B4NG said:

i would need the roms to scrape them from screenscraper, but ok.

The roms are included. They're in the same post. You asked if there was a link to *just* the new roms. There isn't, but the download that I included does have the new roms (along with the old ones).

On 12/26/2020 at 3:15 PM, Z3R0B4NG said:

also, check here again, i'm currently fixing the alt names for the games with duplicate names in the DB so it shouldn't be such a PITA to match them in LaunchBox anymore when i'm done

Honestly, duplicate titles aren't really the problem at this point. The ones that were I already fixed. The issue is primarily with games that don't exist in the db period, and then when scraping it thinks it's something else - sometimes games that actually have the correct name but it's a different game, sometimes games that have a somehow vaguely similar name (but are also the wrong game).

[Zombeaver]

Okay, so I've made it through 1315 (53%) so far.

I'm not sure how many people that create the fanart media or 3D boxes follow this thread, but I figured I'd include the missing bits that I've come across so far.

Included below are two sets of media: a Temp-Cover folder and a Temp-Screenshot folder.

The Temp-Cover folder is for ones that have covers but no 3D Box, but are basically ready for that conversion to take place. @marcoooo if you happen to have any free time to convert these, I'd really appreciate it! Your 3D boxes are the ones I'm using in the set wherever available. There are also two covers that have better versions of the cover available than the ones used in the 3D Boxes - Guardian (which is currently using a multi-game cover) and Gutt Blaster (which is currently using a fanart box when there's an official box). I've included those below as well. Also of note is that there are two games based on Escape From New York but the 3D box was only for the Flash-Soft one a.k.a. "Escape from New York: Die Klapperschlange". There's a different game made by Ocean (actually the C64 version is a fan-made port *of* the game by Ocean which was on Spectrum). I included the cover for it in the Temp-Cover folder. There are some other games that have missing 3D boxes that I got alternate versions of so those aren't really a priority but if you want a list of those I can provide that as well.

The Temp-Screenshot folder is for ones that have neither a cover nor 3D box. These would need to have a fanart box created first, and then converted to 3D boxes. I'm not sure who typically does that. I know that @Lassiveran did the original set of boxes but I see new ones pop up in the DB every once in a while so I think someone else must be using a template. If anyone who's reading this does that or knows who does it and can ping them, any help is appreciated!

I'm continuing to make my way through them but figured I'd upload the missing bits at the current stage to give any relevant parties time to work on them in the interim.

As an aside, I also finished going through all the manuals resources at my disposal, including everything on that spreadsheet and I wound up with a grand total of 886. So that's done for the update. Not too bad. That means one out of every three games will have a togglable manual.

Temp-Cover.zip

Temp-Screenshot.zip

Better Covers.zip

[Zombeaver]

A quick correction from the above - Amazon (1991) does have a fanart cover already, though no 3D box. It's in the db currently as "Amazon (CA Verlags)". I realized this because I discovered another duplicate game in the collection with alternate region title - Hero 2020 / Galivan (kept Galivan) and added in Amazon (Telarium).

[Emulatorsunited]

I reccently downloaded this magnificent package of games and replaced my c64 in launchbox with this one!

i have one problem, my controller is not working. I use a speedlink controller with Xbox layout. I got really excited to see the buttons were mapped, but so for no luck in getting it to work. 
Before I start fiddling to much and break something I thought it wise to ask here. I was under the assumption it was plug and play, but maybe I am missing something.

[Zombeaver]

360 and XB1 controllers are what's used for testing. I can't guarantee if anything else will work (other than keyboard) or how well. It's possible that you just need to update the autoconfig profiles in Retroarch.

When you tested, were you using the current release version (0.20) or the public test for the upcoming update (0.35)? The update uses a newer version of Retroarch, a newer version of the core, etc. and I believe I updated the autoconfig profiles since then as well.

[Emulatorsunited]

Thank you for your reply! I used the 0.20 version, but I am definitely gonna update to 0.35. 
 

I am determined to make this work! This is such a great collection!! Thanks for all your effort!

[Zombeaver]

The public test doesn't have Launchbox at all, because that's what's being finished up at this point, but would at least let you test to see if there's any difference for the controller. You just have to go into the games folder and then into a game's subfolder and start the .vbs within.

If it still isn't working in that version try pulling up the Retroarch UI (numpad minus + F1) and go to the online updater and update the autoconfig profiles. Those are basically the configs that tell Retroarch what kind of controller you're using (assuming your controller is one that's had one created for it - there are a lot of them, so chances are good).

If it still doesn't work, you may need to setup a config for your controller manually.

That said, worst case scenario is you could pick up an official 360 or XB1 controller and everything should just work as-is. I'm limited in what I have access to to test with, so those are what's used as they're the most common.

[Emulatorsunited]

Thank you for these instructions! I will try this. And since I have been looking into getting a new controller, I might as wel get me an official one!

[Zombeaver]

I took a look at the profiles that are included currently and the only reference I saw to speedlink was for a "SPEED-LINK Competition Pro" which is a 2600/C64 style joystick so that wouldn't work. If there's a way to set it up as a generic xinput device that might work. If there's a way to set your controller to xinput mode, you need to be using that. It would say "Xinput Controller (User 1)" when you connect it while Retroarch is running.

 

[Zombeaver]

I've sorted through the 3D boxes for the first 1650 games (66%). I'll upload a new set of the missing media once I've made it through the rest.

@edgemundo was gracious enough to offer to help with some of the missing 3D boxes as well so yay for that! ?