c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[oniotaku]

Can I merge this c64dreams  with my current launchbox build? When I merge it with my build the pictures will not display. How can I fix this issue. Thanks

[launchretrogirl2562]

10 hours ago, Cloudster said:

I have a 65" 4K TV in my living room which is in another part of the house and I use it as my media/gaming/entertainment space. I stream the games from my office PC using steamlink to the Apple TV 4K in my living room. I would like to know what's a good Big Box/Launchbox theme to use for C64 Dreams so that I can easily read everything and navigate easily and access all of its contents with ease? I'm currently using 'Colorful' for Big Box, and it looks very nice, but looks terrible with C64 Dreams.

 

I dont think this has anything to do with the theme you are using. This looks like you are streaming a spanned (1 and 2) screen.
can u not disable one screen and only show LB or BB on your second screen (65" TV)?
Cause that doesn't look correct at all.

Also, when u use a second screen, like a 4K TV, it is always best to set the scaling of that screen to atleast 250%

Edited January 28 by launchretrogirl2562

[launchretrogirl2562]

1 hour ago, oniotaku said:

Can I merge this c64dreams  with my current launchbox build? When I merge it with my build the pictures will not display. How can I fix this issue. Thanks

Yes ofcourse that is possible.
All the details and how to achieve this are in the first pages of this forum thread.

 

[launchretrogirl2562]

@Zombeaver : Are there any status updates on C64 Dreams progress? Much obliged 🙇‍♂️

[bionicgeekgrrl]

On 4/18/2025 at 9:52 PM, launchretrogirl2562 said:

@Zombeaver : Are there any status updates on C64 Dreams progress? Much obliged 🙇‍♂️

Doesn't look like he's been active here (this thread) since May last year and not visited the site since February.

Life might just have gotten in the waẏ oḟ him working on it, we'll just have to be patient unless someone else fancies forking/carrying on his work i guess, which would be a big undertaking.

[NLS]

Every time we asked, when he finally replied, he said that the project is not dead.
He has indeed RL things to manage (which is of course priority for all of us), but also with whoever I discussed it, looks like he also lost interest.
Maybe someday he wakes up a different way and goes forward with the project.

Since there IS little progress after last release, I asked to release maybe a WIP, but he said no.
In practice the project is dead. I mean how do you call a project versioned by the creator himself 0.XX (where 1.0 is the target to go through all the letters of GameBase64 - plus anything else he adds) that hasn't got an update since exactly TWO years ago (May of 23). I mean we are not a group of Highlanders, two years is a measurable portion of human life.

That said, his work remains remarkable, could very well be the best curated C64 collection and pre-1.0 or not, it still works fine as is.
I would love if someone could clone (or again find interest himself) and evolve this with the same attention to detail.

If anybody is listening I would love two things for a future version:
1) BigBox (i.e. videos etc.) to get some love. I started a sub-project about this, but I also abandoned it (I didn't see much interest).
2) A config "switch" to turn C64 borders back on. Because some (most?) of us love the C64 AS we remember it, with the big borders around it. We have discussed it with Zomb and I understand his reasoning, but still would love a "switch".

 

[Zombeaver]

Neither I nor the project are dead. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they're talking about and does not speak for me.

Work has not stopped since the last version. It has slowed at points because of significant IRL issues which I've neither the obligation nor the inclination to share because they're frankly no one's business but my own. What I can say is that, despite that, I've continued to work on it. The reason that the next version hasn't been released yet is a combination of those issues and, more significantly, that there are major changes/improvements that will be coming in the next version that require massive amounts of time to complete. There have been significant feature additions in the past like manual swapping that caused delays and the changes in this version require multiple times more work than that. It's a process, a tedious and time consuming one, but it's a process that needs to be done. Again and again and again and again and again and again... and eventually I'll come out of the hole, blink at the sun, and be done. But I'm not there yet. And I won't compromise the quality or standards of the project for anyone, just because they want it sooner. If that's too much to ask, that's unfortunately, as they say, tough shit. I don't report to or work for anyone. I have a vision that will be maintained. I have not dedicated years of my life to this project to either throw it away or let anyone else dictate how I should use my own skills and my own efforts and my own time.

Gamebase64 has been around for 20+ years. CSDb.dk has been around for 30+ years. The library itself spans 40+ years because they're still being made and released to this day. I have to take all of that, gather it all in my arms, dump it in a pile, and turn it into something manageable, into something presentable, and into something usable, while maintaining the high standards that I hold myself to. And I have to do that, essentially, by myself. There are a number of very significant contributors in this space that this project would not be what it is were it not for their efforts - that cannot be overstated - and I am immensely grateful to those people. I try to name them by name - people like StatMat, sonninnos, the Ultimate Tape Archive team, everyone at GB64 and CSDb and more - and thank them as often as I can because I know firsthand the tedium and the effort that is required for these sorts of projects. But C64 Dreams, itself, is largely a one-man show. That can of course be a disadvantage at times because it means that it takes longer because 99.7% of the work is on my shoulders, but it also means that the end result is exactly what I want it to be. And people are, thankfully, generally pretty positive about that. Even people that have no idea what all work it actually entails (which is to say, essentially everyone), often one of the first things they say is "Wow... this must have been a lot of work." That would be an accurate assessment.

I've worked on a number of emulation-related projects over the years that I've released to the public (C64 Dreams of course being the most significant of these) and, in every single case, they were endeavors that I undertook, ultimately, for myself - because I wanted things to be a certain way, because I wanted the experience to be better. But I decided hey, you know what, I'm putting in all this work for things that others might also appreciate, I might as well put this out into the wild. But the other part of that statement is the fact that I've also not released things publicly numerous times over the years for no other reason than just not wanting to deal with everything that entails. When I read comments like this, I feel completely justified in that decision. Not only is it not helpful in any way, not only does it actively undermine your own stated intent of seeing faster progress given the fact that it aggravates the one person that's actually putting in that work, but it also discourages anyone else that might consider for a moment whether or not they should publicly release projects like this. Why would anyone want to deal with that? Why would anyone see this kind of entitled attitude and say to themselves "Yeah, I want to use my time, my money, my mental energy, my sleep, my skills, and the cost of not using those things over the course of years of my life for myself, my family, and my friends... for this guy."

When it's done, it'll be released. Until it is, it won't be. Period.