zorkiii 11 Posted September 3, 2020 Awesome! For some reason Shamus has this huge nostalgia effect on me, I remember getting that one in a batch of copies from a friend in the mid 80's and being super drawn to it. The title music cracks me up too. Plus the Synapse logo and tones that play when it show up are great. Do you know the parameters that need to be used to run a specific game using NTSC rather than PAL? I know the majority of games were PAL but growing up in the USA I experienced most of them on NTSC and the music being slower (with PAL) just kills the feeling for me on some of these. I changed the core in retroarch to run on C64 NTSC but it seemed to switch it for everything. Would it be something in the ..\..\Retroarch\Retroarch.exe -L "..\..\Retroarch\cores\vice_x64_libretro.dll" "Game-Name.cmd" line to add in? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted September 3, 2020 No, it's done through the core options. If you change it there, it will change it for anything that doesn't have an existing core option (.opt) file for them. To change it per-game, you would change the value and then use the top option in the list to save a core option for the currently loaded game only. This creates an .opt file that's named after the game in config\Vice x64. These essentially work as overrides except they're specifically for core options. Be aware, however, that the vast majority of these games are designed for PAL. The only games that are setup to use NTSC are ones that specifically require it (few and far between). In some cases it will work for both, but I can't guarantee it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted September 3, 2020 It should also be noted that if you're going to do that, you should make sure you use the update that I posted a couple pages back, because the core options changed (because I'm using @Pixelpiper's core now). This is what's going to be used in all future releases so it would invalidate your new option files if you tried using then after updating to the next version. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 8, 2020 Alright y'all, I've been busy working on individual game releases for Zomb's Lair lately but I'm currently gearing up to resume work on C64 Dreams. Something that I thought might be helpful for the project would be for me to list the games that I've added as I go, preemptively, so that anyone that will be working on media/metadata for the DB can work on that beforehand rather than after the fact. I work on the Launchbox side of things as the last step of the process, so that would make things easier for me as well since I could just scrape the DB after the updates had already been made. I currently have 150 games picked out with the goal for the next version being 500, but not all of those 150 have been tested yet so I don't want to list them until I've done that (because they might turn out to be crap and end up getting removed). 67 of them are actually done though, so those are good to go. I'm sure that some of these have DB entries with media/metadata already, but I just figured doing it this way would make things easier for everyone. @Z3R0B4NG I don't know how involved you are with that side of things, but if there's anyone specifically you think I should shout out for that, just let me know. Spoiler 2438 The Return Ace of Aces Adventures of Tronic Age of Heroes, The Alien Bleed Aviator Arcade II Birdie Bird Bobby Bearing Centric Cybo-Cop Deadly Thunder Death Battle 2200 Drol Dungeon of Rott Escape to Murky Woods Forever Extending Hungry Snake, The Game of Harmony, The Ghost of Genghis Khan, The Ghost Town 64 Golden Pyramids, The Guild of Thieves, The Gun City Gun Runner (Mnemonic Productions) Gun Runner (The Power House) Gunboat Gunfighter Gunfighters Gunfright Guns 'n' Roses Gunslinger (Datasoft) Gunslinger (Virgin Mastertronic) Gunstar Gutt Blaster Guzzler Hades Nebula Hagar The Horrible Halcyon Halloween Halloween Police Halls of Death Hammer Boy Hercules - Slayer of the Damned Jumpman Junior Kobo64 Left 2 Die Left 2 Die Part 2 Magical Girl Mary vs E.V.I.L. Mancala Mega Tank Blasta Mirage Old West World, The Outlaw Project FX-64 Ring of Power, The Rudy Hammer Sizzler Sooper Froot Space Mission Space Swarm 64 Stellar Wars Storm Chase Summer Games Survival Messenger Tai-Pan Toilet Paper Stacker Winter Games Zambeezi I've also setup a Discord server for Zomb's Lair which includes a C64 Dreams channel for discussing the project, if anyone's interested. You can find it here. 2 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Z3R0B4NG 48 Posted October 8, 2020 Sorry ...i got nothing. ...and the 3D Box stuff i wanted to do for C64 all pretty much went nowhere. I just did a huge pass on SNES that took me 2 months and i really had to force myself to finish it, i do not feel ready to jump into the next big project just yet, i need some time off from the LBDB. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 8, 2020 That's perfectly understandable. Trust me, I know. I'll just post them in here as I go and hope for the best. If people see them and use that information to update the DB, great; if not, it'll just be business as usual regardless. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 19, 2020 45 new games since the last batch: Spoiler 720 Degrees Archon II BC's Quest for Tires Curse of Ra Flax H.A.T.E. Hangman's Hazard Hans Kloss Happy Gardening Happy Hacker Harald Hardtooth Hard Work Hardsync Harrier 7 Harrier Attack Harrier Combat Simulator Harvey Smith Showjumper Hassle Castle Hatchet Honeymoon Haunted Hill Haunted House (Planet Rock) Haunted Inn Haunted Mansion Havoc (Players Premier) Hawk Hawk Mission Hawk Mission II Hawk Mission III Hawk Patrol Hawkstorm Head Start Head The Ball Head to Head Karate Head-On (Compute) Headache Make My Day Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird - One on One Rambo III Sector Patrol Shamus Side Arms Super Nova Sword of Fargoal Temple of Apshai Trilogy You Had One Job Current full list of new titles (112 games total): Spoiler 2438 The Return 720 Degrees Ace of Aces Adventures of Tronic Age of Heroes, The Alien Bleed Archon II Aviator Arcade II BC's Quest for Tires Birdie Bird Bobby Bearing Centric Curse of Ra Cybo-Cop Deadly Thunder Death Battle 2200 Drol Dungeon of Rott Escape to Murky Woods Flax Forever Extending Hungry Snake, The Game of Harmony, The Ghost of Genghis Khan, The Ghost Town 64 Golden Pyramids, The Guild of Thieves, The Gun City Gun Runner (Mnemonic Productions) Gun Runner (The Power House) Gunboat Gunfighter Gunfighters Gunfright Guns 'n' Roses Gunslinger (Datasoft) Gunslinger (Virgin Mastertronic) Gunstar Gutt Blaster Guzzler H.A.T.E. Hades Nebula Hagar The Horrible Halcyon Halloween Halloween Police Halls of Death Hammer Boy Hangman's Hazard Hans Kloss Happy Gardening Happy Hacker Harald Hardtooth Hard Work Hardsync Harrier 7 Harrier Attack Harrier Combat Simulator Harvey Smith Showjumper Hassle Castle Hatchet Honeymoon Haunted Hill Haunted House (Planet Rock) Haunted Inn Haunted Mansion Havoc (Players Premier) Hawk Hawk Mission Hawk Mission II Hawk Mission III Hawk Patrol Hawkstorm Head Start Head The Ball Head to Head Karate Head-On (Compute) Headache Hercules - Slayer of the Damned Jumpman Junior Kobo64 Left 2 Die Left 2 Die Part 2 Magical Girl Mary vs E.V.I.L. Make My Day Mancala Mega Tank Blasta Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird - One on One Mirage Old West World, The Outlaw Project FX-64 Rambo III Ring of Power, The Rudy Hammer Sector Patrol Shamus Side Arms Sizzler Sooper Froot Space Mission Space Swarm 64 Stellar Wars Storm Chase Summer Games Super Nova Survival Messenger Sword of Fargoal Tai-Pan Temple of Apshai Trilogy Toilet Paper Stacker Winter Games You Had One Job Zambeezi 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 22, 2020 50 new games since the last batch. This brings the current total to 2160 (I removed 2 games from v0.20 that were duplicates with alternate region titles - Coil Cop and Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja). Spoiler Aliants - The Desperate Battle For Earth Beer Belly Burt's Brew Biz Brubaker Chameleon Heavy Metal - Modern Land Combat Vol. I Heavy Metal Deluxe Hektic Hektic II Helden Heli Rescue Hell for Leather Hell Zone Hell Zone II Hellfire Hellraid Helsings Hunt Hero 2020 Hero Quest Hero Quest II Hero Time Hero Time II Heroes of Midgard Hideous Hideous Bill and the Gi-Gants Hidihood High Frontier High Rise Highland Games Highlander Highway Encounter Hillsfar Himalayan Odyssey Hit and Run Baseball Hive Ho! Ho! Ho! Hobbit, The Hobgoblin Hockey Mania Hocus Focus Hole-in-One Holiday Cops Human Killing Machine International Ice Hockey Slam Dunk Zork - The Undiscovered Underground Zork I - The Great Underground Empire Zork II - The Wizard of Frobozz Zork III - The Dungeon Master Zork Quest I - Assault on Egreth Castle Zork Quest II - The Crystal of Doom Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 22, 2020 Aaaaaand the sweep through the GB64 H folder is done. Phew! 17,761 screenshots parsed between # and H... 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
denmiclaw 11 Posted October 23, 2020 Thank you very much for your work on this, it's great! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mordroc 0 Posted October 24, 2020 This is truly amazing what you've done. Thank you for sharing all your hard work. I've got this working very well on my W10 PC. Although I have Launchbox running, I've kept this separate to make it easy to run on its own. So great to play Jumpman again. I added your Jumpman Jr file as well. I have a couple questions on the magazine part. I've downloaded your full zip file of the magazines. 1. In LB, I can see that for each magazine it's pointing to the .url link you've set up. I can see the .bat and .vbs there. Looks like they call up the actual magazine file (if it's there). If I put the magazine files in the same folder structure, how do I tell LB to launch the vbs instead of the url? 2. I am running C64 Dreams off my C drive. I'd like to put the magazine files on my D drive. Can you instruct me how to fix the launch links to each magazine in LB? Thank you for the help. Again, and thanks for sharing this. I'm already making my own LB playlist of my favorites! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 24, 2020 On 10/22/2020 at 8:35 PM, denmiclaw said: Thank you very much for your work on this, it's great! 1 hour ago, mordroc said: This is truly amazing what you've done. Thank you for sharing all your hard work. You're very welcome! 1 hour ago, mordroc said: 1. In LB, I can see that for each magazine it's pointing to the .url link you've set up. I can see the .bat and .vbs there. Looks like they call up the actual magazine file (if it's there). If I put the magazine files in the same folder structure, how do I tell LB to launch the vbs instead of the url? Yeah I make the web version the default since the magazines are now a separate module. If you download the local versions you can right-click on an entry in LB and choose [Magazine Name] (Local) to launch them. If you wanted to make them the default launch, that's easy enough to do. You can do this on an individual basis by editing them, going to additional apps, selecting the local version and choosing "make default". If you wanted to do this en masse, you'd probably want to use something like Notepad++ and then open up C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Data\Platforms\Magazines.xml and do a find and replace all for " (Web Version).url" with ".vbs" Make sure you include the space before (Web Version). I would recommend backing up your .xml before doing this to be safe. 1 hour ago, mordroc said: 2. I am running C64 Dreams off my C drive. I'd like to put the magazine files on my D drive. Can you instruct me how to fix the launch links to each magazine in LB? You would need to again open up C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Data\Platforms\Magazines.xml in Notepad++ and do a find and replace of: <ApplicationPath>C64 Dreams\Magazines with <ApplicationPath>[your new path]\Magazines Everything is setup with relative paths so the Magazine folder will work unaltered so long as you've got everything included (i.e. everything in the folder including !CDisplayEx, the .bats, etc.). In other words, just make sure that you move the Magazines folder in its entirety (not just the .cbrs by themselves). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 25, 2020 I had an interesting idea the other day while talking about text adventures on the Zomb's Lair Discord - many of them have no sound or music, so the thought occurred to me that maybe I could sortof pipe in my own appropriate background SID music to help set the mood a bit better. I found a nice tiny SID player that runs directly from CMD called libsidplayfp so I can basically start this as part of a game's .bat, tell it to start a specific SID track (which loops), use an AHK script to watch for Retroarch to close and then close it and the AHK script. I already have this working, at this point it's just a matter of getting tracks picked out. I've found four so far that I like and would be appropriate (below). I'll be looking for more and am open to suggestions. I want stuff that's 1) relatively slow and low-key/atmospheric and 2) are original compositions not from game soundtracks. If anyone wants to help look for more and make any suggestions, a good place to start is the Unepic SID Channel which has over 50,000 SID tracks (!) uploaded, which you can go through in a single playlist if you go here. Stars Are Us by Jammer Stolen Properties by TDM Ghosts by SIDwave Neon Haze by The Solution Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mordroc 0 Posted October 25, 2020 Thank you for the advice. I used Notepad++ to made those changes (not forgetting the space before " (web version).url", which worked successfully. I checked and double-checked the new .xml and everything was updated to the .vbs. Unfortunately in LB the launch link is still the URL. For some reason even though the .xml has been updated, LB still wants to point to the .url. I am going to just fix the link for each magazine manually one by one in LB, which I know will solve the problem. No big deal. A small amount of time to take compared to the 1000's of hours you've clearly spent setting this up. And I actually just finished. Took about 10min. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 25, 2020 7 minutes ago, mordroc said: Thank you for the advice. I used Notepad++ to made those changes (not forgetting the space before " (web version).url", which worked successfully. I checked and double-checked the new .xml and everything was updated to the .vbs. Unfortunately in LB the launch link is still the URL. For some reason even though the .xml has been updated, LB still wants to point to the .url. I am going to just fix the link for each magazine manually one by one in LB, which I know will solve the problem. No big deal. A small amount of time to take compared to the 1000's of hours you've clearly spent setting this up. And I actually just finished. Took about 10min. That's strange because I tested it and it worked fine here. Glad you got it sorted at least. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mordroc 0 Posted October 25, 2020 26 minutes ago, Zombeaver said: That's strange because I tested it and it worked fine here. Glad you got it sorted at least. Thanks. Yeah I tried it three times with a fresh .xml. Checked and doublechecked after replacing the text. There were still other instances of "(web version)" left over in the xml (not with the .url part), so I wondered if that might have something to do with it. But it worked for you so who knows. Maybe in a future update you could include an extra .xml with the changes done (calling it something like "magazines.localvbs"), so someone could just rename the current one to ".old" and name "magazines.localvbs" to "magazines.xml". Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 26, 2020 Found some more tracks that are appropriate for text adventure background music. It still doesn't quite cover everything I want, but between these and the previous ones it's a good start anyway. Astral Travel by G-Fellow Catalyst by Jammer Downward by Kruthers Illbient by Jammer (can't find a video of this one) Lighthouse in a Storm by Mibri Lost in the Night by MCH (I really love this one; added it to The Curse of Rabenstein and it's just so much better) Street of My Soul by Jammer 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dampchimp 0 Posted October 28, 2020 Hi, I have an issue where everything is running really slowly when using your set-up. Standalone in a separate install, I get full speed without any problems. Isn't a performance limitation on my machine (I have a Ryzen 5 3600, so shouldn't be a problem running this). Any suggestions on any settings you are using in your emulators that might be causing my frame rate to run slowly? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zombeaver 1,894 Posted October 28, 2020 Read the performance section of the opening post. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ransom2211 2 Posted November 1, 2020 I have nothing but respect for the time & effort that went into this project. This is quality at its finest and will keep the c64 Alive for years to come. I have come to the party late but intrigued and exciting for the times ahead with this project. Thank you Zombeaver 🙏 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites