c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[frank70]

Minor Bug Report

I'm observing a couple things (nothing major) that seem a little off in C64 Dreams - they could be something about my system, or they could affect everybody. So, I'll report them here just in case they are real bugs that can be fixed in the next release or via Hotfix:

1. The Commodore key (left ctrl) and the CTRL key (tab) are not persistent. By that I mean that if I hold one of them down (like the Shift, Combo, or Windows keys which work fine) they only take effect on the first keystroke after one of them is depressed - after that, it's as if they are not depressed. This is in contrast to the C64 where they behave the same way as Shift, having their effect as long as held down.

2. The text adventure game entitled "Zork - The Undiscovered Underground" loads and runs fine but during play certain keys do not work (either do nothing, enter something random, or enter the wrong character); minimally these are the I, J, K, M, N, O, 9, 0 keys though there may be more. These same keys behave properly when playing any of the other "Zork" adventure games.

[frank70]

C64 Dreams Key Mapping

The key mapping in emulation mode (RetroArch) seems to be partially documented here-and-there over the previous 42 pages of this forum. I skimmed the forum and tried to fill in the rest by typing every key combo and seeing what it did. Here is what I got for the unshifted and combo key functions (the functions for C=+key and SHIFT+key are fairly well known, and very hard to draw, so I'll leave them to your imagination)

I've attached a PDF here:  C64 Dreams Keys.pdf so you can save/print it.

The Windows keys just pass thru and perform their usual Windows functions.

I'm sure I missed something, so please post if there are any keys that need to be added or corrected.

Edited November 17, 2023 by frank70
Fix the F4 key and remove F4 discussion

[Zombeaver]

14 hours ago, frank70 said:

1. The Commodore key (left ctrl) and the CTRL key (tab) are not persistent. By that I mean that if I hold one of them down (like the Shift, Combo, or Windows keys which work fine) they only take effect on the first keystroke after one of them is depressed - after that, it's as if they are not depressed. This is in contrast to the C64 where they behave the same way as Shift, having their effect as long as held down.

In what context would this ever actually be an issue? I'm not aware of ever needing this for anything in the context of these games. I've never needed it in the course of testing anyway. Generally speaking the only thing you're going to use either one of those for in this setting is on their own to invoke some in-game function i.e. press C= to continue or CTRL to access a menu, etc. I honestly can't think of a single example where I've ever needed/wanted to hold one of them down and start continually typing for some reason. So if there's an actual use case for that, I don't know what it is even after testing nearly 4000 games at this point. If the contention is simply that "it's different", and not a needed usability/functionality problem, I'm not all that concerned about that to be honest.

14 hours ago, frank70 said:

2. The text adventure game entitled "Zork - The Undiscovered Underground" loads and runs fine but during play certain keys do not work (either do nothing, enter something random, or enter the wrong character); minimally these are the I, J, K, M, N, O, 9, 0 keys though there may be more. These same keys behave properly when playing any of the other "Zork" adventure games.

Confirmed. Looks like it's the result of a faulty auto-state. Go into the game's folder and replace with the contents of the attached file.

Zork - The Undiscovered Underground.state.7z

6 hours ago, frank70 said:

My biggest surprise is that the F4 key invokes the Windows game bar video recording function, alternately starting and stopping the recording. The video is saved in Videos\Captures as an mp4. So if you actually want to enter F4, you need to do a SHIFT-F3 like in the good-ol-C64 days. Also the Windows keys just pass thru and perform their usual Windows functions.

No, it doesn't. If that's occurring, it's something on your end that is causing it to do that. My suggestion would be to disable the Windows game bar inputs (or disabling it altogether). I have no control over whatever external software you're running on top of C64 Dreams that's designed to continually read inputs. If you have inputs for Nvidia Shadowplay, for example, that interfere, there's nothing I can do about that. Your software is going to do what you tell it to do. The only thing that F4 does in the context of C64 Dreams is (on its own) send an F4 input in-game or when combined with the combo key loads a savestate.

Nice job on the keymap, minus the F4 thing. That's otherwise accurate. It's probably worth noting that all of the combo key functions minus the stuff on the numpad and arrow keys aren't actually specific to C64 Dreams though, those are just normal RA hotkey functions for those keys. You've covered pretty much all the relevant stuff there already though.

[frank70]

6 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

 

No, it doesn't. If that's occurring, it's something on your end that is causing it to do that.

You're absolutely correct! Microsoft snuck that in on me. The official key combo for this function according to Microsoft is Windows+Alt+R. Guess some keyboards couldn't handle 3 keys at once, so they added an undocumented shortcut.

Anyway, it's fixed in my post above (both the image and the PDF). F4 is back being F4.

[Voljega]

Hello ExoConverter now supports C64 Dreams, which will allow you to convert this fabulous collection to most of EmulationStation based retrogaming distribution (retropie, recalbox, batocera, retrobat)
https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter/releases/tag/0.9.5-beta

While working on the converter I found some small issues:
https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter/wiki/Known-Issues:-C64-Dreams

Edited November 17, 2023 by Voljega

[Zombeaver]

6 hours ago, Voljega said:

While working on the converter I found some small issues:
https://github.com/Voljega/ExoDOSConverter/wiki/Known-Issues:-C64-Dreams

This is erroneous. The existing contents of the m3u are correct.

The ":boot" portion refers to a specific sub-PRG in the disk image:

Any instances where this is specified it's needed and there for a reason. There are many instances where this is handled via the .cmd, but in cases where it's multi-disc it's done via the .m3u. In this specific case you'll literally never be able to play the game with the way you've changed it. The starting PRG allows you to set the trainers, then saves them to disk. Then you reset and load BOOT and the game starts. With what you have you'll be stuck in a perpetual loop of setting the trainers and never playing the game.

The VICE Retroarch core reads specified sub PRGs in both .cmd and .m3u format, though the formatting is slightly different between them - quotes are used in .cmds but not in .m3us. Crystal Fever is an example of the latter. 2000 Kung-Fu Maniacs (below) is an example of the former. Any time these are specified they should never, ever, be removed. You will break games any time you do this.

_________

That's already the contents of that .m3u, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

_________

Once again, that's already the contents of that .m3u so I'm not sure what you're talking about here either.

I'm not sure if you're using some old version of C64 Dreams or what, but there's nothing wrong with any of these. And in the first case the change you're making is incorrect outright.

I appreciate you working on your project, it's definitely cool in theory, but I don't use any of the software you mentioned so I don't really have a way to confirm whether or not anything breaks as result of it so I can't exactly provide a complete endorsement here. I can tell you just in the limited scope of that issues page you linked that there are some problems here. Considering how much I end up using external (and Windows-based) software for things like manual swapping, custom controller mapping, custom SID music, etc. I would honestly be really dubious that this would be able to accomplish more than the most basic functionality.

[Voljega]

@Zombeaver

As said in the README, the integration is preliminary, and obviously there's still a lot to work on.

I didn't know about anything about the boot thing for instance, so I I'll have to handle that better, both for m3u and cmd usage

There's only one example for the whole collection where this is done inside m3u
The cmd seems directly launched by retroarch-vice ? EDIT: it works with removing the " and putting that into an m3u, so I will do that

For the 2 games with missing disks in the m3u, I certainly didn't put them there myself, so at one part or another they were here for me and likely for a lot of users (I downloaded the collection in last August or July I think)

Manual swapping is supported through m3us on several emulators without issues.

I also mentioned that custom mapping part is not done, and I intend to get there too, just have to convert the format of the tool you use and find where the files are.

In the end if this doesn't work, there are other custom mapping system which can be used anyway.

Same thing for the SID music which I don't even know what it is and how it's used.

In the end, some things will not be convertible, and I'm ok with that.

Anyway, I'm not saying the converter is perfect, nor do I ask you to support it in both sense of the word.

If something does not work, users will create issues on my github and I will try to analyse the issue and that's it, it's not on you.


 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Voljega

[Zombeaver]

7 hours ago, Voljega said:

EDIT: it works with removing the " and putting that into an m3u, so I will do that

This isn't always an option. There are limitations to its implementation in .m3u form that aren't present for .cmds. You will break things if you do this across the board. .m3us and .cmds are both natively supported by retroarch-vice. You need to leave them alone.

7 hours ago, Voljega said:

For the 3 games with missing disks in the m3u, I certainly didn't put them there myself, so at one part or another they were here for me and likely for a lot of users (I downloaded the collection in last August or July I think)

I did go back and check the public release for v0.60 and can confirm that Energy Manager and Ultima II m3us do have extra disks referenced, so apparently I fixed both of those in the current WIP at some point post v0.60 release. So no issues with those two.

7 hours ago, Voljega said:

Same thing for the SID music which I don't even know what it is and how it's used.

Well that's kindof my whole point here. There are multiple systems built on top of each other to achieve the end result. So when you start a project to ostensibly allow people to "Just use this and it will work" but you yourself don't know about all the systems that you're supposedly replicating, we have a problem. This project is absolutely chock full of bespoke solutions to various scenarios presented by individual games. You have games like Deus Ex Machina that were designed to be played in sync with an audio cassette so I have scripts and external software setup to play the cassette audio when the game starts, allows you to pause and resume as requested by the game, and change sides, while playing/without leaving the game. That's a single game. There are hundreds of one-off scenarios like this.

I appreciate what you're trying to do here. I do. But I fear that you don't really understand the complexity of what you're getting into here, and the end result will be one of two things: A) you create a complete nightmare for yourself trying to address the one-off stuff that I'm talking about, likely for years or B) you hand wave it away (or more likely just don't know about it to begin with) and people that use this now associate my work with an end product that isn't representative of the intended experience. People can't report what they don't know about or don't understand to begin with - the entire point of this project is based on an understanding of the reality that most people don't know how to make this stuff work the way it should and so it's designed to remove that barrier for entry. That's achieved by taking an extremely hands-on approach to, essentially, everything. So the idea that someone with some pi handheld is going to know when or what to report to you when something doesn't work as is actually intended is a bit naïve in my view. It's well and good to say that it's "not on me" but if you'd received as many requests for support on, for example, Retroarch usage, as we have here on the Launchbox forums, you'd be as equally dubious about that statement as I am. It's never that simple.

[Voljega]

20 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

So the idea that someone with some pi handheld is going to know when or what to report to you when something doesn't work as is actually intended is a bit naïve in my view. It's well and good to say that it's "not on me" but if you'd received as many requests for support on, for example, Retroarch usage, as we have here on the Launchbox forums, you'd be as equally dubious about that statement as I am. It's never that simple.

I mean I have released the converter initialy for eXoDOS and this was years ago, this is compatible with several retrograming distributions and even MiSTeR and I think it happened only once that people asked eXo for support with the converter while I've had dozens of support questions through issues on github about it, so I guess users managed to find their way.

I the end I might not be able to make all games work or work properly, but at least I can try to support the most and I'm willing to learn enough to make it work

and I never said "Just use this and it will work" ...

One thing I forgot to mention is that converter only support the Games portion of the collection though

Edited November 18, 2023 by Voljega

[Zombeaver]

27 minutes ago, Voljega said:

I the end I might not be able to make all games work or work properly, but at least I can try to support the most and I'm willing to learn enough to make it work

Fair enough. Godspeed. I appreciate the effort and intent, I just hope you know what you're getting into is all. If you have questions my Discord is open, that would be a better place for this sort of thing.

27 minutes ago, Voljega said:

and I never said "Just use this and it will work" ...

I know you didn't. But you do understand that most users are going to go in thinking that right? That's the reality of the internet. And when they use it, and it doesn't, my concern is that they won't even know what to report. They might not know what is missing or not working as intended - as evidenced by your own post, neither do you. I'm not trying to be harsh with that, so don't take it that way. I just have major concerns with this. I do like the idea of more people being able to use C64 Dreams but I don't like the idea of people getting an incomplete or substandard version of the experience that I've spent 6 years of my life creating. I don't think that's an unreasonable concern.

[Voljega]

6 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

I just have major concerns with this. I do like the idea of more people being able to use C64 Dreams but I don't like the idea of people getting an incomplete or substandard version of the experience that I've spent 6 years of my life creating. I don't think that's an unreasonable concern.

OK, fair enough too

I joined the discord

[EvoluZion3]

I'm sure you'll not be too annoyed if I post up and join the dozens of people who have said WOW, THANK YOU for such an unimaginable effort to curate and develop the C64 Dreams project. I've browsed through all 43 pages of this thread and the attention to detail and care you put into so many aspects of this project is astounding. And the unwavering support you give in problem solving, advice, and taking suggestions on board really is quite remarkable.

I've downloaded the project and with a little shoe-horning have managed to incorporate it into my existing LB without too much trouble. Admittedly I'm not interested in the non-game aspects of the project, so the magazines etc didn't make it across and so I flattened out the Parent structure so "Commodore 64" appears normally as a platform in my list.

Once it was up and running, a simple refresh media and the EmuMovies video clips and other media came straight down, where they were available. C64 also looks good in BigBox!

So thanks once again and keep up the fantastic work and enthusiasm!!

[Zombeaver]

Thanks @EvoluZion3 glad you're enjoying it. It's always encouraging to hear feedback like that.

On 11/18/2023 at 5:33 PM, EvoluZion3 said:

Once it was up and running, a simple refresh media and the EmuMovies video clips and other media came straight down

If you actually rescraped them you shouldn't have. Many of the games don't have DB entries so it will incorrectly associate them with the wrong games if you do this. If you follow the instructions to import into existing libraries you shouldn't need to do this to begin with as you'll already have all the media and metadata for everything. If you specifically only pulled EmuMovies video clips and disabled any scraping of media or metadata from the LBGDB that would be okay.

[EvoluZion3]

3 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

If you actually rescraped them you shouldn't have. Many of the games don't have DB entries so it will incorrectly associate them with the wrong games if you do this.

Ach yes that makes sense. Quickly scrolling through all the default 3D Box images it doesn't look like much if anything has been affected, although for example EmuMovies has confused the two "Mystery" games and downloaded the same video clip for them both (one's a Mario-like game and one's a gem puzzle game) although the two LaunchBox IDs are different and correct, but I guess EM would have done this anyway as I believe it doesn't recognise LB IDs.

[frank70]

On 11/17/2023 at 12:21 AM, Zombeaver said:

In what context would this ever actually be an issue? I'm not aware of ever needing this for anything in the context of these games. I've never needed it in the course of testing anyway. Generally speaking the only thing you're going to use either one of those for in this setting is on their own to invoke some in-game function i.e. press C= to continue or CTRL to access a menu, etc. I honestly can't think of a single example where I've ever needed/wanted to hold one of them down and start continually typing for some reason.

Hi Zom,

Today I actually did run across a case where it is required to hold down CTRL and hit another key repeatedly (and quite quickly) as a keyboard control. That is in Flight Simulator II by Sublogic. This is remarkably sophisticated though the C64 graphics just can't do it justice. Because of the myriad of controls necessary to fly the airplane and adjust the instrumentation, the keyboard needs to be used quite extensively. This is documented here: FS2-ReferenceCard-C64.

For example, as you can see on the back side of the card, certain CTRL keys must be bashed repeatedly and very quickly to select which digits of the NAV radio, COM radio, ADF, or TRANSPONDER will be increased/decreased by subsequent presses on the > and < keys (actually the , and . keys as they are used unshifted). For example, holding CTRL and rapidly tapping T 3 times will cause > and < to increase/decrease the 3rd digit of the TRANSPONDER. But when the CTRL key only takes effect on the first key pressed while it is held down, tapping T 3 times selects the 1st digit and then sends the elevators down two increments; likewise, CTRL-NN, instead of selecting the NAV radio's lower digits, selects the high digits and then sends the flaps down one increment. A plane crash typically follows .

Also, the manual that you've included is actually the companion flight physics manual, and not the actual FS2 manual. The FS2 manual available via a cursory search of the internet is unfortunately marked up and scanned somewhat crookedly. I have a significantly cleaner copy (but with no fancy color cover, see below) I could scan and send you if you are interested.

[Zombeaver]

I'll probably need to come up with some kind of bespoke solution for that specific game then. I'll have to give it some thought. I'll bring it up with sonninnos as well.

If you have a scan of the proper manual, I'll gladly include it.

[frank70]

21 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

If you have a scan of the proper manual, I'll gladly include it.

I tried to DM you with this, but the board says you cannot receive messages, so I'll post it here hopefully not annoying anyone who doesn't give a hoot about Flight Simulator II:

Attached are two PDF files of the manual. They are identical except for the cover page. One has the black-and-white cover page shown above, while the second has a bastardized color cover page from the equivalent Atari manual (from the Internet Archive) with the "AT" changed to "CM" at the top. Please use whichever one you want.

Because my paper manual was missing 4 pages, I reconstructed pages 20/21 and 30/31 which results in the following minor anomalies.

1. On page 21 the second word of the first paragraph is "Atari" when it should be "C64". Had to clip this page from the Atari manual, but other than that one word, pages 20/21 are identical to the C64 manual.

2. On page 30/31 the page numbers are missing, and the figure numbers ("Figure 7" and "Figure 7 (Continued)") are missing from the bottom of each page - but it is the correct keymap for the C64.

FS2-Manual-C64-Final-4.pdfFS2-Manual-C64-Final-4a.pdf

[Mateloaf]

Hi, first off can i just say thank you this is an amazing collection. Being a bit of a noob though have one odd problem. When i load any game the sound is horribly distorted, if i set the output resolution in retro-arch to 1920x1080 60hz, this fixes this issue, however every time i leave a game it resets everything and i have to change it every time. i changed my resolution in Windows to 1920x1080 and this doesn't help, any ideas what i could be doing wrong (if i try to save configuration it says its failed to save, i have tried changing it by just loading retroarch in the C64 Dreams folder and this hasn't saved the setting when loading launchbox) my resolution at present on my monitor is 3840x2160 if that helps. Any advice is much appreciated!

[Zombeaver]

18 hours ago, Mateloaf said:

Hi, first off can i just say thank you this is an amazing collection. Being a bit of a noob though have one odd problem. When i load any game the sound is horribly distorted, if i set the output resolution in retro-arch to 1920x1080 60hz, this fixes this issue, however every time i leave a game it resets everything and i have to change it every time. i changed my resolution in Windows to 1920x1080 and this doesn't help, any ideas what i could be doing wrong (if i try to save configuration it says its failed to save, i have tried changing it by just loading retroarch in the C64 Dreams folder and this hasn't saved the setting when loading launchbox) my resolution at present on my monitor is 3840x2160 if that helps. Any advice is much appreciated!

You would need to go to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams and start Configurator.exe. Then double-click on Config Editor at the bottom. Paste this below the other parameters:

video_fullscreen_x = "1920"
video_fullscreen_y = "1080"

Then change video_windowed_fullscreen to "false"

The refresh rate is already set to 60 by default.

Go to File > Save and then close and you should be set.

[Mateloaf]

Hi Thank you for the info, i've tried it and it works once. When i exit a game, launchbox has now filled my screen(to where i cant see my windows bar) and my desktop resolution changes to 1920x1080 and the next game i run sounds awful again, so then i have to change my desktop resolution back to 3840x2160 for the game to run with proper sound again at the retroarch 1920x1080 setting, so its moved the problem from launchbox to my display settings so I'm stumped! Sorry to be a pest any suggestions that might help?