c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[Zombeaver]

I'm not 100% certain I understand your question based on your phrasing.

Everything in the C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams folder has to stay where it is ("Games" folder parallel to the "Retroarch" folder etc.) otherwise all the scripts will break. Now, the first folder (which contains Launchbox itself) isn't necessary for anything to work, the games will work on their own without it, and that folder can be named anything or placed anywhere, or if you don't want to use Launchbox at all you can move the C64 dreams subfolder out of it and start the games directly by going into the Games folder, going into one of the individual game folders, and starting the .vbs file. You cannot, however, take the "Games" folder, by itself, and move it somewhere else if that's what you're asking. All of the folders that are next to each other ("Games", "Retroarch", "Utilities", etc.) need to remain next to each other (the name of the folder that contains those folders - "C64 Dreams" - doesn't matter, if you're not using Launchbox).

Basically, all the folders in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams need to stay together otherwise everything will break.

[Impact_Thomas]

Thx Zombeaver for the Answer,

I have put the C64 Dreams Folder in my ROMs folder & import only the .vbs Files in my Launchbox. Select no Emulator & it works :).

Thx Man

[Zombeaver]

You can do that, yes, although at that point you lose all the metadata, screenshots, etc. many of which I had to add, remove, and edit manually. If you wanted to import into an existing library then you should follow the instructions I have on the first page.

[Zombeaver]

Hey y'all, I've been working on this again lately. I'm currently at 1485 games and I've made it to the E's (that might not sound like much, but between # and C there are 9227 images in Gamebase64 ? ). If anybody has any specific requests, let me know, otherwise I'll just keep on truckin' as usual.

I've also fixed/improved a few things here and there, added some new demos and SID tracks, and updated versions on some games. I've also been continuing to add group/version info (not reflected in the public spreadsheet yet) and am at 688 complete, so a little less than half. That process is quite tedious but it'll be worth it in the end as it'll help me quickly parse out whether or not I might want to update something to a different/newer version. I've also been adding Blast From The Past collections (not included in the 1485) kindof on a whim. Most people probably aren't going to care about these, but these have a lot of nostalgic value for a lot of C64 fans, myself included. Obviously there will be quite a few instances where they'll have games that are already in the collection individually, but there will certainly be some that aren't too.

Retroarch has also been updated as well as the core, and this comes with the significant addition of savestates. This is particularly nice because it allows me to create autoloading states to bypass the initial load for games that require TrueDrive emulation. You can of course create your own states as well, and I've added new controller hotkeys to do this. There will be a new field on the spreadsheet for "Autoload State" which will indicate when a game has one. I've created them for about 60 games so far. Obviously this is overkill for most games, but for those pesky TrueDrive games or ones that have particularly long/obnoxious cracktros this can be quite handy.

[Zombeaver]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:01 AM, Pixel said:

@Zombeaver How can we use those automators? Is there any guide on this?

Hey dude, sorry I missed this.

Okay so it's pretty simple:

1) Take several .d64 files (can be other types but we'll get back to that*), make sure they're named the way you want, and then drag them onto !Automator.bat. If you've got more than 10, use !Automator - Batch 100.bat

2) Go into each of the resultant folders, and open Game.bat in a text editor, and where it says REPLACE.cmd, change REPLACE to the name of the game, so Bruce Lee.cmd or whatever

3) Move the folders to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Games

That's it!

*If you're using something other than .d64, like .t64 for example, you'll also need to edit the .cmd file in the game's folder and change the reference from Disk1.d64 to Disk1.t64. If you have a bunch of .t64s that you want to do in bulk, go into the !Base folder then the !t64 subfolder and copy Base.cmd into the !Base folder and overwrite. You'll probably want to change it back to the .d64 one (from the !d64 subfolder) once you're done.

*If you're using a .d81 or .crt file, delete the .cmd file in the game's folder name the game file itself to [the game's name].d81 or [the game's name].crt and in the Game.bat change the reference from REPLACE.cmd to [the game's name].d81 or [the game's name].crt. Look in the folder for Card Sharks for an example of .d81 and in the Bug Hunt folder for an example of .crt.

If you're using a multi-disk game, delete the .cmd file in the game's folder and you'll need to create an .m3u file (just a text file, renamed from .txt to .m3u) that references the game's disk files in order. Then change the reference in Game.bat from REPLACE.cmd to [the game's name].m3u. Look in the folder for 221B Baker Street for an example of this.

[Zombeaver]

Alright y'all, not too far off from v0.18 now.

In a bit of a break from tradition, the next update will be 300 more games instead of 200 (1700 games total). Those are all done. I actually made it through all of E and F and have started into the G's so yay for that.

I've got PRG / Group / Version info complete for 1000 games now (phew) and I'm calling that good enough for this version. The rest will continue to be filled in over time.

I've got autoloading states for 89 games right now. I'm probably going to be making a few more of these before release.

I've fixed/improved quite a few things which will be detailed in the proper update notes. Some noteworthy things are input latency improvements from some settings adjustments and custom bezels that are used where appropriate to indicate (bottom left or right corner) whether a game uses keyboard input only, has special notes, or both. All the current bezel variations (Project Firestart, Black Tiger, Retrograde, and Supremacy) have been updated, and you can still swap them out just like before. This should help avoid some confusion in some instances.

Normal:

Keyboard control:

Special notes:

Both:

I have some minor things that still need to be done like adding custom controls for a couple games, adding custom notes for a couple games and then doing some cleanup and final testing.

The main thing left to do at this point is metadata, as I haven't imported any of the new stuff into LB yet, so that's going to take some time to get sorted. My guess would be this weekend, but I can't say for sure.

[neil9000]

20 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

n a bit of a break from tradition, the next update will be 300 more games instead of 200

Oh well, thats gonna piss people off, not.  

[Zombeaver]

18 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Oh well, thats gonna piss people off, not.  

Haha, you never know

I was moving at a pretty good pace and wasn't too far off from finishing F so I figured I might as well keep going. It's also, in part, because 17 games in the update are text adventures - more than normal in these updates - so I figured the extra buffer would be needed since I know those aren't everybody's thing. Some of them are actually very good though, and will be in the current "Best of" playlist - hopefully I can encourage at least a few people to go a little outside their comfort zone

But this of course means that the next one will have to be 300 as well. Bringing it to 1900 would just trigger my OCD. That just won't do.

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

But this of course means that the next one will have to be 300 as well. Bringing it to 1900 would just trigger my OCD. That just won't do.

400 confirmed.

 

 

[harryoke]

could you provide a different link to the newest version please mate , as mega has a 5gb cap.

tried pm but not accepting messages

[Zombeaver]

I linked the last version on Google drive on the previous page.

[harryoke]

4 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

I linked the last version on Google drive on the previous page.

how did i miss that ???  its true what they say .... too much can make you go blind

[sev7en]

Just... WOW! Thank you!!!

[Elwyndas]

This is a great project. I look forward to version 0.18

Which VICE version will it use?

I'm involved with a fairly new project, to port VICE to the Nintendo 3DS.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-vice3ds-c64-emulator.534830/
The dev has made some amazing progress. 

There are some great similarities in terms of controls (Xbox controller / 3DS buttons)

I'm looking for synergy effects, and how we can possibly use some of your work as a frontend of sorts on the 3DS, or at least as a manager on the PC.

As you know, the 3DS has the great bottom touch screen, which makes it the ultimate gadget for portable emulation of the C64, with a virtual keyboard etc. This real estate could also be used for a frontend with boxart, screenshots, and custom configs for games, just like you do it. I also agree that Gamebase64, while it's a great resource, is cumbersome and too large.

I noticed one game in your collection, that should be updated to a recently released CRT version. Racing Destruction Set. No more annoying disc changes!

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=180545

[Zombeaver]

It uses the Retroarch VICE x64 core (uses the normal one, not sc, although the sc core would presumably work as well). I'm all for the work being used elsewhere, although I'm not sure how compatible any of this stuff would be outside of the specific context that it's in; the reason being that I'm using a variety of tools to achieve the final result. This integrates both Antimicro and Autohotkey in addition to Retroarch, for example, and it uses both .bat and visual basic scripts to tell the PC what to load. Taken purely as a source of a large curated set of games, that could certainly be migrated anywhere, I'm just not sure how much of the rest of it would work elsewhere.

Thanks for mentioning the Easyflash version of Racing Destruction Set. The next update has quite a few version updates, but I hadn't seen that one - will add it to the update.

Just to give people an update as to why v0.18 isn't out yet - I'm currently right in the middle of selling/buying/moving houses. We put our house up for sale last week expecting it to sell in about 6 months... it sold in 5 days and now we've got to be out by 1/5. We've negotiated the purchase of our new house, but there's still inspection stuff to be done, more packing to do, movers, yada yada yada and it's been a madhouse. So uh... that's been my entire world lately

Once things get settled down again I'm looking forward to finishing this up and getting it out.

[Elwyndas]

So Antimicro is running to intercept the Xbox controller, and translate the buttons into the inputs required by the game?

Couldn't you just save a custom Vice settings file that specify those inputs for each game where it's needed? Then the inputs would be managed natively by Vice.

[Zombeaver]

5 hours ago, Elwyndas said:

So Antimicro is running to intercept the Xbox controller, and translate the buttons into the inputs required by the game?

In some cases yes, in most cases no. Most of the time it's just used to map the arrow keys to the right stick. Everything else is handled within Retroarch. In some cases where a game literally doesn't have any joystick controls, like Spellbound Dizzy, it is used to assign specific keyboard inputs to different buttons to essentially provide controller support for games that have none natively.

5 hours ago, Elwyndas said:

Couldn't you just save a custom Vice settings file that specify those inputs for each game where it's needed? Then the inputs would be managed natively by Vice.

Again, this does not use VICE. It uses the Retroarch VICE core. This is a significant distinction. The majority of the controls are handled within Retroarch, but these are not files that translate to anything other than Retroarch. It's a combination of Retroarch remap files and core option files. These are Retroarch-specific files that standalone VICE does not use. Remapping capability is fairly robust in Retroarch, but with that said there are some situations where it's insufficient and Antimicro is used to fill in the gaps. As an example, one of the games that's going to be in v0.18 is a game called Fairlight: A Prelude. It has no native controller support (well, basically none other than moving around). You have an inventory and to switch between inventory items you normally have to press numbers 1-5 to pick the specific item you want to select. With Antimicro, I've set it up to, among other things, let you switch item slots by pressing LB and RB. The only way to do this is to use pages of controls that are swapped between by pressing LB or RB, so when you start it's on page one and pressing RB would send a 2 input or LB would send a 5 input. So if you were to press RB, it'll send a 2 input and it'd be on the second page, if you were to press RB again it'd send a 3 input or 1 if you pressed LB, this continues on through 5 pages so that every time you press RB or LB it uses the next or previous number, and then circle back around once it gets to the end. There's no way to do this sort of thing with native mapping functions. This sort of scenario is fairly rare though, and most of the time the normal mapping functions in Retroarch are sufficient (other than mapping the right stick to arrow keys, which is handled through Antimicro for everything).

Retroarch has a lot of advantages from very wide ranging controller support, to extremely low input latency when configured correctly (lower than basically anything else out there), the ability to custom tailor essentially every setting from core options like SID type and controller port to customized overscan cropping on a game by game basis, bezel support, shader support, etc. so that's what this is designed to use. I experimented with many, many C64 emulators when work on this project began, from multiple standalone versions of VICE to Hoxs64 to bizarre stuff like using the DOS version of CCS64 in DOSBox (which, prior to converting to Retroarch, was actually my preference) and none of them provided a satisfactory experience. None of them allowed me to make things as simple and seamless for the end user as Retroarch, so that's what the project will continue to use going forward; because of that, unless you're within the context of a PC that's using Retroarch, all you'd have left is essentially a curated set of games (which is significant in and of itself, but that's only a portion of the purpose/scope of the project).

[Elwyndas]

OK got it. Yes, Retroarch's main appeal is that it manages controller inputs across all emulators, and the unified GUI. Definitely a good choice for PC.

Strangely I haven't found a way to get into the settings menu of Vice after launching a game through Launchbox. Are there no hotkeys?

Anyway, I will look into ways to use your work. The games neatly in folders, and the screenshots and box artwork is already great to have, along with curating the best games and versions.

[Zombeaver]

Alright y'all, v0.18 is basically done, I'm just doing some final testing and a bit of cleanup at this point. Should have it out in the next day or two.

[Zombeaver]

So I made a bit of an executive decision here and am opting to strip the local copies of the magazines out by default, and make them available as a separate module, and make the launcher default to web versions which are viewable on Archive.org (like this for example) - this is where I get them from anyway, before reducing the size/quality a bit to make them more reasonably sized. The rationale for this is that roughly half (4GB) of the total storage requirement for C64 Dreams (8GB) is due to the magazines, and this will only increase over time - the storage space occupied by the rest of the collection should only increase by very small amounts over time because of the small size of the files, but each additional magazine is between 40-60MB (after I'm done with them) so they add up quickly.

As I said, I'll have a separate module available for local copies that'll let you just drag, drop, and merge with the existing collection. I'll make both the web and local versions accessible via the right-click/additional apps menu.