ZiNc Question

[Bucky]

I have 2 rom folders, ones for mame the other is specifically a zinc romset.

 

I'd been thinking about saving space by eliminating roms in that zinc folder and replacing the roms with mames. Seeing how I have the full mame romset.

I seek to import existing Mame roms into LB and set-up a curated list (Namco System 11, ZN1, ZN2, etc.). Was wondering if there's a tool I can mess with to accomplish this?

 

Another thing. by any chance were there overlays/bezels crafted for Zinc? If so I'd love to install them.

Edited July 3 by Bucky

[JoeViking245]

12 minutes ago, Bucky said:

I have 2 rom folders, ones for mame the other is specifically a zinc romset.

I'd been thinking about saving space by eliminating roms in that zinc folder and replacing the roms with mames. Seeing how I have the full mame romset.

Since you already have your Zinc platform imported, and those games are pointing to MAME-named-ROMs (e.g. sfex.zip) (aka: ROMs all have the exact same name. It's just that these are currently in the  \...v1.9.5\roms\ folder.  And the ones you want to use are in /MAME/roms/ folder), you can just change the path for the games in the Zinc platform.

Click one of the games in your Zinc platforms, then press Crtl+A.  That will select all (86) games.  Now go to Tools < File Management < Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games... and point to the path to your where your MAME ROMs are located.

 

Now... e.g.  Street Fighter EX, was pointing to Emulators\ZiNCGUl Fix+Hacks v1.9.5\roms\sfex.zip and is now pointing to Emulators\MAME\roms\sfex.zip 

[Bucky]

39 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

Since you already have your Zinc platform imported, and those games are pointing to MAME-named-ROMs (e.g. sfex.zip) (aka: ROMs all have the exact same name. It's just that these are currently in the  \...v1.9.5\roms\ folder.  And the ones you want to use are in /MAME/roms/ folder), you can just change the path for the games in the Zinc platform.

Click one of the games in your Zinc platforms, then press Crtl+A.  That will select all (86) games.  Now go to Tools < File Management < Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games... and point to the path to your where your MAME ROMs are located.

 

Now... e.g.  Street Fighter EX, was pointing to Emulators\ZiNCGUl Fix+Hacks v1.9.5\roms\sfex.zip and is now pointing to Emulators\MAME\roms\sfex.zip 

So I am trying to set these in an organized list similar to the way demullmporter can set its boards. My current list is simply "Playstation Arcade" but now I know these games are on specific PS arcade boards like ZN1. Therefore I'd like to have a ZN1 section for those games, Zn2 section for the others and so fourth and so on. The problem is they're all lumped together in one folder. Changing the folder path would get me to my Mame folder but what about singling out specific groups of roms and giving them their own section under "arcade"? If I highlight all roms it will lump them as group. I wish to list them by hardware/platform.

Edited July 3 by Bucky

[JoeViking245]

Looks like MAME doesn't break out the ZN1 and ZN2 etc. series separately.  They look to all be in the source sony/zn.cpp

Which if you have everything imported in Arcade, you can filter those out by doing a search for source:sony/zn.cpp

But to break those out further, personally I think you're nuts.   I mean.... I don't think there's an easy way, outside from doing it manually.

 

If you can get them all broken down into a MAME formatted xml file(s), there is a MAME Custom XML Importer plugin floating around somewhere.  But they have to be MAME formatted and you need to figure out how to break them out first.

[Bucky]

Sorry am getting this late. My e-mail failed to notify me of this response. Had to come to the forum, I'll know that going forward.

 

Oh wow! So the games were never broken out for this rom group, huh? That means that anytime someone wants to do ZN1, ZN2, Namco System 11 and god knows what else is included with that emulator they'll need to play them smushed together! It's not like Demul which has breakout rom groups like Naomi and Atomiswave, allowing you to make a section for each on frontends like Launchbox.

 

Thanks for the advice and especially the pics! (I am a visual learner, I don't do well with reading). I wouldn’t mind curating these myself, but as soon as you mentioned an XML file, it got intimidating, lol! I could easily look up which ROM matches each Sony board and add them manually. If I go through with this, I’d want to share it with everyone so nobody else has to deal with this hassle. After all I added the pictures for each zinc game manually at one point may as well give them sections! Could you remind me again how does one seperate each individual game manually into it's own category? From there I'll go ahead and match the rom name with the board and give it it's own chill section

Edited Friday at 07:47 PM by Bucky

[JoeViking245]

8 minutes ago, Bucky said:

Sorry am getting this late. My e-mail failed to notify me of this response. Had to come to the forum, I'll know that going forward.

No worries.  It's just a hobby.  You didn't get an email because I didn't quote you and also you're not following this post. No biggie.

 

15 minutes ago, Bucky said:

how does one seperate each individual game manually into it's own category? From there I'll go ahead and match the rom name with the board and give it it's own chill section

If you're talking from within LaunchBox, you'd either put them into their own Platform or Playlist.  You could then put those into whatever Category you want. (semantics matter)

ONE WAY you could attain what you're after is, with the games all already imported, go through them and add accordingly to a playlist. Creating and populate them as you so desire.  (right-click a game and in that menu somewhere is Add to Playlist.)

Once you have a playlist to your liking, select all the games in the playlist and press Ctrl+E to start the Bulk Edit Wizard.  In there, change the Platform for those games.  Now they're all in one platform and you can delete the Playlist.

[Bucky]

Done!

All I did was point zinc to my mame roms folder. It automatically grabbed games only zinc supported, from there it was a simple matter of grouping sets between 11 different playlists and voila!

Again, I am grateful for the help. You've been great!!! It looks like they'll let me add pictures to each playlist pretty self-explanatory. I wanted to add icons but it looks like I'll need to pay a premium? (which I am certainly not against! Perhaps one day I'll make the jump and fork over $100 to get lifetime premium. You know support the project! 🙂 )

I feel like I should share this after all of the work I went through. Outside of your suggestion regarding the mame plugin... it doesn't look like there's a way to distribute these playlists. I'm going to add art and details (right hand panel) to complete the set! This is fun. ☺️🤓🧐