[plugin] Game Library

[SSDNAdmin]

IMPORTANT NOTE: ANY POST REQUESTING INFORMATION ON OBTAINING ROMS OR EMULATORS WILL BE IMMEDIATELY DELETED.

Created by: Brett and Jason
Artwork by: Seth

Description: The ultimate gamers accessory, available only with Beyond Media. Browse and play your ROMS, Arcade Games, PC Games within a 10ft setup. With minimum configuration the plugin automatically parses multiple sites to gather the required box art, screenshots, and information about the game. Flexibile XML support allows you to define custom systems, or take advantage of the predefined systems. Advance filtering lets you search your games quick and efficently by keywords, genres, publisher, or year released.

Version Number: 1.0.3
Status: Stable, but sort of under development :^P
Last Updated: April 8, 2005

Installation:
This plugin uses information provided by platforms.xml (found at: c:\documents and settings\application data\snapstream\beyond media\plugins\gameCatalog). You can customize this file to add additional systems, or modify the properties of any predefined system. Please understand for general usage modifying the platforms.xml file is not required or recommended. By default we have predefined 25+ systems that you can fine-tune within Beyond Media itself.

To make life easier we have preconfigured a half-dozen of the systems to run out of the box. They have already been defined with emulator commands, arguments, and extensions. All of these details are modifable, but by default the following extra details are provided for the following systems: NES, SNES, N64, MAME (Arcade Games), Genesis, Atari 2600, and PC Games.

COMPLETELY DEFINED SYSTEMS
System......Emulator
NES...........fceu
SNES.........snes9x
N64...........project64
MAME........mame
Genesis......fusion
Atari 2600..stella
PC Games...(shortcut links)

For setting up those systems, its relatively easy. Startup the plugin, and the first time it will take you to the enable/disable screen. You can return to this screen at anytime by going to settings->game catalog->platform options. Next click on one of the completely defined systems and set status to enable. Scroll down the properties AND VERIFY EACH PROPERTY IS CORRECT. If you want to use a different emulator for a system that is completely defined that is fine and will work as well.

For the location of roms you need to just have all your roms listed in that folder. You want them to be named after the game (ie: The Legend of Zelda.nes). You can use GoodTools which will check the file and automatically give it the proper name, meaning all you have to do is put it in the proper folder.

For the location of PC games you need to just have a shortcut link in the PC folder. It should just be the name of the game (ie: Rise of the Nations.lnk). Do NOT modify the emulator command for PC games, it is preconfigured and will work without additional software.

---SETTING UP PARTIALLY DEFINED EMULATORS---
As explained previously we have included 25+ emulators configured for the parsers. However, we did not define emulators for all of these systems. And you may wish to use a different emulator for one of the systems we did define. No fear, go ahead and enable the system and then configure the emulator command, emulator arguments, and emulator extensions. Emulator command and emulator extensions should be obvious. For emulator arguments its a little bit more difficult. You can define the command-line arguments as you wish, but you must include {0} where you want to have the filename. Furthermore, in most cases you want to include "{0}" using quotes around the file for cases where it has spaces. Lets give a quick example:

If you have arguments defined as: -fullscreen "{0}"
The following would execute: c:\sample\emulator.exe -fullscreen "c:\my game.rom"

The {0} can go anywhere you want within the arguments, but it must be there, otherwise no filename will be passed!

---STARTING GAME LIBRARY FOR THE FIRST TIME---

When you have enabled all the systems you wish to install click "import games". Do not worry if you do not define all the systems initially you can always return to the platform configuration screen by going to settings->games library->platform options. Nevertheless, once the importing is done escape back to the main menu. Now when you click on "Games Library" you should see all your systems available to select from and enjoy.

---HINTS / TIPS---
If you add details to a partially predefined system please post them here. All you need to include is the name of the system, emulator path, emulator arguments, windows style, and extensions. We will do our best to include them standard in the next version so that all users benefit.

If you are having low turn out for coverart there is a solution. Please go here and download the zips of all the coverart for that system. Unzip this file in the images root folder for the particular system (ie: c:\games\nes\images\). You must be using GoodTools for your naming convention, but besides that it should work.

If you are using Crisp Curves or the original BM skin we have included additional icons for these skins. To take advantage of them please open
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond Media\plugins\gameCatalog\plugins.xml while Beyond Media is not running.

Modify: "Images\Game catalog.png" to be either "Images\Game catalog Classic Skin.png" or "Images\Game catalog Crisp Curves.png"

Release Notes:
V1.0 (April 8, 2005)
First public release! Everything should be working

DOWNLOAD NOW

[dapope1979]

I cannot wait to get home and try this! The whole thing looks awesome! Good Job.

[RiderFan]

I am sure glad that I have a home office...LOL. This works like a charm! Awesome! Thank you. It took me a while to get everything set-up and working, but it works great once you do. The instructions sound wayyyy harder than it actually is. My main problem was that my mame was called mamew.exe, instead of mame.exe, which took me a while to discover. In conjustion with the joystick plugin, makes this even better. I do see a small delay in my joystick button presses, not sure why as when I run mame outside of BM, it is more responsive.

I also have a lot of dead ROMS which I will now have to go through and weed out.

[k_kirk]

Originally Posted by RiderFan

I am sure glad that I have a home office...LOL. .....

You mean you can still work with all the goodies Brett & Jason has given us so far? I am afraid you will run bankrupt if they keep at it! :-)

[Brett]

Originally Posted by RiderFan

The instructions sound wayyyy harder than it actually is.

I was thinking that as well. I mean all you really need to do is place properly defined roms in a folder and verify the emulator command. Eitherway, I tried to simplify it a little, and may modify it some more soon.

Thanks for all the feedback, I am sure Jason welcomes it too. He is actually gonna be out all weekend. Just to let you guys know, I had this incredible revelation for what I am gonna do to improve this plugin on the next version. I can't wait!

-Brett

[optikhog]

Major kudos on this plug-in. I'm not a big gamer, but you guys inspired me to grab my old MAME ROMs and get everything up and running and I'm going out to get a wireless gamepad tonite.

I have one request - is there a way it could have a "loading..." window pop up while the game is being loaded by the machine? Even if it's a manual window with a timeout value in the settings, it would reduce the complaining I'm already getting from the kids about the fact that "nothing's happening!" while I assure them that it is.

Thanks, guys! Once again, great plug-in!

[Brett]

Originally Posted by optikhog

I have one request - is there a way it could have a "loading..." window pop up while the game is being loaded by the machine? Even if it's a manual window with a timeout value in the settings, it would reduce the complaining I'm already getting from the kids about the fact that "nothing's happening!" while I assure them that it is.

LoL. Jason asked me to do this as well . I told him to be patient.

Anyway, yes I will try to get this in the next build. I am surprised that is the only feature request to date, I figured there would be dozens by now .

We are toying with some other "bigger" ideas as well... not sure where they will go. On a minor note, Jason is pressuring for a screen to edit game properties, just curious does anyone feel this is neccessary? I would think between GoodTools and the multiple sources the details are pretty much on the ball.

Anyway I would really appericate some feedback on setting up the systems and getting them started for the first time. What was the hardest part?

Thanks,
-Brett

[optikhog]

Overall, things went very smoothly during the setup process. I think the hardest part for me was modifying the default parameters for mame - using things like the -d3d command make my video card sad for some reason, plus I needed to change resolution for my TV. The only thing I can think of to make this a bit easier might be to have a list of commonly used options to choose from rather than forcing the user to have to type in everything, altho that wasn't a big deal for me since I simply used a VNC session to make my mods.

I haven't messed with any of the other game types yet, but am planning on adding some of my PC-based games this weekend, so we'll see what happens there. Now where's my old copy of Marathon...hmm...

[RiderFan]

A favorites area would be nice. You could add your favorite games to the menu and easily find them again.

Also, at least for mame, would there be a way to show only the working games, as many of my roms don't work, yet they show up in this plugin.

[ticklemeozmo]

Originally Posted by RiderFan

Also, at least for mame, would there be a way to show only the working games, as many of my roms don't work, yet they show up in this plugin.

I hesitate to crack a joke because I'm sure there's an extremely good reason I'm overlooking.. but I will at least ask. Why would you have ones that don't work?

Originally Posted by Brett

Jason is pressuring for a screen to edit game properties, just curious does anyone feel this is neccessary?

Yes, Brett. As it may be very apparant to you, I'm completely anal and a control freak. I start freaking out if the wrong letters are capitolized. So.. yes please

[RiderFan]

Well, I have around 1500 ROM sets. You don't know if they are going to work till you try them. Testing 1500 takes a while, and I am not willing to go through them 1 by 1, so I leave them. Also, MAME has made many changes since 1997, when it was first released, and games that used to work, don't anymore. Other MAME front ends will hide the ones that don't work, so you don't even see them, and I was just asking if it was possible for this front end to do the same.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by RiderFan

Other MAME front ends will hide the ones that don't work, so you don't even see them, and I was just asking if it was possible for this front end to do the same.

You can delete roms from the library that you wish not to be visible? I guess we could add a hide "boolean" I am just not sure how you would unhide a hidden game.

Also, your suggestion about favorites gave me a "starting" idea, I think you will be pleasently surprised with what I am sketching out now.

I am graduating in three weeks, after which time I will have several weeks off to do nothing . I hope to get alot done on the plugin during that time.

Also, thanks to optikhog about the note with the Mame flags. As it happens Jason setup the Mame emulator, and I just found he used "special" flags for his particular system. If you guys see this with any other emulator give me a buzz. I am pretty sure the others are fine.

-Brett

[The_Emperor]

Well This is by far the sweetest mod ever . I have only one problem so my nes emu does not exit at all. Is there a work around that i am missing. I am running nesopia as it is much better than fcu.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by The_Emperor

Well This is by far the sweetest mod ever . I have only one problem so my nes emu does not exit at all. Is there a work around that i am missing. I am running nesopia as it is much better than fcu.

I have only used the plugin for testing (yes I realize this is sad), but in testing I always hit-f4 to exit any application. If you have a keyboard that should do the trick. Thanks for the comments.

-Brett

[tmar89]

Is there a way to display all ROMS in the "View Posters" list instead of in increments of 15,..,90 and switching pages? I've tried manually editing the xml file and changing it to say, 1000, but it reverts back to the previous value.