Attract-Mode Support Forum
Attract-Mode Support => General => Topic started by: placebo_yue on August 05, 2020, 09:57:12 PM
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Is this possible somehow? for mame i didn't have to move a finger and it scraped all the information for me, which is neat.
It would really help me to filter games by single/multiplayer and make a neat list for whenever i play with friends
Also, since recreating the romlist overwrites any changes i do manually, the auto-scraping of said data is crucial.
Otherwise im choosing between manually fixing every entry each time i add a few roms, or adding the roms manually to the textfile, or creating a new romlist and merging it with a backup with my information (again, manually). Which is awful and tedious.
I have "SkraperUI" installed which really helped me getting all the art for my games, but i never dwelled into the metadata side of the scraping before. I thought it could be added separately from the romlists but apparently not, which is BAD.
Any advice?
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It can be done. But it will take a LOT of time. You can just fill it all in by hand.
I actually have a "Nplayers.ini" for the NES but not sure what I did with it. If I recall it didn't work. I did make a nes_catver.ini and it worked perfectly. But that was a year or so ago...
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If you have the emulator setup properly in AM and are connected to the internet you should get all the metadata from thegamesdb.net. Your emulator files need "info_source = thegamesdb.net" and "system = the_system_name_thegamesdb.net_uses".
Example of NES emulator file
# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.6.1
#
executable \Emulators\RetroArch\retroarch.exe
args -f -L cores\fceumm_libretro.dll "[romfilename]"
rompath \Roms\Nintendo Entertainment System
romext .nes
system Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
info_source thegamesdb.net
Configure your emulators as described and then regenerate the romlists in AM.
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What's the request quota of thegamesdb using stock AM? Is it based on IP address?
Yesterday I tried a scrape session, it says there are 6000+ tasks and were able to find quite a few matches.
But it crashed with a segmentation fault half way.
I then tried to scrape again on the other machine but got 403 error. The error message mentions a monthly quota exceeded.
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Scrape session is different from just building a romlist with metadata. This retrieves artwork and requires more bandwidth.
thegamesdb.net had never been reliable but does provide many free benefits. Keep trying generating romlists and/or scraping at different hours to get everything you need.
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Well..wow even... :o
the gamesdb.net DOES actually scrape extra infomation like that...I never could get it to work!
I always thought it was strange it worked with other frontends but not AM...wonder what I was doing wrong... *shrugs*
Beats filling it all in by paw for sure! Some of it is not filled out..but that's to be expected...guess I can do it by paw....
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To clarify i don't need the art scraping. I did all that already. I need the metadata, and apparently AM needs it in the romlist.
You say naming the system properly will make thegames.db work? i'll give that a try then. It won't overwrite my snaps, videos and such, right? because i like the ones i have
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1. AM will only scrape artwork if you choose "Scrape Artwork" instead of "Generate Collection/Rom List".
2. Any scraper artwork or overviews AM downloads will be stored in /attract/scraper. Unless this is where you store your artwork, you'll be fine.
3. If you still have concerns, turn off all the scraping settings. Configure-->Scraper
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I'm getting a "couldn't resolve host name" error with the metadata scraping apparently. I'm positive i've set the system name as thegamesdb does, since i copied and pasted it right as it was on the website.
How do i fix that error?
edit: Tried a newer version of AM that allegedly fixed the issue, and now the romlist generation takes a few extra seconds, so apparently it is doing the request, but no metadata is retreived whatsoever.
edit2: the artwork scraper ain't working either. Has anyone made this work? I think i'll just resort to the catver.ini and Nplayers.ini, which is a pain in the ass and it's not the full information but at least i can rely on myself and the information i fill in by hand.
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I use the newest version of AM and everything works fine for me.
you need to make sure though that your system is set exactly as gamesbd will see it. That is go to the website and from there you can look at the list and then set it correctly in AM.
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I downloaded the last AM version from github (can you confirm which version you use please?) and copied the platform name right from thegamesdb, so i'm 100% positive it's the same.
It makes no sense, it should work in theory
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I'm getting a "couldn't resolve host name" error with the metadata scraping apparently.
This sounds like a DNS issue or your computer is not connected to the internet.
Ping thegamesdb.net from the command line of your AM machine.
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This error dissapeared when i updated AM btw.
The version i been using was stuck on that gamesdb API limbo we've been for months. It wasn't a problem on my end
But the new one, although it takes some extra time to generate the romlist, and doesn't give me that error, doesn't scrape a thing
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Generating a romlist shouldn't scrape anything but it should get the additional information to build the romlist. Look at the romlist and see if it contains more than just the rom names, if it does then it's working properly. If not, post your emulator.cfg for the system your trying.
Older versions of AM won't be able to get the additional information for the romlist or scrape artwork due to changes in thegamesdb.net website.
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Generating a romlist shouldn't scrape anything
i know i meant the rom metadata. MAME roms get it automatically from that other listxlm source, whatever it is.
this is my NES .cfg
keep in mind that i modified it a lot of times when trying things, and i grabbed this from my regular older version of AM, the new one i deleted until i get something to work with from you guys. I tried everything i've been told with the new AM and it didn't work so i deleted it to keep things clean until im certain it works.
so something might be off now. But still, if you see anything weird let me know
# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.5.1
#
executable C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\NES\Mesen.exe
args "[romfilename]" -fullscreen
rompath C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\NES\ROMS
romext .nes;.unf;.unif;.fds;.zip;.rar;.7z
system Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
info_source thegamesdb.net
artwork flyer C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\flyer
artwork flyer3D C:\Users\w\Desktop\emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\flyer3D
artwork marquee C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\marquee
artwork snap C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\snap
artwork support C:\Users\w\desktop\emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\support
artwork wheel C:\Users\w\Desktop\Emuladores\FRONTEND\attract\menu-art\wheel
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Run the attract-console.exe and generate the romlist and then alt+tab to look at the console and see (or post) what it shows.
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system Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
try this instead
system Nintendo Entertainment System
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That worked! and somehow the genesis romlist is also grabbing metadata now!
Some titles are still missing it but i guess it's because of the filename being different from how it's named in the database, but i can work with this, i can change the badly named roms
Finally!
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It's very hit and miss. It scrapes "Sony Playstation 2" but not "Sony Playstation"
I found absolutely no way to scrape gameboy, gameboy color and gameboy advance either.
It did work for genesis, SNES and the mentioned PS2.
Where can i double and triple check the right spelling? because currently im taking it from the platforms menu but that led me to make the mistake with NES where i left the "(NES)" as it was written in that page
EDIT: i tried creating a romlist with multiple emulators ("ALL GAMES" sorta list) and the metadata i did manage to get before (NES, Genesis, etc) does not show up in this list. Apparently it only gets MAME metadata. But there's no place to select the included platforms or the source of the data! i figured it would simply import the data from the original lists and merge it, that's why i was trying to get the data of each emulator in the first place... but no! it creates a brand new list without any metadata.
Any ideas?
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the all list just generates a new list of ALL the games (as you said). I really am not sure why it is grabbing some systems and not others.
But I was able to scrape the few test games (GBA GB, ect.) with out a problem...remember you must have your system spelled exactly as it is here https://thegamesdb.net/list_platforms.php (https://thegamesdb.net/list_platforms.php)
Although I will mention that I was able to scrape with Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). I do not understand why you had to remove yours, but at least it worked! :)
You might just have to try various ways of naming the system(s) but that page should get you started at least.
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that's where i'm getting the names! i also tried a LOT of different ways just in case, nothing works. I don't understand what's wrong. Maybe there's some other setting i have badly set up? i thought only the platform name mattered
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apparently there's some issue with my computer, i can't even generate romlists at all now, or modify the ones i have (like deleting an entry manually). Everything goes back to the way it was when i switch back and forth between screens. All my folders have a read only square that i can't get rid of. I don't know when or why this happened but i suppose it has something to do.
From what i've seen in the console, the connection with the database is successful, but since it can't write any files, it's all lost that very second.
Since this problem is not related to AM, unless someone has any ideas on why this could be happening, i'll go deal with this on my own.
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EDIT: i tried creating a romlist with multiple emulators ("ALL GAMES" sorta list) and the metadata i did manage to get before (NES, Genesis, etc) does not show up in this list. Apparently it only gets MAME metadata. But there's no place to select the included platforms or the source of the data! i figured it would simply import the data from the original lists and merge it, that's why i was trying to get the data of each emulator in the first place... but no! it creates a brand new list without any metadata.
Any ideas?
Get all your system romlists working properly with the metadata and then create your combined lists inside AM and it will have the metadata.
Configure-->Emulators-->Generate Collection/Rom List-->Set all of your game emulators to “Yes†and then click “Generate Collection/Rom List†and enter the name “All Gamesâ€
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EDIT: i tried creating a romlist with multiple emulators ("ALL GAMES" sorta list) and the metadata i did manage to get before (NES, Genesis, etc) does not show up in this list. Apparently it only gets MAME metadata. But there's no place to select the included platforms or the source of the data! i figured it would simply import the data from the original lists and merge it, that's why i was trying to get the data of each emulator in the first place... but no! it creates a brand new list without any metadata.
Any ideas?
Get all your system romlists working properly with the metadata and then create your combined lists inside AM and it will have the metadata.
Configure-->Emulators-->Generate Collection/Rom List-->Set all of your game emulators to “Yes†and then click “Generate Collection/Rom List†and enter the name “All Gamesâ€
yeah i got it working! i was having this issue where the antivirus blocked my creation of new romlists so everything i was seeing and getting made no sense. Now my "all games" list has the correct metadata for a good portion of my games (there's a bunch of gameboy games that didn't get the metadata because of the rom filenames but i'll fix that manually so it grabs the metadata next time.
Something that some guy mentioned in another thread, thegamesdb likes "name of the rom (USA)" but not "name of the rom(U) [!]" kinda filenames. I didn't know and it's important information
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There are free tools that will rename your roms properly. The naming styles are different for different kinds of rom sets. The no-intro roms sets are the most popular and the names that are most often used. You want to get your rom names right from the beginning because all your artwork files will be matched to their names.
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There are free tools that will rename your roms properly. The naming styles are different for different kinds of rom sets. The no-intro roms sets are the most popular and the names that are most often used. You want to get your rom names right from the beginning because all your artwork files will be matched to their names.
yeah if i only knew about the metadata stuff earlier i would've done right from the start. Thankfully i only have the games i care about, so there's not 390 roms to rename, more like 45. It's doable.
What about those tools? any to suggest? even if it's doable by hand, i wouldn't mind having some tool to simplify it
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It's been years since I've used any of them so I don't recall any of their names. Do a google search or create another thread on the forum asking others what they recommend.