Messages

1

General / Re: POLL: What system are you running Attract Mode on?

« on: January 21, 2019, 05:18:26 AM »

Luckily, there is no one who uses Vista...
What i do not understand is why someone is still using Windows 8... 

That would be me, long story but right when I was about to upgrade to Win 10 there was a huge outcry about it being invasive and privacy nightmare, so I didn't upgrade. A few weeks back when I was again seriously considering to upgrade some issue with updates breaking Win 10 came into news ( I follow gHacks for that). Win 8.1 is working pretty well though, once I got rid of Metro

You know, this really shouldn't concern you if you're making a dedicated rig.  I bought a used i3 Dell from a 2nd hand store for $19 that had its nic die.  Thought to myself, why would a pure gaming computer need network access?  Microsoft ( or anyone else ) can only exploit your machine if it's connected to the Internet.

I think you all deserve an explanation of what is the purpose of this poll. My moderate OCD dictates me to make Attract Mode stutter free, able to sustain a constant 60fps even on Raspberry Pi. I have a proof of concept of asynchronous image loader with caching, so you will not longer need rawset_index_offset property. That means non blocking loading of resources that aren't yet on the screen, so in theory even if you write for example just an array of 100 add_image or add_artwork and cycle through games AM should keep 60fps. But first thing to fix is any other source of stuttering not loading related. The differences between Windows 10 and lower versions for example force different approaches of syncing, as the new DWM gets in the way. Vsync and double/triple buffering in SFML works differently on each window mode and differently in multimonitor mode, and even when you have your dpi scaling other than 100%. I have it almost fixed for Windows, but tests wil be required on all platforms to make sure I sync accordingly for each platform. I already got myself a mac and waiting for RPI to arrive. So my personal  purpose of the poll is to let me know which platforms are commonly used so I prioritize this fairly.

To answer the poll, I've used primarly Windows XP in the past, now use Windows 7.  I do buy my 'newer' tech used, and the Dells and Gateways of the world are still super suited to play 20+ year old emulated games.  I keep with Windows 7 because I've bought the Windows 7 OEM discs on ebay for Dell and Gateway, so every system I have has a legit Windows on it for free.

With that said, I've been looking into Linux distros for a few thin clients I've come into.  Have been playing around with Tinycore as an OS to put a front end on.  Was using PuppyArcade for a while but I don't think that has been updated for years.

2

Emulators / Re: Best Compression for Specific Emulators

« on: January 07, 2019, 03:06:20 PM »

Now, if someone would like to explain HOW  FOR /R %%A IN (*.zip) DO (
cycles through every file in the subdirectory, errr, folder, I'd love to know!  ( =

for = command
/r = recursive search (i.e. all subfolders)
%%a = variable that equals each file name
in = is used to specify the set of files you want to scan (*.zip in this case)
do = command/action to take on the files

It's nice not understanding how it works doesn't stop it from working. 😁

3

Emulators / Re: Best Compression for Specific Emulators

« on: January 05, 2019, 07:42:32 AM »

So I've been thinking *ALOT* about this thread, because I feel making sure you have good compressed files go hand in hand with converting their compression.

After almost a full day of searching, I've found the batch file I mentioned above, which uses 7zip to verify the file has no compression errors.  Was sitting, waiting for me on an external hd I had in storage.

cls
FOR /R %%A IN (*.zip) DO (
7za t "%%A" | FIND "Everything is Ok" || (DEL "%%A" & ECHO.%%A BAD >> error.log)
)

And this is what the error.log looks like.

G:\eXoDOS\Games\Lemonade Stand (1999).zip BAD
G:\eXoDOS\Games\Lorna (1990).zip BAD
G:\eXoDOS\Games\MicroLink Shut the Box (1989).zip BAD


Now, if someone would like to explain HOW  FOR /R %%A IN (*.zip) DO (

cycles through every file in the subdirectory, errr, folder, I'd love to know!  ( =

4

Emulators / Re: Best Compression for Specific Emulators

« on: January 04, 2019, 02:13:39 AM »

Any file extention to .zip (I'm using 7za.exe for these)

nes2zip.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.nes) do 7za a -tzip "%%~ni.zip" "%%i"pce2zip.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.pce) do 7za a -tzip "%%~ni.zip" "%%i"sms2zip.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.sms) do 7za a -tzip "%%~ni.zip" "%%i"
Any file extention to .7z (I'm using 7za.exe for these)

nes27z.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.nes) do 7za a -t7z "%%~ni.7z" "%%i"pce27z.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.pce) do 7za a -t7z "%%~ni.7z" "%%i"sms27z.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.sms) do 7za a -t7z "%%~ni.7z" "%%i"convert2chd.bat

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.cue) do chdman createcd -i "%%i" -o "%%~ni.chd
for /r %%i in (*.gdi) do chdman createcd -i "%%i" -o "%%~ni.chd
iso2cso.bat (for performance adjust the thread count for your system, since these files are large too many threads could cause unresponsiveness or overheating (i.e. adjust or remove the thread statement all together but expect for your system to be taxed to the max if you do))

Code: [Select]

for /r %%i in (*.iso) do maxcso "%%i" --threads=2 -o "%%~ni.cso

@progets Sorry to revive a dead post, but this batch script reminded me of one I saw maybe 10 years ago, and could never recreate.  Instead of recompressing the files, it used 7zip to check the compressed files for errors based on the errorlevel, then would delete the corrupted files and log the filenames into a text file of what all was deleted.

Any chance you could throw this old dog a bone and modify one of these scripts for me to do the same?