Adding game info for emulators that are not MAME

[ruthlessrabbid]

Hi all,

I've got attract mode up and running and am now working on adding individual games and making sure they all work with what I've got. Something that has been bugging me though is the lack of information that I have for each specific game - I want to be able to see the genre, number of players, developer, etc for my systems so I can create filters and make finding a game a lot easier.

in reading other posts there's files for mame like 'catver.ini', 'nplayers.ini' and so forth. I wasn't sure if there was something that existed for other consoles like the Sega Dreamcast, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis. I know that these consoles have XML files with database information on the game library, but I wasn't sure if this was something that could be included as an 'additional import file' in attract mode. Thanks!

[Mark Norville]

I experimented with this a while back.

I was adding these titles to the catver.ini by hand, but the process will take too long. I believed that it worked, but has been a while since I done that and it was on my test build that I started months ago when I first started using AM,

Hopefully Progets or someone else will be able to advise you as well.

Ah I remembered what I was doing.

I added the games to catver.ini and then I was using the additional info to point to the catver.ini

So Dreamcast games to the Catver.ini and then importing that to the dreamcast

I think that actually worked.

Regards

Mark

[progets]

In an ideal world you have entire current mame sets (that contain most consoles too). You can use the "listxml" or "listsoftware" with the proper "System Identifier" and "Additional Import Files" to point to your catver.ini and players.ini files. http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2290.msg15513#msg15513 & http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2307.msg15637#msg15637

If this isn't the case, you can import most xml files into romlists from the command line. If the xml contains the all the information, you get it in your romlists. If you are importing complete xml files but don't have all the roms, you can create a rule to only show the roms in the romlist that you actually have. http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2605.msg17810#msg17810

Lastly, you can use the standard builtin method that uses thegamesdb.net. Set AM to use thegamesdb.net and make sure you set the "System Identifier" to match the name of the system exactly as thegamesdb.net names them. http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2605.msg17821#msg17821

[ruthlessrabbid]

Hi Progets. sorry for the late reply - you've provided the exact resources that I was looking for! Thank you so much for helping out.

[ruthlessrabbid]

Hi Progets; if I'm in a Windows environment, is it possible to use command line to import an XML file and build the romlist? I know Windows is DOS based so the commands might be different but I'm not sure if I'm going to be unable to import the lists entirely.

[progets]

Hi Progets; if I'm in a Windows environment, is it possible to use command line to import an XML file and build the romlist? I know Windows is DOS based so the commands might be different but I'm not sure if I'm going to be unable to import the lists entirely.

Yes, you can import an XML file on the command line. More information on which system, where the XML file is from, file names and locations would help to give you better details.

An import would look like this. Your locations/paths to the files and names will likely be different.

Code: [Select]

cd C:\AttractMode
attract-console.exe -i "C:\AttractMode\romlists\Nintendo Entertainment System.xml" -o "Nintendo Entertainment System"

attract-console.exe is the command
-i is the file you want to import
-o is the AttractMode romlist name you want

If there are any spaces in the path or file names you'll need to use quotes like I show above.

[ruthlessrabbid]

Progets, you are the best - I didn't think to try using the attract console from CMD, just the regular attract.exe. I was able to get a romlist built out and into Attract Mode!

I'm messing around with filtering only roms that exist on the machine. I checked out the filter list from the wiki and it didn't mention the "FileIsAvailable" filter. So what I ended up doing was:

attract-console.exe -i "C:\Attract Mode\Sega Naomi.xml" -o "Sega Naomi"

I then went into the attract.cfg and added:

   filter             Available
      rule              FileIsAvailable equals 1

To my Sega Naomi display. I loaded up Attract Mode and it works now - thanks again for your help!

[tom75000]

 

[tom75000]

There is a BAT script to generat the romlist easly!

[ruthlessrabbid]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for providing that, adding it to my directory now! Cheers