Attract mode lists

[akafox]

Ok so I know how to "meld" all the games into one list...or some games into a list ect. But I was wondering how to make a list of all the categories into one list. You know instead of list divide by systems (consoles ect.) divide them by genre. Example I can combine all my fighting games into one list and combine all my systems into that one list. I know street fighter was ported to every system...but there are some fighting games that were exclusive to one game console. That or I can find the duplicates and delete them and keep the "best". Just an idea. I am working on a "nescatver.ini" i.e. like the catver.in for mame but it works for nes games..and yes attract mode uses it without problem..or at least it has so far. I'm asking i guess if anyone cares and i will share it. Let me know..and some ideas on list creation would be nice too

[raygun]

hi, regarding the lists by category, you could just use your melded list of everything as the romlist and create separate filters for each different category you want.

so one filter with a rule that category contains fighter, another filter with a rule that category contains platform, etc.

[akafox]

You are right on the method raygun. However without a catver ini for that system attract mode can't filter anything. Attract mode has no information to work from. You can do that in mame because mame has a catver.ini file to use. I wonder if a mess xml list can be used..however i have not had any success with it.  I think that is because of the short name format that mess uses. I'll keep working on it. The catver I am making for the NES seems to work very well. It's just taking time to finish is all. I think once I finish catvers for all systems then I would create a "master list" (all the games in one list) and then using the catvers I could sort them as I would a mame/arcade only list. Example: All my fighting games in one list no matter what system they are on. Then I just pick the game and the correct emulator loads.

[raygun]

Gotcha.  I had assumed that catver.ini had more than just mame games.

[akafox]

 it's only mame and short name at that. I guess the catver works for mame because the rom names are the same..and they must be that way or mame won't work. With other emulators that is not true you can have long names with spaces. I'll post what i have done so far on my "nescatver.ini" if you'll try it please. If I can get them made I hope the you will let me host them here for people to use.  It is slow going though...

Understand that this is not at all close to being finished. Also it may or may not work depending on the names of your roms. (I used good tools and renamed all mine http://www.allgoodthings.us ) Just like with mame the rom names must be exactly named what they are in the catver file. After you download it put it somewhere (your main nes folder is a good place). Back up your list (rename it to nes.txt.bak) Then in attract mode under "Additional Import Files(s)" point it to the file and then rebuild your list. I use the basic layout at the bottom it shows the category just like mame roms do if you use the catver.ini with mame. Better yet I can now sort and filter my roms just like my mame games!

If you have any trouble let me know. It works great for me.

[GeneralGoldenPanda]

I Have been lurking around here for a couple weeks and actually ended up making an account so I could see the download link for this. I think this is a great idea, and was sad (and a little surprised) to see the naming convention different than that of my romset I have.My set is supposed to be a goodrom set,so I am not sure why its named a little different. I would do a rename, but all my snapshots and boxart are already named to match my roms I have now.
Oh well..
Either way, I would love to see some sort of genre list (lists?) like this that works across all consoles some day,and those sorts of  things start with projects like this.

[akafox]

Sorry about your disappointment Yeah that is kinda hard to to name them all the same. That is one good thing about mess. However..because i like the idea of a challenge...could you send me (don't post) a plain text list of your nes roms I'll see what I can do to make you one. I have an idea..and it might help me and this go faster. I'll help you get started. If you have time to do this it would be great. I am busy helping with other things. You would be a HUGE help to the fourm! Thanks for your compliments!

[GeneralGoldenPanda]

I wouldn't mind sending you a list of my roms, do you have a suggestion of a tool (preferably opensource)  that can make plain text lists?
Really the naming is not too different than what you have, none of mine say (USA) for the region just (U) or (JUE) if its japan,europe and USA for region and a few of my roms have the [!] tag that goodrom adds (I think those are symbols for perfect dumps?)

I also wouldn't mind helping out with this project if we come up with a way that more people than you and I could use this list we make. I'm really curious what your plan is ?

[akafox]

To make a list in windows cd to your games folder and type "dir >> games.txt" For linux cd to your games folder and type "ls  >> games.txt" (no quotes) that will make a file in there named games.txt. Open it up look over it and then if it worked right attach it here. There is a program called DriveZ for windows it will produce a cleaner list but I am not worried to much about that yet.

You said that it is supposed to be a good rom set? Mine were named that way too (U) (E) ect... but I ran mine though good tools I thought and it spit them out as (USA) (J) ect. *shrugs*  Did you try the file I linked there to rename them yet? I run some through again and see what I did...

Also, there is a program I used called rom deleter. It deletes games as a batch and is configurable like crazy. You can find it here https://sites.google.com/site/plumology/romdeleter

EDIT: You know what..I think I might have used CLRMame Pro and a no-intro dat file to do that! CLRMame Pro is here http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/ The dat file you need is here http://datomatic.no-intro.org/?page=download and a tutoral is here http://mameworld.info/easyemu/clrmameguide/clrmame-guide.html

[GeneralGoldenPanda]

HA! that is a neat little trick to list it right inside windows like that! I have never known that function was built in. Thank you for that trick.

I attached the game list for you. I'm real hesitant to mess too much with batch deleting any of my roms, anything I delete I prefer to do by hand, even though it takes a long time to go through,I just don't trust deletions to batch tools.So I doubt I will play much with that. *shrug*

*Edit* I have no plans of changing the rom names I have since I already have my box art,snaps and instruction manuals all named the same, and thats just too much extra work to also rename whatever my roms get changed(especially since the extra files i'm sure would have to be done by hand) just to make  categories filterable..Pus my other systems like SNES,Genesis and so on use the same naming convention my NES are in...

*Edit 2* I was just thinking that with how many times games were ported  for many different systems and  3 Ninjas Kick Back (U) [!].bin for the sega is the same essentially  as 3 Ninjas Kick Back (U).sfc for the SNES and maybe the console genres should be a single list, or at least lists grouping generations where ports happen across instead of lists per system where you will have many redundancies and extra work for basicly the same info. what do you think? if you would like to PM me to exchange emails or  something feel free.

[akafox]

HA! that is a neat little trick to list it right inside windows like that! I have never known that function was built in. Thank you for that trick.

That is from years of DOS that trick is

I attached the game list for you. I'm real hesitant to mess too much with batch deleting any of my roms, anything I delete I prefer to do by hand, even though it takes a long time to go through,I just don't trust deletions to batch tools. So I doubt I will play much with that. *shrug*

Well honestly this tool works a little differently so you actually know what it finds before you delete them. It saved me hours of work! But I understand how you feel. I went through by hand and cleaned my mame roms. (Makes it a pain to play mame on-line though.) And I've trashed many of set ups in my life with the delete key! lol

*Edit* I have no plans of changing the rom names I have since I already have my box art,snaps and instruction manuals all named the same, and thats just too much extra work to also rename whatever my roms get changed(especially since the extra files i'm sure would have to be done by hand) just to make  categories filterable..Pus my other systems like SNES,Genesis and so on use the same naming convention my NES are in...

I understand how you feel..I have not renamed any of my snaps yet..so none of them work However...with your list I might be able to batch rename them now I think about it. So you are helping more than you know! I tried a fuzzy rename tool..err..bad idea lol

*Edit 2* I was just thinking that with how many times games were ported for many different systems and 3 Ninjas Kick Back (U) [!].bin for the sega is the same essentially  as 3 Ninjas Kick Back (U).sfc for the SNES and maybe the console genres should be a single list, or at least lists grouping generations where ports happen across instead of lists per system where you will have many redundancies and extra work for basically the same info.

No I understand well what you are saying. Honestly I was trying to remember my Access and make a database to link all that together (just to practice..and share if anybody wanted it) but after working with it I realized why I stopped so long ago! When I was planing my game system and learning about all this I thought why have the same game three times..waste of hard drive space (we had just came out with single 20gb drives) and now with doing video snaps..that's even more space..so you have the same video twice..or like street fighter twelve times Maybe I am being too picky about space..you pick up a terabyte for what 50 bucks now? *shrugs* My thing is I would like to list all my games in one list and select by genre or by system..but that is just me

[GeneralGoldenPanda]

My thing is I would like to list all my games in one list and select by genre or by system..but that is just me

When I said console games should be one list, I meant more for determining what  category it is rather than any sort of play list to launch from. Bubble bobble is still a puzzle game on NES and on the genesis (And for any other consoles it was ported for). You already have this  info filled out in the list that has been started, but if you were to expand on these genre lists for more systems you would need to go through and re-enter info already done for other systems. It would be kind of nice if it was possible to  make an INI file or dat or whatever that would catalog the genres across the various consoles. maybe we could even include info on which systems the titles got ported to so its one more way to potentially filter console games?

I also don't really know what goes into having frontends recognize and actually be able to read any of this extra info.. so, yeah, maybe this is even way more work than i'm aware of,or not really feasible or whatever.. thoughts?

[akafox]

I understand what you mean. I think..think...that the list.xmls for mess have all that info..I could be wrong. However most people don't use mess for consoles. The other consoles don't use list.xmls. Might look into that.

I also don't really know what goes into having frontends recognize and actually be able to read any of this extra info.. so, yeah, maybe this is even way more work than i'm aware of or not really feasible or whatever.. thoughts?

Yeah if it was a unified standard and everybody used the same thing we could do that. Honestly AM is the only front-end I have found that uses an catver.ini for other systems..well except for mamewah...but it really works like it is suppose to!

Here is a list for you..test it out for me please. Of course it's not totally done yet!

[GeneralGoldenPanda]

OK, Sorry I took a while to get back to you on this. I didn't have any emulators besides MAME configured yet since I have been still largely playing around with it getting it how I like before transferring it over to my arcade controller.
I got NES all set up though and have a little bad news,Your list doesn't work for me. I opened it up and looked inside and I thought maybe the problem was that the list you sent me was not split up with a game per line like the other one is. However, I fixed the first 10 or so entries so they were a single game per line and it still didn't work for me. However, I noticed by default  attract mode scrapes info from thegamesdb.net and that actually provides the genre + year info and  manufacturer .
I actually at first thought your list worked fine until I noticed every game had a listing and you said it wasn't done,and noticed if I removed the gamesdb.net setting and refreshed it stopped working. Its kind of a good news /bad news thing really since the function is still actually there.

[akafox]

Oh...are you windows? My fault then. That is one reason...let me get you one in the right "format". Also I am trying the games.db thing right now..almost done. I don't think it worked for me..that is why I made this in the first place..but we'll see. I don't use an info scraper. I leave it blank. Then on the additional input files line I put in the path and the name of the file. (ex. C:\fceux\goodtoolsnes.ini ) Then I recreate my list. The games database did work..and it gave me categories...huh..it didn't work before my catver list is faster though A lot more work though! lol