Mess Software List or No-Intro issue.

[redhalo]

I really like the straightforwardness of Attract-Mode but am running into a problem. If I'm using roms named in the No-Intro fashion, how can I populate the rom lists with info in order to use filters? If instead I use Mess Software List roms, how do I match them up with artwork. It would seem that either issue would require an obscene amount of hand editing to get non MAME roms to have both artwork and be filterable. Am I missing some technique to make this happen?

[raygun]

Hi redhalo, I'm not familiar with no-intro so someone else may be more help for answering this than me.

This thread at byoac seems to deal with a similar issue?: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=140064.0

So maybe try the fuzzy rename or fatmatch programs that are mentioned?

[redhalo]

Yeah, I've come across that thread. The problem is that fuzzy rename needs a name that's close, MESS names as you know are 8 character abbreviations. It may get a few, but many names are fairly bastardized. Attract-Mode is the absolute perfect front end for arcade games as everyone has settled with using MAME's 8 character names, but outside of that AM kind of falls apart.

Something to suggest would be adding in an online scraper for emumovies.com by searching for the description name provided by MESS's lists but then saving the files as the actual rom name. I have some limited python programming knowledge and no experience in online scraping, but I may attempt to make such a program if this is out of your interest.

edit: Or add a feature where AM also looks for artwork fuzzy matched to the romlist's description name. No-Intro sets are pretty much exactly the same as the description name, but with added info at the end in parenthesis. (USA, Euro) for example.

[cools]

The answer is MESS software list.

Which isn't a great answer, but it's saner than the alternative.

There's a tool called PerfectMatch that lets you load up software list XML files and match artwork to them, renaming the art to the MESS name - http://emumovies.com/forums/index.php/files/file/1182-perfect-match/

It's a little buggy and requires some experimentation to figure out the best way to use it, but I've used it successfully to do wheel/videos for some systems - taking the Hyperspin/Emu-movies stuff and renaming it to the MESS method.

Ideally I'd add an extra feature to it - the ability to ignore games with matching artwork already present in the result directory.

There's no easy way around it, it's still a lot of work going back and forth with the tool and art sets, but it does reduce the typing to a minimum. I've uploaded renamed wheels to the Hyperspin FTP as well where I've done them. Not sure anyone else has used them but they're at least there.

[redhalo]

Thanks for your assistance guys, but I think I solved my problem. I wrote a working python script that can use No-Intro files in a directory, scrape info from thegamesdb.net and then save a romlist to be used by AM. I'll start a new thread to release it once I've worked out a few kinks.