Share your collections

cyperghost

Hello fellows,

I think we can use this thread to share collections we made by ourselves. All we need is just to open a custom collection with your favourite editor:
for ex: nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/collections/custom-YOURCOLLECTION.cfg and post content.
or as second method you can add (empty) collection-files via this small script

I also want to introduce a new script that wil help us to share our custom collections. As there a lots of sources the roms can be obtained there are also lots of naming possibilites. In most cases it's just the Region and state of the dump. Therefore this script will help you

Pathfinder for Custom Collections

Get it via my github account

After adding the collection you need to restart ES (Restart!) you need to activate collection this way:

1. UI Press start on controller
2. Game collection settings
3. Custom game collections
4. Activate added game collection

Goal is a collection pool for the mass of purposes
maybe:

Vector Game collection
The early 80-collections
Down-of-the-videogames-empire-collection (1984)
MegaMan collection
Streets-of-Rage / Bare Knuckels collection
....

The best is... we don't need all ROMs. If a collection got 10 entries, you only have 8 ROMs then only the 8 correct entries will be showen. The missing can be showen later if the ROMs are the correct locations were added.

I just created ~~one~~ a few but someone has to start :)

Take care of the encoding!

Every custom collections should be formated in UNIX text format. Look here! The line endings to introduce a newline are very different from UNIX to Winows
THx to @cacrlhungus74 for the pictures

djaay

EDIT: This is solved. The collections i made manually was hidden. I just had to activate them though the Menu.

How did you get this to work? I am trying to do a custom collection with Notepad++ (Using Unix(LF) and UTF-8)

Looks like this:
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/8 Eyes.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/Boy and His Blob, A - Trouble on Blobolonia.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/1942.zip

named the file custom-test.cfg.

But it will not load into Emulationstation. But i can see the file in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/collections/

I have made a collection "the right way" in Emulationstation and that will work. But not the one made manually. Nothing in the log either.

cyperghost

Collection 2 - VECTOR GAMES

33 Vector Games - Mame

(Can someone get Elevator running?)

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/ripoff.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/starcas.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/astdelux.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/asteroid.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/aztarac.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/armora.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/bwidow.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/bzone.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/barrier.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/cchasm.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/elim2.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gravitar.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/llander.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mhavoc.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/omegrace.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/quantum.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/redbaron.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/solarq.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/spacduel.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/spacfury.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/spacewar.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/speedfrk.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/startrek.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/starwars.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/esb.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/starhawk.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/sundance.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/tacscan.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/tailg.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/tempest.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/wotw.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/warrior.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/zektor.zip

Best yours
cyperghost

lilbud

Made a custom collection containing almost all of the games that were on the SNES Mini

UDb23

@cyperghost Vector Games: you know there's a dedicated custom logo for ES available ? ;-)
alt text

cyperghost

@udb23 Yes I know - thank you ;)
But you need a theme for supporting those or have to alter it ;)
As you still need all vector gamefiles as collection. So here it is... I just knew a bunch of games that are VECTOR games (Star Trek, Star Wars, Starcastle, Astroids, Amored Attack...) and the MAME ROW #53 nominated RIP OFF that is really cool VECTOR game. So I started to create this collection ;)

@lilbud
So don't hestiate and post the SNES mini collection here please ;)

lilbud

@cyperghost Here is the list, just the games from the snes mini that I like.

Contra III: The Alien Wars™
Donkey Kong Country™
EarthBound™
Final Fantasy III
F-ZERO™
Kirby™ Super Star
Kirby’s Dream Course™
The Legend of Zelda™: A Link to the Past™
Mega Man® X
Secret of Mana
Super Castlevania IV™
Super Mario Kart™
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars™
Super Mario World™
Super Metroid™
Super Punch-Out!!™
Yoshi’s Island™

cyperghost

@lilbud Can you try to add this to a collection file?
I think best way to do this is to add a only versions U (for US) and [!] for proper dump to this collections.

I think cartridge consoles are a bit difficult for sharing as there are difficulties in
naming as not all providers !!AND USERS!! do not use the "naming convention"

ROM naming convention - more to read here

It's just a "test" how compatible the ROMSets are :)
For MAME the naming "problem" does not accour.

lilbud

@cyperghost it's technically not a custom collection, it's a whole different rom folder named 'SnesMini' with all of the games listed above.

cyperghost

@lilbud You're totally right ... if you use the dumped ones...
But I don't know if there is any difference in the "new" ones for the SNES mini and the "old" Cartridges. Except Starfox II all games were already brought to the SNES console. But you're right if we want a "true" SNES mini version, there the SNES mini dump should be used. But I see no sense in doing this ;)

So I thought about a SNES-like-mini-collection ;)

cyperghost

@lilbud Okay I made a SNES-mini like collection (21 Games)
Please exchange/change filenames as you like ;)

/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/collections/custom-SNES-mini like collection (21 Games).cfg

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Contra III - The Alien Wars (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.2) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Earthbound (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.1) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/F-ZERO (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Kirby's Dream Course (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Kirby Super Star (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (E) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Mega Man X (U) (V1.1) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Secret of Mana (E) (V1.1) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Star Fox (U) (V1.2) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/StarFox 2 [Final SNES Mini Ver].sfc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Street Fighter II Turbo - Hyper Fighting (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Castlevania IV (E) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Mario Kart (E) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Mario RPG - Legend of the Seven Stars (U) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Mario World (E) (V1.1) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Metroid (E) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Punch-Out!! (E) [!].smc
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/Super Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island (E) (M3) (V1.0) [!].smc

The games are:
1. Contra III
2. Donkey Kong Country
3. EarthBound
4. Final Fantasy III
5. F-Zero
6. Kirby Super Star
7. Kirby's Dream Course
8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
9. Mega Man X
10. Secret of Mana
11. Star Fox
12. Star Fox 2 (never released!!!)
13. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
14. Super Castlevania IV
15. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
16. Super Mario Kart
17. Super Mario RPG
18. Super Mario World
19. Super Metroid
20. Super Punch-Out
21. Yoshi's Island

lilbud

@cyperghost most of my files are zip files and I removed the extra symbols from the file name, ( [!], (U), etc.)

I also added the SNES classic edition logo, might add it to the minimal theme repository when I get home.

cyperghost

@lilbud I know... I was young, too ;) I see the SNES collection as test how people change filenames ;)
Thanks your feedback

lilbud

@cyperghost I do that cause I really don't feel like scraping and having a crapload of images taking up my sd card, but I still want the game names.

IceLancer

There is a very easy way to make collections by name.
Total Commander search entire rom folder super mario*.zip
once listed click "feed to listbox"
then: tab "mark" - copy names with path to clipboard
save it in new txt file with extension .cfg ,name the file to match ur theme.
done

P.S
the only thing i noticed is that ES is HEAVY case sensitive
if ur list has lower casing it will fail
example fail:
d:/
working :
D:/
same is for other folders
dont know why is that

strangeruk

I thought I would share with you all a bunch of collections I have made. I am not protesting that these are definitive, but they are certainly a good starting point! I hope that someone may find them useful:

PittStone

I made a new Collection "gungames" for Remote Guns.
I used "Emulation Station for Windows"

Gun Games Custom Collection

I Handpicked the Best Gun Games of All Time. (without PS3 or XBox)

thelostsoul

I have a lot of collections. Can't post them now, as I am not at home. Every collection can have up to 13 games at max and are something to represent for what they are. Most of them are genres like racing or rpgs. I also have some of my favorite hidden gems or mods.
And there are those collections added through theme, which appear on main site between the consoles. These can have any number of games and currently I have Arcade, which contains games from Mame, FBA and Neo Geo. And the NES mini and Snes Mini collections and Shmup only too.

Not sure how posting these lists will help, as you may not have the same roms as I do. I have a mix of European, US and Japanese games for many consoles.

cyperghost

@thelostsoul Well... It's rather how far the game names hit the ROM Images. The description is something a bit weird.

What works 100% are CPS, MAME and NEOGEO games.
Other systems are try and error. The best way in sharing collections would be a script that automatically looks for rom names that looks very equal like

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/gb/Tetris (JUE).gb
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/gb/Tetris.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/gb/Tetris (Europa).gb
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/gb/Tetris (Japan).gb

So you have 4 entries and that will give a regular hits for a rom collection. In the best way... Just 1

The rest of the collections entries are ignored... so we can easily share all collections ;)

thelostsoul

@cyperghost There are ton of pissibilities how files are named. Some have exclamation marks for good dumps, some US or EU or for German versions and even more. Also different type of collection sets do naming conventions differently. All these have to be multiplied with .zip and all supported filetypes for alle emulators a system is using. Translations, Homebrew and Mods of games, other manually added games are another thing with custom names. CD games also have often different filenames and aren't much standardized.

Which brings me to a point where a script for collection creation comes to my mind. I have no time for it now, but maybe I will create one.