NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?)
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@markwkidd Awesome man. I will definitely try to make this a part of my work. This seems like the ideal solution, at least for everything besides the videos. This way if I have some minor updates here or there I don't have to re-up the whole thing somewhere else.
BTW... is there a way for people to just be able to update anything after they last downloaded? For instance, if I add a few games (not roms, but all the xtra media), or if I update some artwork or text files/gamelist.xml stuff would they be able to just grab the changes since the last update?
You're right about the script. No sense in putting empty folders here. I'm hoping that I can build a datfile with sub-directories and the script won't even be necessary. I'm a while from that point though.
Thanks so much for the help. I have been pretty sick recently, so the limited amount of time I've felt like working on the project while I wasn't at work I dedicated to the images, so I haven't had any time to look into this yet. I hope you're not going anywhere in a hurry though and I can get some assistance if I need it when I start putting stuff on github.
I should have some updates soon, but this cart project really is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. It looks really sweet though. I don't want to rush it and do a sloppy job.
Later
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@used2berx said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
BTW... is there a way for people to just be able to update anything after they last downloaded? For instance, if I add a few games (not roms, but all the xtra media), or if I update some artwork or text files/gamelist.xml stuff would they be able to just grab the changes since the last update?
Yep, github makes incremental uploads and incremental downloads a breeze.
Thanks so much for the help. I have been pretty sick recently, so the limited amount of time I've felt like working on the project while I wasn't at work I dedicated to the images, so I haven't had any time to look into this yet. I hope you're not going anywhere in a hurry though and I can get some assistance if I need it when I start putting stuff on github.
Take your time, this is an impressive undertaking! I hope your health improves.
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@markwkidd Thanks man. I'll let you know when I start messing around with github. I think I'm going to finish the carts first, and then I wanted to go through the synopsis files (that make the gamelist.xml with meleu's script) and do some editing with the genre tags. I think right now there's something insane like 200 different types of genre's and most of that is just due to the order of the game types not being standard. Once I get that done, I'll probably start with the synopsis files on github since they're small and it will be real quick to upload and change things.
Quick update on the cart status.
Finished categories: US Licensed, Europe Licensed, VS Arcade games, and all game hacks.
Almost finished: Japan Licensed (untranslated), Adult Games, Zapper Games, Unsupported Controller games.
To Do: All FDS disks, Translated Games, Unlicensed Games, Prototypes, Pirates and Original Homebrew.
It's hard to count them right now since I've hidden some stuff on the spreadsheet to make this work easier so I don't have specific counts by type, but if I had to guess I've probably individually edited around 1,200 to 1,300 of the 2,019 current titles. Some of the more obscure titles are going to be tricky because the cart image sizes for them vary pretty wildly, so it's going to be a lot less mindless work than most of what I've already done.
In the mean time, we have 3 new translated games that came out recently that will be added as well :)
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@markwkidd and anybody else following this thread :)
There has been a few developments on the side that are exciting for this project.
- The first is an AWESOME
gamelist.xmlto Spreadsheet script that was written and shared to us by @mitu that was just pointed out to me this morning. I'm super stoked on this and I really hope that he sees my request and can find the time to reverse this and get it so we can then convert the Spreadsheet back togamelist.xmlThis will be excellent news for any future synopsis editing and save loads of time. Working on the synopsis files is one of the most tedious aspects of the process, and being able to do the work for an entire system on a spreadsheet would be wonderful.
Thread for @mitu 's script is here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16319/gamelist-excel-export-script
- @meleu had a little bit of time to do a little more work on our
synopsis.txttogamelist.xmlscript that does WAY TOO MANY things to mention right here. This is a KEY element in my work, and meleu's awesome script is so powerful at this point and what it can do in about 12 hours right now by running it on my Pi Zero would literally take me thousands of hours to write by hand!
Latest post on the script is here, but you'd probably have to do a ton of work scrolling through to find everything that is done. (I should get a list together of what is implemented and the instructions on how to use everything and update everything on the first post..... It's on my to do list): https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10406/making-premade-gamelist-xml-with-xtra-media-collections/409
He says that it shouldn't be any problem to reverse the
synopsis.txttogamelist.xmlthe other way around, so if he and mitu can both reverse their scripting work than that will open up a lot of new and awesome ways of editing and creating all of the information that can be pulled from thegamelist.xmlfiles and displayed on your rom lists screen.The
synopsis.txtfiles are individual text files with all of the game information without any tags that are used with great effect on the XBox and was an invention of a few great members of the old xbox-scene community and myself brainstorming ideas over a decade ago. If we can reverse the scripting processes that meleu and mitu have made, we can go fromsynopsis.txttogamelist.xmlto Spreadsheet, and then when I'm done doing all of my synopsis editing and adding more games and their information, back from Spreadsheet togamelist.xmltosynopsis.txtso we'll have perfect updated files that will work with both the Pi and the XBox.This is all very exciting and I can't wait to see what happens. :)
- The first is an AWESOME
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Slowly trudging my way through the Japan carts now. Man... this is so boring..... lol. I can't wait till this part is done. Most of the work I do is extremely repetitive, but in many cases I don't find the work to be boring and it's easy for me to get into a groove and work for hours without even noticing the time going by. For whatever reason this really seems like doing chores to me and I can't get into it. I hope to knock a few hundred of them down in the next 24 hours. The closer I get to the finish line here the more likely the work will stop being so prohibitive for me.
Hope to have some good news soon. :)
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@used2berx Finished all of the Japan and Translated carts except for some special carts like the Jaleco and Namcot carts which are a different size and/or have more elaborate carts that will require more work to edit properly. I think I'm going to go to the FDS carts next since I made them all from labels placed over a template. I'll I will have to do is make one good template to delete what needs to be removed and then that will be a quick 100 or so more images down.
Slowly but surely getting there. Probably just about 400 more images to go after FDS is done.
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@used2berx Got some more done today and just did a recount of what still needs to be done. I've got 340 more carts, not including the FDS disks that should be really quick after I make the template since the disks are all from the same image.
I've been teaching myself a few tricks with layers to make some of this a lot smoother. When I'm done I will look at the finished images on the TV and any that I feel could be redone with these new skills I will improve.
Most of the images I have left are random images that weren't photographed a standard way like a lot of the Official releases were, so they will take a while to go through. I was actually individually editing most of the original images at first because I was still learning things. Had I known then what I know now, i would have saved dozens of hours of editing. At least I know it whenever I'm doing this part for the next system I'm going to work on.
Updates when I've got them... :)
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I just completed all of the FDS updates this morning, as well as all of the "Adult Games", so the total carts that need to be done is down to about 320. :)
Note that these images were reduced in size by 50% because they were too large to upload here at around 1.8MB each!
The only categories I have left to work on now are Unlicensed, Prototypes, Pirates, Original Homebrew and a few stragglers from Translations and US Unlicensed games.
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Nice... I really hit my stride with these and since the number is getting so low and it's not so overwhelming I'm back to where I can dive into it for a few hours at a time without driving myself crazy. :)
Only 242 more carts to go. Man I can't wait to be able to play around with the mass size convert and see how this stuff looks.
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Here's some Original Homebrew carts that I had to make from scratch. They're reduced in size by 50% as well to upload here.
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Ugggggg.....
I just discovered that after my latest reboot that the online aspect ratio calculator for some reason checked off "round to the nearest whole number, so I'm not sure how long I've been making the images with the wrong dimensions. I think when I'm all finished I'm going to have to go back and re-check all of them now in case this didn't happen only in the last few days. Bummer :(
Well... that took the wind out of my sails tonight. Going to be taking a break from this for a while. I've got about 200 more images left besides all of this re-checking I have to do now.
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Went back and fixed all of them by date after figuring out where it went wrong. I'm still going to check all of them when they're done after I make some tables for ratios so I don't have to rely on calculators anymore for future systems and when I work on the boxarts for NES/FDS.
Just did a recount of carts I still have to do and I'm down to 203 left. 90% done after almost 2 months of my free time working on this. Can't wait. :)
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181 cart images left to do. All that's left is Unlicensed and Pirate carts.
Almost there. :)
Man... I hope that Boxart will be so much more easy to do for the ratio work like I think it will.
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Just Pirate carts and the "Blue" Unlicensed carts left to go. The blue carts I had don't look very good so I found that template cart and I'm going to be trying to find good labels to make them better. All that's left is 121 carts. If I can manage to get them all done this week it will only be 2 months of free time. I never thought this was going to take me more time than the synopsis did.
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CARTS ARE DONE!!!!!
Well... I still have to put them on the Pi and manually go through all of them to see if any need re-edits. Then I have to do some mass-conversions and see if everything is going to work out as well as I think it should.
Very excited to get this part of the NES project behind me. I'm going to take a break from artwork for a while before I do the Perfect Aspect Ratio conversions on the Boxart. I hope to be able to do some work on the synopsis and @meleu 's and @mitu 's scripts for a while and get everything running smoothly on that end.
Hey @darknior? Any chance you can package up those awesome boxarts you've made for the NES soon? I can't think about starting the Boxarts before I have all of your great additions first.
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@used2berx said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
CARTS ARE DONE!!!!!
Congratulations. I know you've been working hard on this. You should celebrate by playing a few games ;)
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@used2berx Hey congratulations :)
Sorry with the RVGM THEME and the BEZEL work i can't found the time to finish my NES work :(
I'm in late ... so many stuff to create.I share you the actuel set, not done, but with all my work on my MEGA here
Life is game, just play it !
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@mediamogul said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
@used2berx said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
CARTS ARE DONE!!!!!
Congratulations. I know you've been working hard on this. You should celebrate by playing a few games ;)
Thanks bud,
Hah... Too much to do man. My bro gave me his old XBox 360 and a bag of about 30 games back in August some time and I haven't even looked inside to see what games there are to play in there.
I'd probably just end up mindlessly grinding for Platinum Trophies with my OCD instead of putting it to good use. :)
@darknior said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
@used2berx Hey congratulations :)
Sorry with the RVGM THEME and the BEZEL work i can't found the time to finish my NES work :(
I'm in late ... so many stuff to create.I share you the actuel set, not done, but with all my work on my MEGA here
Wow... Those logos are fantastic! What a cool idea.
I'm a bit confused about your box art in there though. It only goes to the letter K as far as I can tell, and I thought you had a lot more of them done on your NES thread. Didn't you?
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@used2berx said in NES RessurctionXtras 2.0 Project (thread previously titled: Does anybody work on Emulators to fix broken games here?):
I'm a bit confused about your box art in there though. It only goes to the letter K as far as I can tell, and I thought you had a lot more of them done on your NES thread. Didn't you?
Oups, sorry i forgot to upload the half of them lol
It's done now.
But the second half after is not 100% verified, i want to redraw some of these covers, and add Japanese covers for translated games.
But you can begin to work with this set.Life is game, just play it !
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@darknior Hey man,
I'm not real knowledgeable about file types. I know I needed to make the carts PNG so I could have transparancy, and that overall the filesize for my carts are about 3 times as large, but I'm wondering why they actually seem to load up reasonably quick on my Pi Zero without even resizing them down at all?
They're nowhere near as large as the Box Front images are overall, but I'm really surprised about this development. There really isn't any unreasonable lag time on the carts except for the ones that are over 2.5MB to 3MB each, which really aren't that many.
I mean... if they're working this good on a Pi Zero, they might not even need to be sized down at all for a Pi 3. There is only one single image I can't seem to open at full size. It's for Pokemon 4-in-1 at a file size of 4.61MB. A few others that are smaller but still over 4.0MB will open, but they take a few seconds to load up.
Could this maybe have to do with compression or some other difference between JPG and PNG files and how they are handled on the RetroPie? I know that there was no way I could go through all of them this quickly before I converted them from JPG to PNG at this size.
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