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    Creating ES gamelists with media for MAME/lr-mame/lr-mess

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Projects and Themes
    emulationstaionmamelr-messgamelistsgamelist.xml
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    • mituM
      mitu Global Moderator @Folly
      last edited by

      @folly said in Creating ES gamelists with media for MAME/lr-mess:

      With this information we can match the database information with the files that a person has and generate a gamelist.xml on the fly.

      Have you looked into ARRM ? It may already support this scenario (local art data, based on ROM checksum ?).

      DTEAMD F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • DTEAMD
        DTEAM @mitu
        last edited by

        @mitu
        Good point !

        F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • F
          Folly @mitu
          last edited by

          @mitu

          Thanks, I will have a look.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • F
            Folly @DTEAM
            last edited by Folly

            @dteam

            I am trying to make a gamelist with media for videopac.

            Your post, creating a good mp4, was very useful :
            https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29987/retropie-convert-non-functional-videos-to-functional-videos-easy-free-batch-method-on-windows-also-size-reducer

            I used this manual line in linux (for 1 file):

            ffmpeg -i 2aswbat.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac 2aswbat.mp4
            

            Or skip the first 7 seconds :

            ffmpeg -ss 00:00:07 -i 2aswbat.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac 2aswbat.mp4
            

            Or cut out from 7 seconds to 17 seconds :

            ffmpeg -ss 00:00:07 -to 00:00:17 -i 2aswbat.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac 2aswbat.mp4
            

            Or cut out from 2.5 seconds to 22.5 seconds :

            ffmpeg -ss 00:00:02.500 -to 00:00:22.500 -i 2aswbat.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac 2aswbat.mp4
            

            Result of the first game :
            2022-02-26-202209_800x600_scrot_resized.png

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • F
              Folly @DTEAM
              last edited by

              @dteam

              Videopac is quite complete now.
              I added the files here :
              https://github.com/FollyMaddy/media

              Can you place them on the google-drive ?

              DTEAMD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • F
                Folly @jamrom2
                last edited by

                @jamrom2

                Will cover MAME/lr-mess based Coco1/2/3 and Ti99 emulation.

                Are you able to push these files to my repository, when you are ready ?

                jamrom2J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • DTEAMD
                  DTEAM @Folly
                  last edited by

                  @folly
                  Nice job !! It's on Google Drive now !

                  F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • F
                    Folly @DTEAM
                    last edited by Folly

                    @dteam

                    Thanks,
                    I just tried downloading it with the script.
                    It seems we have a problem.
                    When the google-drive script should download the gamelist.xml it gives an error (found in log) :
                    google drive ERROR: content-disposition not found

                    This also affects downloading all gamelists with media because it will stop when it encounters the gamelist for allin1.

                    I will try it again later, hopefully it will work again.
                    If it doesn't I will probably report the issue to Matt, so he can fix it.

                    I reported the issue :
                    https://github.com/matthuisman/gdrivedl/issues/20

                    EDIT : MATT has updated his script, It's working again ;-)

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • F Folly referenced this topic on
                    • jamrom2J
                      jamrom2 @Folly
                      last edited by jamrom2

                      @folly Unfortunately, no. I'm sorry... when I put all of my gamelists together manually, I had no idea that we'd be offering them up for download. So the locations in mine are not anything close to what you have. Mine use all the original locations of .\emulationstation\gamelists\system xx and .\emulationstation\downloaded_images\systemxx.

                      I'd have to remake all of my files for each system I did, and of course I did it to the games I picked individually. I also do not use videos, and I custom named many of my games as I pulled them from different sources as well.

                      Not sure that would help anyone.

                      F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • F
                        Folly @jamrom2
                        last edited by Folly

                        @jamrom2

                        I see the problem here for you.
                        Converting it all manually is a ton of work.
                        Though gamelists, in general, can be patched on the fly to get the locations we use.
                        So I understand if you don't want to do all this hard work.
                        Though, I ask you to reconsider.
                        In this forum we are trying to help each other and share information so we can do things in an easier way.

                        Earlier we choose our directory structure so :

                        • we can backup the gamelists together with our roms
                        • gamelists + media could be shared
                        • original gamelists are not overwritten

                        The problem is that scrapers don't work perfectly.
                        What we are trying to do here is make gamelists that will match the mame driver data and/or the mame solftlist hash tables and add more if we want to.

                        So the work is done 1 time and then can be shared/downloaded within our script.
                        So when everyone is making a gamelist with media the workload is shared and it will be easier in the long run focusing later on improving stuff rather then building it up again and again.

                        To give you an idea of how I did it for videopac.
                        I have made a script that will extract data from a desired mame hash table and converts it into a csv.
                        Then I convert it back to a gamelist.xml.

                        Only thing I have to do is add info that wasn't in the hash table.
                        I used the internet and the scraper to get some cover images.
                        The movies can be made simply by running the mame command for every rom in the directory, one by one, and add the -aviwrite ./<filename> option, saving it it in the same folder as the rom, like this :

                        for game in *.zip;do [[ ! -f /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/videopac/media/emulationstation/$(basename $game .zip).mp4 ]] && /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -cfg_directory /opt/retropie/configs/odyssey2/mame -rompath /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame\;/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/odyssey2 -aviwrite ./$(basename $game .zip).avi -v -c -ui_active videopac $(basename $game .zip);done
                        

                        Then we can convert all the movies to mp4 and cut out the first 3 seconds like this :

                        for game in *.avi;do ffmpeg -ss 00:00:03 -i $game -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac $(basename $game .png).mp4;done
                        

                        I hope you see the bigger picture here.

                        jamrom2J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • F
                          Folly @jamrom2
                          last edited by Folly

                          This post is deleted!
                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • jamrom2J
                            jamrom2 @Folly
                            last edited by jamrom2

                            @folly I'm happy to post them here, maybe to be converted into whatever they can be used for. I took the time to research each game from several sites as to assure I had Meta data for each. I'd hate to see all of that time go to waste.

                            I'm definitely not saying no to offering what I have, it's just I gave up on the scrapers finding all of these titles, so when I did that, I used my own method that worked for my rig... unfortunately, it didn't help this situation.

                            Here is an example of the Ti99_4a game Bigfoot using the bigfoot.rpk rom.

                            <game>
                            	<path>./bigfoot.rpk</path>
                            	<name>Bigfoot</name>
                            	<desc>In Bigfoot, your ultimate goal is to scale a mountain and capture the eponymous creature, who stands at the summit. Along the way, you collect food and gold. However, in order to collect one bundle of gold (yellow piles), you must first collect one bundle of food (green boxes). Using the fire button, you throw ropes which are used for climbing up the platforms. Once thrown, you can scale up and down the ropes. Bigfoot hurls boulders at you as you go. If your rope is near the edge of a platform instead of near the middle, you run the risk of being smashed by a boulder as you climb up the rope, so throwing the rope near the center of a platform is safest. During later levels, birds will come along and snag the ropes - fatal if you happen to be on a snagged rope at the time.</desc>
                            	<image>~/.emulationstation/downloaded_images/ti99_4a/bigfoot-image.jpg</image>
                            	<releasedate>19830101T000000</releasedate>
                            	<developer>Milton Bradley</developer>
                            	<publisher>Texas Instruments</publisher>
                            	<genre>Action</genre>
                            </game>
                            

                            I don't use videos as many of these older systems don't have any, so there is no listing for them...and I didn't want them in my build anyway. That would need to be added along with any other extra display pieces aside from what I have listed for "image".

                            F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • F
                              Folly @jamrom2
                              last edited by

                              @jamrom2

                              Do you have a github account ?

                              Then you can fork my "media repository" and add your files to that.
                              Just keep your gamelist.xml the same and add the ti99_4a directory to your fork just like my videopac directory and place the pictures in ti99_4a/media/emulationstation.

                              I can then look at the files and convert the gamelist.xml to the correct locations.

                              If you have more that 100 files then can't add them all at once, then you have to add them in 2 or 3 steps.

                              jamrom2J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • jamrom2J
                                jamrom2 @Folly
                                last edited by

                                @folly I don't. I'm not as tech savy as that... lol.

                                I'm better off emailing you each set one at a time if you want to do that instead.

                                F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • F
                                  Folly @jamrom2
                                  last edited by

                                  @jamrom2

                                  That would be ok, but email has probably a limit in how big the attachment can be.
                                  Probably about 50Mb.
                                  So if you stay below that limit we are probably ok.

                                  On the other hand I searched for a reasonably good website that we can use to share these files.
                                  It looks like this website is a good alternative :
                                  https://ufile.io/
                                  Just zip your files to 1 file and share the link.
                                  I did a test with videopac gamelis+media files :
                                  https://ufile.io/tutqgnwc

                                  jamrom2J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • jamrom2J
                                    jamrom2 @Folly
                                    last edited by

                                    @folly Ok. All done.

                                    https://ufile.io/f/9qjlu

                                    Dragon64
                                    Ti99_4a
                                    classich (Classic Handhelds)
                                    Coco2
                                    Coco3

                                    Are all uploaded. Bare in mind that many of the graphics I made I took from all kinds of sources like eBay, MobyGames, Launchbox, RetroGamer... etc... on and on. And some I actually made myself using parts of images I had to cobble together as there were no complete box/manual/screen images available.

                                    It was a ton of work and does not cover ALL games of ALL systems...just many that I hand picked based on "top 100" lists for each system.

                                    I hope they come in handy for you and others!

                                    F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • F
                                      Folly @jamrom2
                                      last edited by

                                      @jamrom2

                                      Link is working good !

                                      Already seen some nice picture :-)

                                      Will have better look later on.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • F Folly referenced this topic on
                                      • F
                                        Folly @DTEAM
                                        last edited by

                                        @DTEAM

                                        Shall we also make some gamelists for megaplay and playchoice10 ?

                                        DTEAMD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • DTEAMD
                                          DTEAM @Folly
                                          last edited by

                                          It's already covered by site like Screenscraper and others with MAME system

                                          F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • F
                                            Folly @DTEAM
                                            last edited by Folly

                                            @DTEAM

                                            Off-course, I will try ;-)

                                            Edit :
                                            Well I tried in emulationstation, but it only works if I have the files in the arcade folder.
                                            Screenscraper doesn't add a picture to it.
                                            The gamesDB doesn't recognise correctly.

                                            Scraping isn't really a nice solution, if you ask me.

                                            DTEAMD duglorD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
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