Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

[bbilford83]

OK @Folly and @DTEAM, I uploaded my gamelist for Atari XEGS in the same place as the rest, 252 games included. I believe I set up the folders and images correctly again, replaced the filepaths in the gamelist.

Like with Zemmix, this is all games that are in the mame software list that work appropriately on the stock XEGS - i.e. that don't need a keyboard (making them a lot easier to emulate). There are a couple games that partially work - like there are modes or features that don't fully work but the game is still playable without them - and for those I note that in the gamelist. Best example: one educational game would let you add your own words to test your kid's spelling, so you can't do that without the keyboard, but you can still play the game as normal without that. I don't have videos again, but there are a lot of games here that aren't scrapable anywhere and I had to dig up info off atari hobbyist websites.

Note that I even tried to get the lightgun games working with my Sinden because you can emulate the "light pen" in mame (it is a slot device), but that didn't work. The XEGS lightgun isn't implemented in mame so as of now I don't think it's possible.

Feel free to integrate or not in whatever way you see fit. I will move onto C64GS next. When I'm done I'll return to all three to add games that aren't in the mame software list... I think from what I've seen that may be hundreds and hundreds more. But I won't add those to the ones I uploaded - or if you want I can upload them as a separate file. I just want the games on my system :).

[bbilford83]

@Folly I am wondering if you could help me brainstorm a bit on C64GS whenever you have a chance. I installed it, and I have the c64gs.zip bios where it should be, and I can launch games. The first few I tested, however, all took me to this screen:

Then, weirdly, one game loaded as it should - ablitz.zip which is Astroblitz Deluxe. That loads to the title screen and looks great, but I can't do anything in-game, which I suspect is correct - probably it is one of the majority of C64 cartridge games that needs a keyboard, so none of my joystick buttons are doing anything. So I decided I should test a few games that I know (from here) were definitely meant to be compatible with the C64GS, and they don't work at all - straight to the blue screen above.

All of this was in lr-mess-c64-cart but I also tried standalone mame with same results except worse sound (it makes an awful grating background noise). And it also loads Astroblitz. I tried in lr-mess-c64-quik - I don't know what that is/means - but it gave me the same blue screen above with the added message "Error loading 'batman - the movie (1998)(ocean).80': %4$s." And it doesn't load Astroblitz at all.

Any idea what I might be doing wrong? I assume it isn't a bios problem since it is getting into the actual c64 machine, but I have no idea why it would load at least one game if it isn't loading the other ones I know should work.

Edit: I tested a few more and a few more loaded: Arnie Armchair's Cricket Game (needs keyboard), Adventure Creator (seems to partially work with joystick), Aegean Voyage (needs keyboard) Alf in the Color Caves (fully playable with joystick). I noticed for the Alf in the Color Caves I did have to tell it to have player 1 plugged in with with joybster... not sure why but it defaults to only having it in joy2.

Edit 2: I went back with joy1 plugged in and and Astroblitz does work (though without sound?), I think that Cricket game too. But I am still stumped as to why games that were meant specifically for C64GS aren't working - Batman and Battle Command both I tested and don't load.

Edit 3: Sorry for all the text! It seems joy2 only as default maybe makes more sense, there are a lot of games as I keep testing that work with joy2 only on but not with both on. I think now in retrospect I remember you saying something about this. But there are definitely some games that need 1 on, so I am setting up two other runncommand lines in emulator.cfg so I can test easily and save. I still am only getting about half the games to load at all, so I think something must be wrong, but for now I am not deleting ones that don't load, just ones that load and clearly require a keyboard to play.

Edit 4 (last one, I promise): I just tested a non-mame version of Batman (the NoIntro one) and it worked! I would never have thought the mame romset was the problem but I guess they have a bad dump? I'll progress testing games that won't load with ones from that set and hope that helps, though I will still limit it to only games that are in the mame software list. If you would rather I not take this approach let me know, but otherwise it doesn't seem like the gamelist will have many games from the mame set that should be playable.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

Will have a look next week if I can
Busy weeks, I don't have much time at the moment.

[bbilford83]

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

@bbilford83

Will have a look next week if I can
Busy weeks, I don't have much time at the moment.

No rush, after all that I think I have everything working right now, I just have to use no-intro roms for a lot of games instead of mame. Only real question for you is if you are OK with that for a gamelist I share to the script so long as I still limit it to the mame software list (even if I have had to replace some of those roms).

[Folly]

@bbilford83

Yes you can add those too, I don't mind.
Perhaps add that no-intro part so they are easier to find..

[bbilford83]

@Folly and @Dteam, to procrastinate on work I should be doing last night I spent a little time looking for other systems that I don't have but that are working on MAME and I found two that I think I am going to try to add sometime in the next couple months. One I am not sure you would be all that interested in my gamelist for - it seems to be a lot like the CD-i, called the Tandy Video Information System. See here. Some edutainment stuff, but also some games I have never seen before.

But the second one I think is very interesting and you might like me to share my gamelist when I am done because it is an early handheld like lots of the others you have integrated. I had heard of the Entex Select-a-Game - it came before the Adventure Vision and is sort of like the Microvision but with better graphics and a VFD display. Only 6 games were released. See here. MAME does emulate it and your script should work to install it, but the games used inserted overlays (like the Microvision) so the games won't really be playable without those. I found four of them in tif format here, but the ones for Football and Basketball are missing. Either way I will try to get the four with art working, and will share my gamelist when I am done, but if either of you have any ideas on where I might find the overlays for the other two games please let me know.

Cheers and happy holidays.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

I see you are digging, you mean these 2 drivers, right :

• advision (Adventure Vision)
• vis (Video Information System MD-2500)

I would search for artwork, before you make anything.
And pictures from artwork can be used for overlays, as overlays aren't that common to be shared.

Happy holidays to you too.

See next post for the driver meant :

• sag (Select-A-Game Machine)

[bbilford83]

@Folly Yes for vis, but not advision actually, that one is the system Entex made after that is much more common and I already have installed (maybe from even before your script?). The one I mean is just "sag," stands for "select-a-game."

It was easy to install and I have it running, doesn't use bios. It is pretty similar to some of the handhelds from the same era - only red and blue colors - but did actually use cartridges (mame software list has all six known).

I am figuring out gimp a little better and managed to create a pretty good overlay for the first game, baseb4, with all the "cutout" parts turned into transparencies. It's here. But again the problem is the scaling is all wrong when I try to make it a retroarch overlay - same issue we had with microvsn that you fixed with mame art.

I know you're busy so no worries if you can't, but if when you have more time you have any interest in making the basic structure for the mame art like you did there, I could try to duplicate it for the other three games that there are overlays for. And keep digging for the other two overlays of course. In any case I will make the other three overlays correctly transparent like I did for baseball - it would be nice to get it to work if possible.

[bbilford83]

Btw the baseball one doesn't work in retroarch as an overlay for me without shrinking down the screen display in a way I can't figure out - same issue as with the microvision - but that is only necessary because the area outside the handheld's display says stuff that makes you understand the game (what inning it is, strikes and balls, etc.). I just tested out Pacman2 and that one actually can be played with a "cropped" retroarch overlay, even though it is uglier. Hopefully this will be clear...

"Full" overlay image that doesn't align to gameplay at all:

"Cropped" overlay image that works perfectly for gameplay but looks kind of ugly:

Btw it is correct that the overlay is rotated 90 degrees like that. Because it was designed for all games to be two-player, controls were on the left and the right of the screen. I confirmed through gameplay that if you rotated the screen 90 degrees the buttons would not work right (up would be right, etc.), so this is the "view" you would've actually played with back then even when playing one-player (maybe why it was discontinued so quick!).

This pac-man is pretty awful but still charming.

[bbilford83]

OK @Folly it is pretty ugly but I was actually able to create retroarch overlay images that "work" for all four of the games that I had overlays for to begin with, so even if you can't help out with MAME art this will be good enough (if not great) for me. Here is a folder with all four un-cropped and cropped so you can see how I did it. FYI, space invaders for some reason only lets you play as player 2, so not only did I have to flip the overlay 180 degrees I also had to save an override rotating the screen display in retroarch 180 degrees. I doubt that could be integrated in your script so that is kind of a bummer, but it wasn't too hard to figure out once I realized it was only letting me play as P2.

I may have found a good enough photo of the basketball overlay that I can make a working one out of it too, will try that tomorrow.

Edit: I was able to make one for basketball by editing a high-res photo I found online, though it is not great - I added it to the folder. I think the football one may be a lost cause. Calling it a night for now but at least I have a setup that makes most of them playable.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

Good luck.
Will have a look later at it all.

[bbilford83]

@Folly and @DTEAM, just FYI I have added a gamelist and images for the Entex Select-a-Game along ("sag") with all the others I have shared in the google drive folder that is now integrated with @Folly's script. I only have five of the six games listed because the sixth - football - I still can't find an overlay for anywhere and it isn't really playable without it. But if I do find it I will update.

The games play very similarly (some even have the same names) as the Entex handhelds already in the "classic handheld" list. So I think it would probably be nice to include but of course it's fine with me if it's just in my WIP linked stuff.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

I just installed sag with the the roms from entex_sag.
Seems to be a very simple and fun handheld.
Strange that the score is flipped and the game is not.
Can't access your overlays though as you have not opened it for sharing.

You know the overlay *.cfg files are basically reduced retroarch.cfg files,
so you could try to add the rotation override in there for the space invaders instead of in the other retroarch.cfg so it can be shared easily.
Not 100% sure it will work but it's very likely.
Btw. you should add a comments in the overlay *.cfg files for which resolution the overlays are made.
So then people know if they can use them or they can be converted if they have the knowledge to do so.

Perhaps an idea to directly share them with your gamelist adding the main overlay *.cfg files next to the gamelist.xml file and adding the overlays in, for example :
media/retroarch/overlays
Just to see if it is a nice solution and see if it is possible.
Hope it's not going to be a mess ;-), but we can always revert.

[bbilford83]

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

@bbilford83

I just installed sag with the the roms from entex_sag.
Seems to be a very simple and fun handheld.
Strange that the score is flipped and the game is not.
Can't access your overlays though as you have not opened it for sharing.

You know the *.cfg files are basically reduced retroarch.cfg files,
so you could try to add the rotation override in there for the space invaders instead of in the other retroarch.cfg so it can be shared easily.
Not 100% sure it will work but it's very likely.
Btw. you should add a comments in the *.cfg files for which resolution the overlays are made.
So then people know if they can use them or they can be converted if they have the knowledge to do so.

Perhaps an idea to directly share them with your gamelist adding the main *.cfg files next to the gamelist.xml file and adding the overlays in, for example :
media/retroarch/overlays
Just to see if it is a nice solution and see if it is possible.
Hope it's not going to be a mess ;-), but we can always revert.

Thanks @Folly. I think I just fixed the access to the overlays, sorry about that.

I will think about how best to do the .cfg stuff you are mentioning, I agree it would be nicer if it could be automated. But I have an exciting task to do first - I think I just found a usable version of the Football overlay in an ebay listing. No idea why it wasn't coming up before, I tried a million searches. So I am going to try to make that overlay first and then fix the gamelist so it has all six games - I'll update the gdrive after :).

[Folly]

@bbilford83 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

I will think about how best to do the .cfg stuff you are mentioning, I agree it would be nicer if it could be automated. But I have an exciting task to do first - I think I just found a usable version of the Football overlay in an ebay listing. No idea why it wasn't coming up before, I tried a million searches. So I am going to try to make that overlay first and then fix the gamelist so it has all six games - I'll update the gdrive after :).

I liked you pictures and good to hear you have found football too ;-)

Noticed though that they seem to be very similar.
Just an idea.
If you have a better understanding of gimp you could use the best picture and paste the cartridge and re-apply new text in there so all the pictures would be somewhat the same and of about the same "higher" quality.

[bbilford83]

@Folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

If you have a better understanding of gimp you could use the best picture and paste the cartridge and re-apply new text in there so all the pictures would be somewhat the same and of about the same "higher" quality.

Even without doing that I was considering changing to photos of the cartridge, those I think I could find for all six even without gimp edits. I like the ones I used because they have more info and colors but I don't think I'm going to find it for football and I do like having them all similar.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

I am experimenting with the ovelays.
I see that they are probably not bound to resolution changes.
Seems everything is loaded but the overlay is not displayed.
Mmmm... will have a second look later.

[bbilford83]

@Folly OK. I think it would be much better-looking if it were the mame art rather than a retroarch overlay, but I'm not even going to try again since last time I got nowhere... sorry. It turns out at least only one of the overlays has info that matters and is cut off when you crop it (baseball). All the others you just lose the good looks, not function.

[bbilford83]

@Folly I took your advice and did the gimp thing with the cartridges, replaced the art for the gamelist. I agree it looks much cleaner this way.

[Folly]

@bbilford83

I have a pure retroarch overlay working now and could somehow use a semi absolute path, in the overlay config file :
~/RetroPie/roms/sag/media/retroarch/overlays/sag-pacman2.cfg

The season it didn't work is that I forgot a folder in the path, haha.

See now why you cropped it as the overlay doesn't match up.
Will look at it if I can think of a solution.

Aha, playable now with a pure retroarch ovelay using a the cropped image: