nightwulf

Understood, and I appreciate your concerns very much. I wouldn't suggest unwanted e-mails either, but if an "opt-in" options exists there's really no cause for compliant. Again, no worries and appreciate the great product; if it comes around again and I catch it, I catch it. Apparently I don't visit the GameEx forums as frequently as most. Not blaming anyone, no one's fault but my own. There's really no cause to get this upset. My apologies if the suggestion somehow offended anyone ...

Well damn. Something possessed me to check on the progress of GameEx Evolution tonight and I see I missed this by a couple days. No worries, but I'd like to respectfully echo Qorl's thoughts -- an e-mail to current license holders or something would be much appreciated if this deal returns. Is there something I can do to receive this kind of information? "Send me news and information" is checked in my profile as well.

IIRC, last time I installed Shark it brought Bing Bar with it. A quick Googling found a response from the dev, who stated they get a small payment from the install, if you don't like it you can uninstall Bing (or not install Shark to begin with), and here's some registry entries to stop the install altogether. I'm absolutely not a fan of this, and the registry entries to block install did not work when I tried, but I can live with uninstalling Bing. Is there a decent alternative? CCCP wasn't able to play everything I threw at it. K-Lite? (ugh).

Turning on the "merge sets" option in advanced emulator config may accomplish what you're looking for too, depending on how your ROMs are named.

It's definitely a little complicated. This is a good thing, as the complications are a result of the software being configurable to an amazing degree. It may take some time to get everything configured the way you want, but this is preferable (to me anyway) to software that is easier to use but you're stuck in whatever molds they provide. As nullPointer mentioned, the setup wizard is your friend. Spend some time just reviewing and playing with all the options. The emulator and assets directories are configured on the Emulator Setup page (and a few on the next page, Advanced Emulator Setup). I plead ignorance on GameBase (the one time I thought I'd see what it was their webserver was not responding, and it still isn't as far as I can tell), so take whatever I say with a grain of salt, heh.

Well, a dat file (in clrmamepro format I'm assuming) is basically a list of files and their CRC, MD5, and SHA. The GameEx databases have none of this information; they're primarily used to define names from GoodSets / nointro / TOSEC / MAME filenames and game information (publisher, description, etc.). There really isn't any useful information for a ROM tool. I attached the SNES database as CSV (can open with Excel, Google Docs, etc. or even a good text editor) so you can see what's there and use the list of files if you have a use for it. If your goal here is to plug holes in your artwork collection though, it really isn't relevant. Maybe dump your ROM directory list to a text file and manually look for deficiencies in your artwork directories? Not really sure of the best way to proceed. Console Nintendo SNES.zip

The GameEx .db3 files are just sqlite databases. They can be opened with any number of tools (I found SQLite Database Browser [standalone] and sqlite-manager [Firefox extension] very helpful). No clue where emumovies' databases can be viewed. The download utility even reads "running search on server" when starting a download so I'm guessing it uploads your file list to their server and there's no public access to whatever they're matching against. The GameEx databases won't be of any use in a ROM tool. They don't use any means of validating your ROMs other than filename. There's no crc/md5/sha data to match against. I've found the easiest way to minimize my missing artwork is to use emumovies' download utility then manually grab (and rename) whatever is missing via their FTP access.

I use a Crucial 64GB SSD as the only non-optical drive in my HTPC. GameEx and all the emulators are very snappy. All ROMs and assets (and music, videos, etc.) are on a RAID0 array in my file server (nothing fancy, Slackware with Samba) hardwired with gigabit ethernet. I think there's more delay due to the theme animations than anything else. That's not a complaint; I like them. Veering off-topic, but at this point SSDs are a no-brainer investment. With DDR3 RAM practically free and CPU speeds at a wall, there's no better bang for your buck. If you're worried about sudden data loss, practically anyone can buy and use a fileserver with spinning drives. I hear Windows Home Server isn't a bad product and is cheap, and a little headless machine with two or more hard disks, a DVD drive, and nothing else would probably set you back ~$200. Well maybe more as hard drive prices never dropped to what they were, but still relatively inexpensive ...

I'd like an option to group titles by database name regardless of file name. That is, if via a database I inform GameEx that the files "Kirby Super Star," "Kirby Fun Pack," and "Hoshi no Kirby Super Deluxe" all have the name "Kirby Super Star," then the title should appear once in my gamelist. Clicking on it would list all three versions of the game (and their revisions). Current behavior is to group the titles only when the file name (at least up to the first parenthesis, bracket, etc.) matches. In the above example, "Kirby Super Star" is listed three times -- once for each region, and the one that corresponds to "Hoshi no Kirby Super Deluxe" lists all three revisions. I've got a setup like what you're describing. I split my ROMs into separate folders (US, Japan, Europe, etc.) and add an emulator entry for each, using a different ROM folder for each emulator (even though they're all Snes9x). A small hassle, but it works well once you've got it set up. I'd like to merge everything into one big list, but the issue above is not making it possible.

Impressive link-filled post, heh. Thanks again; I'll add my two cents to the feature request thread.

Thanks, unfortunately that setting isn't quite doing the job (intended or otherwise). Using the Kirby Super Star example, I get three entries in my game list. One contains all three versions of Hoshi no Kirby Super Deluxe. So it's definitely merging between revisions (guessing it groups by filename up to the first parenthesis) but doesn't if the names are entirely different. "Legend of Zelda, The: A Link to the Past" and "Zelda no Densetsu - Kamigami no Triforce" is another good example. It's listed twice, and one entry shows all the US and European revisions (note the EU version is named the same as the US), the other showing all the Japanese revisions.

Hello. In my quest for the perfect database (for me, anyway), I've run into a snag. Is there an option I'm missing or is it possible somehow to merge entries based on database name? Take Kirby Super Star (SNES) as an example. I'd like to see "Kirby Super Star" listed once in my game list, and selecting it would allow me to pick from "Hoshi no Kirby Super Deluxe," "Kirby Super Star," and "Kirby Fun Pack" (JP, US, and EU, respectively). I tried doing this with the existing database (using GoodName, Nointro, and TOSEC columns to represent each game region), but "Kirby Super Star" is still listed three times in the game list, one for each region. It's only listed once in the database. Any database gurus (Tom or otherwise) who know how it works internally? Thanks in advance.

Finally came up with something usable; added it to the Database thread.

Sorry to resurrect an old topic ... After noticing some inconsistencies between the current no-intro set and the database for the Super NES, I set about trying to update the database. Attached is my first effort. There was a surprising amount of manual intervention needed. If I can script everything to the point of (almost) automation, I'll be sure to share. Be forewarned though I'm a scripter, not a GUI designer. Console Nintendo SNES.db3.zip

Thanks, Tempest. Unfortunately there isn't an SNES file in there, and I haven't been able to find one anywhere. I got somewhere by running "goodsnes list" in an otherwise-empty directory. Good grief what a mess that set is. Unfortunately I've only got names that way; it'd be really nice if I could get the CRC or SHA1 somehow to match everything up ... it was really easy with a quick Perl script to parse the TOSEC and no-intro dats and spit out a CSV file with everything matched up by CRC. Guess I'll try adding the Good set by hand if nothing else works.

Thanks, I'll spend some time with the SNES database and see what I can come up with. In some initial poking around, a couple questions have come up ... Is there a way to get a GoodSNES datfile or equivalent? All I found floating around is the executable, Everything I try to do with it gives the error "Unable to open GoodSNES.db" which I've been unable to find. There appears to be a new player in town -- HyperList. It's not quite the same as no-intro; in fact so many of the discrepancies match what I'm seeing between the GameEx db and no-intro that I wonder if HL was used for the "no-intro" column in the db. Can I add a column in the db for HL? Or is GameEx expecting the db structure to appear exactly as it does now? I noticed MAME-specific columns in the SNES db that obviously serve no purpose in that context, so I thought I'd see if the db structure was "fixed" across GameEx before toying with it.

Hello, folks. I noticed some oddities in my game list and long story short after comparing the SNES database with the most recent no-intro DAT I found quite a few discrepencies. So, that opens up a few possibilites- I keep GameEx auto-updated. Is it safe to assume the file on my hard drive is the most recent SNES db included with GameEx? Or could I be out-of-date and should reinstall? Is updating this an ongoing project that I missed while searching the forum? Are there updated databases available somewhere I'm missing? I've only really looked at SNES, so no idea what the status of the others is. Am I an outcast using no-intro and should switch to a different naming system? Failing all of the above, I'd certainly be interested in updating the no-intro names and sharing the resulting database. Thanks in advance.