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GameEx & MESS Rom Name Issue

blakepoet

By blakepoet
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blakepoet Advanced Member

blakepoet

Posted
Posted

Hello,

I have been trying to set up the Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 with MESS in GameEX.

The problem I am having is that the romlist in GameEx displays the MESS filenames, instead of the full game title. I have attached a screen shot, as it is easier to explain.

This has become an issue because emumovies wont recognize these filenames and it will not associate any artwork to them. However, the roms will ONLY work in MESS with this naming convention.

How can i get MESS roms to display the full game title in GameEx and have it work with the MESS emulator at the same time?

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Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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MESS doesn't have its own naming convention for emus as far as I know. For the database or emumovies to pick up your roms they need to be renamed using a rom scanner against a major set dat like GoodName. If games aren't working regardless of file name you have something wrong in the setup for that emulator.

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fRequEnCy GameEx God (Top Rank)

fRequEnCy

Posted
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hello, thanks for your replies. It appears that once we change the file name of a rom, MESS no longer recognizes it....

Please give an example! What are your renaming the file to? What type of file is it? What is the command-line you're using?

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starbuck GameEx God (Top Rank)

starbuck

Posted
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I use mess for over 100 systems thru Gameex,including 2600,5200,& 7800. I run all the roms thru Clrmame pro for renaming. All run fine with the right names. Check your mess setup ans see if they run outside of Gameex with the right name.

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Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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To be honest I hardly use mess for anything and it's a few versions old. You may be right but I can't verify it. If its true that sucks! :(

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Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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According to that documentation you dont need to do it ghat way and cant if you want to use emumovies sets. You can fix the naming with a map file though that won't help with artwork.

Or you can fix your command line and use the old method.

Sorry. :(

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blakepoet Advanced Member

blakepoet

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Please give an example! What are your renaming the file to? What type of file is it? What is the command-line you're using?

The Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 roms are all zipped. I have no problem getting the roms to run in GameEx. Its just that on the GameEx romlist, the name of the game is ddragonu, for example, when it should be Double Dragon. I changed the name of the rom to DoubleDragon.zip, but then it will no longer be recognized in MESS. The problem is that I cannot get any artwork associated to the file name ddragonu.zip. I know MAME has a similar naming convention but somehow it is displayed with the full title name in GameEx. Is there anyway we can do that for MESS?

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blakepoet Advanced Member

blakepoet

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  • Author
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I use mess for over 100 systems thru Gameex,including 2600,5200,& 7800. I run all the roms thru Clrmame pro for renaming. All run fine with the right names. Check your mess setup ans see if they run outside of Gameex with the right name.

Are you able to get the full game title in the GameEx romlist and can you associate artwork to each ROM?

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Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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GameEx should be pulling from the database for each (i.e. [Console] Atari 2600.mdb, etc.) and so long as the ROM name matches the name in the name field of the database and the image name is in agreement, then there shouldn't be a problem unless I am missing something. I use the Emumovie sets without a problem.

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fRequEnCy GameEx God (Top Rank)

fRequEnCy

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As mentioned by Adultery, the solution would be to use a map file for fixing the list name. However also as metioned, it won't help with arwork for these systems since we nor Emumovies currently support this format. There will have to be some work put into this for this to work. Something we'll get together and figure out. For the time being, I suggest using a map file till then.

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Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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Yeah unless you're using software lists as Freq pointed to. The DB doesn't have entries for the MAME type XML based naming system it uses. They'd need to be added somehow for the DB to pick em up.

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Tempest GameEx God (Top Rank)

Tempest

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All you would have to do is to take the info from the xml files, and create a database for each system.

Draco1962 GameEx God (Top Rank)

Draco1962

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My gut is telling me that the issue is not GameEx as in a bug but a limitation. The database files are by system, not by emulator. Since MESS is derivative from MAME, some of the conventions for naming should remain the same or similar. This is the case when reviewing the MESS a7800.xml file. I noticed that my ROMS and snaps do not follow that same convention (in MESS) and are more closely aligned with the 7800.mdb naming convention (in GameEx and likely Hyperlist - which is how EmuMovies provides a lot of the snaps).

If one could create, as Tempest suggested, an mdb file from the MESS xxxx.xml files and GameEx could be modified to allow for selection of the .mdb dependent upon the emulator in use, that may work.

In the interim, the .mdb file created as per Tempest's suggestion could replace the one provided by GameEx by default. One will have to consider that the other emulators for the other systems may not necessarily follow MESS's naming conventions.

starbuck GameEx God (Top Rank)

starbuck

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I run all my roms thru clr mame pro and then thru the emumovies download service. Atari 2660 and Atari 7800 doesn't have a no-intro dat file so I use a tosec dat file. I've used map files and have had the same proble. Mentioned it in a past post. I've like to use map files for the ability to color rom on my system. Can't get that to work.

Tempest GameEx God (Top Rank)

Tempest

Posted
Posted

My gut is telling me that the issue is not GameEx as in a bug but a limitation. The database files are by system, not by emulator. Since MESS is derivative from MAME, some of the conventions for naming should remain the same or similar. This is the case when reviewing the MESS a7800.xml file. I noticed that my ROMS and snaps do not follow that same convention (in MESS) and are more closely aligned with the 7800.mdb naming convention (in GameEx and likely Hyperlist - which is how EmuMovies provides a lot of the snaps).

If one could create, as Tempest suggested, an mdb file from the MESS xxxx.xml files and GameEx could be modified to allow for selection of the .mdb dependent upon the emulator in use, that may work.

In the interim, the .mdb file created as per Tempest's suggestion could replace the one provided by GameEx by default. One will have to consider that the other emulators for the other systems may not necessarily follow MESS's naming conventions.

I would think that the solution would be to add a softlist field to the .mdb files much in the same way as Tosec, NoIntro, and Goodset are used now.

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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^^which is what Freq and I would like to do. We need to know how Tom parses the DB columns (by column name or number), and then we'll knock up a utility that adds the info to the existing DB. Won't take long, just need some intel from the "big guy" first.

starbuck GameEx God (Top Rank)

starbuck

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Must be getting old. Attached is a list of the roms in my roms folder. They were named useing a tosec dat file and ran thru clrmamepro. I have all the snaps. snaps, boxes etc created thru Emumovies. They all play thru MESS fine without a map file. I'm not running or using the MESS names at all. Still don't see why blakepoet can't do what I do and not have a problem.

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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The issue is that you're still using the old way and not everyone will be familiar with that before long. We should never force anyone to use a different way if a popular emulator changes their approach. ;)

Not saying there's an issue with rom distribution but if they are packed that way we should conform to that standard and make it easier for end users if we are able. :)

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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It would help a lot if someone could point me to the softlists so I could get rolling on the XML parser module. ;)

Adultery GameEx God (Top Rank)

Adultery

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Its the XML I'm after so i can sweep the XML and add the MESS file name into the existing MDBs GameEx uses. The dat would be more for converting file names. The idea is to not mess with names at all, just to tell GameEx that lnrlndr.zip = Lunar Lander. I hope that makes sense, I suck at explaining things. ;)

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