MAME(MESS) Software Lists and GameEx

[kicker75]

I'm back to the emulators scene after a few years break, and I just got familiar with the software lists romset. Or what is also known as the mess romset.

I think it's a great idea, but I find support to this list lacking in both GameEx and Hyperspin.

With all the hash files we have, it would be nice to have support for the mess games list built into GameEx the same way MAME is done. I have seen this asked once or twice yesterday when I was looking on the forums for information about this. I happen to have downloaded the full 0.168 software list (still need the chds), wanted to see if I would like this, and I do. So I will likely be getting the chds as well, and replace all my roms with this.

Is there any script or modification that could be done to GameEx that would configure the artwork downloader to fetch the correct artwork and name it after the mess romset?

As it is now, I have ran the emumovies tool on the a2600 (atari 2600) list and it did get all the artwork for the one word titles. Like Airlock, Amidar, etc... and the tool name the downloaded file after the rom names, so it would require little work to make this happen.... the magic is already there in the map file I generated with a python script I found in these forums. I run the python script against the hash files, and I end up with a map file for GameEx. If the artwork downloader could detect the mess romset, and use the map files to download the artwork... I think it could be made to integrate in GameEx rather easily.

At the moment, the only thing getting in the way of this romset to pick up popularity, is likely because of the artwork headaches that goes along with it. Since there is no artwork package yet for this... but if GameEx could download the artworks for this romset by itself with the help of the map files.. it would be quite an interesting feature.

I hope that GameEx end up reading these hash files directly to use all the information contained inside.

A fullly featured MESS games list like the MAME one, with all the systems automatically detected and sorted, with the ability to sort clones, enable/disable individually, etc... as it is, the merge option in advanced emu setup does nothing for these.

I have setup the a2600 folder with the map file, and merge doesn't seem to work.

If I can lend a hand, I sure would. I don't have much coding skill, but I do have some spare time.. let me know if I can be of any help making this happen.

[Draco1962]

This would qualify as a feature request. You may want to copy & paste the contents of this post in the Feature & Enhancement Requests thread. Thanks!

[kicker75]

So, what are you guys doing with these at the moment? You are adding them one system by one, just as you add the other systems in GameEx? Assign a map file, and that's it?

Run it against a no-intro/tosec dat file and rename?

I have been thinking about this... but I wonder, the file scheme found on emumovies, what's it's called? Isn't it the hyperspin naming scheme?

The way I have setup my romsets at the moment... I have downloaded sets like tosec atari 2600, then ran it against the hyperspin 2600 xml, managed to get nearly all roms supported by it.. but I wonder.. there is like 645 or 655 roms in this set. All with artwork. Does that mean there is only artwork for around 650 atari roms? So, if I want a list with roms that have artwork only, I should keep doing this, or does emumovies have more artwork than the hyperspin sets? So if I were to run my mess list of atari 2600 games against tosec, and set this list in gameex, would I have more artwork (if any?) than with the hyperspin xmls?

Not sure if I come out clear... sorry my native language is french..

@Draco1962: Done! I added the suggestion to the thread.

[Draco1962]

Hard to say as I do not run anything through MESS and the changes are still recent enough to probably throw everyone, including EmuMovies, into a tizzy. I am sure there are a number of ways it can be handled and none of them wrong, just a matter of personal preference.

[kicker75]

Yeah I know right The whole mindset behind emulation is rather conservative. It is likely going to take a collaborated effort to help it take off.

It would start to get serious consideration once the artwork problem will be solved I believe. GameEx could be a game changer, as it is already more flexible than Hyperspin and more suited to the task. Hyperspin only works well with a very strict naming scheme.

It's artwork downloader download the full sets, regardless of the roms you have for example...

But imagine if GameEx would have a MESS setup similar to the way MAME is setup... you would enter the root of your mess software list romset, and boom... all systems configured at once... with all artwork... how cool would it be? I believe this must get some serious thought put into.

In the meantime, I have ran the python script I downloaded yesterday against all the hash xmls, and generated map files for each of the systems found in the 0.168 softlist romset. I wanted to create a topic about it, but I can't find any better place than general. If you wish to add it to the map downloads, feel free!

edit: updated the rar... noticed that each map files had .xml. still to it... I removed them all. So if you set your system's name according to mame/mess, then the map file should load automatically now.

mame168_hash_gameex_maps.rar

[B2K24]

Yeah, I REALLY, REALLY, would like to use GameEX or Evolution (in the future) for the software lists and hope Tom can add some kind of support at some point, at least for simple consoles that use carts and CDs would be very nice.

The core features of MAME like HLSL/GLSL, load/save states, Fast forward, easy way to map inputs, have me so hooked that I don't even use stand-alone emulators anymore. There's no way I'm also adding stuff one by one and so I've never really done that.

MAME is so incredibly simple to get up and running from scratch. As long as you have your rompath pointing to the correct folders of ROMs, CHDs, root folder of all softlist stuff, It's as simple as executing "mame64 nes" then you can TAB into MAME's own internal file manager and softlist load whatever you want to play.

With a popular site hosting so much [FREE] stuff. It literally takes minutes to have tons and tons of systems and thousands upon thousands of games all ready to be played.

Perhaps GameEX could have a software lists sub catagory and would be able to generate the game listing based off of the appropiate XML file or machine chosen.

[kicker75]

I also think the same. Years ago, when there was emulators that would run a few systems, I would tell myself, why bother with something that is likely going to be bloated, and why not use a specific emulator for each systems.

Times have changed... computers are now much more powerful than they were, and it turns out, I don't really see retroarch and mame running any slower than their standalone equivalent.

Plus it makes setting this up a lot easier. You get to have the same feel in each systems, the same shaders, etc...

I'm sold to RetroArch... I dig its way to autoconfigure gaming devices. If I fire up an arcade racing game, for the first time, retroarch will have mapped the triggers on my xbox 360 controller to gas/break, and will be using the left analog stick for steering. No additional work needed.

Fire up street fighter, and you have the mappings you would expect.

Start and select buttons are properly mapped on console games... It supports everything mame does + much more...

You should have a look into it if you haven't already. I posted a nice guide to make it work in gameex properly a few days ago, if you are interested, check it out!

But yeah, I hope that GameEx will end up having support for the whole mess software lists the same way it does with mame. So, we would install mame+chd, mess+chd, and have everything installed at once.... after scanning for hours initially!