To Adultry (and others whom are interested)

[hansolo77]

I don't know how much playing around you've done but I've found 1 possible solution. 7zip DOES work. However, not the way I'd like. What I did, I entered the first game folder (/ROMS/3 Ninjas/) and created a 7zip of the entire folder (12 files, iso and mp3). I then moved that 7z file to the root rom folder (/ROMS/) and configured GameEx to use the 7z format. It detected the game instantly. After I entered the game, it brought up the next menu screen (about 3 seconds later). Here it listed all the files. There were all there though. Example:

3 Ninjas 02

3 Ninjas 03

/\/\/\/\/\/\

3 Ninjas 12

3 Ninjas

Apparently what is happening, GameEx extracts the 7zip file to it's temp folder, then just does a "dir *.*" to get the new list. Normally this would be ok, but since we're only looking for the iso file, it didn't exactly work. In fact, the way the files show, there's know way of even knowing which file is the correct one, because the list doesn't show the file extensions.

So the next task is figuring out how, if possible, to only show the iso file. If we can do that, 7zipping the games isn't that big of a deal.

Note to others, I HAVE ALREADY TRIED THE ROM FILTERS! So don't reply suggesting that. If I leave it blank, it shows the 7zip file. If I put in *.iso, it doesn't find anything. If I put in *.iso;*.7z or *.7z;*.iso it shows the the 7zip file but doesn't filter after unzipping.

[Adultery]

Okay... Here's what I've tried:

I went to a local used game store and picked up a copy of Sewer Shark. I then ripped it with Alcohol 120% into an .iso file, and manually zipped that to ultra compression with 7-Zip and changed my ROM filter to *.7z (Sewer Shark.7z) I then tried to boot it through KEGA. It was working OK, but I think I need to tweak some settings to get it where I can play it...

Anyways, I suppose what I'm saying is I was able to mount an ISO without too much of a problem. And since I had the original CD, I was able to rip it directly. I'm gonna have to jump on a torrent and try some downloaded images since the setup is a little different.

Hope that helps!

.:.EDIT.:. So, you had a problem in GameEx where you couldn't tell which file was which? I haven't tried this through GameEx yet so I'm gonna have to get back to ya on that, cause I think what's happening is GameEx is set up to look for, say, .bin, .7z, .cue etc files initially, however, if it's a *.7z file with GoodMerge support, there's no filter in the extraction (like you pointed out). Like GameEx is set to, by default, display all contents of the .7z but without file extensions. I wonder if it'd be tough to impliment a second ROM filter for extracted *.7z ROMs in GoodMerge format?

Like:

ROMFilter=*.7z

ExtractedROMfilter=*.cue

Ya know what I mean?

Either that or I have just rambled on about nonsense.

[hansolo77]

The extracted rom filter is exactly what we need I think. Perhaps Tom could implement this into the next build? Basically, we just want to filter (as needed) the extracted files from a 7zip so it'll only show what file the emulator needed.

In your trials with Alcohol, how did you run everything? You mentioned you made an iso and then 7zipped it. Did you just configure gameex to extract the 7zip and launch the iso, or did you have it mount the iso as a virtual drive and then run fusion to boot from that drive? If the latter, fusion IS capable of reading cue sheets, iso, and bin files. However, if you launch just the bin, it thinks it's a Genesis game and crashes. But if you launch the cue or iso, it knows its a CD.

Given that, I'm looking into possibly using CD images in bin/cue format rather than iso/mp3. That will let me have better sound quality as it's a flat out IMAGE and not a compressed audio rip. Also, a bin/cue 7zip would only have 2 files in it, both duplicates under GameEx, but you would just run the second one (if it lists in alphabetical order).

Ultimately though, if we can get some sort of extracted rom filter, that would be perfect.

[Adultery]

In Fusion you can tell the program what you want to run in the command line so it won't have the ability to 'Auto-Detect' the system. That way you can force KEGA to mount a .bin directly into the SegaCD emulator. In case you need to do that ever...

Command=Fusion.exe -fullscreen -scd "[ROMPath]\[RomFile]"

-sms ... Master System

-gg ... Game Gear

-gen ... Genesis

-md ... MegaDrive

-32x ... 32x

-scd ... SegaCD

-mcd ... MegaCD

[hansolo77]

Yeah thats exactly how GENS used to work. I switched to Kega Fusion since some peers elsewhere said GENS sucked, and the fact that Fusion is still being updated is a plus.