Database Creation Question

[Nologic]

Okay I'm trying to create a simple DB for the Sega Dreamcast...which I'm not that far along on...however I decided to see if that data was appearing in GameEx...and well no its not.

So my question is...how does one go about making a working DB for GE...are we simply limited to a single table, or a certain set of data entry...with no forms or fliters...

Anyways any help would be great as we currently are sitting short on a lot of DB's for a number of consoles and handhelds.

*Update*

===============================================

Okay here is a preliminary collection of db's...all of which will be redone yet again...as I've decided to add more data.

These are not replacements for GameEx's current db's unless there isn't a corresponding db for a given system.

List

=========

[Console] Amiga CD32.mdb

[Console] Atari 2600.mdb

[Console] NEC Turbo Grafx 16.mdb

[Console] NEC Turbo Grafx CD.mdb

[Console] Nintendo GameCube.mdb

[Console] Panasonic 3DO.mdb

[Console] Philips CD-i.mdb

[Console] Sega 32X.mdb

[Console] Sega CD.mdb

[Console] Sega Dreamcast.mdb

[Console] Sega Master System.mdb

[Console] Sega Saturn.mdb

[Console] SNK Neo-Geo.mdb

[Console] SNK Neo-Geo CD.mdb

[Console] Sony PlayStation.mdb

[PC] Microsoft DOS.mdb

Note attached zip is actually a 7zip archive with its extension renamed.

[headkaze]

Just having a look at a database in the GameEx folder, seems you need one table called GameData, with the following fields; GoodName, Name, Category, Date, Developer, NumPlayers & Description.

[Nologic]

hmm even at that I'm still not getting any thing to show thus far.

[ShAddiX]

Use a existing database, delete every entry, save it as a dreamcast database and put your informations in it.

I did it this way with my PC games database. This works very well. (just 1 game show the informations sometimes, and sometimes not, I don't know why).

The databases are very "static". It has to be exactly the way they are supposed to be.

And your games in the roms folder must habe the same name like the GoodNames in the database.

A great improvement would be the possibility to add own fields and to add them in the theme editor.

But I think Tom has enough to do. It would be just a little tweak, don't know if it would be worth the work.

[Nologic]

Well my first run I managed to not rename the fields correctly...so that by and large was the first primary issue...the last issue I ran into was that "Date" must be a time\date value and not text or numeric...which currently I would think is fine since we are currently only searching by yearly date.

I'm still playing with things tho...however additional tables, forms, query's and such do seem to be fine...tho my Access skills are lacking these days...not that they ever where worth a shit before.

I have a very crude autoit script that allows me to leech data currently from MobyGames, so I can build a basic DB fairly fast...tho I'm starting to think about making a more complex and informative DB collection...tho there is certainly going to be more data entry than I care to try and take on alone.

If we can get a group effort and group discussion going...and nudge Tom into adding support...we could really boost the quality of the current db sets.

Oh here are my two current additions...number of players field is bogus, and date is only good far as the year the game was released.

[ShAddiX]

Works for me.

But you need to delete all ":" in the database because you can't use a ":" in the names of the isos.

As a result, not all informations are read ozt of the database. Just replace all "." with nothing. Should work

[Nologic]

Actually generally I replace ":" with ";"...I just haven't gotten around to it.

I'm still toying around with the idea of expanding the data covered in the db's...which generally means I'll be redoing those...which isn't to bad as together they both took less than 3hours to complete, in their current form.

[Nologic]

Okay updated archive at top of thread....GameCube, Dreamcast, Playstation....GoodNames values have had replacements done ":" replaced with ";" and "/" with "-"