Arcade Database

[ceeleez]

After days and days of nonstop database torture, my cousin and I have finally compiled a complete database for mame roms (current as of .125u3). It works perfectly with Final Burn Alpha, Another Arcade Emulator, Raine, Winkawaks, and any emulator that uses the mame romset in GameEx. All of the descriptions are from http://www.mameworld.net/maws/. Some games did not have descriptions on that site, so I left those descriptions blank. The information can be easily found, but for speed reasons I stayed with the info from that site instead of hunting elsewhere. All 7,100 games are present and it works fine with my version of GameEx. I made a separate database for Zinc, for those of you who have it set up as a separate emulator (because Zinc opens the games by number not name). I also put together a new theme full of video game vixens called "Eye Candy." It's on the theme section of the main page and it is full of hot game chicks. Hey Tom, how about throwing me and my cousin free registrations for this herculean effort ...Figured it was worth a shot. Anyways, test it out and let me know what you guys think. Anyone is welcome to change or update it or whatever.

Arcade.zip

Zinc.zip

[headkaze]

I'm hoping you wrote a program to scrape MAWS rather than typed it out manually. Apart from saving you heaps of time there is the benefit of being able to run it again to update the data.

Either way, massive effort, and thanks!

[Stu1983]

Good work, thanks

Stu

[ceeleez]

Typed it all out manually, and it took waaaaaay longer than I envisioned it in my brain

[mightypeniz]

jesus christ! well done mate.

[chriss]

thanks man, trying this out now

[Tom Speirs]

Thanks for the contribution.. Nice job.

[ceeleez]

No prob, glad you guys like it. Hey Headkaze how do I go about writing a scrape program for MAWS like you mentioned. Got any programs examples I could look at?

[incubus158]

try scripting using any means necessary next time.....

but great effort... how do i configure gameex to use it.

[ceeleez]

I don't know where GameEx stores databases by default but all mine are stored in GameEx\DATA\EMULATORS. Just place the Arcade.mdb and/or Zinc.mdb (if setup as a separate emulator) inside that folder or wherever your databases are located. Open up the GameEx Setup Wizard and go to Emulator Setup and select you emulator (Final Burn Alpha, AAE, Raine, etc, anything that uses the MAME roms). Next locate the Database section (in Emulator Setup (3) page) and click the dropdown arrow and select Arcade. The Advanced Configuration tool can also be used to select the file. Now when you scroll through the games for your emulator you should be able to organize them by name, category, manufacturer, or year. Also the games now have descriptions

*Did anyone check out my theme. It's pretty much 100% video game girl fanservice.

[headkaze]

No prob, glad you guys like it. Hey Headkaze how do I go about writing a scrape program for MAWS like you mentioned. Got any programs examples I could look at?

Well I've already written a program that scrapes MAWS for it's hall of fame data. I suppose it could be changed to scrape other data. There is initially a bit of work writing the program which uses regular expressions to extract the data, but once it's written you just press a button and it will go through automatically "scraping" each page gathering the data then spits out an xml file at the end. There's the added benefit of being able to run it again to get the latest data.

It's written in C#, but there is no point in me giving you the source code if you don't know how to code in C# or know how regular expressions work.

*Did anyone check out my theme. It's pretty much 100% video game girl fanservice.

Where can I find it?

[ceeleez]

The theme is on the GameEx main page in the theme section. It's called Eye Candy. As far as C# I'm clueless. I know a little C++ and I'm actually taking a Visual Basic course now (summer semester). I had a question, though. In the database I also have a field that tells you how many players (1 player, 2 player simultaneously, 2 player alternating, etc.) and I was wondering if there was a way to get that displayed in GameEx so that I can organize them by number of players to identify which ones are multi-player and which aren't.