Centralized EMU and ROM setup (run all from server)

[nintari]

Ok so I'm getting tired of copying all the games and etc over everytime I upgrade or re-do a machine. So I decided to try out a centralized system and wanted to see if anyone else has done this.

I would love to be able to just have all the emulators and roms on my server, have each emulator setup, and then install GameEX on each machine and copy a config or etc file over that machines clean install to have it all setup (knowing I'll have to create my setup first on another machine, then copy it over)

has anyone else done something similar? any problems with running the ROMs over a network as opposed to local? Any problem with game saves and etc?

kind of been out of this for a while so tryign to play catch-up lol

[bkenobi]

My only concern would be the latency of your network. If you are using a 10mbps network or wireless, then you will not want to play larger roms (MAME CHDs, PSX, Dreamcast, Saturn, etc) as they could take several minutes to transfer. If you are using a gigabit setup, then you might be ok, but it depends on how you have the server set up. If it sleeps most of the time, you will have some lag between requesting a game and the transfer starting.

There was at least one thread about a year ago discussing this. Perhaps you can find it with a search.

[nintari]

The network and all the clients will be gigabit, the server never sleeps

[chriss]

how many machines are you planning on setting up and why are you not just mirroring your hard drive with everything set up?

[nintari]

how many machines are you planning on setting up and why are you not just mirroring your hard drive with everything set up?

I currently have about 6 PCs in the house, all of which are setup as HTPCs, some are geared heavier on games and etc. As I upgrade one, I hand down parts to the others and etc etc.

Wishful thinking to clone the HDD to each one... but each setup is different sadly.

the main reason for also centralizing is the space taken up by the emu games (65gb) put on the machines.... saves space on the local machine to put other stuff on, room for recorded TV on each and etc.

[chriss]

a server really makes sense in your case! although i think that maybe the video preview for mame games over ethernet would still lag even with gigabit. i'm keen to know if you had success setting it up! i think you should try a psx game first to see how performance is with big files! good luck with it! sorry i can't be of any help on the actual setup. I just think that you will run into problems with save games. some emulators can be configured to use savegame dirs but some will just put the savegame in the same dir as the rom so everytime someone plays the game on a different pc and saves it the other state will be overwritten.

[nintari]

Don't really do anything with PSX emulation, mostly NES, SNES, Genesis, MAME so smaller files. admitedly I dont have a lot of the chd files for mame so not many big files there either

I was just copying all the emulators and etc over to my server while playing COD4 (beat it tonight too whoohoo!) and am going to start on this.

Actually I've run in to problems with save games even when installed locally. I was so pissed I started super metroid again and played it for a few hours one day, then went back the next day and continued, then the third day I seen I lost about an hour or twos worth of progress!!!! I was furious!

my next mission after this is to setup the DOS games I have lol. Love to go back and play monkey island, sam n max and a lot of the sierra games.

why I can't ever seem to let go of computer software is beyond me lmao.

[nintari]

so far so good, making sure I have the latest of each emulator, setting up each emulator first, directories and etc, then goign to load GameEX

only problem I see possibly is each PC uses a different resolution. For example my sons room the old plasma he has really needs to be run at 1280x1024 because the video processing board introduces odd interference, my bedroom htpc is hooked to a 37" LCd which uses 1360x768 by default, my daughters room is ok since it is hooked to her SDTV and her monitor so it can handle about anything, but the one that will worry me is my Main HTPC which is hooked to a 55" 4x3 HDTV via component video. the ATI component out is great I can fill the screen with any resolution but not sure if it will need interlaced resolutions or if it will translate automatically.

for now I am sticking with 1024x768 for all emulators since it will be the best comprimise between all sets.

anyone mess with Visual Boy Advance? Isthe battery setting for saves or the save directory for saves? I loaded one game up saved it and went out and the save file was in the VBA folder even though the path for saves wa pointing to the ROM directory....

[fRequEnCy]

They are actually both for saves. Battery is for whatever the handheld would save to memory. Save is what you the user would save the state for you to load later and return the point of saving.

[nintari]

kinda what I thought, going to have to change one directory then

goign to get back on this tonight when I'm off work as I know my son will be extremely happy to get access to this all again. It's a pain because they either complain one is hogging it or they want to watch TV when the other is playing, and sometimes they both want to play but not with each other... so solve the problem at it's source and give them both access

[nintari]

also did realize I do deal with some larger stuff.... Daphne... while it is rarely played still there. Guess I'll test it out tonight

[Visitor Q]

I have keep my roms remotely before but not my emulators.

[nintari]

Just an update so far so good, tested out Daphne with Dragons Lair, all working great

somehting else I forgot to mention that is a key component.... the game pads! All the machines have Xbox 360 controllers which really makes things incredibly easy!!

[nintari]

figured I would post this here in case someone else ran in to it.

everytime I click on one of the emulators from my network share (the exe for it) I get a dialouge asking me if I am sure Iwant to open it. I dont see this in game EX but possibly it was slowing things down.

what I did to get around this is go in to my internet options in IE7, security, privacy, local intranet, clicked on sites, then advanced and added the name of my server and the IP address as \\server and \\192.168.1.2

after that it didnt ask me to verify I wanted to run the exe fomr the network share

[nintari]

just another update, things are chugging along nicely. I am really suprised at how well this is all working. some emulators such as project 64 seem to take a bit more time to load, but nothing major. Daphne plays fine, Snes seems to take a bit when I load the page...and ummm.... I guess thats it for now.

[bkenobi]

Just my $0.02, but if it were me, I would consider loading the emulator on each machine and running the roms off the server. If you want to share configs, you can use Link Shell Extensions to make the emulator think that the original copy of the configs are on a local drive in the correct location. That way you wouldn't get a slow down from the emulator loading or the nag from it being on a network resource.

[nintari]

yeah but with project 64 being the only one to load a hair slow, and when I say a hair slow I mean like an extra second to second and a half, I'm not worried less to install on each machine locally! which is part of my goal here, to have less to install each time. for example I am getting ready to upgrade my daughters mahcine here soon and sell off her Gateway 901x HTPC

which means fresh installs of everything

no after her as long as some traumatic even doesnt happen I shouldnt be upgrading anyting for a few months if not year or two.