GameEx Emulator Project

[headkaze]

I wanted to start a new project to coincide with some Setup Wizard updates I'm currently working on. What I have proposed to Tom (along with some ideas presented to me from him) is to update the emulator downloading feature and automatic folder structure creation. Our goal is to make emulator setup as easy as possible.

In a nutshell, emulator profiles will have a Url for downloading the emulator which will be zipped up and extracted to a default folder of your choice.

So what I am asking is if someone can go through all the emulator profiles we have, download the emulator and set it up for GameEx with logical defaults and zip it up into a single folder (matching the name of the folder in the emulators after the c:\emulators part). Then we are changing "c:\emulators" to be a variable called [DEFAULTEMUPATH] and also another one for graphics, and videos called [DEFAULTASSETPATH].

Anyone interested in such a project? Tempest? Brian? Anyone?

[Brian Hoffman]

I wanted to start a new project to coincide with some Setup Wizard updates I'm currently working on. What I have proposed to Tom (along with some ideas presented to me from him) is to update the emulator downloading feature and automatic folder structure creation. Our goal is to make emulator setup as easy as possible.

In a nutshell, emulator profiles will have a Url for downloading the emulator which will be zipped up and extracted to a default folder of your choice.

So what I am asking is if someone can go through all the emulator profiles we have, download the emulator and set it up for GameEx with logical defaults and zip it up into a single folder (matching the name of the folder in the emulators after the c:\emulators part). Then we are changing "c:\emulators" to be a variable called [DEFAULTEMUPATH] and also another one for graphics, and videos called [DEFAULTASSETPATH].

Anyone interested in such a project? Tempest? Brian? Anyone?

Sure, that sounds fun. I have a few questions. Some emulators requre you to install directx versions that may not be installed stock with your OS, also some require C and VB runtimes. Having a download wizard that automatically installs these pre-made setups may not include all the files needed. It may be a good idea to host some of these as well.

Perhaps even have auto download a known working codec pack can be beneficial to media center users that seem to have video playback issues.

Other thoughts include emus that require Bioses and similar to function. Then finally wrappers and loaders (should the just go in the working path of the emulator?)

Rather than go through our massive section of configs that predate alot of our newest members and even some emulators themselfs, I think the newest / most popular version of the emu should be done. I think for now creating a config for each of the 20 + nes emulators in existence should be just 1 popular one, say Nestopia.

This way the users that do not know much about how it all works can have a working system, the more seasoned users can use whatever they feel is better.

looking forward to feedback, I am interested in this project.

Brian Hoffman

[headkaze]

Sure, that sounds fun. I have a few questions. Some emulators requre you to install directx versions that may not be installed stock with your OS, also some require C and VB runtimes. Having a download wizard that automatically installs these pre-made setups may not include all the files needed. It may be a good idea to host some of these as well.

Perhaps even have auto download a known working codec pack can be beneficial to media center users that seem to have video playback issues.

I'm happy to implement additional downloads for emulators that need it. I don't think it's a huge requirement though as most people will have DirectX and VB runtimes. But if you want make any extra download pack's and make note of the emulators that need it I can prompt to download.

The problem with codec's is that the person might have codecs installed without realising it. So I'm not sure if having codecs is such a good idea, but we can do that eventually if we want to.

Other thoughts include emus that require Bioses and similar to function. Then finally wrappers and loaders (should the just go in the working path of the emulator?)

We obviously can't host BIOS's and ROM's that are copyright but perhaps we can add another entry to the profiles called "Info" which can provide information about additional requirements of the emulator. So if you're volunteering to go through all the emu's just make note of everything you needed to do and any additional downloads etc. to get it working and we can place that in "Info". As for wrappers and loaders, I think we should just place them inside the archive if they need them and have the profile modified to use the loader. What we are eventually going to have to do is test every profile and make sure we can download them and everything in the profile matches what's in the extracted archive. It's quite a bit of work but should be a great feature when finished. Once done it will just be a matter of updating things as needed.

Rather than go through our massive section of configs that predate alot of our newest members and even some emulators themselfs, I think the newest / most popular version of the emu should be done. I think for now creating a config for each of the 20 + nes emulators in existence should be just 1 popular one, say Nestopia.

I agree and I think we should actually "trim" away some of the profiles of emu's that people won't use and instead just have profiles for the best emulators. For those that have several good ones explain this in "Info". I don't think we need profiles for every emulator ever made, just the best ones for each system. Either way it's still a pretty big job and also we will require "maintenence" keeping up with the latest releases. I think Tom could just give FTP to those who keep them updated.

This way the users that do not know much about how it all works can have a working system, the more seasoned users can use whatever they feel is better.

It's always a bit of juggle with simplicity and complexity to cater for both types of people. But overall the auto-download system will be aimed at the more inexperienced as those who are more seasoned can generally find and download everything themselves. But if we make it efficient enough it might work for everyone.

looking forward to feedback, I am interested in this project.

I really hope you get involved as your experience would be invaluable.

Anyway lets go through the things that need to be done based on what we've talked about so far.

1. Need to find and download all the emulators and set them up for GameEx.

2. Zip them up (in either zip or 7zip) with the folder name matching from the profiles (folder name after c:\emulators)

3. Check all profile data match. For example I noticed the C64/C128 database in the profile does not match the actual database name. These things need to be fixed.

4. Upload the emulators so I can test in the Setup Wizard. I will also be posting test versions of the Setup Wizard for others to help test.

5. Take note of info for each emulator. There will be several new entries to the emulator profiles that need to be filled out, namely:

Version=Used to store the emulator version so that new versions can be checked and prompted to download
DownloadUrl=This will be where the download will be located on the GameEx ftp
RequiredFiles=We can have this to specify download packs required (Eg. DirectX, VB runtimes, wrappers) separated by the pipe symbol. Then in the Setup Wizard I can prompt to download these additional files.
Website=Official website of the emulator
Info=General info about the emulator. What additional files are needed? BIOS files needed? Wrapper needed? etc.

[Brian Hoffman]

Well, it is actually really good timing for such a project. I have a modest collection of emulators. I am about to format my PC, Of course I have my emus saved on an external drive, I can copy them into thier respective (c:\emulators) folder and make gameex configs and test each one. If it works off the bat I will zip it up. If not I will note what additional files I needed were and also save those and upload them as well.

Nulldc needs a directx 9 runtime. Vista and win7 do not include this run time, Other emus need deamontools and such to mount a image to a drive letter. This may give me a chance to play with Toms implementation of virtual drive.

I am on board and should be able to start as soon as I buy win7, as now I am running a beta. This should be very soon as I am getting a great deal on it.

It is a fantastic idea and will help gameex be more competitive to other FE such as Maximus that also has p reconfigured configs for users that simply want to play games and do not care or know how it works.

Count me in.

Unfortunately I do not emulate and commodore,vic20,Amiga systems. your the resident expert in that so perhaps that can be left to you as well.

Brian Hoffman

[headkaze]

Okay to get this project started I wrote a little program to help me update all the profiles. I used it to cross reference all the databases and renamed many of them to match correctly. I also added some more entries such as System, Category and Emulator so that profiles can be sorted more easily and not rely on the filename. I've filled all that info in using the program so all that needs to be filled out now are Version, DownloadUrl, RequiredFiles, Website and Info fields.

So anyway Brian, you can grab the updated profiles from my first post when you're ready to start

[Tempest]

My opinion on folder structure.

On my system everything that belongs to the emulator goes in the emulator folder. If I set up Xbox on my computer, It is setup in C:\Emulators\[Console] Microsoft XBox (Dolphin) to match the name of the emularor.ini (If there was one for xbox) in the Inport-Export folder. It tells me what system that I am emulating, and denote which emulator that I am using at a glance. All Art files go into folders beneath the main folder, all bios files go in the bios folder, and the loader goes into the folder with the emulator.exe.

Why?

Because if Brian stops over, and says "I don't have that emulator", I can copy one folder, and he will have everything that he needs. just my $.02 (I'm pretty sure that Brian agrees with me on this)

Question: Would it be legal to put a dummy file in the bios folder, with the correct name for the bios file, so that when a user dumps there own bios, that they will know what to name it?

Also, it would be nice if a user could choose the default value of some of the options in the emulator setup. There is a pretty good chance that if I want to replace underscores with a space in one emulator, that I would want to do it in every emulator. I was going to write a little app to do this, so if you are going to include it, let me know.

I think it would be a good idea to setup every emulator to use the Mame default keys (using an advanced config to map the keys) so that if a user has an Ipac, they would be able to truly use the emulator 'Out of the box'. Maybe it would also be a good idea to have other options for default mappings (GPWiz, X-Arcade, etc.) with an option for the user to select what type of input system that they will be using. I do realize that not all emulators will work well with this idea.

Complaints about the Advanced Configuration program: (AKA 'the program')

1. I wish that when browsing for a folder, that the program would remember my last folder, instead of starting over again at the desktop

2. I think that the program still adds .map when browsing to a map file, so that it shows up in the gameex.ini as Mapfile.map.map

3. In Tweaks/Performance, When browsing for an app to launch (all 4 items), gameex does not include the path, only the .exe

Sorry if I went off on a rant, just observations that I have made, since I have been setting up everything again on my system. If you need anything Brian, let me know.

[Tempest]

One more thing that has been on my mind. I would like to have a variable called [system] that matches the emulators title text, to be used in the launch Before/After. It would greatly improve the usage of programs like Marquee Magician that work with all emulators. It could also be used for one "Mega Loader" that could be used with all systems, similar to HyperLaunch.

[headkaze]

What we're doing with this update is having three default locations for everything.

EmuPath=C:\Emulators

AssetPath=C:\Assets

RomPath=C:\Roms

That will be the defaults. The reason for this is because in my experience I usually have to place rom's on different drives to emulators because of space issues. Same with assets. But in your case, you can simply change them all to be C:\Emulators and then everything you import will default to that location. But the idea is to allow the user to have these three locations to download emulators etc. to the paths they want. But the main point is they will be changable to anything you like during the installation.

Not sure if dummy BIOS files will be helpful, but it's funny you mention them as I was suggesting to Tom to have dummy ROM sets so you can start with a list of games. Well, he didn't like the idea and he's probably right, it will probably just end up confusing people. It's good that we're coming up with different ideas to make things easier though.

When you mean "Advanced Configuration program" you don't mean the Setup Wizard do you? Because I only wrote the Setup Wizard and don't do updates for the other program. If you find any issues with the Setup Wizard let me know.

I like the idea of having a few more variables like [sYSTEM] too.. infact I am proposing to add the following info to all profiles

System=Nintendo N64
Category=Console
Emulator=Project64
Version=
DownloadUrl=
RequiredFiles=
Website=
Info=

And from that we can have [CATEGORY], [EMULATOR] and [VERSION] variables. I don't really like having to store info in the filename. Info like this should be stored in the profile itself and from this, in the Setup Wizard for example, you can have a list of emulators with columns for the category, emulator name, version, system etc.

[Tempest]

What we're doing with this update is having three default locations for everything.

EmuPath=C:\Emulators

AssetPath=C:\Assets

RomPath=C:\Roms

That will be the defaults. The reason for this is because in my experience I usually have to place rom's on different drives to emulators because of space issues. Same with assets. But in your case, you can simply change them all to be C:\Emulators and then everything you import will default to that location. But the idea is to allow the user to have these three locations to download emulators etc. to the paths they want. But the main point is they will be changable to anything you like during the installation.

You need a bigger hard drive.

Not sure if dummy BIOS files will be helpful, but it's funny you mention them as I was suggesting to Tom to have dummy ROM sets so you can start with a list of games. Well, he didn't like the idea and he's probably right, it will probably just end up confusing people. It's good that we're coming up with different ideas to make things easier though.

It's always easier to find something, if you already know what you are looking for.

When you mean "Advanced Configuration program" you don't mean the Setup Wizard do you? Because I only wrote the Setup Wizard and don't do updates for the other program. If you find any issues with the Setup Wizard let me know.

All three of the issues I mentioned are the same in the setup wizard.

I like the idea of having a few more variables like [sYSTEM] too.. infact I am proposing to add the following info to all profiles

System=Nintendo N64
Category=Console
Emulator=Project64
Version=
DownloadUrl=
RequiredFiles=
Website=
Info=

Sound good to me.

And from that we can have [CATEGORY], [EMULATOR] and [VERSION] variables. I don't really like having to store info in the filename. Info like this should be stored in the profile itself and from this, in the Setup Wizard for example, you can have a list of emulators with columns for the category, emulator name, version, system etc.

I don't really like having to store info in the filename.

Your right, you should change the names of the import-export files.

Just messing with you....

[bkenobi]

I like keeping the roms/video/images/etc separate from my emulators. The reason is that there are many emulators available for each system typically. I like having the ability to set up different emulators and using the best one. When another one improves, I can simply change the command line and I'm good to go. If you keep everything in the same directory for the emulator you use, then you will have MASSIVE file duplication (unless you use hard links). Although I have done it differently in the past and it does work, I just find it cleaner my way.

[Brian Hoffman]

Okay to get this project started I wrote a little program to help me update all the profiles. I used it to cross reference all the databases and renamed many of them to match correctly. I also added some more entries such as System, Category and Emulator so that profiles can be sorted more easily and not rely on the filename. I've filled all that info in using the program so all that needs to be filled out now are Version, DownloadUrl, RequiredFiles, Website and Info fields.

So anyway Brian, you can grab the updated profiles from my first post when you're ready to start

I think we should host the emulators here on an ftp. It is a well known issue links expire/change not to mention some sites protect themself from linking directly to thier assets.

So, if Tom has an FTP somewhere I can upload some test configs for you to try. Once approved and tested working we can make sure they are ready for distribution to everyone.

Having them in an FTP would make it alot easier to manage and maintain and update. The version can be used to determine wheater an update exists for the autodownloaders. Is that the correct premise?

Let me know what you think about that idea.

Regarding this feature, Would this be a registered only feature? or a type of subscription service? This is great value added especially if it is maintained on a regular basis, I think it will be easy to do, personally I keep my emus pretty updated so it would not be hard.

Brian Hoffman

[headkaze]

1. I wish that when browsing for a folder, that the program would remember my last folder, instead of starting over again at the desktop

2. I think that the program still adds .map when browsing to a map file, so that it shows up in the gameex.ini as Mapfile.map.map

3. In Tweaks/Performance, When browsing for an app to launch (all 4 items), gameex does not include the path, only the .exe

I tested all three of these in the Setup Wizard and only No. 1. occurs and I have updated the Setup Wizard to remember the last folder you select now. I'm also doing updates to the Setup Wizard to make configuration of emu's easier, like now you can move or delete multiple emulators at once in the Emulator Selection area.

Brian: You will need to get FTP access from Tom to where you can upload the files. As you do this can you post the updated profile (from the first post) to include the new info fields and then I can start testing. After doing a few of them here I should be able to post the Setup Wizard update so we can all start testing the new configs.

As for what this will end up being (free/registered only/subscription) is up to Tom, but IMHO people should pay for the bandwidth. Downloading emulators should be free though but if it's ever expanded to include download of videos and snaps etc. then it could be expanded to subscription as that would be alot of bandwidth.

BTW The downloading of emu's in the Setup Wizard has been around for a while now already, it's just that the feature needs updating and improving. What I plan on doing is modifying the Download Emulator section to scan all the profiles and grab the info from there. Also when you import an emulator in the Setup Wizard it will ask if you want to download the emulator and create the folder structure for you.

[headkaze]

Bkenobi just made me realise there is a problem with the current profiles. And now I think it will actually be better if we don't place the zipped/7zipped emulators in a folder, rather just have them all compressed at root instead. That way we have more control over what the emulator folder is called. I just had a look at the profiles and many of them are set as the system they are emulating not the emulator name, so I will need to change them all.

ie. Right now they are

WorkingPath=[DEFAULTEMUPATH]\Nintendo SNES\

That is the same for SNEeSe, Snes9x, SNESGT and ZSNES. So I see a problem here if you want to have multiple emulators on the one machine. What we really need to have it as.

WorkingPath=[DEFAULTEMUPATH]\Nintendo SNES\SNEeSe

WorkingPath=[DEFAULTEMUPATH]\Nintendo SNES\Snes9x

WorkingPath=[DEFAULTEMUPATH]\Nintendo SNES\SNESGT

WorkingPath=[DEFAULTEMUPATH]\Nintendo SNES\ZSNES

So I will update all the profiles to do this instead. So Brian please just make note of this, now we need them zipped up at root instead of inside a folder.

Tom just got back to me with the FTP details and I will PM them to you now

[headkaze]

Just updated the profiles in the first post with new ones sent to me by Tom with updated logo's. So Brian please take note of this. BTW How did you go on the weekend mate did you manage to get any of this done?

[Brian Hoffman]

Just updated the profiles in the first post with new ones sent to me by Tom with updated logo's. So Brian please take note of this. BTW How did you go on the weekend mate did you manage to get any of this done?

Yes, although now I will re-zip them. No big deal. Most major systems are done.

[headkaze]

Yes, although now I will re-zip them. No big deal. Most major systems are done.

Yeah sorry about changing the zipping but I think it's better for the long run. Are you filling in the profile fields we need as you go? Thanks.

[headkaze]

Brian:

Okay I have now updated the Setup Wizard so that we can start testing the new profiles. I've also updated the new profiles to have the emulator name on the end of the "WorkingPath" so you can have multiple emulators for the same system. So please grab both SetupWizard.zip and GXProfiles.zip.

Also as you already know all the emulators need to be zipped at root now.

So for testing this, I would make a copy of your GameEx folder, copy the new profiles into GameEx\CONFIG\EMULATORS\IMPORT-EXPORT. Copy the new SetupWizard.exe to the GameEx folder, then run the Setup Wizard. Select Custom->Download Emulators. You will notice the list will be empty for now. That is because it only lists profiles that have a DownloadUrl set in them. Once you have this set in some profiles you can start testing the downloads. Also another area to test is Custom->Emulator Selection. When you import a profile it will prompt you to download if it doesn't exist.

[Brian Hoffman]

Brian:

Okay I have now updated the Setup Wizard so that we can start testing the new profiles. I've also updated the new profiles to have the emulator name on the end of the "WorkingPath" so you can have multiple emulators for the same system. So please grab both SetupWizard.zip and GXProfiles.zip.

Also as you already know all the emulators need to be zipped at root now.

So for testing this, I would make a copy of your GameEx folder, copy the new profiles into GameEx\CONFIG\EMULATORS\IMPORT-EXPORT. Copy the new SetupWizard.exe to the GameEx folder, then run the Setup Wizard. Select Custom->Download Emulators. You will notice the list will be empty for now. That is because it only lists profiles that have a DownloadUrl set in them. Once you have this set in some profiles you can start testing the downloads. Also another area to test is Custom->Emulator Selection. When you import a profile it will prompt you to download if it doesn't exist.

Wow that is great, Sorry I really didnt think it would take this long. I had some set back with some hardware. No worries, no real losses. Just time.

Im still activley working on this and I want to get some things uploaded soon so it is more than just me testing.

So....... Im pretty excited about this and it would turn out well.

Thanks for everyone patients.

[headkaze]

Thanks Brian One other thing I was thinking of adding is a new field called "Rating" with a value from 1 to 5. With 5 being the best. This way if there is a system with a few different emulators people will be able to know which one is considered the best for that system. For people who don't know anything about the different emulators this should be a good way of helping them make a choice. What do you think?

[starbuck]

Hi headkaze,

In a early topic of mine "GameEx as a Display"

you had a reply I show below:

I think map files will display a game even if you don't have it? Is that correct? If so I could add a special export feature to DBM that creates map files for all of the databases and post them here. It probably would be better to have as an option in GameEx though; something like "Show All Games from Database" or something to that effect.

Waiting with bated breath for your new setup wizard. Any chance the above will find its way into your new Emulator project

Along with the emulator setup they would also then have the game list

Starbuck

[headkaze]

Update to the Setup Wizard; new sorting type, ratings, now it creates folder structure for you. Also updated the profiles to add a "Rating" entry. This is to help decide which emulators to use for a particular system.

I was thinking the value of "Rating" should probably be simple words to describe it's quality rather than using a number rating system. So I propose the following values:

Poor - This means the emulator is of poor quality

Average - This means the emu is of average quality

Good - This means the emulator is good but not quite the best

Best - This is the best emulator for this particular system

If there are two emulators that are good quality, for example, Chankast and nullDC since nullDC is considered the best Dreamcast emulator it would be rated as "Best". While Chankast might be considered a very good Dreamcast emulator too it is set as "Good" so that you can see nullDC is a better emulator if you would only want one emulator per system, but for those who might use both for different games can see Chankast is still a "Good" emulator.

[Brian Hoffman]

Ben,

This is what I have done so far,

12/01/2009 10:13 PM 3,761,308 Atari 2600.7z

12/01/2009 10:13 PM 1,625,603 Atari Lynx.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 2,753,882 NEC TurboGrafx-16.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 1,048,555 Nintendo Game Boy Advance.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 1,048,580 Nintendo Game Boy Color.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 1,048,576 Nintendo Game Boy.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 3,373,273 Nintendo N64.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 2,225,345 Nintendo NES.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 731,599 Nintendo SNES.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 643,549 Sega 32x.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 812,880 Sega CD.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 643,418 Sega Game Gear.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 643,407 Sega Genesis.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 643,436 Sega Master System.7z

12/01/2009 10:14 PM 220,304 SNK Neo-Geo Pocket.7z

I have to still get to, psx, psx2,naomi,atomiswave,saturn,3d0,dreamcast,wii,gamecube. Progress is coming along very nicely. The emulator configs have all been made, the problem is I have to edit manually to the EXPORT IMPORT configs all the chages I have made. Your new configs have all those nice fields that do not get read by gameex, nor are they maintained when exporting them. I have been keeping some note in text files.

It would be nice if gameex did not ignore those fields so I could just export them all easily, rather than import the base configs, edit them, test them, and then finally go into the base config and edit them again. Id much rather just export them and call it a day.

So I guess my question is, would you like me to upload my Gameex.ini and the emus I have done so we can get to testing, or would you like to wait a few till I get the baseline configs sorted out. Iam asking because Im not sure what the direction is moving forward with these new fields in the configs.

EDIT: I got the email about the spreadsheet. I will check that out. Im uploading some stuff now.

EDIT 2: Iam in the middle of an upload that will probably take a few more hours, I have uploaded my exported configs, if you have a clean Gameex.ini you can test straight away, till I get the import export configs really nice. I will continue to work on the other systems, please provide me feedback. The uploaded emulators have an INSTALL folder that includes what was downloaded from the net along with some notes. The emulators were then extracted in the parent folder and configured for stuff like launch fullscreen and 800x600 for max compatibility.

Your feedback will shape the final product so let me know how it goes.

[headkaze]

What I can do is once you've done a batch send me the spreadsheet and I will insert the data into the profiles and test from there. Because I want to test the Setup Wizard we can't use the exported profiles I need to test them as if I'm a new user importing the profile for the first time. From there the Setup Wizard will prompt to download etc. and should create the folder structure from there. So I guess the most important thing at the moment is getting the spreadsheet filled out.

[Brian Hoffman]

What I can do is once you've done a batch send me the spreadsheet and I will insert the data into the profiles and test from there. Because I want to test the Setup Wizard we can't use the exported profiles I need to test them as if I'm a new user importing the profile for the first time. From there the Setup Wizard will prompt to download etc. and should create the folder structure from there. So I guess the most important thing at the moment is getting the spreadsheet filled out.

I uploaded the spreadsheet, almost done, I worked on it quite a bit. I edited the configs on some of the emulators slightly. So thats why I suggested trying my configs with the uploaded content.

You will find the spreadsheet in your email.

Any feedback is appreciated, I want to meet your dead line. If I can work on it over the next few days like I have been able to , this should be done soon.

[headkaze]

Wow! Amazing work Brian, am really impressed at how much you've done here! I'm am postive the GameEx community and espeically people new to emulation will find this project will make it so much easier to setup GameEx! This is going to be one of the best features of GameEx!

Oh and the "deadline" Brian is talking about. A long time ago when I first built my arcade machine we had the XMas party here and the arcade machine was not finished (hadn't even been painted). So friends and family just stood around looking at this half finished arcade machine saying how cool it would be etc.. This year we're having the XMas party again and THIS time I will have the arcade machine out for all to enjoy. So it should be great fun! Since both Brian and I are setting up GameEx again this feature will actually be great for us as well and a good opportunity to test this new feature