Automated snaps/title/box?

[hereisoblivion]

I'm sure I'm missing something here, and have completely overlooked this, so I apologize in advance, but Is there a way to automatically have GameEx pull Title screens, box art, snaps, etc in both MAME and Emulated games?

I'm wanting to use GameEx for MAME, all old Nintendo systems, and all old Sega systems. If I have to manually find, download, and allocate 6+ images for each of my games, it'll take forever.

I've used the links for the snaps and whatnot from the main page here, but I can't even find many of what I need, like SNES screens.

So is there an automate process where it can pull from an online database similar to how many media servers do now?

If not, what's the most efficient way of doing this?

Also, I thought the Game Extender feature was to allow you to play from multiple PC's on the network. When I launch it from a remote PC, or access the local website, all I see are statistics of games I've recently played. Is there more to it that I've once again, completely overlooked?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for these noobish questions.

[Draco1962]

To answer some of your questions -

I'm sure I'm missing something here, and have completely overlooked this, so I apologize in advance, but Is there a way to automatically have GameEx pull Title screens, box art, snaps, etc in both MAME and Emulated games?

I'm wanting to use GameEx for MAME, all old Nintendo systems, and all old Sega systems. If I have to manually find, download, and allocate 6+ images for each of my games, it'll take forever.

You can set the path for each emulator to point to the locations of box art, snaps, etc. This is a manual process so it will take a little time setting each up, but for the flexibility in a frontend that can't really be found elsewhere, it is worth the extra time & effort.

I've used the links for the snaps and whatnot from the main page here, but I can't even find many of what I need, like SNES screens.

You can find quite a bit of what you are looking for via torrents, Emu Movies and other related retro-gaming links here.

So is there an automate process where it can pull from an online database similar to how many media servers do now?

If not, what's the most efficient way of doing this?

The most efficient way of doing this is to setup one emulator at a time, mapping your paths to your media locations. You may find some of what you are looking for consoles and system logos here and screenshots/snaps here for starters.

Also, I thought the Game Extender feature was to allow you to play from multiple PC's on the network. When I launch it from a remote PC, or access the local website, all I see are statistics of games I've recently played. Is there more to it that I've once again, completely overlooked?

Game extender for GameEx shares your info with the rest of the community. You may prefer to disable it and opt for using the Game Card as part of your sig as many of us have done.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for these noobish questions.

No need to apologize - we were all n0obs at one time (and from time to time)! Welcome to the Forum!

[hereisoblivion]

Thank you very much.

I suppose I have a lot to learn.

[Draco1962]

Thank you very much.

I suppose I have a lot to learn.

I am not sure how much experience you have with using the various emulators. I am relatively new to it and found it easy to get overwhelmed with all the features that this frontend has to offer. So I decided that I would start with MAME and work up to the others. I installed it, made it work outside of GameEx, then through GameEX, then Project 64 (N64 emu), etc. Then I started plaing around with the Theme Editor and making my own themes, logos, and the like. I have to admit to doing a lot of backwards engineering of existing themes, testing tweeks here and there. I am not a pro at this by no means.

Besides Tom, we have quite the pool of talent - Tempest, Adultery, Headkaze, Bkenobi, Brian Hoffman, Greatflash are some pretty sharp guys with a few years of GameEx and emus under their belt. Celly, Vsilvalopes, Krakerman, Drakendoder are a few others that can be counted on to chime in with their experience or constructive criticism to help you along as well.

.:.EDIT I forgot to add Frequency (another GameEx God and Guru Extraordinaire) and, of course Circo at EmuMovies - great collection of video snaps!

[hereisoblivion]

I'm relativly familiar with setting up emulators. I had a 250 Gig hard drive filled with nothing but Emulators from every console I had growing up, and Mame.

I had it set up on my Media center PC but never used any fully integrated front-ends like GameEx, so it was a pain to get into games straight from my Media Server's interface.

Now with Media Center Plug-In for Game Ex, I figured I'd hop in head first.

I've never tried prettying anything up though with things like box-art and screen captures for the games. I've done it for my Media Server using the Media Browser plug-in for MCE, (which is amazing BTW,) but 95% of it is automated. The only real modifications that had to be done were some file re-naming so the files could be linked to an online movie database and the appropriate images and info downloaded for each title.

Even being familiar with emulation and media servers, jumping into this is a bit overwhelming.

Just to give an idea of my current set-up and where I'm coming from with my configuration......

I'm running Windows 7 MCE on my PC, connected to my TV.

I have Xpadder running with each button on the controllers mapped to specific keys on the keyboard. this is done so I can control my media center from my 360 controller without my mouse/keyboard.

I'm using 4 Xbox360 controllers connected up via the wireless USB "dongle," from MS.

I have all of the games running properly except my NES emulator (ROCK) isn't launching games, so I'm going to start investigating that next week.

Afterwards I will likely spend the next month getting screen-grabs for each of my games LOL.

How exactly do the images get linked to their respective games? Is it based on naming? Do I just name the images the same as the game they are representing? I have the folder structure set up, and know where to put each, I'm just wondering if the naming is how it knows what to display.

[Draco1962]

The names for the snaps, vids, etc usually follow the same naming convention as the ROM file. Look for the Skinny Match thread in this forum for the link to a very useful utility for finding the best matches between your artwork and ROMS. This was written by Tempest and will help to best match whatever images/vids you collect to the ROMs you have in short order.

I may be coming to you regarding some of the emulators at some point . There are some games DBs created for the various consoles, but that is an area I have yet to delve into.

[Tom Speirs]

You should be able to get everything from www.emumovies.com, and in terms of automation when it happens it will be via there too but we are not quite there yet. You can also get video based artwork for the games too which really is cool. I think youll find the matching to rom name is pretty decent on its own and for mame its 100%. Otherwise use the renaming tools as mentioned. Its pretty much automatic otherwise as is the database matching, simply select the corresponding database from the drop down and you should get descriptions, category and manufacturer info for the most common games.

We are working on automation but like I said not quite there yet.

PS: The artwork is generally provided in one file for all games, and is readily available from emumovies. You dont have to do it individually. All the work has already been done..

[Circo]

The new EmuMovies Download Service utility completely addresses the issue of automation. Consider it automated

[Tom Speirs]

The API of the new service will also be integrated into GameEx soon to allow automatic download for emulators setup in GameEx specifically.

[Recoil]

Since I've been going through and downloading all the extras for my games I have noticed that by default Gameex can parse out anything in a pictures name in parenthesis. For backing up I am making a folder for each game to store all the pictures for that game, it would be cool if it would be able to look in a folder and have them displayed by what is in each parenthesis. Confusing I know...example:

I have a folder names Megaman 2. In it is:

Megaman (video).avi

Megaman (snap).jpg

Megaman (title).jpg

Megaman (box).jpg

Megaman (back).jpg

Gameex would still display like it does, just the indexing would go through all of the folders I have in my NES directory and pick from there. This might make it easier for people to get together and each download files, then send what they have to others if they wanted so not one person is doing all the work (hint guys )

Also is there any way to have it where I can name what is displayed, or select what will be displayed? I know I could change the directory where it searches, but I don't want to select view box and see the screen shots. I'd like to have the option to select to see more or all of the pictures when a game is selected...pretty much a better theme editor please.

[bkenobi]

The API of the new service will also be integrated into GameEx soon to allow automatic download for emulators setup in GameEx specifically.

That's freaking awesome!

[hereisoblivion]

There's a line in the differences between the free version and the paid version that says:

Automatically create all game snaps as images or video

??

How does that work? [face_confused]

[Tom Speirs]

There's a line in the differences between the free version and the paid version that says:

??

How does that work? [face_confused]

It goes through a process of launching each game and capturing the screen.

[hereisoblivion]

It goes through a process of launching each game and capturing the screen.

Where is this option? I can't find it?

I've scoured this website with every FAQ and forum, but no luck. Sorry for asking such a trivial question.

[fRequEnCy]

Where is this option? I can't find it?

I've scoured this website with every FAQ and forum, but no luck. Sorry for asking such a trivial question.

It's within GameEx itself. It's one of the options along side of Change View, Back, Home, & Exit within the selected emulator where it displays the list of roms. Note that a snap path must be set for it to work. If the option is not available then make sure that Hide Create Snaps is set to No in Enable/Disable Features.

[hereisoblivion]

It's within GameEx itself. It's one of the options along side of Change View, Back, Home, & Exit within the selected emulator where it displays the list of roms. Note that a snap path must be set for it to work. If the option is not available then make sure that Hide Create Snaps is set to No in Enable/Disable Features.

Hmm...... i must be missing something then.

I have the Snap Path set for all of my Emulators.

I have checked the advanced Settings option and "Hide Create Snaps" is set to "no."

I'm using the default views and settings for everyting except the snap path location which is on the same Hard drive and partition that my ROMS are located.

The only options I have across the top when I go into the list of games for each Emulator are:

- By Name

- By Category

- By Manufacturer

- By Year

- Biography

- Change View

- Back

- Home

- Exit

And I have double and triple checked. The Reg key worked to "Register" the program. I don't get the initial splash screen, and wizard it tells me that I'm now a registered user, or whatever it calls it.

Any other ideas? And thanks again for all the help.

[hereisoblivion]

Nevermind, I have discovered my problem.

I am launching it from the Windows media Center snap-in. When I originally set this up, I set it up to launch GameEx Lite. Apparently that option is not available in GameEx Lite.

Is there a place where I can change it so that the full version of Game Ex Launches from the Media Center plug-in?

[hereisoblivion]

Hopefully my last question. But I am still unable to fiugre out where I need to go to tell it to launch the full GameEx version from Windows Media Center as opposed to just launching the Lite version.

Any ideas?

[fRequEnCy]

Hopefully my last question. But I am still unable to fiugre out where I need to go to tell it to launch the full GameEx version from Windows Media Center as opposed to just launching the Lite version.

Any ideas?

Easiest solution would be to just reinstall and select the full version instead of the lite version. This will rewrite the registry. Or the other solution would be to change the registry. I can't remember the exact location since not at my machine but I can tell you later if you decide to go that route.

[Tom Speirs]

Yeah, just install again over the top