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Need help with Gamebase Amiga please!

Discuss the Commodore Amiga database that uses the GameBase Frontend.

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.mad.
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Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:17 pm

Sorry for the delay...
I think you must be in a different time zone to me. :roll:
(only pulling your chain) :lol:

>So, you are sending zip to WinUAE? What does your complete emulators.ini look like?

No, just saying WinUAE would handle zip if it was in emulator.ini, then files wouldn't be in GBGame folder.

>It would not be viable for me to put everything on C: because it would not have the room. I chose speed over size for my boot/system drive.

Not EVERYTHING just gamebase installer and MDB files and emulators. 100MB maximum for every possible gamebase.
But no problem, it's your computer. :P


>What about if I tried your Gamebase Amiga mdb file?
>Is that the part of Gamebase that specifies the extraction of disks?

No, the MDB won't extract anything.
if the WinFellow script doesn't work for you, neither will my setup files, as it works perfectly.

>There is a thread here with talk about multi disk games with Gamebase AtariST and that they needed to be compressed into the one zip file instead of seperate zip files per disk. Could that be the same required of Gamebase Amiga?

BOOM! that's the problem.
ALL gamebases require multi disk games in 1 zip.

Example...

game.zip
-game_disk1.adf
-game_disk2.adf
-game_disk3.adf

---
I take it your disks are like this

Game.zip
-game_disk1.zip
-game_disk2.zip
-game_disk3.zip

Only thing you can do is...

1) unzip each game to a folder. Then rezip without the folder.

2) Download the GameBase from somewhere else.

3) find the CLRMAME dat to sort the files.

i can't work CLRMAME to save my life, it does my head in.
And do not have GameBase Amiga installed.

Maybe someone else with GameBase Amiga can help make a dat file for you. PLEASE!. :)
jclampy
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Location: Oceania
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Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:36 pm

.mad. wrote:BOOM! that's the problem.
ALL gamebases require multi disk games in 1 zip.

Example...

game.zip
-game_disk1.adf
-game_disk2.adf
-game_disk3.adf
Ok. I wonder if Gamebase Frotend v1.4 might be able to extract all zip files linked to a game before sending to emulator. From reading the Gamebase Frontend documentation Gamebase will extract the first zip file, find an .adf then stop and send that to the emulator. It really should unzip all zip files linked to the game and then find/send all adf files to the emulator. Ofcourse all the zips for a game would have to be linked in the mdb which currently does not happen (only first zip is linked and then uses an *1.zip *2.zip *3.zip or *diska.zip *diskb.zip *diskc.zip lookup to find the rest when 'sending ZIPs' to emulators). Also, Gamebase would probably need to be told which of the extracted .adf files is disk1 and which is disk2, disk3, etc..
.mad. wrote: Only thing you can do is...

1) unzip each game to a folder. Then rezip without the folder.

2) Download the GameBase from somewhere else.

3) find the CLRMAME dat to sort the files.

i can't work CLRMAME to save my life, it does my head in.
And do not have GameBase Amiga installed.

Maybe someone else with GameBase Amiga can help make a dat file for you. PLEASE!. :)
Ok, well I am fluent in using Clrmamepro. I have also just found and downloaded the OLD .dats that use to be on the Gamebase Amiga website.
Unfortunately they are setup to create seperate ZIPs per multi disk.

If you are 'sending ZIPs' then having seperate ZIPs per multi disk is fine for emulators that accept ZIPs. IE; WinUAE and I think FS-UAE from memory. Which is fine for 90% of the users out there I guess.

I could create my own .dat that would fix the multi disk ZIPs into single ZIPs. After that I would need to relink the games in the mdb. (unless I kept the multi disk ZIP name of *disk1.ZIP or *diskA.ZIP which although would look fun would probably mean no mdb modifications needed).

I will start on creating this later method 'quick and nasty' fix .dat now.

If someone did already have a Gambase Amiga v1.6 that they have already customised then I would ask them to upload their .dat and .mdb files. But honestly, I don't think anybody has probably ever done this yet.
jclampy
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Location: Oceania
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:50 am

Wed May 01, 2013 12:35 am

Process of creating 'quick & nasty' .dat fix.

I have created a .dat using Clrmamepro dir2dat utility of my current Gamebase Amiga Game folder.

Checked it against the OLD Gamebase Amiga v1.6 .dat downloaded from internet.

My created .dat is 100% correct and the setup/formatting is exactly the same. 8)
I will keep a copy of this to be used as an UNINSTALL if someone wanted to UNDO my QuickFix.

Now I will start modifying my created .dat to put multi disk games into combined game disks ZIP aka QuickFix.

Edit1:
Ok, my QuickFix .dat modifies games up to letter B at the moment so I will stop now and run some tests to make sure everything is working as hoped before continuing on.

My scripts will be all shot to hell but I'll try and quickly patch something together based on what .Mad. posted earlier in the thread. (Thanks for that). :)

Edit2:
Alright, I got scripts for WinUAE, FsUAE, and WinFellow working great.
FsUAE and WinFellow I think are restricted to 4 floppy disks at a time using the 4 floppy drives which some games may have problems with?
WinUAE using the diskswapper feature you can use atleast 20 floppy disks and all from 1 floppy drive so won't have any problems with games.

Everything is working great so far, so I will resume work on the .dat for the rest of the games. There are just a few filenaming issues I have come across half of which would also be a problem if you were 'sending ZIPs' instead. These would need to be fixed in the .mdb which I am not touching at this stage with my 'quick & nasty' fix.

Edit3:
I'm up to G now, it takes a while, I am going through the list manually, don't think there is a quicker way. Will put a few hours in here and there as my free time persists and see how I go... :wink:

Edit4:
I'm up to O now, so past the half way mark. :)

Edit5:
Now on T so pretty much the home stretch... Got some real life things to do but might finish this up tonight.

Edit6:
Ok, all done. Install and uninstall .dats are finished. I am in the process of writing up documentation/instructions then I'll do some testing and put a package together which I plan to post tomorrow if no interruptions.

Edit7:
Documentation and testing is taking longer than expected. I am about half way through it and will keep chipping away... should release in next 24 hours.

Edit8:
Been away from the computer today. Documentation nearly finished, one lot of tests left to do, and then I got about three scripts to finalise (might need some more but that's a start anyway) so should be released within next 12 hours.

Edit9:
Documentation about 90% finished, one last complete test run to do, FS-UAE script finished (can load up to 20 floppy disks at a time), two more other emulator scripts to finish, might be another 24 hours before release as I maybe away from the computer again.
Hopefully I will be able to post U.R.L's without the error message? <JIMBO> :?:
(I still can't post U.R.L's at the moment). :shock:

When I first run a multi disk game Gamebase Amiga will ask me which adf inside the zip file is disk 1. This is also because I have not modified the mdb. This only happens the first time you run a multi disk game and from then on it will be recorded in the mdb.

My observations so far going through the file names, which maybe helpful information for someone working on creating a new Gamebase Amiga:
* Might be good idea to put at end of filenames disk01 disk02 disk03 etc or diskA diskB diskC etc only as disk1 disk2 disk3 could possibly create problems when Gamebase extracts and sends files to emulators. IE; disk1 disk10 disk11 disk2 disk3 etc... They are then out of order. <Edit: This might not be a problem since I can do some reordering while manually modifying the .dat which seems to work fine so far.> I would suggest diskA diskB diskC etc since I don't think any game has more than 26 disks?
* Also using underscores instead of spaces in filenames could be a good idea.
* Amberstar seems to have both installer disks and game disks. Gamebase Amiga is linked to the installer disks. Honestly no idea how this game works as I have never launched it but maybe something might need to be looked at here?
* WinUAE feature called 'diskswapper' is really what you want to be using for multi disks. Unfortunately this means you cannot have , (commas) in your filenames. This means some game files currently in Gamebase Amiga need renaming.
jclampy
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Location: Oceania
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:50 am

Tue May 07, 2013 1:26 am

For anyone that might be following me here, I am sorry but this week looks really busy to me. Haven't put any time into this the last couple of days and it may continue like this for the rest of the week.

It's almost finished though. FS-UAE script looks the most promising at the moment and the latest version of FS-UAE has quite a big jump in game compatibility. FS-UAE has the ability to 'pre-load' all game disks via one emulated floppy drive at launch no matter how many disks. WinFellow script works ok although you can only 'pre-load' up to four disks at launch but then it is rather simple to change disks while playing. WinUAE script needs refinement, it is difficult to do, people really should run a preformated script through their WinUAE emulator and then adjust settings for their hardware and then save it. I am guessing that is all that would be required? With WinUAE unfortunately you cannot use that excellent 'diskswapper' feature with current GameBase Amiga v1.6 because of the filenames. The comma's and spaces and other characters of the game filenames break the WinUAE 'diskswapper' function. Only a complete overhaul of GameBase Amiga v1.6 ADF game filenames will solve this. So that means at the moment WinUAE can also only 'pre-load' up to four disks at launch and then it's not too dificult for a user to change disks while playing though.

.Dats were finished about a week ago now, then I had to type instructions on how to use the .dats and ofcourse you would need new scripts and settings files and instructions on how to apply those. Then it's no good if you don't know how to use GameBase Amiga with this different method of doing things so more instructions there as well. So it's pretty much all done. Just the last big test which I have been putting off, which is a complete run through of all instructions from the beginning to make sure I haven't missed anything and then put everything in a package zip and post it.

I think I might just release it as a beta with basic scripts and see if people want to refine or post some improved scripts. If there are any advancements or improvements in the future then post it again as final.

Hopefully I'll get some freetime soon to finish and post this thing. Thanks for being patient.

Edit:
Found a couple of spare hours so completed the 'full run through' test of the instructions. Went alright, instructions were pretty accurate. Made some more notes and found a couple of niggles with WinUAE and WinFellow. So, documentation is about 95% and then just need to package everything up into a ZIP and then post it. Just need to wait until my next stint of freetime I guess.
Paul Irvine
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Thu May 09, 2013 9:40 am

Just a quick thank you for taking your time to do this, it IS appreciated.
-------
Loved ones are never gone as long as you remember them....
jclampy
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Location: Oceania
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:50 am

Sat May 11, 2013 12:16 pm

Thanks Paul Irvine, nice to know I'm not wasting my time putting a package with instructions together. :D
I was also encouraged by the threads view count even though it was looking like this forum was a ghost town. :shock:

I got a couple of spare hours today and have got documentation to 99% and the package is about finalised.

I will release it in around 12 hours from now as I need to get some sleep. Will post it in it's own thread and if it seems worth while then someone can sticky it. This ADF Quick Fix will not be of interest for everyone though ofcourse. 8)

Thanks to whoever sorted out the issue where I couldn't post URL's as I think I can now. Thanks. :wink:
hardmanm
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Location: Lancashire, England
Posts: 455
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 8:03 am

Sat May 11, 2013 5:52 pm

Hi jclampy, i'm also really looking forward to this update too :)
Gamebase Developer
jclampy
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Location: Oceania
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Sat May 11, 2013 11:41 pm

Thanks Hardmanm I have posted new thread here;

http://www.gb64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5070

Let the fun begin!

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