Would anyone Be Interested in a NES frontend?

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

as above...
I have the lists in front of me, and a LOT of .nes files.

[Magnate]

as above...
I have the lists in front of me, and a LOT of .nes files.

I remember playing some 8bit console at my uncle's house years ago, the console was called Pegasus and I believe it was just an 8bit Nintendo console under another name. It would be nice to play some of those games again, so keep on developing this database.

Out of curiosity I'll ask: do you have a game (or at least know how it's called) in which you control a tank and your aim is to defend an eagle which is behind a wall? Opposite tanks were trying to destroy the wall and the eagle and you had to stop them. Gee, I loved this game, I could play it for hours.

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

I have decided to go ahead with the NES database.
It is all working (got the gemus script working etc, yay, this is such a great frontend!)
I will be doing this in my spare time, so do not expect too much up front.
There is a lack of info regarding specific programmers etc, but I will put as much info in to each game as I can.
I am splitting (as with the speccy database, nice idea!) the romsets up.
I am starting with the easiest, and unfortunately the largest (?) romset first.
I am doing the USA released carts,
If you have a website with background on the games, scans of the carts or boxart, please mail me your URL's to GBNES@EVERYANGEL.COM

11 games in so far (just to test how it all works) around ??? 1000's to go.



Regards,
Arthur.

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

Is there the equivelant of a standalone music player for .NSF files?

I do not want to have to reply on installable programs etc.

thanks,
Arthur.

[SexyWayne]

here check this link out: http://www.zophar.net/utilities/nsf.html

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

The winamp plugin.
Most people have winamp, and it works seamlessly with all win OS's.


I now have 11 (I will adda lot more soon) games, with a TON of extras (cart scans, box art, posters, cheats, manuals etc)
This is a *great* frontend program...
I now appreciate the amount of work that went into GB64, and the amount of work you are all doing creating new databases.

I really hope there is a new area created, as this would allow us to ask for items that are not easily locatable on the internet (eg, box art, cart scans etc for certain games)

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

now there is a section for 'other projects'.
Thanks for that.
A quick update.
I have spent a while collating as much info on the games I currently have and have around 340 PDF manuals now to add to the database.
I am adding a few games every day, more when I can.

I have a website in mind for this, I have my own webspace and using that will put less stress on this forum.

This will take time to make a reasonable sized database worth releasing, but bear with me (I have a full work and personal life so this is really just a side project, one of many!)

[SexyWayne]

i'm having the same problem with my gba gamebase, girlfriend, children and work are such a annoying distraction , i got round about 900 games in the list, i need to add screenshots and publisher details not really a easy feat , now i know what the gb64 team went/are still going through

[daveee65]

Arthur / Wayne,
I also know how you feel developing your database/s - it really is a long, laborious slog, but your efforts will be much appreciated - I assure you!!! .

You are probably aware of it already, but the good old vgmuseum could well prove a great source for your screenshots. Specifically in your cases, they have a good selection at http://www.vgmuseum.com/nes2.htm and http://www.vgmuseum.com/gba.htm respectively

Copying these is a laborious task one by one.
Dare I say it, you could try one of the many leeching tools out there, but even more daringly, I could point out that MS Frontpage has it's own leeching (errr, I mean importing) feature built in (but you'd need broadband). Of course, I said I COULD point that out, but I'm not going to really, it's all strictly hypothetical .

Q. But the 'borrowed' pics have filenames, which are full of % signs and other gobble-de-gook, how do I clean all that up in one go?
A. Well I'm a non-starter with programming fully blown VB, but the VBA (Macro language) associated with MS Excel is pretty powerful. You can use it to re-name files in any given directory however you like, so making proper sense of the filenames would be a breeze. I've been developing a no-nonsense re-naming macro for SNES music files, which could easily be adapted. Drop me a line and I'll e-mail it to you, but it'll appear on my website sometime soon.

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

I am quite fortunate, in that FCEUltra has a damned good 'Snapshot' feature, and all I need to do is rename the screenshot to comply with GB.

I would like some feedback here.
I want to know when to release the first 'touchy feely' ver of the database.
I think after around 100 games is a good starting point, and I can get (hopefully) feedback, and that will encourage me to get my finger out and enter more each week.

Would you all be interested in a prelime ver as mentioned above to preview?

I would provide the database without roms, but with the extras (which is still quite sizeable).

Thoughts?

Regards,
Arthur.
PS, could someone *please* start on databases for the classic computers, such as Amstrad, BBC, Atari etc?

[daveee65]

Yes, I think 100 games is a good number for the first release. I have to admit, I aimed for the sky and released at 900+ games, but it really took too long and encouragement / help from others along the way would have been great. I kind of feel guilty about holding back for so long now.

I guess the key to releasing as you develop would be deciding what sort of cross section of games you add with each block release;
e.g. in alpha numeric order, completing the alphabet over a period of time, or a random cross-section.
Certainly alphanumeric releases would be the most logical, but usability of the database would be pretty compromised until you approach completion. Why not sort your games by rating and add the highest rated games first, adding lesser quality games in later releases? This way everyone gets the best games first and will make regular use of your database straight away .

I would say releases complete with ratings and screenshots are good enough to start with. That way, you can invite people to submit mini reviews, programmer and distributor data to you then you can add the extra data in later, saving you a hell of a lot of work and speeding up the process.

I would definitely be interested in an prelim version to review and it would give an early chance for people to submit additional data to you. As far as later releases go, it’s probably simplest to release a new database each time, but you could just post update packs for your screenshots and extras; in a similar way that developers do for the Mame graphical add-ons. That way, you could avoid people downloading the same stuff over & over.

Cheers,
Daveee

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

I certainly will be going the way of 'packs' as mame taught me a lot.

I am currently going Alphabetic releases , but for 'USA' titles only (at the mo').
I am not including ratings, as they are very subjective.

I am including year, publisher, no of players, music files and musician info (where I can find them), title and in game screenshots, and any other extras I can find - cart scans, box art, manuals (text and pdf format).

One question, how the hell do you add the 'favourite game' option to a tiltle (IE the gold cups appear either side of the game name? I cant find that anywhere in the database creation side of things.)

Regards,
Arthur.

[SexyWayne]

@arthur, you need to click on the personal tab then right click on the rating and then select a rating from the drop down menu.

edit:the hardest thing with gba emulation is working out what roms require which save eeprom setting and if they need the gba bios to be enabled or not so quite a lot of playing /saving /and headaches is required, the forum on www.advance-power.de has been a great help in this aspect, also i've decided that once i've finished this current gba gb, i won't be updating it, as i just will not have the time (new baby on the way and stuff), i'll leave it up to the users if they want to update it theirselves

another edit: visualboy advance has a excellent screenshot taking thingy also, it's currently configured to a button on my gamepad so i can play and save exactly the sametime and it saves and renames right into my screenshots folder

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

thanks for the heads up RE: favourite rating, but I am confused why you posted re GBA on the NES thread!

[daveee65]

Just thought I'd let y'all know,
I tested an early version of Arthur's NES USA Database last night and it's lookin' pretty good.

There's just 38 games so far, but it's chock full of screenshots, music and Extras. For an early pre-release it's looking very polished
Works like a dream too - Well done Arthur, keep up the good work!!!

Daveee