Good day,

Well done as always, this is a great plugin indeed.

My best

Can’t wait to give it a test run. Thanks for all your hard work.

Hey Red,

Real happy about the progress, glad to have someone as talented as yourself working on this.

Keep up the good work.

Awesome stuff Red, looking forward to giving this a spin with my increasingly ridiculous collection. :p

Wahoo! testing now.

So far so good.. a couple of crashes and a couple will not load media browser errors.. but managed to get it working smoothly!

trying to get video backdrops working now.. seems .flv play fine in media center but won’t work as video backdrops

Good day Redshirt,

Back to testing I guess, I make some PS iso as well some other emulators going, PC, and others “outside” applications I will test as well.

I really did not manage to crash it, well done as always.

My best

got it workimg with mame, nes, n64 and snes. games load and exit works what is a good theme to use. chocolate and ascendacy bring up a list of roms, but no artwork and it does not scroll whem there are more games than can be displayed on one page. still great work

Well nearly a full day and no deluge of bugs…. Looks like I get the night off!

Thanks guys for the support.

Well done again Red on the most awesome Game Browser yet!!!

Myself, and all of us hardworking folk here at TheGamesDB.net give you our most special “Rimmer Salute”!

Btw, any ETA on GameBrowser 3? I’m bored of this one now! JK :P

This is a great program. I’m trying VirtualNes to launch NES games. The games load fine but the back button will not close the emulator. Nothing happens. Am I doing something wrong?

Hi Red

Congrats on hitting the beta!

Could you clarify a few items?

1. The Games collection I create manually should point to my games collection folder – NOT my MAME roms folder, correct?
2. In Gamebrowser configuration, the “Games system roms folder” is this same games collection folder?
3. “Actual roms folder” would then presumably be my real MAME roms folder?
4. During the initial post-install configuration, I ticked the “sync folders” option and it is showing as ticked when I use the Configurator to access GB config. But when and how often does this sync happen? Can I make it happen at any point by doing something manually? Do I need to?

Thanks in advance. I must have something wrong as nothing is being auto-populated into my games collection folder. I just read your comment about maybe needing to do a clear items manual refresh because I was using GB v1. That’s running now, so fingers crossed.

Ta!

Hey Lee,

I’m assuming the entire group of questions is purely regarding MAME, not other emulators.

1. If you are creating a game system for MAME games manually, you would set “Game System Roms Folder” to the games directory that will be visible by MediaBrowser, some subdirectory of your games root folder. Not the directory that that has your game.zip files.

2. I think I’m confused here :)

3. Correct.

4. Enabling folder sync creates a pair of directory watchers pointing at the two directories you already declared. The directory watchers run whenever the MBService is running and don’t actually do anything until the contents of the watched folders change.

If you are in a situation where the folder you can see in MB is empty and your Actual Roms Folder is full of games. It’s best to create your arcade Game System using the wizard. If you launch the Game System wizard and select Arcade as the platform and then link it to an Emulator that is MAME, it will provide additional steps in the wizard that will auto-build your friendly folder structure. I didn’t include this behaviour in the manual setup because I felt it didn’t belong there being more wizard like.

As a side not, this discussion has proved how difficult it is to come up with a sane nomenclature when it comes to emulation and MediaBrowser :D

Cheers.

anybody know what switch to use with the Gens emulator to launch in fullscreen?

Hey Redshirt, so just to clarify,

I have MameUi on C: Drive

I have Games\Mame\gamefolder\gamezip on E:Drive

I created a Media entry to point to the Games folder.

In Gamebrowser setup, my Games rom folder is the C:Drive\MAME|roms folder,

The actual folder is pointing to Games\Mame on the E: drive.

In Mediabrowser, I go to Games, then Mame and then open up the Game, SFA 3, and then in the details window where I expect to click play, I have 0/0. What am I doing wrong?

Should I be creating a folder at C:\MAMeUI\Roms folder to be Street Fighter Alpha 3, and and empty zip within?

Also, having a play with pcsx 2, and whenever starting a game,all I get is an Autoplay for the iso? I have set the autoplay for software and games to run automatically, and no action for everything else?

Don’t pretend to be really ofay with puters, but I didn’t think this is supposed to be this hard so I must be doing something really stupid…

Minor bug

The video backdrop keeps playing when a game is launched.

also what is the corrent vf format? i am using neo and have a vf for each system.. ie “Super Nintendo Games” > g:\roms\snes “nintendo Games” > g:\roms\nes

but when i add the second one (nes) MB will not load if I remove NES it will load

I like a seperate EHS entry for each system so I can see the recently added for each catagory and random select picks a random game for the system selected. if that makes any sense..

@nelcruz

Using your above example with MameUI.

Game Systems Tab

Platform: Arcade
Launch via Emulator (emulator configured as below)
Game System Roms folder: E:\Games\Mame
Actual Roms Folder: C:\Mame\Roms
Rom Extensions: .zip

Emulator Tab

Executable Location: where ever MameUI is installed
Switches: {romNameNoExt} -rp “{mameRomFolder}”

To further clarify, using Street Fighter 3 Alpha as an example. Your ‘Game System Roms’ folder should be Games\Mame\Street Fighter 3 Alpha\sfa3.zip. sfa3.zip being an empty zip.

The real zip file being stored in C:\Mame\Roms

Regarding PCSX2. Have you set that emulator to use ISO mounting, if so turn it off. It’s one of the many emulators that don’t use that option.

@redshirt

PCSX 2 working perfectly now, thanks!

Getting further along in MAME, game information now appears. when I select play, Mediabrowser minimises and…that’s it. I can restore it from the task bar below, but can’t get MameUI to launch…

Hey Redshirt, I want to say I love the program :)

I’m not sure if this is a bug or even whether you should bother to fix it, but one thing I noticed is that if my game extensions are “.NES” and I specify “.nes” in the Game Systems tab I will not see those games.

I found that if I select a game with multiple discs, press “play,” then exit back out of the window showing the different discs (without playing any of them), I am unable to go into ANY games within gamebrowser until I restart the program

Well I just upgraded to GBii and everything went off without a hitch. I do have a couple questions though. Are the only 2 supported images the backdrop and folder? Just asking because it would be nice to be able to do front/back covers as well as cart/CD images. Also, are there any plans to add pdf manual support to it?

Right then… :–)

I’ve got GB2 set up and working, with it having automatically populated my games collection “MAME” subfolder. Yay! But… no art for any of the 8600 MAME ROMS on my system. I have internet providers disabled in the main MB config – is this preventing GB from downloading art etc?

When I try to launch a ROM, nothing visual happens. But the following is logged in my MBCore:

8:59:25.046 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER Gamesystem is arcade , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.047 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER actual rom folder has a value , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.047 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER File doesn’t exist in rom folder. Checking database for E:\Media Library\Games\MAME\Phoenix\Phoenix > [Amstar].zip , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.054 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER FriendlyRomName: Phoenix [Amstar] , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.054 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER FriendlyRomPath: E:\Media Library\Games\MAME\Phoenix , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.054 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER Something went wrong with the db command. , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.054 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER File path after checking database: , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.055 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER Path = , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.055 PM 21/6/2012 , Verbose , GAMEBROWSER Arguments = {romNameNoExt} -rp “{mameRomFolder}” , , 1 , Application
8:59:25.060 PM 21/6/2012 , Error , GAMEBROWSER Emulation.Launch ( Exception handled. Type=System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException Msg=Length cannot be less than zero. [n] Parameter name: length Src=mscorlib Method=InternalSubStringWithChecks Line=0 Col=0 [n] StackTrace= [n] at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex,, Int32 length,, Boolean fAlwaysCopy) [n] at gamebrowser.Code.ModelItems.GamePlaybackController.LaunchGame(String path) ) , , 1 , Application

I know I’m missing something – but what?

Ta!

One quick question to everyone… has anyone posted screenshots of what GB looks like in this release? Would love to see what your installations look like… :–)

And what view is everyone finding works well for games? I’m just using MAME.

Just upped 1.9.8.15.

If you have tried the earlier beta with MAME, you will need to delete your auto-generated roms folder and your Arcade game system. Re-creating the Arcade game system through the wizard will correctly generate the folder structure and all info needed for mame to launch.

Good day Redshirt,

Well done as always!

Do we go and test everything from the start, or selected issue only it need it be be more focus on?

My best

Thanks for the update – need my MAME fix…!!!

I’ve updated the DLL after deleting my MAME game system and the auto-generated folder structure. Gone into the configurator with the new DLL in place and recreated my MAME game system…

But the behaviour is different whilst generating my game folders. Last time, I saw the game names flash on screen under the progress bar. Now, I just see “label” as the progress bar increases. And there’s no disk activity. Nor any new folders created.

Internet providers are turned on and I’m pretty much stumped. I’m about to delete the game system again and do a manual MB service restart, then a cache refresh with clear item cache selected – in case the cached folders which don’t exist any more are causing the cache to report the games are already present, so GB thinks it has nothing to do…

Any other suggestions, in case I’m barking up the wrong tree…?

Re my auto-populate games library with ROMs taking a while to run, but appearing to not do anything and not creating any folders…

I just moved my GB configuration file out of MB and restarted the MB service so I can start from scratch.

I have the “directory that contains all your MAME game files” set to E:\Emulators\MAME\roms – which I presume is right, or should I be one level higher?

If I manually type this folder name into step 3 of the add game system wizard, the file extensions detection doesn’t seem to happen. If I use the file picker popup, the file extensions field is shown. But oddly, if I pick the MAME roms folder, even though it has loads of ZIP files and 30-odd folders with CHD files, it shows only .chd extension – not .zip. It’s unclear whether the file extensions input field should be left as detected, or be set to .zip ?

It’s running now and is showing game names as the percentage bar increases. Well, it showed game names at first, but is stuck showing “19XX The War Against Desti” and hasn’t updated either the game name or progess bar since that game. Game folders are being created in my games collection/MAME folder, just no updates on-screen.

Scratch that – it’s started refreshing the config UI now. But between 19XX and almost the end of “B”, no updates were shown.

Will check my before and after config files and post any differences in a min…

While my Games collection manual refresh is running, it’s great to see covers and banners being downloaded for lots of my MAME ROMs. But…

I’ve noticed artwork and metadata (game.xml file) isn’t stored in the folder created for each game automatically by GB. The MBCore log content suggests the images and metadata are being stored in my collection (as I’d expect, fitting in with how movies and TV work):

12:24:35.192 PM 22/6/2012 , Verbose , *** GAMEBROWSER *** GamesDB Metadata Fetch: Using platform 'Arcade' , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader
12:24:35.874 PM 22/6/2012 , Verbose , Fetching image: http://thegamesdb.net/banners/platform/banners/23-1.jpg , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader
12:24:37.681 PM 22/6/2012 , Info , refreshing Carnival , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader
12:24:37.684 PM 22/6/2012 , Info , Metadata changed for the following item Carnival (first pass : False forced via UI : True) , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader
12:24:37.686 PM 22/6/2012 , Info , GameMetadataProvider.Fetch.mfile = E:\Media Library\Games\MAME\Carnival\game.xml , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader
12:24:37.687 PM 22/6/2012 , Verbose , GamesDbProvider: Finding id for game: Carnival , , 117 , Worker thread for UI Forced Folder Metadata Loader

But these game.xml files don’t seem to exist outside the cache – I presume the metadata is downloaded from thegamesdb.net and used to populate the MB cache, without storing the XML in the folder for each game, as movie.xml and series.xml are used for Movies and TV.

So this would mean each time I clear my cache and rebuild, I’m forced to download the metadata for each game again?

The same is true for the artwork images – it seems they aren’t actually downloaded from thegamesdb.net, but referenced via URL.

So whenever I rebuild my cache I need to be online or all my games will be missing the images and metadata, because they weren’t stored locally?

I expected the artwork and metadata to be stored in the generated folder for each game. This would allow customization of artwork and metadata, as is possible for other media collections. And local storage for easy cache rebuilding.

If I’ve got anything wrong in the above, please correct me.

Ta.

I think I must be doing something wrong. I have a few issues.

My folders are set up like this

• d:\games

• d:\N64

• D:\NES

• d:\SNES

I added just the root games folder to media browser and called it GAMES

I end up with 3 folders, but no games are populated. I can click on the folder name and I get a Play menu like watching a show. When I click Play I get a list of games but it does not scroll, no artwork, etc.

If I add each folder d:\N64, d:\NES and d:\SNES listed in media browser as GAMES, I get artwork, and one list for all systems, NES, SNES, N64 all together. Not a big deal I guess, but not sure how to seperate them by console. I would be OK with this, but the games do not run. One of two things happen. Either MCE minimizes, and nothing happens or MCE does not even minimize. I select Play, and it just sits there. It does not lock up, just acts as if nothing happened. I can exit and select another game and the same thing happens.

At one point I’ve even reduced my roms to a small collection and a single emulator just to make sure it was not because of having too many ROMS.

I have also tried MAME. overall the same results. Folders created, artwork downloaded, but wont start.

It might have started in the begining once or twice, to be honest I cannot remember. Its been like a puzzle. Move ROMS, remove emulators from Gamebrowser, readd it, ROMs don’t show up, they do show up, etc.

so

1 – Do I need to list each sub directory or should d:\games be fine

2 – Do I need sub folders for NES, SNES, N64 for each ROM like MAME? example – D:\N64\Zelda\ROM.z64

3 – Any guesses what I cannot get anything to RUN, nothing happens.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Again, great work!! I cant wait to get this working and pay for it

Good day ptdalen,

Your top game folder should look like this (regarding folders):

D:\Games

D:\Games\N64

D:\Games\SNES

D:\Games\MAME

Etc

My best