[wimpy]

Hell yeah bro.. i know exactly how that feels. I have the same thing with amiga stuff. I just wanna preserve everything i can get my hands on. Actually this extras project got me so psyched, so i orderes a chipped Xbox today, just so i can get to try the "extras" compilation of emulators. The Xbox would be like a treasure of nostalgic gaming experince, just waiting to be explored, and my htpc would be for playing high quality media.

Cool! I have two XBOX's standing ready already

This is an early example of how the setup looked some weeks ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naFfnk7GNLk <- This was recorded by our french emufreak Gilles :>

About the exploring part.. I can't wait either There are so many games to revisit and so many games I've overlooked over the years.. (I could play the games now etc, but I want the "exploring" part aswell)

[malte]

Thanks for your explanation.

However the pack itself will be available for others to use. The release in march won't see APIs etc for queries/scraping, but I'm going to try and run the synopsis files etc into mySQL to make it search/scrapeable through an "php API" on the page. For whatever reason I'm not 100% sure yet, but I know that's a step in the right direction.

Yes, I think an API will be the way to go if you would like to integrate others (outside xbox) in this project. Maybe you could publish some early thoughts of your design (API and database) to get some input or let others start a test implementation.

As you already said there will be different usage scenarios. Browsing a museum with thousands of entries will be one possibility and playing some games is another. For me the last one will be the most important. I only have a small rom collection and would like to have some more information shown while browsing them. That would be similar to the movie or tv show browsing with scraping and storing information in a local database.

To have a museum with in-game videos and trailers should be a different implementation because you will want to download the movie files for shorter loading time and you can`t play all games because you don't have the rom files.

[wimpy]

Thanks for your explanation.

Yes, I think an API will be the way to go if you would like to integrate others (outside xbox) in this project. Maybe you could publish some early thoughts of your design (API and database) to get some input or let others start a test implementation.

As you already said there will be different usage scenarios. Browsing a museum with thousands of entries will be one possibility and playing some games is another. For me the last one will be the most important. I only have a small rom collection and would like to have some more information shown while browsing them. That would be similar to the movie or tv show browsing with scraping and storing information in a local database.

To have a museum with in-game videos and trailers should be a different implementation because you will want to download the movie files for shorter loading time and you can`t play all games because you don't have the rom files.

Well since this package will include both roms and everything related to them it will be a rather large package (size wize). And since the pack will include all games that have been "verified" I don't see the reason (and yes i know there are always exceptions) to use other rom collections for these xtras.

That being said I think that the best usage is to have people download the pack and use the entire collection. A frontend/script could easily have a feature called "my favourites" that singles out the roms you'd want to browse etc.

As for API/Database I've yet to see how that would be implemented other than a scraper for boxart etc, but since this is already in the pack and linked to roms I can't see why one would need to scrape for additional items.

Ooops.. out of time. will reply more a bit later :>

[wimpy]

/continue
As for database i'm thinking of making one everytime there is a release or update. This i'll use for my own use to make it searchable via web (which will also make it scrapeable, but like i said i can't see the reason for having such a feature as of now).

Like always I'm most likely wrong on more than one aspect ;P So keep the comments/discussions coming

[Dannermax]

Don't let your boss see you Wimpy!

I checked out the video from youtube by Gilles.. and this is just what i had imagined..i kinda had hoped he would browse something else than the sega section but oh well...

Personally i too don't see any idea in being able to scrape, when the various coverscans and what not are already linked to the individual roms. So it's kind of just plug and play!!

So what your saying Wimpy, is that roms are included for all the different consols/systems? Well it couldent be easier...

[wimpy]

Don't let your boss see you Wimpy!

I checked out the video from youtube by Gilles.. and this is just what i had imagined..i kinda had hoped he would browse something else than the sega section but oh well...

Personally i too don't see any idea in being able to scrape, when the various coverscans and what not are already linked to the individual roms. So it's kind of just plug and play!!

So what your saying Wimpy, is that roms are included for all the different consols/systems? Well it couldent be easier...

Hehe i'm stealthly replying from work;P

yes the roms will be included as well so it's a plugNplay setup for Xbox gilles vid shows a short example of it yea i'll make him make some more examples later today if he is able

[Dannermax]

Yeah, when someone walks by you hit windows button + D, and act like nothing is going on

That would be awesome.. i just went over at

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s...35&st=2250

and read your last posts.. man you guys have alot going on. It feels like you guys are about to wrap up my early christmas gift.. great job!!

[wimpy]

Yeah, when someone walks by you hit windows button + D, and act like nothing is going on

That would be awesome.. i just went over at

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s...35&st=2250

and read your last posts.. man you guys have alot going on. It feels like you guys are about to wrap up my early christmas gift.. great job!!

Yea i know there is alot going on so i hope this will be enjoyed when released

Just hope some coders will see this and build on it for other systems aswell as the Xbox



A quick update on the XBOX look as of now. (This is 4 different screenshots). The skins for each Xport emulator is Dynamic so you can choose how to display it.


Link to more: ATARI AGE FORUMS

Due to the XBOX1 having some "lacking" memory we've not yet modded it to show more info while browsing. However one newer setups (xbmc, windows, ++) it will be possible if someone builds on this release in March.

For newer systems I'm aiming for it being able to display video, cover, screenshots/titleshot and all the wanted information from the synopsis like release year, description etc.. I'm just throwing out ideas tho since I have no real skills in creating frontends for any systems at all other than a sucky delphi program for windows

[malte]

I am sorry to ask again for the current status of this project.

But does anybody know what is the status of the current branch? I saw that spiff created a new gamelibrary3 branch 7 weeks ago. Is this merged with current xbmc-trunk or is it gamelibrary2 with some more patches applied? So what is the difference between main and gamelibrary (7 weeks or several months)?

Even if somebody will sit down and "complete" this branch is there still a chance to get merged with the current trunk?


When I read all these threads about trying to implement a game database I think it could make more sense to take the good ideas out of all these attempts and just write a script or a plugin that will do this job. Not nice, but maybe a chance to come to an end.

[rbrohman]

For those still waiting, I suggest Wah!Cade. It's a multi-emulator front end for Linux that is easily launched from XBMC (no parameters to send).

It's not perfect but it works fairly well. I wonder if the time to develop the games library wouldn't be better spent integrating Wah!Cade into XBMC?

[Alceste]

Hey everybody, though I do't have the slightest clue of programming, I just stiumbled over a nce little programm, that might be of interest to you: http://www.camya.com/eccblog/

The programm is called emucontrolcenter and it's a powerful database for emulators!

[BLKMGK]

Hey everybody, though I do't have the slightest clue of programming, I just stumbled over a nice little program, that might be of interest to you: http://www.camya.com/eccblog/

The program is called emucontrolcenter and it's a powerful database for emulators!

Looks interesting and claims to have SOME Linux compatibility on an Ubuntu-like OS however what I don't see any evidence of is source code or licensing. They do seem to be making freely available data sheets and graphics in "packs" for various games. Even that might be a good head-start for work done here. If the author were approached he or the team working that might be pretty interested in getting involved with XBMC to gain Linux support if his licensing was compatible...

[Alceste]

That would ne just too great. Currently I'm mad at myself for not having paid attention at schol when it came to programming and stuff like that. I'd love to hel you on that one..
Anyway I just put in all the dta for my roms and it just work perfectly. Theoretically, as I see it, you'd just have to come up with some kind of script that depicts the database in an attractive way in XBMC.

[BLKMGK]

That would ne just too great. Currently I'm mad at myself for not having paid attention at schol when it came to programming and stuff like that. I'd love to hel you on that one..
Anyway I just put in all the dta for my roms and it just work perfectly. Theoretically, as I see it, you'd just have to come up with some kind of script that depicts the database in an attractive way in XBMC.

Not exactly that easy. If the database is somehow "owned" or held by someone else and they do not allow for someone to use it for derivative work then no it cannot just be subsumed by XBMC - this is why I mentioned the lack of license. Without knowing the license it's impossible to know what the authors wouldallow. If they havea forum perhaps try dropping a suggestion that they work with the XBMC developers? They might really like being included in such a work and if the upcoming add-on framework is simple enough perhaps they might not even need to make many changes. Their work might also work well on other platforms that XBMC runs on which would be terrific.

Just as the XBMC developers don't wish to reinvent the PVR when Myth exists already perhaps this could be an opportunity to leverage others code for the greater good...

[Alceste]

Ah okay now I got you right.. Since I have an account registred at their forums I'll ask themwhat they think about that. Do you have any kind of contact adress I can give them in order to get into details?