[Dondi]

malte, would romset .DAT files be useful at all? There are standardized rom sets with .DAT files readily-available. Could the .DATs be of use to you or the scraper sites if the user has the ability to tell RCB which set he/she is working with (i.e., a listoption of common sets in RCB>> No-Intro, TOSEC, ReDump, unknown, etc.) to help with the scraping of arts & infos?

This is on my list for a long time. As long as the information in the .dat files is well structured and automatically parsable (and I guess this is the purpose of these files) I should be able to get RCB to understand them. I will try to grab some examples of these files and see how it goes.

Ok, I think I need some hand-holding on this... I am totally lost with this stuff. I got to the page and got scared What the heck is a python egg and what do I do with it?? Or do I need the tarball? Sorry, for my lameness with this stuff. It shouldn't matter that there are no 64-bit versions available (I'm on win 8)

The .egg file is just a zip-format. You can extract the content of the file to RCBs platform_libraries/Windows folder. But I also added the files to my current dev branch. So, next release should be shipped with the correct files (at least on Windows).

Anybody willing and able to provide compiled versions of the Linux 32bit and 64bit files? I will try to compile the 32bit myself, but I have no 64bit Linux system atm.

No-Intro's dat-o-matic page has lots of current .DAT files

No luck trying to get the .7z python library to work. I'm sure it's just me being retarded. I'll wait for your next rev to get my PSX up & running

I hope my logs were useful to you regarding getting MESS sets to launch as well as what was going on with my attempt at getting my Atari 2600 art to update. Thanks again for your help malte

[n1md4]

Not sure if this was an Advanced Launcher question or RCB, but as I use the later...

Is there a way to integrate the Desura game client with XBMC?

[malte]

I hope my logs were useful to you regarding getting MESS sets to launch as well as what was going on with my attempt at getting my Atari 2600 art to update. Thanks again for your help malte

I could reproduce your MESS issue and solved it on my system (with changing the working directory before launching the game). I hope this will fix it for you too.

The Atari reimport does not work because you did not enable Rescrape already imported games in addon settings.

I found several little issues in your logs:

Code:

EXCEPTION: argument "label" for method "XBMCAddon::xbmcgui::ListItem" must be unicode or str

Not sure where this comes from. I made sure that all arguments passed to this function are strings now but they should have been anyway. So I think this is just a symptom of another issue that I could not see in your logs. Did the UI behave normally when you created this log (xbmc0220df)?

Code:

22:16:27 T:8388  NOTICE: RCB_INFO: An error occured while adding game 'Gremlins: Stripe vs Gizmo'. Error: columns name, romCollectionId are not unique

It looks like you have several games with similar names? Maybe the rom file names use additional properties like (US)(EU)[V1], ... and RCB isn't able to handle these differences because all roms are linked to the same game. This is something I want to address in a future release.

Code:

22:16:34 T:8388  NOTICE: RCB_WARNING: Error: matchGamename() takes exactly 8 arguments (6 given)

This was a stupid bug that prevented RCB to do a proper handling of games with "subtitles" (No idea how to name this. In above example "Gremlins: Stripe vs Gizmo" "Stripe vs Gizmo" would be the subtitle). This is now fixed in SVN.

Is there a way to integrate the Desura game client with XBMC?

Did not test it myself. I have seen a batch file in Advanced Launcher thread that lets you launch steam games. This should work with RCB too. No idea if it could be adapted to work with Desura. How are games launched via Desura?

[Dondi]

I hope my logs were useful to you regarding getting MESS sets to launch as well as what was going on with my attempt at getting my Atari 2600 art to update. Thanks again for your help malte

I could reproduce your MESS issue and solved it on my system (with changing the working directory before launching the game). I hope this will fix it for you too.

This is something for the next release of RCB I assume? ...or am I able to fix this on my end without waiting for a new RCB?

The Atari reimport does not work because you did not enable Rescrape already imported games in addon settings.

Ahhh, knew it was me being stoooopid. I have since deleted that set and imported an Atari 2600 GoodSet.

I found several little issues in your logs:

Code:

EXCEPTION: argument "label" for method "XBMCAddon::xbmcgui::ListItem" must be unicode or str

Not sure where this comes from. I made sure that all arguments passed to this function are strings now but they should have been anyway. So I think this is just a symptom of another issue that I could not see in your logs. Did the UI behave normally when you created this log (xbmc0220df)?

I don't use any input on my test machine besides the keyboard (not sure if that makes any difference), but the UI, to me, is a bit temperamental. For instance, to get a Console's gamelist to populate into the main RCB UI, I hit the left button (starting from the current list in the main UI), to get up into the menu. I select up/down to navigate to a specific CONSOLE, hit ENTER to populate the gameslist in the main UI, but at this point, I am still in the menu (games appear for all CONSOLES except Playstation when I do this), and then I need to select either ALL for YEAR, PUBLISHER, GENRE or A-Z to get focus down to the list in the main UI. This behavior is consistent where it seems in order to get focus from the top menu ui to the main RCB gamelist UI, the ENTER button must be hit twice. I am guessing this is intended?
For Playstation, the ONLY way I can get the games to populate the UI list, is to select any other platform besides Playstation (the only columns that populate in the upper menu for Playstation are GENRE and YEAR by default). When I choose a non-Playstation platform & hit enter once, I am able to get the PUBLISHER menu item to appear in the upper menu. I then over navigate to the CONSOLE menu item, press UP/DOWN to get to Playstation and then hit the right-arrow key to get over to PUBLISHER. Hit ENTER once. When I do this, this is the only way I can get the Playstation games to populate the main UI list. Then I hit left-arrow key to either GENRE or YEAR to pop me down into the gamelist UI

I can do more DEBUG logs if you like malte. Let me know. I do notice minor UI things as well in terms of focus etc. Like when I exit an emulator, RCB gets focus, and if I do not wait a little bit and I hit an arrow key to navigate the current CONSOLE list, I get popped up into the upper menu, which eventually leads to the resetting the main UI list because I need to do the hit enter twice thing to get out of the top menu. If I do wait for bit after exiting an emulator session, I am able to regain focus in the main UI gamelist from where I left off before playing a game.

Code:

22:16:27 T:8388  NOTICE: RCB_INFO: An error occured while adding game 'Gremlins: Stripe vs Gizmo'. Error: columns name, romCollectionId are not unique

It looks like you have several games with similar names? Maybe the rom file names use additional properties like (US)(EU)[V1], ... and RCB isn't able to handle these differences because all roms are linked to the same game. This is something I want to address in a future release.

Code:

22:16:34 T:8388  NOTICE: RCB_WARNING: Error: matchGamename() takes exactly 8 arguments (6 given)

This was a stupid bug that prevented RCB to do a proper handling of games with "subtitles" (No idea how to name this. In above example "Gremlins: Stripe vs Gizmo" "Stripe vs Gizmo" would be the subtitle). This is now fixed in SVN.

Are these issues that may be better handled if you had .DAT files for ROM sets? Would it be helpful if somewhere in the import process the user has the option of telling RCB which known ROM set he or he is using? If you know the ROM set, couldn't you use the appropriate .DAT file? If it is unknown, then the default way you are handling the ROMs wouldn't be affected. ??

[Silvaire]

Hi, I'm trying RCB for the first time, with PCSX-R and keep getting an error. When I use the same commandline switches from a command prompt, the emulator works fine, so I'm not sure what's up.

I have it set to "-nogui -cdfile '%ROM%'" and when I launch it through RCB, I get the following errors from PCSX-R:

Code:

Memory card memcards\Mcd001.mcr failed to load!
Memory card memcards\Mcd002.mcr failed to load!
Could not open BIOS:"Bios\/SCPH-1001.bin".  Enabling HLE Bios!

None of this pop-ups occur when I use the emulator's GUI or the commandline with the same switches. Anyone use this EMU?

Thanks!

[malte]

This is something for the next release of RCB I assume? ...or am I able to fix this on my end without waiting for a new RCB?

Yes, it is fixed in RCB itself. You could grab the latest code per SVN if you like. But I hope that I will provide a new version this weekend or at the beginning of next week.

I select up/down to navigate to a specific CONSOLE, hit ENTER to populate the gameslist in the main UI, but at this point, I am still in the menu (games appear for all CONSOLES except Playstation when I do this), and then I need to select either ALL for YEAR, PUBLISHER, GENRE or A-Z to get focus down to the list in the main UI. This behavior is consistent where it seems in order to get focus from the top menu ui to the main RCB gamelist UI, the ENTER button must be hit twice. I am guessing this is intended?

This is somehow intended. I could think about changing this to just hit ENTER enter once. Not sure anymore why I did it like this.

For Playstation, the ONLY way I can get the games to populate the UI list, is to select any other platform besides Playstation (the only columns that populate in the upper menu for Playstation are GENRE and YEAR by default). When I choose a non-Playstation platform & hit enter once, I am able to get the PUBLISHER menu item to appear in the upper menu. I then over navigate to the CONSOLE menu item, press UP/DOWN to get to Playstation and then hit the right-arrow key to get over to PUBLISHER. Hit ENTER once. When I do this, this is the only way I can get the Playstation games to populate the main UI list. Then I hit left-arrow key to either GENRE or YEAR to pop me down into the gamelist UI

I don't understand what you are talking about. Can you send me a debug log (RCB also in debug mode) after you reproduced exactly this behaviour? Maybe you also have to send me your MyGames.db. But we can try it without first.

Like when I exit an emulator, RCB gets focus, and if I do not wait a little bit and I hit an arrow key to navigate the current CONSOLE list, I get popped up into the upper menu

Thanks for the hint. I can only reproduce this in Confluence list view. Other views or Aeon Nox don't seem to have this issue. I will check if I can fix this.

which eventually leads to the resetting the main UI list because I need to do the hit enter twice thing to get out of the top menu.

Usually you just have to press the button once when you did not change any filter settings.

Are these issues that may be better handled if you had .DAT files for ROM sets? Would it be helpful if somewhere in the import process the user has the option of telling RCB which known ROM set he or he is using? If you know the ROM set, couldn't you use the appropriate .DAT file? If it is unknown, then the default way you are handling the ROMs wouldn't be affected. ??

Yes, but not only by using the dat files. It will also require some changes in RCBs data model to reflect all this.

None of this pop-ups occur when I use the emulator's GUI or the commandline with the same switches. Anyone use this EMU?

I guess this is the same issue as Dondis MESS issue mentioned above. Please wait some days until I got the new test release out and try it again.

[Dondi]

This is something for the next release of RCB I assume? ...or am I able to fix this on my end without waiting for a new RCB?

Yes, it is fixed in RCB itself. You could grab the latest code per SVN if you like. But I hope that I will provide a new version this weekend or at the beginning of next week.

malte, you're awesome! I will wait for the new version. So, both the .7z pylzma thing and the working dir path fix for MESS will make an appearance soon??

For Playstation, the ONLY way I can get the games to populate the UI list, is to select any other platform besides Playstation (the only columns that populate in the upper menu for Playstation are GENRE and YEAR by default). When I choose a non-Playstation platform & hit enter once, I am able to get the PUBLISHER menu item to appear in the upper menu. I then over navigate to the CONSOLE menu item, press UP/DOWN to get to Playstation and then hit the right-arrow key to get over to PUBLISHER. Hit ENTER once. When I do this, this is the only way I can get the Playstation games to populate the main UI list. Then I hit left-arrow key to either GENRE or YEAR to pop me down into the gamelist UI

I don't understand what you are talking about. Can you send me a debug log (RCB also in debug mode) after you reproduced exactly this behaviour? Maybe you also have to send me your MyGames.db. But we can try it without first.

Haha... sorry for the confusion. I have uploaded a new archive here. I have included MyGames.db, an xbmc.log (both XBMC & RCB set to DEBUG mode) and a series of screenshots that I annotated, in succession, during my PlayStation debug session.

Thanks again so much for your help malte. And my apologies to everyone else for hogging-up this thread recently

[Silvaire]

Thanks for the reply. No idea what MESS is, but if that bug fix fixes my bug, I'll let you know.

[malte]

New test version available: 2.0.3

List of changes:

General

• check if RomCollections are available in config.xml. Launch config wizard if not.
  
• check if games are available in MyGames.db. Launch game import if not.
  
• check if RCB has access to rom and artwork paths. Cancel creation of config.xml if not.
  

Import Games

• always do a full reimport when in rescrape-mode
  
• always do a full reimport when in local artwork-mode
  
• better error handling after encoding errors during import
  
• bugfix: checking subtitles during import did not work
  

Browse Games

• don't exit RCB when focus is on filter controls
  
• always show game list after import. Also when import was canceled.
  
• bugfix: check if database is available before gathering widget data
  

Launch Games

• add some more "intelligence" to applaunch.bat (solo mode)
  
• use python 2.6 libraries for 7z handling (Windows only)
  
• change working directory to emulator dir before launching game
  
• libretro: added option to select gameclient manually
  
• libretro: use "Edit game Command" to configure libretro cores per game
  

Here comes a bunch of fixes and (I hope) improvements. I am still working on fixing all these little issues that can make life with RCB harder. I also try to make RCB behave more "logical" in some situations. Comments are welcome.

EDIT: you still need to manually install Rom Collection Browser Service 1.0.0 if you have not done already.

encoding issues
It is not yet solved 100%. RCB should have better error handling now and even import games like (Pokémon etc.) but still without any game data as the scraping part fails. It is also not possible to have non-ascii characters in rom and artwork paths. But instead of failing silently, RCB will now check if it has access to rom and artwork paths and inform the user if not. Thats all I can do for now. I will investigate more on this at a later time.

This is only tested on Windows. I will do some Linux tests soon (but I hope that it already works).

libretro integration
You can now force libretro to use a specific core on per game or per RomCollection basis. If you want to configure a specific core per RomCollection you have to add a line like this to the RomCollection in config.xml:

Code:

<gameclient>gameclient.snes9x-next</gameclient>

You have to use the exact name from the gameclients id in addon.xml.

You can also set the specific gameclient per game. For now I reused the context menu entry "Edit Game Command" to achieve this. If you have "useBuiltinEmulator" enabled for a RomCollection and you select "Edit Game Command" for a game of this RomCollection, RCB will show you a list of all possible gameclients for this platform. It will also show gameclients that are not yet installed on your system. When you launch a game, RetroPlayer will check if this client needs to be installed before launching the game.


Previous version: 2.0.2

[Dondi]

I'm getting 'Dependencies not met' when I try to install from zip file. Do I need to uninstall the current before installing 2.0.3 or am I just doing something noob-ish?

xbmc log here

[malte]

You need to install Rom Collection Browser Service 1.0.0. But this should have been the case for latest 2.0.2 also.

[Dondi]

You need to install Rom Collection Browser Service 1.0.0. But this should have been the case for latest 2.0.2 also.

Ooops, I guess I only did that on the main XBMC machine and not my test machine

Ok, I'm up-to-date on my test machine and I tried to launch some PSX games (haven't tested the MESS sets - I should be sleeping ). My PSX ROM set is a ReDump set which are .7z files with .cue & .bin files inside (sometimes multiple .bin files). When I go to launch one, I get a second RCB dialog box (just like my 3DO set) asking me to select one of the files in the .7z archive. I think Im supposed to select the .cue. When I do, nothing much happens after that. A DOS dialog box it displayed. There seems to be a long time before focus comes back to RCB and whichever file I choose in the secondary RCB dialog box, gets extracted into the RCB tmp folder. Shouldn't all the files be sent to the tmp folder and the .cue be passed to RetroArch?

Am I doing something wrong like not following/understanding what you wrote here:

libretro integration
You can now force libretro to use a specific core on per game or per RomCollection basis. If you want to configure a specific core per RomCollection you have to add a line like this to the RomCollection in config.xml:

Code:

<gameclient>gameclient.snes9x-next</gameclient>

You have to use the exact name from the gameclients id in addon.xml.

You can also set the specific gameclient per game. For now I reused the context menu entry "Edit Game Command" to achieve this. If you have "useBuiltinEmulator" enabled for a RomCollection and you select "Edit Game Command" for a game of this RomCollection, RCB will show you a list of all possible gameclients for this platform. It will also show gameclients that are not yet installed on your system. When you launch a game, RetroPlayer will check if this client needs to be installed before launching the game.

Here is a link to the logs for this session

[malte]

My PSX ROM set is a ReDump set which are .7z files with .cue & .bin files inside (sometimes multiple .bin files). When I go to launch one, I get a second RCB dialog box (just like my 3DO set) asking me to select one of the files in the .7z archive. I think Im supposed to select the .cue. When I do, nothing much happens after that. A DOS dialog box it displayed. There seems to be a long time before focus comes back to RCB and whichever file I choose in the secondary RCB dialog box, gets extracted into the RCB tmp folder. Shouldn't all the files be sent to the tmp folder and the .cue be passed to RetroArch?

I did not yet test this scenario. I will do and report back.

Am I doing something wrong like not following/understanding what you wrote here:

In RetroPlayer you can have several gameclients (cores) for the same platform (e.g. for SNES you have bsnes, snes9x, snes9x-next, ...). If you download all of them, RetroPlayer will ask you which gameclient to use every time you launch a game. With the "<gameclient>"-setting in config.xml you can force RetroPlayer always to use the specified gameclient. One day you may notice that game A does not run well with your default gameclient but all others do. So you can highlight this one game in RCB, select "Edit Game Command" and choose the preferred gameclient. From now on this one game will be launched with another gameclient than all others.

[e2zippo]

I select up/down to navigate to a specific CONSOLE, hit ENTER to populate the gameslist in the main UI, but at this point, I am still in the menu (games appear for all CONSOLES except Playstation when I do this), and then I need to select either ALL for YEAR, PUBLISHER, GENRE or A-Z to get focus down to the list in the main UI. This behavior is consistent where it seems in order to get focus from the top menu ui to the main RCB gamelist UI, the ENTER button must be hit twice. I am guessing this is intended?

This is somehow intended. I could think about changing this to just hit ENTER enter once. Not sure anymore why I did it like this.

That would be preferred malte

Thanks a lot for the new release, a lot of fixes, will have to try it out tonight perhaps!

One thing, I can't get the background image to work when adding RCB on the main menu in Aeon Nox, whenever I choose the image in Aeon settings (the image is on a the local C:/ drive, which is addes in XBMC's library as well) and then exit out of the the config for that item, it just fades away and is not visible on the main menu. Every other item works, except RCB.

Could very well be a Aeon Nox problem as well.

I get this in the log

Code:

11:34:45 T:1184   ERROR: XFILE::CDirectory::GetDirectory - Error getting C:\Spel\Project 64\Cover & Fanart N64\fanart\Legend of Zelda\

And here's the full debug log, if it helps.

http://www.xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=1208

The full path for the image is this, it doesn't quite show in the log.

C:\Spel\Project 64\Cover & Fanart N64\fanart\Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time (U) (V1.2) [!].jpg

I'm not sure why the log shows "\Legend of Zelda\"?

Cheers!

Edit: I tried renaming the file to just zelda.jpg and now it works, somehow it doesn't seem to handle something in the filename, perhaps ","?

[malte]

I guess this is something skin related. Did you also test to get the original file name working with other menu items?