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avatar_ldaneels

Gamebase CPC V33 happening soon

Started by ldaneels, 22:26, 05 November 19

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ldaneels

Yeah, absolutely, I'd love to see your list. Since I'm rescanning & redumping everything (I already have about 2/3 done), even common software can be of interest to me. There's really no rhyme or reason to what I'm looking for :)
As a general rule, I offer to pay for shipping both ways & it takes around 3-4 weeks to process 100 games. I prefer to not work under strict timeframes but I can do it if absolutely necessary.
Anyone with originals & willing to lend them can feel free to contact me directly via PM.

robcfg

Is there a way we could dump our stuff to your standards without having to send it back and forth?

ldaneels

#52
Well, yes & no. The tapes would be alright I imagine, I'd have to check. For the disks, dlfrsilver uses the SPS hardware to dump the software, so I'm not sure there's much of an alternative.
But beyond the dumps, I am mostly interested in the scans & I'm super peculiar about how they're done, so it's typically easier if I do them myself. I have tried before to have some people help me with the scans & it backfired, so I'm not super keen on trying again.
Obviously I understand the trust aspect of doing it my way & there's not much I can say or do to prove I'm reliable... Only do it if you feel comfortable doing it.
That being said, as I mentioned before, I already have most of the rare stuff, so a lot of the software I'm looking for is typically common or uncommon at best.

ivarf

#53
Quote from: Gryzor on 06:16, 17 November 19
Got it on my seedbox, gonna leave it there for a while. So far it's upped exactly 1.000  copy :D


I thought you had upped 1000 copies!  :) That would mean a real hit and run for most of the downloaders. I checked just now, 2 seeders.

Quote from: ldaneels on 21:02, 18 November 19I am mostly interested in the scans & I'm super peculiar about how they're done, so it's typically easier if I do them myself. I have tried before to have some people help me with the scans & it backfired, so I'm not super keen on trying again. Obviously I understand the trust aspect of doing it my way & there's not much I can say or do to prove I'm reliable... Only do it if you feel comfortable doing it.

Thank you for great work. I will be downloading it soon.
How do you scan magazines for best quality? Just wanting to learn...

ldaneels

Hi Ivarf,
Well, for one I always use the same scanner (a Canon Canoscan LiDE 400 or any model within that family) and scan at 400DPi. I never use any kind of image enhancement or correction. I also use the standard settings for brightness & contrast.
When it come to saving the scans, I prefer JPG and use as little compression as possible through the scanning software (including for the conversion to PDF).
I use the "Magazine (Color)" setting to scan pretty much everything.When scanning, I press on the scanned object with a hard cover A4 book of some kind. 
Preferably the cover has a darker color & does not have any drawing.
In case you're scanning smaller items, I recommend scanning perpendicularly to the front of the scanner to minimize the appearance of folds (I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here. Let me know if you need additional info or a photo of how I do it).
There's a lot more to the way I do it, but that's the basics & should give pretty good results already.
Cheers,

Loic

extracampine

Hi Idaneels,


Are you still working on this project? A V34 maybe? I have a few games that aren't in your database - are you interested in these?

ldaneels

Hi,
Yes, I am still working on the database & don't plan on ever stopping.
I am currently integrating all RAW/IPF files to the database, testing all software with CPCEPower & doing a big cleanup of the database.
It's slow going, but it was high time I did it.
As for games that are not in the database, I am most definitely interested, provided they are original physical versions. To be honest I have put scanning & dumping a bit on the back burner at the moment, but I really need to get back to that.
Cheers,
Loic

extracampine

#57
Great to hear Loic! It's an awesome project. So you're only interested in games that were released physically? So no type-ins, PD or anything like that? One example is "12 Lost Souls".

Also, have you had any thoughts about switching to one of the popular emulation "frontends", such as Launchbox? I think that would widen your userbase considerably. I use Launchbox already, have a number of systems in it and would love to add your collection, but don't know of an easy way to do this.

arkive

Quote from: extracampine on 09:15, 23 April 21
Also, have you had any thoughts about switching to one of the popular emulation "frontends", such as Launchbox? I think that would widen your userbase considerably. I use Launchbox already, have a number of systems in it and would love to add your collection, but don't know of an easy way to do this.
I hope not...Gamebase is much more flexible, and free too.

Gryzor

Launchbox is nice, but GB has all I need honestly... ok, LB may look somewhat better but it's not like I'm sitting there admiring the front-end!

extracampine

I understand that there will be differing views. Would just be nice to have it as an option, and I think it would be good for the project overall given the size of the Launchbox userbase.

Another suggestion for Loic regarding Gamebase - currently the various box art images are grouped together under "packaging" - this tends to include front, back and whole cover scans. When opening this, the front and back appear very small because the artwork resizes to fit in the largest scan, which is the whole cover scan. It would be nice if these different scans could be separated out in the menu, so that you could just select the front, or whole cover for example.

ldaneels

#61
Hi,

You got me :) I do include type-ins, homebrew, freeware, cover disks/tapes,... I do add them little by little as I find the time & motivation (typically if I enjoy the game). For your information, I have over 500 of these to add to GBCPC & I know where to find many more, so it's rarely an issue of finding these.

As a base, you can check CPC Power & the CPC Wiki forums: if you have something that's not there, you can let me know so I can add them to my to-do list, although I do have several other sources, but that should cover 99,9% of everything.

I focus heavily on physical software because they will be the first to disappear. Physical data will not last forever, so I need to deal with these in priority.

As for other frontends (or launchbox in particular), they are not flexible enough to encompass all the data I need for Gamebase CPC. I have tried many different options, but they are not adapted to my project. I do like Launchbox, though (which is entirely free, btw, you only have to pay if you want the Big Box feature, which is nice, but far from essential).

One of the roadblocks is the fact that it is not really possible to automate the transition to another frontend. I had tried with Launchbox & Hyperspin, but the results were really not satisfactory & the manual conversion was a pain to handle.

So I will stick with Gamebase until someone comes up with a useable frontend for the project. I do wish James continued working on Gamebase, but it seems this is a pipe dream. And forks of Gamebase are not really bringing anything to the project.

But, as always, I'm open to suggestions if they are really workable & bring something interesting to my project. One of the things I am interested in is the ability to play automatically small clips (akin to an attract mode) on the right side of Gamebase, above the pictures for the software.

As for the extras present in GBCPC, separating individual scans in the various PDFs would be an absolute nightmare in terms of useability & would not really add anything compared to PDFs. Also, the front cover is always present on the right side of the screen in Gamebase (I always have the front cover + title screen + 2 screenshots)

You can automatically resize images inside a PDF by selecting view/zoom/fit page in the menu (I use Adobe Acrobat, so the menu path may vary depending on the program you use).

I hope this helps,

Loic

arkive

Launchbox is not "entirely free". Big Box is just one of the extra features in the Premium version, most important of which compared to Gamebase is the ability to use custom filters.

I use it sometimes because it's set by default in eXoDOS. It's okay, but not something I'd pay 70US$ for, when there's a free and arguably superior alternative available.

Gryzor


extracampine

#64
Yeah eXoDOS is a main reason that I stuck with Launchbox rather than other platforms, including MiSTer. And Win3Xo of course.

When you say "automate the transition to another frontend" Loic, do you mean from Gamebase to another frontend? It's maybe not possible to have it entirely automatic, though it should be possible be editing the Launchbox XML and maybe doing some bulk file renaming if necessary. There is some talk about it on the Launchbox forums -

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/29647-import-from-gamebase/page/2/

As you probably know, Launchbox can play game clips in the game details pane. Attached is a screenshot of my CPC games in Launchbox.

As an aside, does anyone know how to add Retroarch as an emulator is GamebaseCPC? I have Retroarch set up to output to my CRT.

Gryzor


Johnny Olsen

Hi Loic

I want to add CPCEPower to the database but I can't get the script file to work,
do you have one that you want to share?

ldaneels

Hi,Sure, I thought it was already in the current version, but if not:
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||cpc||6128)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||crtc||0)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||mem||128)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Interface||gunstick||no)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||dsk0||)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||dsk1||)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||cdt||)
Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||auto||)
If Key_GUNSTICK CONTAINS(Yes)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Interface||gunstick||yes)
End If
If Key_CRTC CONTAINS(1)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||crtc||1)
End If
If Key_CRTC CONTAINS(2)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||crtc||2)
End If
If Key_TAPE CONTAINS(YES)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||cdt||%gamepathfile%)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||cpc||464)
    Add_CLP( -e)
ElseIf Key_6128 CONTAINS(YES)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||cdt||%gamepathfile%)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||cpc||6128)
    Add_CLP( -e)
ElseIf Key_6128+ CONTAINS(YES)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||cpc||6128+)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||dsk0||%gamepathfile%)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||auto||%autotype_value%)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||crtc||3)
Else
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||dsk0||%gamepathfile%)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||auto||%autotype_value%)
End If
If Key_MEM CONTAINS(64)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||CPC||mem||64)
End If
If Key_DOOMSDAY CONTAINS(YES)
    Set_INI_Value(%emupath%\cpcepower.ini||Files||dsk1||E:\Gamebase\Amstrad CPC\Games\To Redump\D\Doomsday Lost Echoes (E) - Disk 1B.dsk)
End If
Run_Emulator()

Johnny Olsen

Thanks Loic

Now I can start and load file to cpcepower but have problems with
auto start, my screen shows "% autotype_value%" and syntax error.

I have set default = no to be able to change in the "CPCEPower.ini"
file but can not figure out why it is not running.

extracampine

Just wondering....is there any language preference in Gamebase CPC? I mean, if there are different versions of a game available in different languages, is a particular language prioritised?

GUNHED

#70
Not German, still missing Gunship in German language. Once I had a copy - but that's gone for reasons.
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

ldaneels

Well, if I have the game, then it's in. That being said, there are so many variations for each game that it's really not a priority.As for games that are linked, they are always the original versions of the game, unless I don't have the original version or I made a mistake. It's the case with French, German or Spanish games, even though english versions exist.You can, however, find the alternate versions in the Games folder. You can see which language the game is with the letters after their name (in parenthesis):- E for English- F for French- G for German- I for Italian- N for Dutch- D for Danish
- S for SpanishI might be missing something, but as far as I know, there is no Gunhead on CPC. I assume you mistyped the name of the game?

GUNHED


Ehm... mean Gunship, the helicopter simulator of course...  :-X

It's in there in other languages. Back the day I bought the original of Gunship in Germany, and they only had the French version. Beautiful language, but not that helpful.
Back the day we had many games in different languages, but some of them are not longer out there is seems.
http://futureos.de --> Get the revolutionary FutureOS (Update: 2023.11.30)
http://futureos.cpc-live.com/files/LambdaSpeak_RSX_by_TFM.zip --> Get the RSX-ROM for LambdaSpeak :-) (Updated: 2021.12.26)

ikrananka


@ldaneels Many thanks for all your efforts with Gamebase CPC.  I've just setup v33 and completed file verification.  Just want to double-check that the missing reported figures were correct:


Games 21/3275
Music 0/1697
Pictures 0/3299
Extras 192/16287

ldaneels

Thanks for the cheer :)
When it comes to the missing games & extras, there are a few reasons for that:
- for games that are still being sold (like the games from Poly.Play, Psytronik,...), I do not share them (game files & scanned extras) since I never got approval. I tried to contact the stores but never got a reply... That being said, some of these games are freely available in dsk/cdt format, so it's a simple matter of linking them in the database, I just don't do it because it falls outside the scope of my project.
- some game disk or tapes are simply dead (most notably some disks) & I do not have a proper dump for them :( There are a few Micro C educational software among those.
Let me know if you need additional info.

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