Firstly, I know this will not 'really' warrant an answer

[Macca]

This is pretty much the same information I came to find.

I have my setup as:

Z:\Gamebase\GBC_v03\Games
etc

Now for some reason when I try and use relative paths as below the screenshots / extras work but nothing else does - when I go to scan for games it's not even highlighted.

Does anyone have a definative answer on whether we can use absolute paths - I'm thinking of changing PC's and wanted to keep my collection with me and this would be ideal but I can't get the blooming things to work.



Macca

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

I just want the annoying 'enforced , but only for the games, extras are fine' absolute paths.
I am splitting/archiving my collections on the now very affordble 4 gb flash drives.
This keeps my harddisc free from clutter, I can lend 4GB at a time of writeable data - essential for floppy disc read/write emulation, to gaming friends who just want a quick blast/retro evening.. and not install software.

Is saves me from having to archive to DVD.. (although I do about once a year anyway).

There are tons of nice features in the GB frontend; link to similar games, prev/next releases.. pics of the musicians (ok not so essential) etc etc.
I must say however there are a lot of other amazing frontends (offlinelist, 3d arcade etc etc), and I wish the GB coders would accept the polite request to finally relinquish the antiquated enforced absolute path for the games. All the other paths work as relative...

The frontend has been out for years now, and I think we all have all the games anyway so we are not shipping the games with the frontend.

PLEASE GB team... This is a last attempt to get my GB collections all working standalone, without having to register dll locations, and change drive letters whenever I pop my flash drive into a different usb port.

I do not want to change frontend.

[Judd]

Arthur,

I know it isn't perfect, but does this help.....

http://www.gamebase64.com/forum/viewtop ... highlight=

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

well, I already had the dlls registering, (thanks!) but the static drive letter for the games is the crux of the matter.

Cheers,
Arthur.

[Judd]

I don't remember (since I don't have GB installed here), but where is path stored? Is it an INI file? A registry location?

I could probably modify my script to modify the location if I knew where it was...

[Judd]

Ok I figured out its the Paths.ini file that needs modifying. The full script would be something like this:

Code: Select all

@echo off 
:: 
:: Create paths.ini in a subdirectory of your choice
::
(
echo [Games]
echo 2=
echo 1=%~d0\MyGBDatabase\Games
echo [Misc]
echo Music=%~d0\MyGBDatabase\Music
echo Photos=%~d0\MyGBDatabase\Photos
echo [Pictures]
echo 2=
echo 1=%~d0\MyGBDatabase\Pictures
echo [Extras]
echo 2=
echo 1=%~d0\MyGBDatabase\Extras
) > %~d0\MyGBDatabase\Paths.ini
:: 
:: Register the DLLs
::
regsvr32 /s %~dp0PNGlib.dll 
regsvr32 /s %~dp0Gemus.dll 
regsvr32 /s %~dp0GBSql.dll 
regsvr32 /s %~dp0GBFuncs.dll 
:: 
:: Start Gamebase
::
%~dp0GameBase.exe

Obviously this needs to be in the correct location and the paths will need adjusting appropriately. Note the following which may be of help when constructing your paths:

%~dp0 this returns the drive and path of the batch file
%~d0 this returns the drive of the batch file
%~p0 this returns the path of the batch file

As long as the batch file is on the drive you want to use %~d0 will give you the current drive letter.

Hope this helps.

Dan

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

and
"emulators.ini"
and
"musicplayers.ini"

will give this a go with the C264 emu (smallest and least to configure) later and see how I fare.


I presume this script (can be a .bat file) creates the paths.ini file?

thanks for the up to date info, I managed to suss everything with relative, but those darn specific files ...
grrrr.
thanks,
Regards,
Arthur,

[Judd]

Yes the script should be a batch file and it does create the INI file (it will overwrite an existing one so be careful!). You can add more sections to deal with the other INI files. e.g.:

Code: Select all

:: 
:: Create Emulators.ini in a subdirectory of your choice 
:: 
( 
echo [Emulators] 
echo 1=CCS64 v2.0b Win32 
echo 2=
echo [Misc] 
echo [CCS64 v2.0b Win32] 
echo UseShortFilenames=1
echo SupportedTypes=D64;T64;G64;G41;TAP;PRG;P00;P01;CRT 
echo EmulatorPathFile=%~d0\MyEmulators\CCS.exe 
echo ScriptFile=CCS64_v20b_Win32.txt
echo 1=%~d0\MyEmulators\c64.cfg
echo UseDefaultTypes=0
echo WaitFinish=1
echo 2= 
) > %~d0\MyGBDatabase\Emulators.ini

and

Code: Select all

:: 
:: Create MusicPlayers.ini in a subdirectory of your choice 
:: 
( 
echo [Players]
echo 1=MyPlayer
echo 2=
echo [MyPlayer]
echo UseShortFilenames=0
echo PlayerPathFile=%~d0\MusicPlayers\MyPlayer.exe
echo CommandLineParams=%musicfile%
echo SupportedTypes=SID;
) > %~d0\MyGBDatabase\MusicPlayers.ini

If you get a full script going, I'm sure we'd all like to see it posted here... (hint hint ;o) )

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

after including the emulators and players ini's to the script it worked like a charm.


thanks,
MUCH Appreciated...
I can now free up 12GB!!! from my c drive.
(and know that in future I can archive to DVD and not care about where to restore to..)

Regards,
Arthur.

PS, GB Team... I am *still* going to not distribute GB with the games on them to any P2P type people,,,
they can get their own help from other people, and put it together by themselves...
Once this script is in place, it really simplifies things..
(now to try it on my vista laptop tonight!)

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

ok,
here is what I have done, and if anyone wants the scripts, I will post them.

I have put each 'gamebase' into its own folder.
The reason for this is... if I archive everything off onto disc and I only wish to retrieve (for example) the SNES gamebase...
It will need all the supporting files in order to make it work..
IE the emulator, the music player etc.

I therefore have seperate batch files for each gamebase, and each gamebase in its own folder.

eg
root¬
SNES.bat
GBST.bat
SNES¬
'gamebase executables and ini's, and all subfolders'
GBST¬
'gamebase executables and ini's and all subfolders'

does this make sense?

I have it all running, *apart* from music...
I get the supporting apps (eg - JAM) to load, but the music file is not getting parsed to the player.
This happens with ALL music types for GBST (ie, JAM, MODPLAY, WINAMP), they all 'launch' but have no music to play.

thoughts?

Regards,
Arthur,

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

@echo off
::
:: note the last three ocx's are only to be obtained/registered if you do not have office installed!
::
(
echo [Games]
echo 2=
echo 1=%~dp0snes\snes\Games
echo [Misc]
echo Music=%~dp0snes\snes\Music
echo Photos=%~dp0snes\snes\Photos
echo [Pictures]
echo 1=%~dp0snes\snes\Titles
echo 2=%~dp0snes\snes\Snap
echo [Extras]
echo 2=
echo 1=%~dp0snes\snes\Extras
) > %~dp0snes\snes\Paths.ini
::
(
echo [Emulators]
echo 1=Zsnes
echo 2=Snes9x
echo 3=
echo [Zsnes]
echo UseShortFilenames=0
echo UseDefaultTypes=1
echo SupportedTypes=sfc;smc;swc;fig;048;058;078;1
echo EmulatorPathFile=%~dp0snes\snes\Emulators\Zsnes\ZSNESW.EXE
echo ScriptFile=Zsnes.txt
echo WaitFinish=1
echo 1=
echo [Snes9x]
echo UseShortFilenames=0
echo UseDefaultTypes=1
echo SupportedTypes=sfc;smc;swc;fig;048;058;078;1
echo EmulatorPathFile=%~dp0snes\snes\Emulators\snes9x-1.43-win32\snes9x.exe
echo ScriptFile=Snes9x.txt
echo WaitFinish=1
echo 1=
) > %~dp0snes\snes\emulators.ini
::
(
echo [Players]
echo 1=winamp
echo 2=
echo [winamp]
echo UseShortFilenames=0
echo PlayerPathFile=C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe
echo CommandLineParams=%musicfile%
echo SupportedTypes=RSN;
) > %~dp0snes\snes\MusicPlayers.ini
::
:: Register the DLLs
::
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\C264\PNGlib.dll
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\C264\Gemus.dll
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\C264\GBSql.dll
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\C264\GBFuncs.dll
::
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\gbst\mscomctl32.ocx
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\gbst\tabctl32.ocx
regsvr32 /s %~dp0\gbst\comdlg32.ocx
::
:: Start Gamebase
::
%~dp0snes\GameBase.exe

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

snes - done
ST - Done
C64 - done
Amiga - done
C64 & plus 4 - done

I still have the problem with the Music players not 'getting' the music file parsed to them..
Any assistance appreciated...

Once I have done the remaining scripts, I can post them here is need be / anyone is interested.??

regards,
Arthur.
PS, I was tearing my hair out with regard to the amiga 'multi disc' games not auto detecting the second disc.
It was only when I looked at the Atari ST disc images, (and I noteice that a single game with multiple discs, had all the discs in a 'single' zip..) that I started combining the amiga gamebase discs into single zip files, then it works.

(tip for the day).

[Judd]

I'm not sure about the music players - it might be a file association thing. If you 'r-click|Open' on a music file, does it launch in the correct player (and play of course!)?

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

the player does fire up, but the muci file is not passed to it.
EG Sidplay 'no music file loaded', with either just clickin gon the 'play music' button, or selecting the music player 'right click'.
Aside from that annoying feature, I have it all working.
..

[arthur_gill@hotmaIl.com]

just spotted the last posting...
how many typos?
eek1
still, I am getting the prob as described, is you cna make sense of my terrible typing.
everything works fine, aside from the music files..
you can manually start the player, and manually add the file, and it works, but I think there is some part of the script that is not taking into account the "take file from 'xxx' and pass to 'yyy'" part of the process.