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[A Murder of Crows]

First off, i'd like to thank xport for all the work he's done.  Far and away, i use more of XPort's stuff on my box than anything else, short of watching movies via XBMC.  Kudos, and thanx for "coming back"


WIth that out of the way, i have finally come to my wits end with the E:\Saves folder in all of the XPort projects.

I understand the WHY of it being implimented, and i appreciate it, but i want to officially request that this become OPTIONAL as opposed to REQUIRED.

I play all my emulators from E:\Emulators\Company\SystemName.  I place my customized INI files (with all options having been set in the On Screen menu first) in with the default.xbe file.  I then give the emulator, already set up and pointing to proper folders, to my friends.

Recently, a friend pointed out that the Sega Master System roms would not load.  The reason is because Meka uses E:\Saves\MekaX as it's ini folder.  In order to use screenshots for both SMS and Game Gear games that had the same name without going thru the enitre rom set, and in order to keep things seperated and orderly, i made 2 copies of Meka and placed each in their own directories.

This used to work great for the old emulator, but for Meka, this caused problems.  The INI file of the system that gets run first (for example, the Game Gear one) gets copied to the E:\Saves\MekaX folder.  If you then run the other one (Sega Master System), it loads the ini that is in E:\Saves\MekaX, which for me, is set up to be Game Gear spesific.

the result is that when one tries to play SMS games, all they see is Game Gear roms.

The E:\Saves\ folder was used so that people who wanted to run the emulators off the dvd could do so and still make changes to the settings as they saw fit.

I'd like to propose that an option gets added to ALL Xport projects that changes the behaviour of this "feature" so that the xbe will check the directory it was launched from for an INI/Settings file and ask the user if they wish to use that file or create a new one.  It should also ask where the settings file should be located.

The way i see it, if one wishes to run the emulator off a DVD, it shouldn't bee to hard to make sure that there is no INI file in the directory from which the emulator launches.

this will preserve the ability of dvd based emulator discs to still use E:\Saves, and allow the rest of us Type A personalities to have more control over what's going on with our file management, directory structure, and emulator enviroment.



To sum up:

Xport

We respectfully request a solution to the problem of the E:\Saves folder, the way the emulators work with that folder, and the issues that stem from this interaction.  We feel that an optional system is far better than the current, which we see as limiting some of the abilities and user friendliness of your otherwise incredibly well done emulators.

We feel that the best implimentation of this would be to have the emulator look for an ini file within the launch directory that tells the emulator the path to the main options folder.  We feel the default should still be the already standard E:\Saves to allow those who archive the emulator to DVD can do so without much change, and that those who wish to change it can do so within the options relatively easily.  

We feel that this system will allow the use of multiple copies of the same emulator to be used for individual tasks, for those of us who are complete and total control freaks, or those who'd rather have 1 option per emulatos.

Thank you for your consideration in this.

A Murder of Crows, and about 150 friends, plus whoever else signs this thread.

[madmab]

Sounds like your not properly pointing to your ROMS directory.

It should be something like D:\smsroms or D:\mekaroms or whatever.  Just make sure both copies of meka use the same "directory" name and are pointing to the "D:" drive.  Plus any roms with matching names should be renamed to eliminate any save game/screenshot conflicts.

So for example these are your physical directories...

e:\emulators\meka-sms\mekaroms
e:\emulators\meka-gg\mekaroms

Your logical directories (the ones defined in configuration) as "ROMS" would be

d:\mekaroms

Here... I'll even give you a list of matching gg/sms games to help out...

Addams family
andre agassi tennis
baku baku
bonkers wax up
bram stoker's dracula
chuck rock 2
columns
cool spot
daffy duck in hollywood
double dragon
dragon bruce lee story
hook
james bond 007 the duel
jungle book
klax
lion king
mick & mack as the global gladiators
mrs pac man
ninja gaiden
pga tour golf
prince of persia
RC grand prix
spiderman vs kingpin
superman
terminator
x-men - mojoworld

I did something similar with XboyAdvance for my Gboy/color and GBA ROMS because I simply ran out of room for screenshots and it works just dandy!

This post has been edited by madmab: Jul 23 2006, 01:01 PM

[VampX]

QUOTE(madmab @ Jul 23 2006, 01:54 PM)

Plus any roms with matching names should be renamed to eliminate any save game/screenshot conflicts.

Its still stupid because they arent even the same machine.. (well inside they share alot but ya know what i mean)

Last time we discussed this Xport didnt seem interested in making MekaX either sepperate entities
or having split save/screenshot dirs so i guess the only thing to do is get out that hex editor
and hack 2 MekaX xbe's to point to different save and screenshot dirs.

[A Murder of Crows]

QUOTE(madmab @ Jul 23 2006, 04:54 AM)

Sounds like your not properly pointing to your ROMS directory.  It should be something like D:\smsroms or D:\mekaroms or whatever.  Just make sure both copies of meka use the same "directory" name and are pointing to the "D:" drive.

Incorrect.  My roms directory is fine.  My setup is much different from other peoples.  

QUOTE

 Plus any roms with matching names should be renamed to eliminate any save game/screenshot conflicts.

Roms with matching names should *NOT* be renamed.  the emulators should use an option setup for save/settings location instead of the way they currently run, being FORCED to E:\Saves.  Renaming roms gets us into issues later on with those of us who collect certain games and use a database program for that purpose.

QUOTE

So for example these are your physical directories...

e:\emulators\meka-sms\mekaroms
e:\emulators\meka-gg\mekaroms

Your logical directories (the ones defined in configuration) as "ROMS" would be

d:\mekaroms

My settings are different.  All emulators are on


E:\Emulators\*company Name*\*system Name*

all roms are located in:

F:\Roms\*Company Name*\*System Name*


Therefore:

Meka resides in:

E:\Emulators\Sega\Master System
E:\Emulators\Sega\Game Gear


Meka needs to find roms in:

F:\Roms\Sega\1.0 - Master System
F:\Roms\Sega\3.0 - Game Gear

QUOTE

Here... I'll even give you a list of matching gg/sms games to help out...

Addams family
andre agassi tennis
baku baku
bonkers wax up
bram stoker's dracula
chuck rock 2
columns
cool spot
daffy duck in hollywood
double dragon
dragon bruce lee story
hook
james bond 007 the duel
jungle book
klax
lion king
mick & mack as the global gladiators
mrs pac man
ninja gaiden
pga tour golf
prince of persia
RC grand prix
spiderman vs kingpin
superman
terminator
x-men - mojoworld

I did something similar with XboyAdvance for my Gboy/color and GBA ROMS because I simply ran out of room for screenshots and it works just dandy!

Although this was nice of you, i still feel that this is a bug of sorts.  All my roms are located on the F partition.  All emulators i install are on the E partition, for a reason.  Eventually, i'll have to change that, but for now this was the easiest way to distribute all the emulators to my friends, even if they didn't have an F drive on thier xbox.  biggest complaints were "What the heck is this SAVES directory for?  i want to move it somewhere else!" and "Why doesn't this work right?"

QUOTE(VampX @ Jul 23 2006, 09:54 AM)

Its still stupid because they arent even the same machine.. (well inside they share alot but ya know what i mean)

Last time we discussed this Xport didnt seem interested in making MekaX either sepperate entities
or having split save/screenshot dirs so i guess the only thing to do is get out that hex editor
and hack 2 MekaX xbe's to point to different save and screenshot dirs.

Well, what i'd REALLY like is to be able to use the same xbe for both, which means implimenting a way to check to see if a settings.ini file exists in the home directory before using E:\Saves.  I certainly don't need 4 different versions of each emulator running around in my PC for people with different setups.

If it is possible to point all of xports emus to use the home directory first, and then the E:\Saves folder, i'd be much happier....hex edit or not.  it SEEMS like it should be a simple "if == then" style script, but i'm not a programer.....

Over simplified example

IF exist = D:\Settings.ini THEN Goto 1
IF not exist = D:\Settings.ini THEN Goto 2

1
Load D:\*Emulator Name*.ini

2
Load E:\Saves\*Emulator Name*\*Emulator Name*.ini

[madmab]

QUOTE(A Murder of Crows @ Jul 23 2006, 05:30 PM)

Incorrect.  My roms directory is fine.  My setup is much different from other peoples.  

My settings are different.  All emulators are on
E:\Emulators\*company Name*\*system Name*

all roms are located in:

F:\Roms\*Company Name*\*System Name*
Therefore:

Meka resides in:

E:\Emulators\Sega\Master System
E:\Emulators\Sega\Game Gear
Meka needs to find roms in:

F:\Roms\Sega\1.0 - Master System
F:\Roms\Sega\3.0 - Game Gear

That's your problem right there.. Your roms should be within your emulator directory.  If your setup WAS correct then you would not be having any problems to begin with.

If you set it up the way I say it'll work just fine and you have an added bonus of being able to copy that directory to a DVD and run it off there if you wish.

Sure your suggestion would work as a solution, but I'm saying the solution is already there.

QUOTE(A Murder of Crows @ Jul 23 2006, 05:30 PM)

Although this was nice of you, i still feel that this is a bug of sorts.  All my roms are located on the F partition.  All emulators i install are on the E partition, for a reason.  Eventually, i'll have to change that, but for now this was the easiest way to distribute all the emulators to my friends, even if they didn't have an F drive on thier xbox.  biggest complaints were "What the heck is this SAVES directory for?  i want to move it somewhere else!" and "Why doesn't this work right?"

If the convenience you are saving yourself is not having to copy your ROMS directory, well then don't select it when copying...

More power to ya if in talking him into doing that.  If not, if and when he releases the source just recompile it.

QUOTE(VampX @ Jul 23 2006, 12:54 PM)

Its still stupid because they arent even the same machine.. (well inside they share alot but ya know what i mean)

Last time we discussed this Xport didnt seem interested in making MekaX either sepperate entities
or having split save/screenshot dirs so i guess the only thing to do is get out that hex editor
and hack 2 MekaX xbe's to point to different save and screenshot dirs.

We are talking only 26 titles here.  If you split the emu's off into two seperate directories you can do the same exact thing I said for the screenshots.  Place them in "d:\screenshots" AKA "e:\emulators\meka1\screenshots" or "e:\emulators\meka2\screenshots".  If you don't want the screenshots copied when giving to a friend, then don't select them for copy.

Besides there is NO way to get around the 4096 file limit, so one has no choice but to split them when the number of ROMS exceeds this number if they want screenshots for each game.

Anyways I was just offering an interm solution.  I don't have the source code to recompile.  I simply just renamed my 26 ROMS for meka (only one set needs to be done), and split my XboyAdvance directories up to accomodate my delimna.

[A Murder of Crows]

QUOTE(madmab @ Jul 23 2006, 04:09 PM)

That's your problem right there.. Your roms should be within your emulator directory.  If your setup WAS correct then you would not be having any problems to begin with.

If you set it up the way I say it'll work just fine and you have an added bonus of being able to copy that directory to a DVD and run it off there if you wish.

No, roms should NOT be within the emulator directory, as that would force all the emulators to be on the F drive as complete rom sets for multiple emulators will not fit within the confines of the E drive.  Far better to place all the roms, and by extension, all screenshots, on the F drive, allowing the emulators to be on E drive since they will all fit.

it is far simpler to move 1 directory of roms over for use on dvd than it is to try to manage 15 different rom sets and keep them all fit into the small E drive.

QUOTE

Sure your suggestion would work as a solution, but I'm saying the solution is already there.
If the convenience you are saving yourself is not having to copy your ROMS directory, well then don't select it when copying...

it doesn't stop the other problems.....i don't feel the end user should have to hex edit the emulator to force E:\Saves to be an OPTIONAL item, especially for those who are Type A or Obessesive/Compulsive, as i am.  Have that E:\Saves folder littereally is drving me crazy, similar to the Xerox folder in windows XP.  i feel it far easier for Xport to make a couple of changes to the way the emulator functions, fixing 2 things at the same time, then it is for someone as OCD as i am to "Deal" with it and change the way i install everything.  

The convenience is that all the roms are easily found in 1 place, easy for an end user to delete an entire set or section of a set without hunting for the proper directory or messing with the E drive at all.....essentially, i can tell my littler sister or anyone else that if things are taking up too much space, delete stuff off the F drive, and don't touch the E drive.  The other benefits of asking xport to do this is the ability to use multiple copies of the emulator to do different systems, instead of being forced to deal with the issues discovered with Meka.  Not only am i talking screen shots here.....there are several emulators that i'd have different directories for based on TYPE of machine emulated....the atari 5200 was a game system, but most of the rest of the atari line that has been emulated bundled with that machine are computers, which would fall under computer emlation....allowing me to set up a version of the emulator to completely work with allt he 5200 roms i have in one variation, and in the other to work spesifically for the rest of the systems emulated therein.

these are extreme examples, but the 1 key fact remains.....i could change the way I install things now, but i can't change the way things i've already installed work...far easier to impliment an updated emulator with this bug fixed than it would be to go and manipulate 200 xboxes to "work" this way....and it still doesn't take care of the issues of the xbox systems that didn't get hard drive upgrades and who had Western Digital drives to start, with no F drive.  the SMS and Game Gear roms are small enough that they could be included on that drive, but we still run into the problem of the screenshots.

QUOTE

More power to ya if in talking him into doing that.  If not, if and when he releases the source just recompile it.
We are talking only 26 titles here.  If you split the emu's off into two seperate directories you can do the same exact thing I said for the screenshots.  Place them in "d:\screenshots" AKA "e:\emulators\meka1\screenshots" or "e:\emulators\meka2\screenshots".  If you don't want the screenshots copied when giving to a friend, then don't select them for copy.

Again, this will not work with the way i distribute the emulators......when you place meka in 2 directories for the screenshots, the first one's INI file will get copied to E:\Saves, and meka2 will never get it's own ini file to be read properly, because the roms HAVE to be on the F drive for organization and for OCD reasons.  If i had the ability to code/compile and write something that would solve my problems, i would have, trust me.  

QUOTE

Besides there is NO way to get around the 4096 file limit, so one has no choice but to split them when the number of ROMS exceeds this number if they want screenshots for each game.

I split most rom directories up into groups of about 300

QUOTE

Anyways I was just offering an interm solution.  I don't have the source code to recompile.  I simply just renamed my 26 ROMS for meka (only one set needs to be done), and split my XboyAdvance directories up to accomodate my delimna.

yes, i understand, and appreciate it.  I just want to bring the full issue to Xport's attention, with as many of the reasons as possible being noted.  For such a great set of emulators, this problem seems glaring, and it limits the way the emulators can be used.....it would seem like such an easy fix, and i can't see why Xport wouldn't want to fix it.

[madmab]

Lol it sounds like you have more serious issues than just a few emulators.  Well good luck in your endeavors.

This post has been edited by madmab: Jul 25 2006, 01:11 AM

[XaRaNn]

Way of trying reinvent the wheel.

If it's not broken, why fix it?
I just would like to share, that i think this is one of the most pedantic long drawn out useless request i've ever seen.

[madmab]

Just a suggestion, but a better solution to the .ini file dilemna would be for the emulator to only store it in E:\saves if the current (aka RUN) directory is non-writeable.  That would allow the .ini file to stay in the emulator directory with no prompting on the users part at all.

As for myself I've been able to work around these problems, but if it were to be changed, that'd be my suggestion.

[A Murder of Crows]

QUOTE(XaRaNn @ Jul 25 2006, 01:30 AM)

Way of trying reinvent the wheel.

If it's not broken, why fix it?
I just would like to share, that i think this is one of the most pedantic long drawn out useless request i've ever seen.

It amazes me sometimes, how close minded some can be.  Just because you aren't using the emulators to thier fullest potential does not mean it's not broken.....this IS a major issue under certain setups.  I've had teh same kind of discussion with the Xecuter forums and with the XBox Media Center forums about adding or improving things.  I feel that i'm gracious, i thank the authors for what they have done, and i ask if an idea or improvement can be implimented in a new build.

Team Xecuter has given up on the original Xbox....no new bios will come out for the X3 chips....forget that you can't change the password of the chip's FTP server...forget that you can't run a dashboard from E:\Dashboard\Default.xbe.  forget that the bank naming/selecting on this chip was over complicated for no reason.  Forget that there was no support for enabling the use of a ShadowC drive.

Everyone on that board thought that there was no point in fixing these minor issues, because they all felt it was minor.....despite the fact that each of these issues combined caused me great headaches.  despite that i paid $200 for all my Xecuter brand mods.  Suddenly, everyone was a fanboy and no one could see any way to improve the bios.

XBMC has some major issues with the Programs section, especially the Emulators, where you are forced to either have all the emulator XBE files on the top level, or you are forced to have it as the directory structure....you can't have any sort of forced organization within the Programs to organize each emulator in a folder first by Company (Sega, Nintendo), and then by System in order of Release (NES, SNES, GBA).

The Profiles are coming along, and this was something i tried to suggest (i guess it was already in the works, though a few people denied it), so at least SOMEONE had an open enough mind to see the benefit of doing something like that.

As for Xport and the E:\SAve folder:

1. In order to be able to mod xboxes the same way each time (aka a Distrobution), i place the same apps, homebrew games and emulators in the same places on EVERY box.

2. Some boxes have stock WD drives (8gb).  Theses boxes can have Roms anywhere, but there isn't much space.

3. Some boxes have stock Seagate drives (10GB).  these boxes COULD have *SOME* roms on the E drive, but when space ran out there, one has to move the roms to the F drive.  

4. Some boxes get thier hard drives upgraded.  THese boxes could have ALL the apps, emus, etc on the F drive, but this would mean that i'd have to have a seperate distrobution for all 3 types.  this consumes both time and hard drive space/media.


in order to keep the distrobution simple/uniformed among all my friends and family, the roms are moved into thier own folder on the F drive.  All 3 types of xbox hard drives get the exact same install as far as apps, emulators, and homebrew games.  the only difference is the location of the roms for the WD drive, which is too small to have many roms on it anyway.


furthermore, it makes it really easy to update...i can just make a new distrobution with the changed files, then delete the original program or emu, and copy over the new version, updating directly, instead of having to take the time to remove and replace roms.


this doesn't even mention the multiple use of the same emulator issue.

QUOTE(madmab @ Jul 26 2006, 01:46 AM)

Just a suggestion, but a better solution to the .ini file dilemna would be for the emulator to only store it in E:\saves if the current (aka RUN) directory is non-writeable.  That would allow the .ini file to stay in the emulator directory with no prompting on the users part at all.

As for myself I've been able to work around these problems, but if it were to be changed, that'd be my suggestion.

this sounds pretty good too, actually!  sounds even easier to do than what i was suggesting.

[A Murder of Crows]

bump

[A Murder of Crows]

continuing on my quest to make XPort see the light

[quadriko]

i agree can this please be configurable. I dont see the harm in this ability at all, and the peeps out there that dont have a problem with it can leave it be.

[Likklebaer]

Okay I don't have time to read all that crap so forgive me if this isn't relevant or doesn't achieve what you want, but the default save directory of any XPort emu can be changed by opening the default.xbe in a hex editor such as WinHex and replacing all occurances of E:\SAVES\*system name* with whatever you want.

Also I'm pretty sure that even recent XPort emus will take settings from an ini in the launch directory providing one hasn't yet been created in E:\SAVES.

[Philo]

I would like this as well

Likklebaer: Could you please give a quik tut on the hex editor or please give a link.  If I could just do this instead of bothering Xport to rewrite lots of code I would be grateful.
Thanks