QuickPlay Frontend

Hello,

I am rebuilding my MAME games list. After a successful scan, I see all MAME games in the games list, however, they are named their zip names in the list and not the actual game names. (a51site4, aafb, 3countb, etc)

How do I get QuickPlay to show the actual game names and not the name of the zip in the list?

I did download the XML from MAME github and placed the XML file in the D:\QuickPlay folder).

Thank you,
Jason

It sounds a bit like you are not using the MAME functionality from the 'Arcade ROMS' menu to process the MAME xml to produce a romdata? see the instructions here: http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/MAME.

In the name field in a MAME Romdata in QuickPlay we want to see 'Area 51 Site 4' not a51site4 or a51site4.zip, and we want to see lots of metadata in the other romdata fields and so on.

If you're still having a problems, post some screenshots and perhaps any mametool_logfile.txt you find in your QuickPlay folder

Thank you butter100fly. I've started from scratch with my MAME games and this is what I see now

If I Click on Arcade ROMs --> Print MAME ROMdata in current directory, the game list shows the correct game name in the list, but the ROM path shows ./qp.exe and the number of games is not correct (3251). Also, the list shows games I do not have ROMs for and is missing games I do have ROMs for. (example 1941: Counter Attack (World 900227) <--- I do not have this game ROM)


first screenshot


If I scan for roms and select the emulator (MAME) and select the rom path (d:\emu\mame\roms), I get a list of games with the correct path. However, the gamelist shows the zip file name and not the correct game name.

second screenshot

I would ideally like to use the setup in this screenshot because it shows the full path to the game.


files used:

d:\qp\extras\folders - all INI files stored here
d:\qp\mame0244 - XML file being used

Here is a screenshot of the MAME options I am using

There has to be a program or some way in QP to convert the game name from the zip file name to the full MAME game name.

Okay, it took a day and a half but I was able to finally figure this out. I now have all MAME games listed as the game name and not the zip file. I had to use an older version of QuickPlay to do this.

Using QuickPlay 3.8.4, there is an option to "rename MAME games". After I ran a scan, the game name showed as the zip names. After using "rename MAME games", QP then renamed the games to their correct name.

This is now resolved.

Jason

Sorry it took you so long. You have indeed re-discovered the old way of scanning only those roms you have in a folder. We've discussed this a lot in these forums (do a search if you haven't already) and I guess I misunderestimated how many people are still interested in pointing QuickPlay to a single folder of Mame ROMS to make a list. One downside of the method you've used is the roms you found will have no metadata in QuickPlay's romdatas and no icons in the roms list, also no ability to produce custom filters - all the things you see here really: http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/i ... RCADE3.png. Some other downsides are how to access games that have no rom file, how to deal with games in multiple folders, how to treat CHDs, how to deal with non-arcade games (in particular those that have custom launch properties), and I could go on.

The method for manually filtering your MAME Arcade ROMs by what you currently have on some disk is currently to supply a MAME File Manager game specification file as in step 9 here: http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/MAME, but MFM hasn't been updated in some time. I need to change this option to 'scan disk location' - this will use the mame XML but will filter its output by the roms you point it to. A better option would be the ability to select >=1 folder of ROMS, but I can't see myself having the time to do the UI for that anytime soon.

However, no need to wait for me to do this, you can achieve this effect right now by using step 9 in the link, because the Mame File Manager game specification file is nothing more than a plaintext file with one mamename per line ie:
So instead of using Mame File Manager, you can just generate such a file yourself by pointing powershell to your folder of roms, piping the output of to a text file as in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/362 ... cmd-prompt and pointing QuickPlay to that. If you're interested in that option let me know how that works for you, though if you want a real filepath printing in that circumstance its not going to work (you don't really need this for MAME games anyway unless you're using my Synctool, which I bet you aren't!), but of course using this method you CAN find ROMS in >1 source folder: since you just need to do two folder lookups using the powershell command, then concatenate the romnames from folder 2's lookup at the end of the game names from folder 1's lookup (because MAME already knows where these games are, you don't need the filepath, so QuickPlay just prints './qp.exe' in that field when it generates the romdata). The advantage to using this method in the current version of QuickPlay is that you should be able to achieve something like the screenshot I posted

Hope this helps explain if nothing more....

Thank you butter100fly. I truly appreciate the time you take to respond to not just me but to everyone that posts on these boards.

I'll fiddle with MAME File Manager (after I backup my QP settings of course). I'll also tinker with Filesync. I'm quite sure that I'm missing out on some really cool QP features by limiting my list to only specific games. I'll bite the bullet and take the plunge and let you know how I make out

Jason

In particular I'd recommend the MAME softlists, if possible run with the MAME filepaths option so that you can run them with any emulator not just MAME Emulators (like RetroArch's emulators, for instance) - this can be quite powerful http://quickplay.sourceforge.net/wiki/i ... s_full.PNG

(I wouldn't mess with the MAME File Manager if I were you, it seems to be abandonware if i'm not mistaken)