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Author Topic: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?  (Read 2558 times)

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AMDman13

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Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« on: December 13, 2014, 10:59:59 am »
I use MESS 156 for a few emulators and I would love to get Mamewah to read the xml for the game list. I hate using the rom_folder as it simply displays the name of the rom in the gamelist. Maybe this isn't possible? I am admittedly a noob to Mess.
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haynor666

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Re: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2014, 06:52:43 am »
I'm affraid that involves VMMaker rewrite but display tags are the same only listed in machine section instead of game.

But that's not really necessary as many mame modes will fit also for consoles. Since freq is generated on the fly in mess (this one must be compiled) , ume and mame only makes sense to add missing resolution to ResList.txt. Some of consoles are already in this file.

Personally I skipped generating XML file and I only use modes in custom edited ResList.txt.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2014, 07:05:15 am by haynor666 »

AMDman13

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Re: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2014, 09:42:32 am »
Thanks haynor666, but I must have not been very clear with what I am trying to do.

I am not looking to set up resolution modelines for consoles. I am simply trying to get mamewah to use the information in the xml to list game names. Example, in the emulator.ini you would set
list_generation_method to rom_folder_vs_listxml. This works nicely as it uses this information create proper names for each game. So, intead of tmnt it would display Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Listing them by rom_name isn't ideal as sometimes they can be really obscure especially when guests are trying to find a game. 
« Last Edit: December 14, 2014, 09:44:36 am by AMDman13 »
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haynor666

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Re: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2014, 01:41:55 pm »
 rom_folder_vs_listxml works for MAME but I'm stripping phrases like (World), (US), (set 1) etc from list to get shorter names.
For other emus I'm forced to create list based on rom names. To get nice list I'm renaming for example NES roms manually again stripping GoodSets tags.

I never tested rom_folder_vs_listxml with mess. Due different tags it won't work.

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Re: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2014, 05:51:02 am »
It won't read the XML but if you can get a DAT file for the Good set you are using, Mamewah will read that. IIRC the list_generation_method you need to use is 'dat_file'.

I'm a bit out of the loop but the DAT files used to be commonplace, hopefully still are...

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Re: Possible for Mamewah to read MESS XML files?
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2014, 06:00:21 am »
the MESS software list XML files are not 'goodsets' or DATs, they contain information about cart layouts (what is in each cart) and how roms should be loaded for MESS too etc.  This allows us to support *proper* dumps of games (rather than deprotected ones, or ones with fake headers bolted on) and is closer to the MAME mentality.

MAME can use Software List XML files too, that's exactly what happens when you run the NeoGeo in multislot mode.

The software lists are more integrated with the emulator than a good set, for example

mess64 genesis -listsoftware

will list all the software that's been associated with the Genesis (well technically anything you can put in the Genesis cartslot on the motherboard, some of it might be region locked and require a different base system to run)

if you open up the megadriv.xml (the softlist used by that driver) you can see things like

Code: [Select]
<!--
Note from Elbarto:
    On the Quackshot PCB there is a 512Kb rom.
    Normally all the address lines from A1 to A19 (the whole 512Kb range) tied to the chip in the right order.
    But here we have the megadrive A18 line tied to the A20 pin of the rom.
    This means that the Megadrive sees the first 256Kb of the rom followed by 0xc0000 lenght range of mirrored/zero-ed data
    then again the last 256Kb of the game.
    I think they did that for a crappy (really crappy) copy protection.
-->
<software name="quacksht">
<description>QuackShot Starring Donald Duck ~ QuackShot - Guruzia Ou no Hihou (World)</description>
<year>1991</year>
<publisher>Sega</publisher>
<info name="serial" value="G-4054 (JPN)"/>
<info name="release" value="19911220 (JPN)"/>
<info name="alt_title" value="アイラブ ドナルドダック グルジア王の秘宝"/>
<part name="cart" interface="megadriv_cart">
<feature name="pcb" value="171-6206A"/>
<feature name="ic1" value="MPR-14371-F, MPR-14371-H"/>
<dataarea name="rom" width="16" endianness="big" size="1310720">
<rom name="mpr-14371-f.ic1" size="262144" crc="5dd28dd7" sha1="ca02845fa49cd46ccb0a4023b91b10695573668e" offset="0x000000"/>
<rom size="262144" offset="0x100000" loadflag="continue"/>
</dataarea>
</part>
</software>

which as you can see, roughly mirrors the ROM loading inside of MAME and shows how we are able to load a REAL dump of the rom in a Quackshot cartridge, not one that has been rearranged in a fake but working way for use in other emulators (as you'd find in a goodset / nointro set etc.)

things have changed quite a lot in recent years, and it's a bad idea to assume MESS is like other console emulators, it's roots are more firmly in MAME philosophy and the XML files can be quite a lot more than you're assuming.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2014, 06:02:24 am by Haze »