Mala Refresh Gamelist

[slsimon]

It's been awhile but I am back working the software side of the Mala - Mame cabinet.  I am having a minor issue at the moment that I can't seem to figure out.  I have eight emulators setup and the only one that I am having problems with locking up Mala (application stopes responding) is Mame every time I attempt to do a gamelist refresh.  I have removed the associated gamelist file in the Mala directory with no luck thinking that there could possibly be a corruption in the gamelist file somewhere.  Anyone else have this issue?  I can refresh all other emulator game files fine.  Thanks, Shane

[headkaze]

Are you sure it's not just taking a long time? There is alot of info output from the Mame exe when you generate a game list. Then you need to process the info. I would see if it needs more time.

[slsimon]

Here is the error line from the log file.  I suppose I can walk away from the machine for awhile.  When refreshing the mame gamelist, I used to get a message mentioning something along the lines of removing or deleting gamelist but I don't see that now.  Below is the error message.  I will run another refresh and walk away for awhile. 

2008/05/21  10:42:26.26   Error: Object Class: TfrmMain, Object Function: LoadGameList, Exception Class: EFOpenError, Exception Message: Datei D:\mame\game emulation\emulators\mala\All Games.ml1 kann nicht geöffnet werden

Post back here in a while.  Thanks, Shane

[headkaze]

Translating that message shows

Code: [Select]

File D:\mame\game emulation\emulator\mala\All Games.ml1 cannot be opened
So I guess you need to find out why that file can't be opened. Anti-virus software sometimes lock files. It could be read only. I would try moving it somewhere else and seeinf if Mala can create it again.

[slsimon]

Uninstalling NAV seems to have fixed the problem.

Now another questions if you don't mind.  Before a game refresh, I have selected the "only games with rom found in rom folder(s)", "only working games" and "only masters" options before a game listing refresh and still have many duplicate games listed after a successful game refresh.  Can all three of these options be selected at the same time and or do they interfere with each other?  I would like to find a way to narrow my game list down and remove all the duplcate games being listed.  I tried selecting all these options and still have many, many duplicates listed. 

Again thanks for your expertise. 

Oh by the way, months back we worked together trying to get multiple audio and video to split with multiple audio cards and extended displays, I gave up on that configuration and built a second PC to suppport a Jukebox build.  That has worked out great.  Hence why I am just now trying to finish up the Arcade build. 

Thanks, Shane

[headkaze]

Yep I remember you from that thread about multiple audio cards. Even nicer to have a dedicated Jukebox

As for the MaLa question I have only just installed it on this PC to help out loadman where I can. So I am really a MaLa n00b to be honest. I'm sure there will be other people on here who could answer your MaLa question.

BTW The reason NAV was creating that problem is if you have realtime anti-virus protection as soon as that huge gamelist file is created NAV would scan it for virus signatures locking the file. So then MaLa would not be able to access it. You could probably remove the *.ml1 file extension from realtime protection or turn it off completly to prevent the file locking but still have anti-virus available for scanning files manually when you need to.

[TheShanMan]

I use ROM Lister to generate my MaLa game lists. It has a very flexible query engine. Not sure if it can filter out games you don't have, but you can certainly do the other two and then use MaLa to filter the ones you don't have.

P.S. I'm working on an app that plays audio on a secondary sound card, though it's not intended to be a full blown jukebox. I'm using it to play the Arcade Ambience sounds on a separate set of speakers (can play any fixed set of sound files). Sounds like that wouldn't be of interest to you at this point but let me know if it is.

[nuka1195]

i think the duplicates are for instance asteroids v1 and asteroids v2 are both masters? i guess it doesn't mean parent/clone filtering?

do you have a link to rom lister, the rsesults i get from google, i'm not sure are correct?

thanks

[TheShanMan]

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/

[nuka1195]

thank you,

romlister as one word google returns that link first.

[slsimon]

i think the duplicates are for instance asteroids v1 and asteroids v2 are both masters? i guess it doesn't mean parent/clone filtering?

do you have a link to rom lister, the rsesults i get from google, i'm not sure are correct?

thanks

Hi nuka1195!  I think you hit it right on.  After looking over the gamelist via the mala gamelist editor, looks like the duplicates are various versions of the games.  Does romlister allow for one to easily specify only one instance of the list of 5000 plus games?  If not, looks like I will be using gamelist editor to remove the dups.  Thanks, Shane

[TheShanMan]

MameUI shows Asteroids rev 1 (asteroi1) as a clone of Asteroids rev 2 (asteroid), so rom lister would be able to filter out rev 1.

[nuka1195]

Thanks TheShanMan for the link, it's a nice little program.

it does filter parents/clones.

[loadman]

As for the MaLa question I have only just installed it on this PC to help out loadman where I can.

 

[jlfreund]

Loadman, I'm very glad to hear that you're taking over Mala and will keep it alive.  But I'm concerned that it may not be maintainable without releasing the source.

MaLa is a big, complex piece of software, and I'm not sure how much experience or time you have to commit, but typically software of this size either requires a dedicated expert or a community of talent. 

The best way to maintain it is to follow the same process every other big open source project uses: put the source on sourceforge, make the code and instructions to build available to all, but restrict contributions to a team of trusted "experts" who can either submit directly, or may review and approve of submissions from untrusted sources.  This model has all the benefits of opening the code to a world of potential contributors without introducing any risk of introducing bugs or losing control of the roadmap to untrusted sources. 

And since MaLa is free, and the code is dedicated to the benefit of the community their should be no downside to releasing it to the public.

-Jason

[jlfreund]

Apologies, my last post was meant to post to a different thread (Loadman's announcement thread).  I'll copy it into there

[loadman]

Apologies, my last post was meant to post to a different thread (Loadman's announcement thread).  I'll copy it into there

And I reponded to it over there in the software section