Bonus App Poll (Which would you like to see first)

[Howard_Casto]

I'm still spitting out applications from my App Bonanza and I decided that two of the bonus apps might take longer than expected.  So I want to know which of the two you would rather see.  Since the Titles on the Poll aren't very specific I'll explain...

The Rom Copier is a utility specifically designed for people with large roms/mpegs stored on dvds/cds that still would like to run the games form their harddrive.  Basically, before an emulator is launched it checks to see if the rom/folder/mpeg ect.  is found on your harddrive.  If it's not it checks all of the drives you specify and if a match is found it'll copy the files to a pre-specifed folder on your harddrive.  Then the emulator is launched and you play as normal.  When you quit playing the utility is launched again and it removes the files from your harddrive.  This application was made specifically for archiving daphne mpegs and mame hd images, as both seem to have performance problems if the files are on dvd.  the only drawback I can see with this app is if you aren't using dragon king then you'll have to convince your fav fe developer to add support.  Adding support will be EXTREMELY easy though as it's as simple as launching the utility, launching the game and then launching the utility again (to remove the files).


The mess utility is my humble attempt to standardize all console roms and their accompanying artwork files....  How it works is a little complicated but i'll try to explain......  First you specify a rom folder(s) to scan and the extension of the files to scan for.  The utility will then generate a clrmamrpro dat file based on the files contained in the folder(s).  Then you specify the system type (using the M.E.S.S. naming standard)  and the utility reads the magic mess crc file, which contains not only the games "good" name but additional mame-like data such as the manufacturer, date and other spiffy info.  Using this data it does two things....  It injects the extra data into the dat file and it makes a list of the renaming that needs to be done.  At this point if you have specified that the wish for the utility to rename your roms/artwork for you it will go through the renaiming list it made and rename everything based on the goodtools name it got from the mess crc.  Is it perfect?  No, but here is the beauty of it.  As new dumps are found all you have to do is make a new entry in the crc file with the added info (of course use goodtools to see if they have a good name for it yet)  and run the utility again.  Then you submit the crc updates to the mess team and they in-turn will release it to everyone upon the next mess build.  So as a side effect it not only standardizes everything, but it helps the mess guys with their documentation project.  

Before you ask, yes goodtools can rename your roms for you, but it can't give you supplimentary data and it can't rename artwork files for you.  Also the goodtools utility won't generate a dat for you.  This app basically takes all the standardized data out there (goodtools and mess's data)  and finally puts it together into a single, realitively simple to use application.  


Of course both of these may sound a little odd or maybe you feel they need different/new features.  If so I want to hear about it too, just be polite please.  

[papaschtroumpf]

I voted for MESS but I'd rather get fully functional controls.dat viewer  

[Mr. Dude]

I also voted for MESS.  

[Luxury]

That MESS app sounds pretty cool, but even though I don't use MESS, it sounds like I could use most of the features regardless of the emualator/frontend.  How is MESS anyways?

[stuzza]

Another MESS app vote here.

[Howard_Casto]

That MESS app sounds pretty cool, but even though I don't use MESS, it sounds like I could use most of the features regardless of the emualator/frontend.  How is MESS anyways?

Mess is mame's bastard console cousin.  It emulates about 100-200 systems.  The ones of note are vectrex (the only good vectrex emu left)  all nintendo systems except the snes and n64, all sega systems and all atari systems.  It requires more resources than most console emus, but like mame it's emulation is far more accurate.  Not only that but you don't have to jimmy-rig it to exit properly or launch via the command line.  


Btw someone voted "other(please specify)"  I'm not sure what you thought "please specify" meant but you need to explain what you want.  

[Tiger-Heli]

I voted for MESS but I'd rather get fully functional controls.dat viewer  

I didn't vote, but I also would rather see a fully functional controls.dat viewer.

[arcadecab]

So with the MESS application, will you basically have a dat file for each console system so that if using MAMEwah, you could point to the console system .dat file to use the built-in filters such as no-clones, working roms only, country, etc. Then also, you could display information such as year of manufacture, name of manufacture, etc. as part of the frontend.  I have used Goodtools in the past with its "dirs" option to separate all the clones, etc. with some console rom sets.  However, I would rather just be able to filter them through the frontend, like MAME, instead of separating them into different folders, etc. by using Goodtools.  I was told in the past that MAMEwah cant provide any functions like that without a .dat file like MAME has.  Would this app provide those dat files so that filters could be used with MAMEwah?  If so--it would truly be a GREAT app and it gets my vote.
Also, IMPORTANTLY, would you have to be using the MESS emulator to make use of the .dat files generated.  Could you use the dat files with other emulators?

[papaschtroumpf]

...  The ones of note are vectrex (the only good vectrex emu left)

VECTREX RULEZ!!!!!!!! (sorry long week)

[Howard_Casto]

Looks like you guys chose the the mess utility.  Wise choice.... I started finishing it up this morning. It should be out before next week.  

Thanks for your input,

HAC