Screenshots for MAMEWAH and other front ends

[DaveJ-UK]

Quite some time ago I came across a great site with complete sets of well named screenshots available for download, for use in MAMEWAH and other front ends. But I can't find this site again... can anyone tell me where to find these screenshot archives?

I have the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, and MAME sets. They're named the same as the ROM files (I think):

AAAHH!!! Real Monsters (E) [!].png
Aero Fighters (U).png
Alcahest (J).png
American Battle Dome (J).png
etc.

[BULL]

Is this what your looking for?

http://www.screenshotarchive.com/


BULL

[DaveJ-UK]

Yes! Thank you very much!

[DaveJ-UK]

Is there anywhere I can get similar archives for any other consoles?

I'm specifically after screenshots for the Saturn, Dreamcast, Playstation (PS1), Neo Geo (CD/AES/MVS), and 3DO but would be interested in any others.

Thanks again. Dave.

[digitalpackrat]

[romsite name redacted] has a torrent for neo geo avi previews for both the console and pocket  make sure you share or u may get banned but otherwise a great way to find previews for nearly all consoles

[BuZz880]

I had tried downloading screenshot packs from various places and never seemed to be able to do better than about 40% match even though my roms are compliant with the GOODtools naming conventions.

So finally what I did is I used a BAT file of rom names to call a very simple AUTOHOTKEY script that did nothing more than run the game... simulate a few standard key presses such as START or Button "A" to initiate the game and after a few seconds take a screenshot... the last part of the script would rename the screenshot name used by the emulator ( example 0.png) to the romname and move it to my snap directory.

With some trial and error I found it very easy to get a script that would work for the majority of games for a particular emulator and then I would simply delete all the screenshots I did not like, modify my script, and try again until ultimately I ended uip with a pretty decent finished product... not perfect but pretty good... Now when I notice a bad screenshot I manually capture a new one to replace it but for the most part I have a much better screenshot set than I had ever been able to download.

I can answer questions for clarification but the reason I haven't posted a script here is because there is no generic script that will work for all emulators and all games there definitely is some trial and error involved.

[Necro]

People really need to just create torrents of these snap/title groups once they make them.  Somewhere prominent.

This is by FAR the most annoying thing about setting up console emus.

And btw, screenshotarchive has some issues with goodtools naming in some of their sets - the issues seem to arise with placements of ", the", numbers instead of roman numerals, exclusions of .'s inside a rom name (prior to the extension), non-alpha characters in romnames, etc.

[BuZz880]

I'll tell you what if you want them PM me and I'll send em to you.... then you can create torrents and all that... Maybe you can review them and replace the ones that arent that great... Like I said the names never seem to match 100% due to different versions of goodtools and I recommend making your own snaps but hey maybe this new snap renamer app will solve that problem... so go for it...

[DaveJ-UK]

Thanks for all the replies.

Easiest thing would be to rar them and post to the newgroups, then people can do what they want with them.

Probably a.b.emulators or something

Or if you want to PM me an FTP/HTTP location or something then I'll post them.

[BuZz880]

I'll zip em up and PM you an FTP that might be later hopefully today.  Don't give out my FTP this is for DaveJ-UK only who says he will post them to usenet and saves me learning a new thing.

Its important to understand these were genereated via an automated process and while I have quickly eyeballed the thumbnails and removed obvious bad shots I am sure there are some that could be improvbed if mnanually re-taken... I will leave that to someone else.

As to naming, they are named the same way my ROMS are named which is exactly how I got them originally if they do not match how your roms are made thats too bad there is no standard and I suggest trying the new Snapshot renamer posted here earlier today.

I have all the roms for all the games but only generated screenshots for USA or World versions for the most part and only those indicated as good dumps..

The packs I will give you include

Sega Genesis and 32X (189) - PNG format
Super Nintendo (728) - PNG format
NES (807) - PCX Format
Atari 2600 (909) - PCX Format

I am providing these not as a finished perfect set but more as a starting point for someone to perhaps create a master set or simply to use for your own purposes.  Eventually I will perfect it but it seems like a demand item at the moment and if you all have to wait for me to finish you may never get them.

I do have some Project 64 but the automated process didn't work as well there so I should go through them before I give them out.

[LJHalfbreed]

Not wanting to brag, but with a few rare exceptions (and some possibly bad screenies), I have a few sets I could probably donate. I mainly stick to US/World releases (stuff with 'U' in the parenthesesesez...)

I have:

497 snaps/titles for GBA
413 snaps/titles for GBC
453 snaps/titles for GBmono

734 snaps/titles for NES
729 snaps/titles for snes

474 snaps/titles for genesis


And that's basically it for 'complete sets'. Much like Buzz, my some of my sets are renamed (I'm OCD and love my game series to be properly in series... so it's mortal kombat 2 instead of II, and similar things like that.)

Anyone interested in taking all these, compiling/combining them, and posting them as a torrent or something?

[DaveJ-UK]

Thanks for the links, however I haven't downloaded them because all of those are already available at http://www.screenshotarchive.com/ as an HTTP download so it's hardly worth creating a torrent or posting them to the newsgroups.

If you think you have some better shots than what are in these packages (and you probably have in many  cases), it might be wirth contacting them to see if they were intested?

Cheers.