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Hi Vampire,

Thank you for your assistance in troubleshooting the issue you encountered with singles-mode sorting.

I'm relieved that the issue was resolved by moving the folder into your VM's local storage, but also grateful that we worked through this, as it revealed a bug with the database creation routines - with network storage, subtle timing differences would possibly cause track numbers to be incorrectly stored into the database, which would not have been apparent to me without investigating the file-name-based method (as opposed to ID3 method).

I've incorporated the fix into the latest (v0.969) codebase, which is due for release very soon now...

Standalone, I only use TP to run linux emulated games

Thanks again man, I don't know what is wrong with just this game now after mmy reinstalled win10.
Tested 3 different versions, one of them the prior fully working.

Maybe I shoudl try the older DS with its plugin, what version would you reccomend if so Sir? This would be the last thing to try I guess

Edit:

Tried DemulShooter_v14.3 with the Unity plugin from that version to the game.
That boots and hooks with MAMEHooker and DS is still running which is odd.
Both guns still controls the crosshairs though. Must be something on my end just for this title I guess.
Thanks for looking into it though! Cheers

Standalone, I only use TP to run linux emulated games

Thanks for the answer. I guess I could try another PBX game.
Do you tested on standalone or tp Sir?

I'm sorry for lack of updates and communication. I'll compile all previous versions at the beginning of may.

Sh4 iprove is interesting. Is HBMAME or ARCADE32/64 has this code implemented ?

Thbaks for getting back to me Sir.
I have the newest DS and removed the folder inside the game and reinstalled the plugin.
This is on a new windows but I copied over my old app Data folder from my previous windows in order to sacäve setting in like Spice tools and progress in PC-games and what not. Maybe this is a bad approach and can get you in trouble like this. Don't know if any old DS setting is hidden in there?

DS does not have any setting hidden in anny user folder, it's made to be portable with everything in it's own folder. So AppData from another OS is not the problem.
The issue us very clear, DS does not talk with Point Blank X plugin and crash because it can not handle the protocol.

It's very simple...Unity plugin and DS are talking via TCP.
I had to change the TCP frame format for a lot of reasons in DS 17.0, so any couple like Old Plugin+New DS or Old DS+New Plugin will give exactly the same error you have on your screenshot. And that's pretty much the only possible reason to get that message.

Now, as for why you get it....I can't know :/

I reinstalled a clean dump and installed the plugin using DS 17.2.0.0 but still have the same issue.
Don't know what to do here. Strange as it worked when released. Could it be something with the newer versions of DemulShooter maybe?

I just reinstalled the game on an unused Win11 PC and tested with DS 17.2 downloaded from github, and everything is working perfectly

Why would you create an option to leave "B" sides empty when you admit that would never happen in a real jukebox?

Hi Vampire,

My recollection is that DW Jukebox does exactly that (if the 'B' side is not present), which makes sense when you think about it - if the user hasn't added the 'B' side to their collection, the software needs an effective coping strategy. DWJ's design is masterfully coded, but when I was planning out my application, I didn't want to deal with blanks interspersed throughout the interface, so I came up with the concatenation strategy (primarily because the programming language I was using at the time of that decision wasn't able to cope gracefully when sorting large collections with unexpected 'gaps'. The current language and architecture should be much more performant, so it may now be worthwhile revisiting).

Of course, like yourself, in the days when I still used DWJ I would always ensure my 'live' collection had matching A/B tracks (so as not to display empty slots), but I have no way to ensure that all Video Jukebox users are as OCD about that as I am!

Still, I think the 'enforce two tracks from the same platter per title strip if user requests it, regardless of actual collection content, and maintain that grouping even if randomly sorted' option certainly has merit, which is why I've added that to the Roadmap.


Having said that though, the detail derived from each track's metadata is always going to play a huge part in how tracks are laid out in the interface.
DWJ worked incredibly well at extrapolating that info simply from file/folder naming conventions, but my focus has to this point been primarily on using the more extensive and predictable ID3 metadata (for optimum performance when indexing large collections, consistency across alternate playback platforms like Linux/Android, ease of porting my old code base to a new language, etc.).

In your particular use-case, though, that's not going to be the option of choice, so I'm happy to work directly with you to come up with a suitable solution, if you wish.
I've sent you a PM with details.


Of course, if you would rather just stick with the ol' faithful DWJ and forego the extra capabilities now that you have it 'tuned' to your taste, that's also a perfectly valid decision. It still stands as an amazing piece of software engineering from the earlier DOS/Windows era, even with the inherent limitations.
I've taken a fair amount of care to try to make Video Jukebox as backward-compatible as practicable (ie, the provided jukebox.ini files should work with DWJ as should skin files, just without the extended options; Video Jukebox should work fairly well with DWJ jukebox.ini files, skins, etc.), but it's definitely still a work-in-progress, and some of that compatibility is currently incomplete (DWJ Timers spring to mind).



And just for the 'record', as a child of the late 60's, I absolutely agree that those of us with fond memories of our old 45s are a dying breed.
The first record player I ever bought with my own money was a second-hand 3-in-one deal - album-sized record player under a nifty lid on top (45, 33, and 78 RPM!) with manual needle drop, radio (AM only, of course), and a HUGE 18-19" CRT TV (black and white, it goes without saying), all in the one beautifully polished wooden cabinet. REAL timber, not the modern 'equivalent'. Weighed a tonne, but it was the best 49 bucks I ever spent.

It's in homage to that deadly old monster that I've included a feature in VJ that I hope few will ever actually see - if there's any serious error during program execution, the screen will faithfully reproduce a vintage TV Test pattern (in full TECHNICOLOR, along with the test tone) containing diagnostic info for a few seconds before switching to 'static' (complete with white noise) while it tries to recover. Failing that, it will 'shrink' the static to a dot in the centre of the screen (just like a classic CRT) when you exit. Currently hard-coded to display the PM5544 test pattern from my region, but the bones are there to display others (like the RCA Indian) as well...

Weird request, but OK! I got a bunch of scripts working tonight so I plan on recording some of it tomorrow and will inadvertently capture ES.

I've been working on scripts all night and finally got the following functionality working how I want it:

- RetroPie boots directly into a specific game
- Added jukebox functionality
- Added joystick controls for the jukebox:
    1. Y      → Next track 
    2. Y x2   → Play / Stop 
    3. L      → Volume + 
    4. R      → Volume -

"The 'Random' option is not your friend here; it will (by design) scramble each and every track individually (ie, no album or artist grouping), so there's no way it would display singles with correct A/B information."

Correct, your system deals with individual tracks, as you acknowledge in a real (singles) jukebox there are always 2 sides to a single, randomising songs is pointless you need to randomise the "single" I.E. the titlestrip with the A and B sides  already allocated, this is what DWJukebox does (even though it is labelled "Songsort")

" I could add a 'RandomSingles' sorting option, which would add an extra check when randomising the title strips (but only if 'SongsPerStrip=Double' was set), and leave 'B' sides empty if no corresponding track is found."

Why would you create an option to leave "B" sides empty when you admit that would never happen in a real jukebox? the answer is surely to have a system that enables singles to display correctly. I understand that you are trying to appeal to many people who will have varying methods of storing their files but if your goal is to have a program that actually emulates a real jukebox there will have to be some input from the final user in terms of arranging files. Loading a real jukebox with new singles involves arranging the records in the correct place and typing and changing the titlestrips, it was a time consuming business and no amount of programming is going to create a perfect program that automates this. Better to have a side program to create "singles" that people can populate manually with the tracks they want. DWJukebox can do what I want, It took me quite some time to figure it out and involved a fair bit of work on my part to create the correct storage of the tracks in order for it to work. it is probably the case that I am in a tiny minority in wanting an accurate looking display, the people who actually remember real 45 jukeboxes are getting rarer by the day. Good luck with your program, but is it clearly not for me.
 

Hi, Spent quite a bit of time with this today, I've renamed a small number of songs using the Split5 format and although they will sort into the correct singles the sorting into the "A" and "B" sides doesn't work, there doesn't seem to be any particular logic at play! As for using ID3 tags how would that work in order to sort into singles? You say the tracks would be grouped by album but the 2 songs we need could have come from different albums initially and even if we change the tags manually we would have the change the track no.s too in order for the program to sort correctly, really can't see that being any easier then a filename system. BTW  I do like the Split 5 idea, it saves a bit of folder creation although in my case each song has to have it's own folder as I have the single label as artwork that is displayed as the song plays and that has to be in the same folder as the song. (Wouldn't want embedded art from the ID3 as that would be the album cover). All in all I think I better stick with DWJukebox as it does work for me just a pity it doesn't support Flac or Video but I can live with that, thanks for the response.

Hi Vampire,

In those situations where your original track metadata determines that two tracks are from different albums, but you wish to sacrifice track naming fidelity in favour of singles groupings, you're correct in thinking you'd need to manually edit the Album name (ie, rename the album to 'Singles', and set the track numbers to 1 and 2), and set the SongSort option to 'Album'.

The 'Random' option is not your friend here; it will (by design) scramble each and every track individually (ie, no album or artist grouping), so there's no way it would display singles with correct A/B information.

The problem has always been that, if a 'B' side doesn't exist (which should probably NEVER happen in a 'real' jukebox), we have no clean way to enforce that.
DWJukebox simply leaves the 'B' side of the title strip card blank. I opted to just add the next available track (possibly from a different artist) instead, and concatenate the two artist names (separated by a slash) to the Artist section of the title strip.

Example:


Not as elegant, perhaps, but my goal was to avoid blank title cards getting scattered throughout the system, to ensure track selection performs consistently (ie, the only time a blank card needs to be displayed is on the last page, and cannot be selected).

You've given me an idea though: I could add a 'RandomSingles' sorting option, which would add an extra check when randomising the title strips (but only if 'SongsPerStrip=Double' was set), and leave 'B' sides empty if no corresponding track is found.

I've added that to the Roadmap.