Visual Boy Advance and Mamewah

[papaschtroumpf]

My kid asked me to add GameBoy stuff to my cab, and I'll be happy to oblige, but I have a few questions.

First off, the few ROMs I have have either *.gb or *.gba extensions and it looks like visualBoyAdvance does care about the extension, maybe because denotes gameboy original vs advance (?), but you can't just rename a *gb to a *.gba and have it work.
From Stuzza's mamewah tutorial I gather that I can just zip every rom so that they are all called <original *.gb or *.gba name>.zip? This would allow mamewah to list them all, since mamewah doesn't have support for multiple extensions.

I downloaded VisualBoyAdvance from their website, but I noticed Stuzza's site has an SDL version (which I assume is command line only) as well as a "modified GUI" version. Any advice on which to use? I would think a command line version a-la mame would be the best?

Is there a way to load a background image that he game gets overlayed on so that you can see an actual GameBoy picture surrounding the game? that could be kindof cute since some games appear to run in a rather small area on the screen even if I set things to full screen.

Any other advice? Is there an easy way to dump ROMS? (my kid has a decent collection of GBA games and it'd be kind of fun to transfer them on the cab. it seems that GBA ROMS are harder to find than mame ROMs, for understandable copyright issues I assume).

[walls83]

dumping roms Im not sure but GBA roms are everywhere on the net.  Just look and youll find hundreds of sites.

[stuzza]

I'd recommend using Goodtools to rename your gameboy roms.  You may also be able to use it to zip them all up? I know that you can use Goodwindows and the zip plugin to read zip files using goodtools, but I can't remember if it will actually zip them up for you?  Anyway, you are best off to have them all in .zip format as then you can have a list in mamewah which is a mix of gba, gbmono etc..

There shouldn't be too much of a difference between the SDL command line version and the modified GUI version of VBA.  The modified GUI version is just the full version which has the exit key mapped to escape.  Baz created this one as it is easier to config the keys (ie you can just use the built in gui rather than having to work out numeric values and enter them in the config file) and allows you to use a joystick (I think?).

[Minwah]

Any other advice? Is there an easy way to dump ROMS? (my kid has a decent collection of GBA games and it'd be kind of fun to transfer them on the cab. it seems that GBA ROMS are harder to find than mame ROMs, for understandable copyright issues I assume).

You need a flash reader/writer to dump roms - they are pretty readily available.  I have one (quite an old parallel one), but it works great for dumping carts / saves, and you can also write games/demos to a blank cart.  I hardly use mine any more, but they are pretty cool

[papaschtroumpf]

I'd recommend using Goodtools to rename your gameboy roms.  You may also be able to use it to zip them all up? I know that you can use Goodwindows and the zip plugin to read zip files using goodtools, but I can't remember if it will actually zip them up for you?  Anyway, you are best off to have them all in .zip format as then you can have a list in mamewah which is a mix of gba, gbmono etc..

There shouldn't be too much of a difference between the SDL command line version and the modified GUI version of VBA.  The modified GUI version is just the full version which has the exit key mapped to escape.  Baz created this one as it is easier to config the keys (ie you can just use the built in gui rather than having to work out numeric values and enter them in the config file) and allows you to use a joystick (I think?).

so can I run the GUI version, set things up the way I want to, then run the command line version? I'll have to give it a try.

[abrannan]

Is there a way to load a background image that he game gets overlayed on so that you can see an actual GameBoy picture surrounding the game? that could be kindof cute since some games appear to run in a rather small area on the screen even if I set things to full screen.

I believe there is a skin on Visual GBA that allows you to pick from all the styles of gameboy to be displayed on the screen.  I don't know how well it works in full screen though.

[papaschtroumpf]

I'd recommend using Goodtools to rename your gameboy roms.  You may also be able to use it to zip them all up? I know that you can use Goodwindows and the zip plugin to read zip files using goodtools, but I can't remember if it will actually zip them up for you?  Anyway, you are best off to have them all in .zip format as then you can have a list in mamewah which is a mix of gba, gbmono etc..

There shouldn't be too much of a difference between the SDL command line version and the modified GUI version of VBA.  The modified GUI version is just the full version which has the exit key mapped to escape.  Baz created this one as it is easier to config the keys (ie you can just use the built in gui rather than having to work out numeric values and enter them in the config file) and allows you to use a joystick (I think?).

What should the ROM names look like? I have ROM names like "Dexter's lab - Deesaster strikes.gba" and some like "spyk3d.gba". I would like to see the list show "Dexter's lab - Deesaster strikes" and "Spy Kids 3D - Game Over" on the mamewah game list. In the tutorial on your web page you set the list generation method to 0, which I believe is "list of files names is the list of ROMs", so this makes me think the ROMs need to be named using their "long" name right?

The other issue I have to is to match screenshots and box art from your site to the ROM names. I believe that mamewah will requires them to match exactly in order to display them, so that means that all ROMs and artwork need to be named using the "long" name (i.e. "Spy Kids 3D - Game Over.xxx" rather than spyk3d.xxx", where xxx is zip and png). You suggest using GoodTools to rename files, I have no experience with GoodTools and will look into it, however I don't really like the idea of having the GoodTools tags like (U) appear in my mamewah list. The screenshot in the tutorial on your web site shows those tags.

Is there any way to get what I want (are there .dat files out there similar to mame's that will match names and "short" rom names?).

Edit: OK GoodTools appears to have more of a brain than I thought, it seems to use some kind of DAT file like is available for MAME (Edit again: err, I think, I'm so confused! Any help on how to use the goodtools will be appreciated). Does that mean that Mamewah can parse that DAT file for list generation and therefore get rid of the goodtools tags for display purpose even though the files have the tags?

[papaschtroumpf]

I found some good info about VisualBoyAdvance here: http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/

Still can't figure out how to get a consistent set of ROMs and snaps.

[Howard_Casto]

I found some good info about VisualBoyAdvance here: http://www.mameworld.net/easyemu/

Still can't figure out how to get a consistent set of ROMs and snaps.

You can't, it's impossible.  The reason everyone on this thread keeps suggesting goodtools is because it's literally the ONLY way to get a standardized set of gba roms.  

as for snaps... you just aren't looking

http://www.screenshotarchive.com/

[papaschtroumpf]

I have the snaps from Stuzza's site, that's the first thing I did. My problem is to match them to the ROMs.

GoodTools appears to do what I want, I didn't realize there was an option to do everything in one directory (mamewah requires all the ROMs to be in a single directory) but after playing with goodGBA I think I should get what I want, except that the mamewah list will show the GoodTools tags, which isn't pretty.
I suppose I could batch rename the snaps and the pictures after they've been sorted by GoodTools to remove the tags...

[papaschtroumpf]

OK, for anyone's information these are the steps that I'm talking and I think they will get me where I want:

1) I put all my GBA ROM files in a single directory, some are zipped, some are .gba, some are .gbc, other are .gb. Just from the file names I know there are lots of duplicates that were just named using different file names. Between my different sources I also ahve some real duplicate (file names) so I just overwrote any file that is present more than once.

2) I wrote a batch file that will zip xxxx.gba (or .gbc or .gb) into xxxx.zip. This is because ultimately I want all my ROM to be zipped. I don't really care about drive space, but if i want to mix GB Avanced with GB Color ROMs, they need ot be zipped so that mamewah only has to look for zip files. I couldn't figure out how to make goodTools zip the files for me, but I know it deals fine with files that are zipped to start with.

3) run goodGBA (version 2.00) with "goodGBA rename inplace": this sorts the mess of ROMS into properly named and tagged ROMs, and moves duplicates and invalid files out of the way. What I'm left with is a set of unique valid ROMS.

4) I can then copy those zipped ROMs into my actual ROMs directory for VisualBoyAdvance, I put Stuzza's screenshots and box scans into /SNAP and /BOXSCAN directories.

Just now have to configure mamewah to with the right directories and VisualBoyAdvance and I should be in business.

[papaschtroumpf]

There shouldn't be too much of a difference between the SDL command line version and the modified GUI version of VBA.  The modified GUI version is just the full version which has the exit key mapped to escape.  Baz created this one as it is easier to config the keys (ie you can just use the built in gui rather than having to work out numeric values and enter them in the config file) and allows you to use a joystick (I think?).

I get much better graphic quality with the GUI version, it's less blocky. Maybe it's because I'm running it at 800x600 whereas I can't figure out how to make the SDL one run at that resolution (at least I'm guessing it runs at a lower resolution, becasue the monitor is not quite properly adjusted the way it is at 800x600

Also I can't tell the difference bewteen the "ESC key" version on your site and the version I downloaded from the VisualBoyAdvanced site: the ESC toggle the menu in both, it doesn't cause the special version to escape. Too bad because I'd rather run the GUI one with menu autohide but I'd like the ESC key to exit back to mamewah.

[stuzza]

Also I can't tell the difference bewteen the "ESC key" version on your site and the version I downloaded from the VisualBoyAdvanced site: the ESC toggle the menu in both, it doesn't cause the special version to escape.

You must have downloaded the wrong one?  The Full Gui version provided by Baz definitely exits when you hit Escape.  I just tried it again to verify.    Make sure you have this file: "VisualBoyAdvance1.7.1[EscwithGUI].rar"

[papaschtroumpf]

that's the one I got . I'll download it again I guess, thanks for trying it. I'm running XP, I assume it makes no difference?

[papaschtroumpf]

Also I can't tell the difference bewteen the "ESC key" version on your site and the version I downloaded from the VisualBoyAdvanced site: the ESC toggle the menu in both, it doesn't cause the special version to escape.

You must have downloaded the wrong one?  The Full Gui version provided by Baz definitely exits when you hit Escape.  I just tried it again to verify.    Make sure you have this file: "VisualBoyAdvance1.7.1[EscwithGUI].rar"

Stuzza, I did an md5sum (fancy CRC) on VisualBoyAdvance.exe both the version I downloaded from your site and the version I downloaded from the VisualBoy site and they both give me the same result. This means that there is no difference. When you tried it, did you download it from your site or from some "private" copy you had? Maybe you posted the wrong one? Is the change in the vba.ini file? I guess I didn;t overwrite it from your archive since I had customized it on my cab. My understanding was that it was a different build though.

[stuzza]

I just downloaded it from my site and it definitely is exiting with the Escape key.  I'm not sure where the actual Escape key command is held, but it may be in the vba.ini file.  Try just downloading the one from my site and running it without any modifications and see if it exits with escape - it should.  Then modify the settings of it to suite your cab.

[papaschtroumpf]

I don't claim to understand what Baz did, but by trial and error it appears that adding the following lines to your vba.ini will cause VisualBoyAdvance to exit on the ESC key. This is kindof cool to know because you can remove those two lines while you're setting everything up the way you want it (usingthe ESC key to get to the menu), then you can autohide the menu and add the lines to you vba.ini to make it cab friendly (i.e. ESC goes straight back to the FE)
("keyboard=" line broken down for this post, but you must have it all on one single line)

keyboardCount=424
keyboard=429D010042000B02479D010035000102429C01001B0001024E9C010050000B025F9C010043000B02529C010052000B02539C01004C000
B026C9C0100790007026B9C0100780007026A9C010077000702699C010076000702689C010075000702679C010074000702669C01007300070265
9C010072000702649C010071000702639C0100700007026F9C0100720003026E9C0100710003026D9C010070000302769C010079000302759C010
078000302749C010077000302739C010076000302729C010075000302719C010074000302709C010073000302989C010034001302979C01003300
1302969C010032001302959C010031001302BF9C010031000B02C99C01004E000B02C69C010038000B02C59C010037000B02C49C010036000B02C
39C010035000B02C29C010034000B02C19C010033000B02C09C010032000B02039D01002D00010203E1010053000B0201E101004F000B0219E101
0079000B0218E1010078000B0217E1010077000B0216E1010076000B0215E1010075000B0214E1010074000B0213E1010073000B0212E101007200
0B0211E1010071000B0210E1010070000B0292