MAME Plugin Progress Thread

[rrambo]

And Now: The Next Screencast..

MAME Media Type: WITH PROPER METADATA AND PICTURE EXTRACTION!

http://www.localeconcept.com/pub/scratch/games/lmce_with_pics.html



-Thom

gotta admit...  that's kinda bad a$$

[tschak909]

Further work, This time a solution for game metadata.

After a few different tries at grabbing metadata for roms etc. I have decided that keeping a locally maintained SQLCVS database is the best course of action. I have created a new database on my system, lmce_game, which will house this db.. I have not applied sqlcvs bits to it yet, but I will...

I have made the basic sql2cpp classes to wrap it, and I am writing a bootstrapper to try and populate this initial table. This is mostly needed for MAME, because I have to get this data from elsewhere.....

I will add grabbers for 2600 roms, and other rom formats that do not contain metadata sections...but this is the first step to supporting other game system types later, once I get this first one working.

I will be storing this in my little home spot in the svn trunk.

-Thom

[Matthew]

Further work, This time a solution for game metadata.

After a few different tries at grabbing metadata for roms etc. I have decided that keeping a locally maintained SQLCVS database is the best course of action. I have created a new database on my system, lmce_game, which will house this db.. I have not applied sqlcvs bits to it yet, but I will...

I have made the basic sql2cpp classes to wrap it, and I am writing a bootstrapper to try and populate this initial table. This is mostly needed for MAME, because I have to get this data from elsewhere.....

I will add grabbers for 2600 roms, and other rom formats that do not contain metadata sections...but this is the first step to supporting other game system types later, once I get this first one working.

I will be storing this in my little home spot in the svn trunk.

That would be an excellent system. But what are the copyright/redistribution constraints on those ROMS, any? If none, swell, but if not, that could be trouble. Even if most ROMs are out of copyright, are there any most recent ROMs that have some restrictions?

[Zaerc]

Further work, This time a solution for game metadata.

After a few different tries at grabbing metadata for roms etc. I have decided that keeping a locally maintained SQLCVS database is the best course of action. I have created a new database on my system, lmce_game, which will house this db.. I have not applied sqlcvs bits to it yet, but I will...

I have made the basic sql2cpp classes to wrap it, and I am writing a bootstrapper to try and populate this initial table. This is mostly needed for MAME, because I have to get this data from elsewhere.....

I will add grabbers for 2600 roms, and other rom formats that do not contain metadata sections...but this is the first step to supporting other game system types later, once I get this first one working.

I will be storing this in my little home spot in the svn trunk.

That would be an excellent system. But what are the copyright/redistribution constraints on those ROMS, any? If none, swell, but if not, that could be trouble. Even if most ROMs are out of copyright, are there any most recent ROMs that have some restrictions?

Somehow I doubt the roms (like any other media) are going to be included. 

[Matthew]

Further work, This time a solution for game metadata.

After a few different tries at grabbing metadata for roms etc. I have decided that keeping a locally maintained SQLCVS database is the best course of action. I have created a new database on my system, lmce_game, which will house this db.. I have not applied sqlcvs bits to it yet, but I will...

I have made the basic sql2cpp classes to wrap it, and I am writing a bootstrapper to try and populate this initial table. This is mostly needed for MAME, because I have to get this data from elsewhere.....

I will add grabbers for 2600 roms, and other rom formats that do not contain metadata sections...but this is the first step to supporting other game system types later, once I get this first one working.

I will be storing this in my little home spot in the svn trunk.

That would be an excellent system. But what are the copyright/redistribution constraints on those ROMS, any? If none, swell, but if not, that could be trouble. Even if most ROMs are out of copyright, are there any most recent ROMs that have some restrictions?

Somehow I doubt the roms (like any other media) are going to be included. 

Good point. But if there's no copyright, then why not allow LMCE/MAME serve as a completely easy platform for sharing these games? Finally MAME for the masses, without having to search for and install the ROMs.

[tschak909]

I can store the metadata, I just can't store the roms. I'm sorry fellas, I love you all...but I don't love you all THAT much.

-Thom

[Matthew]

I can store the metadata, I just can't store the roms. I'm sorry fellas, I love you all...but I don't love you all THAT much.

Is copyright stopping you, or load on your server, or something else?

[jetrich]

I hate to interject here, but...

Is copyright stopping you, or load on your server, or something else?

Matthew, it sure would seem that you like to push buttons quite often.

Seriously, what difference does it make? It is his prerogative whether or not he would like to distribute MAME ROMs, whether legal or otherwise.

From http://www.gaming-nation.net/articles.php?articleId=58
Legal Status of MAME
MAME itself is perfectly legal, as it is merely an emulator. The MAME license explicitly forbids people from distributing it along with rom images.
Making emulators is protected by fair use. It's the rom images themselves that are copyrighted.

[tschak909]

Do _NOT_ post links on where to get ROMS!

-Thom

[Matthew]

I hate to interject here, but...

Is copyright stopping you, or load on your server, or something else?

Matthew, it sure would seem that you like to push buttons quite often.

Seriously, what difference does it make? It is his prerogative whether or not he would like to distribute MAME ROMs, whether legal or otherwise.

From http://www.gaming-nation.net/articles.php?articleId=58
Legal Status of MAME
MAME itself is perfectly legal, as it is merely an emulator. The MAME license explicitly forbids people from distributing it along with rom images.
Making emulators is protected by fair use. It's the rom images themselves that are copyrighted.

I'm not pushing any buttons. I just asked a perfectly legitimate question, because I did not know whether the ROMs were copyrighted or not Since the 1980s were a quarter century ago, it did not seem certain that there were, and since many people are using them who presumably did not buy them in actual ROM, it seemed likely they were not so restricted.

So now I got an actual answer. I never implied that anyone should do anything wrong, I merely asked that question on the subject. If they were stopped because of server load, not copyright, then it wouldn't be "game over". But since it is copyright, it is "game over".

It's not me pushing buttons, its weird headgames people are playing rather than just give a straight answer.

What the hell was the big deal about giving a straight answer to a simple question?

[ddamron]

Aye Karumba!

[sk1]

What the hell was the big deal about giving a straight answer to a simple question?

It's all about CYA.

Do _NOT_ post links on where to get ROMS!
-Thom

Sorry 'bout that Thom, I knew it was wrong the second I hit post... won't happen again...

-skip

[hari]

I'm not pushing any buttons. I just asked a perfectly legitimate question, because I did not know whether the ROMs were copyrighted or not Since the 1980s were a quarter century ago, it did not seem certain that there were, and since many people are using them who presumably did not buy them in actual ROM, it seemed likely they were not so restricted.

the copyright holders like to earn additional money nowadays with handy games and retro packs so hardly any roms are out there for free.

regards,
Hari

[tschak909]

I really do wish the situation were different... but it's not... this whole plug-in is one big grey area to begin with...

with that said, there ARE packs out there that you can get from places like x-arcade, that are legally licensed, that you can copy onto the disk and use. :-)

-Thom

[tschak909]

Development work:

Just committed a fix into svn last night that fixes the "somebody hit ESC" bug.

Basically, discovered an interesting aspect of the App Server. When Applications are spawned, you can also attach a text DCE message to them for the App Server to send in the event of the app exiting. MythTV_Player uses this to craft a command message that gets sent back to itself called "Application Exited" to which it contains an MH_Stop_Media command directed to all media player devices on the media director.

What I find especially odd is that this isn't an "event" .. but a "command" ... there must be a bizarre reason for this. I had to add the Myth Player command group to my device template and re-run DCEGen to get the appropriate command stub bits to add, but it worked like a charm.

-Thom