There needs to be a better way..

[badboo]

For me too, I haven't used hyperpause at all, but as @damagein86 mentions, seems to be pretty interesting. I will give it a second look.

 

Anyway, going back to the topic, I can tell that configuring HS/rocketlauncher could be very time consuming and sometimes annoying when you find conflicts, at some point I have found it addictive when you try to make a system work properly. Maybe we guys are challenge oriented and we like to see our projects work.

 

But if you ask me, I wouldn't mind having a setup to install in one click everything lol

[damageinc86]

It definitely is fulfilling for challenge oriented people like ourselves, that is a good point.  Which is why I'm personally not too broken up about it.  But to a regular person who does at least know the basics of computing, a little about connecting programs and logical things like that, should still be able to get it all to work together nicely with minimal effort if that is an audience that you would like to get popular with.  If you want to stay with the niche people who are willing to sink much of their lives into it then that is fine as well.  Just depends on whether or not you want Hyperspin to appeal to more than just us.  I'm fine with either way, since I have already basically succeeded in my goals with this.  

[Avar]

HyperPause is pretty hawt and I strongly recommend it to people especially for older systems where the manuals can be extremely important.

[KMPrenger]

First time poster.

 

I DO have the skills to create my own hyperspin setup. I have messed with setting up Mame and emulators in the past, and application/website development is my profession.   What I don't have is time.    From 6 am through 9PM, every single weekday I am busy with work, home life, taking care of my children.  Heck, here I am posting this at work which I shouldn't be b/c I know I may not get a chance to tonight.   On the weekends, I have more time...sure, but much of that is taken up as well...its just life.   I am a DIYer kind of person, but now the last thing I want to do is spend hours learning and configuring a front end game system along with the back end emulators, artwork, music, and videos.   I am not even talking about the roms/bios which I will get to.

 

The goal is to be able to use some of my spare time having a great time playing classic arcade and console games.  Isn't that what its all about???

 

Is this what Gigapig is offering in the Platinum section?  I'd like to go check it out and read the details, but I can't even view it unless I pay $50 to be a platinum member.  Now....is it likely worth $50?  heck yeah if thats what it is.

 

(if I can get any type of response to this post, I hope its to the following bolded part)    

 

Can someone here tell me where I can read more about Gigapig's setup, or at least tell me about it? Whats included?  Id like to know things such as how much setup is involved still?  (do i still have to setup the wheel art, intro videos, music).

 

<rant>

Hyperspin.fe should be making $$$ on this somehow instead of simply selling bronze or platinum memberships.  Yet so many here (in my short lurking) seem to be hung up on doing it yourself....if not, "well then this isn't for you" they say....or hung up on the good feeling you get by completing your own build.   Thats all fine and dandy, but its not being realistic.   One guy here even seemed to outright disrespect anyone looking for a prebuilt drive, like this person is better than they are....are you serious?    Tons of people getting into this just don't know the ins and outs.  Twice, in the last few days I almost bought a drive myself...but luckily I am a little modestly more aware of the dangers and potential for deception and malware.  I decided to do more research, and then I came across these forums.

 

So many preach about not buying and selling what isn't legal.  I agree that knowingly selling it is wrong.  But on the flip side, come on folks....nearly everyone doing this is downloading and playing roms that they did not legally purchase.  end of story.  Nobody doing this is clean of any technical wrong doing.  But as said earlier, we just have to hope that someone doesn't go overboard and spoil the entire party (aka...those selling the illegal drives on a large scale)

</rant>

[KMPrenger]

I personally haven't really looked at Giga's build in depth so he would probably have to describe it. But as for the second bold part (which I removed), there's no requesting of buying drives or paying someone to setup a drive allowed here.

 

So...I was under the impression that someone couldn't request a drive preconfigured with games.  That is not what I was asking.  I was just talking about configuration of the wheel, with emulators, and art/music/whatever.   Is that also not allowed?

 

As for Gigapig's build....Maybe I'll just shoot him a message.

[Metalzoic]

Tons of people getting into this just don't know the ins and outs.  Twice, in the last few days I almost bought a drive myself...but luckily I am a little modestly more aware of the dangers and potential for deception and malware.  I decided to do more research, and then I came across these forums.

The problem with pre-built (whether you bought it or not) doesn't really have anything to do with deception or malware at all. Personally I don't have any problem with them making money off of them.

The real problem is that the drive will probably have old software, old versions, old roms, bad setting, old/bad art, missing art on and on and on. No one here can really help your troubleshoot it because you won't know what versions of what you have, how it was setup, if it was setup right, what needs to be updated, where and what your settings are etc...

It actually turns out taking much more time and trouble to even get it set up and working right than if you had just started from scratch and built it yourself. I know, like you I didn't want to waste the time learning all this stuff either so I feel your pain. Just wanted to plug it in and go. So I bought a drive and found out that everything I just said is true. Ended up having to wipe it all out and start from square one anyway.

As for Gigapigs build I believe it is the latest updated build of: HyperSpin with RocketLauncher, and 40 or so systems already setup and configured correctly to work with minimul pain. The saqme stuff you could put together yourself over a few days of setting it all up from scratch. Of course it doesn't include any roms/games because of course it doesn't. For more details then that Giga would have to chime in.

[DJQuad]

Hyperspin.fe should be making $$$ on this somehow instead of simply selling bronze or platinum memberships.  Yet so many here (in my short lurking) seem to be hung up on doing it yourself....if not, "well then this isn't for you" they say....or hung up on the good feeling you get by completing your own build.   Thats all fine and dandy, but its not being realistic.

 

My biggest issue with HyperSpin is it's complexity, which is also one of it's biggest strengths. All powerful software with tons is features is like that. I don't agree when people say "this isn't for you" because it should be for everyone. It would be like telling someone not to use Excel since they don't know how to use conditional formatting, pivot tables, or VBA scripting.

 

If HyperSpin wasn't so hard to setup and configure, there would be no market nor incentive for people to sell HyperSpin drives, as well as easier solutions like LaunchBox, RetroPie, etc.

 

The tricky parts are the implementation though. Even if HyperSpin were to charge for some sort of preconfigured setup, they really can't because -

- They can't include emulators (it's against most terms to include things like MAME in a commercial product)

- They can't of course include ROMs

- They can't include the high-quality EmuMovies videos

- They can't include 3rd party themes, that media creators have donated to the community for free

 

Most of these things could be overcome by agreements (mostly financial), but I don't think the way HyperSpin is as it's current state, has the staff nor marketing to make it reality anytime soon. Right now it seems to be just a personal project released to a community that ran with it, if that makes sense.

[KMPrenger]

Makes good sense.

[THK]

I'd wouldn't be against having complete 'ready to run' HS setups available for donating members. The problem is: 1) keeping them up to date, 2) some emulators are allowed to be re-distributed, some are not 3) We'd need a good thread to explain everything like Giga's one on his build and point to tutorials to do things yourself.

 

I also wouldn't be against having a private tracker for artwork packs along side HyperBase. Something like PD, one that gives you a personal number to keep abuse to a minimum. And one for the 'Ready to go' HS setup.

[thatman84]

I don't know much about much. I don't think scrapping art is really what HS is about like launchbox.

Maybe a little transparent overview about the files and programs you need on the downloads page would be a small step for the uninitiated. Along side a simple process steps for free and paid

Acquire your roms

Install hyperspin

Install emulators

Install RocketLauncher

Xpadder/controls

Emumovies

Hypersync

Add/delete your preferred systems

Build/adjust xmls

Add artwork

Add themes

Have fun

Etc,etc.......

Full setup downloads doesn't really seem like an option, you can't give everything away for free and there are way to many variables.

The cogs would stop turning and like others have said its to complicated to support if people don't have a clue what they have got (even if they do know it's hard enough to figure out because of so many hardware/software problems)

But maybe a couple of versions of the source hyperspin download would be good.

Hyperspin Blank

Hyperspin Consoles

Hyperspin MAME

Hyperspin Example

Hyperspin Full (all systems with basic xml)

Maybe none of this is worth doing and hyperspin can just crack and do what it does now.

I love it

[Psychosis]

The crowning problem for me (and others I'm sure) is the initial learning curve. It is very easy to be overwhelmed upon first glance, what with all the files included with Hyperspin. But once you allow yourself to take a breather it is a rather streamlined process (especially from what it once was, from what I read). It took me a week of messing around with HS to get everything set up how I wanted it. I watched a few of Austin's tutorials before getting the general feel of how things worked. Once I had that general feel, I could set up emulators without a problem. From then I would encounter small issues. Over time I realized it's best to just stop when I have a problem and do research. Do nothing else until you've attempted to fix that problem! If you still can't fix it, come to the forums! There is always someone here willing to help. So long as you put effort in you have nothing to worry about. If you still can't fix your problem, redo the installation and try again. At worst it's a matter of trial and error. For which you should of course make a backup before attempting something you haven't before.

 

I don't have a good suggestion for those looking for an easier setup process. I personally didn't find it all that bad, but there's a lot I still don't understand. Perhaps in the future the devs will make the software open source, or eventually combine all of the possible programs into one, with a simplified wizard for carrying out basic functions. That could be nice.

[DJQuad]

Not to mention a competitor but LaunchBox is seriously making great strides. As a developer I've been pretty blown away by the things they're doing. Heck, Jason even livestreams on Twitch as he's programming the backend, answers questions, etc.

 

It's not for everyone, but what it shows me is that the competition is moving forward and HyperSpin will pretty much stay as-is. Heck, even HyperSpin's default setup requires patching from 1.3 to 1.4 from May 2015. Meanwhile there are some pretty major bugs that get ignored. Workarounds are appreciated, but they shouldn't be issues to begin with. 

 

Please don't get me wrong. I build HyperSpin systems for free for friends and it's great. What's not great is having to give them workarounds, explaining how to update some random ini or xml, how to download themes from FTP, directory structures, etc.

[markyoungsmagic]

Quick question, I have an older version of HS & RL but would like to add CEMU, I'm afreaid updating will break everything that's working because of the new modules.  Can I just add the CEMU module to my old RL and set it up that way?  Any help would be appreciated.

[badboo]

2 hours ago, markyoungsmagic said:

Quick question, I have an older version of HS & RL but would like to add CEMU, I'm afreaid updating will break everything that's working because of the new modules.  Can I just add the CEMU module to my old RL and set it up that way?  Any help would be appreciated.

Personally, I think it is worth updating at some point.  

Haven't done that before but like you are thinking it, I would just add the module to the module folder and give it a try. I don't think it should be a problem, but maybe a more advance user could confirm this

[gigapig]

4 hours ago, markyoungsmagic said:

Quick question, I have an older version of HS & RL but would like to add CEMU, I'm afreaid updating will break everything that's working because of the new modules.  Can I just add the CEMU module to my old RL and set it up that way?  Any help would be appreciated.

Just back up before updating, then if all goes wrong you can restore.