Feature Requests for HyperSpin 1.4

[djvj]

I sure hope joystick support gets fixed at least for 1.4 even if it never makes it into 2.0

If BBB was able to fix it at all, it would be in all future versions. Why would he go and fix it, and then remove it later? lol

[silar]

And you can just use xpadder to send the kb keys instead. I tried setting my controllers in HS (for my new HTPC) and it only causes HS to spin all around, it just doesn't work enough to make it worth keeping in unless it can be fixed.

I'd rather have USB controller support working properly, than anything else. I don't want to have to map keys to buttons, etc with xpadder, which I'm currently having to do to make it work, when 1.2 worked fine with my controller..

What happened from 1.2 to 1.3 that broke it?

[Sir Cyrano]

A date for the next Release HS 1.4 ??

[bmosley]

You got my vote for #13 - I like my video game history and stats are much needed.

[BadBoyBill]

Im gonna sift through this and also do some small additions for djvj, I'll work on it tonight.

[kyoken]

my vote to 24 Main menu genre and manufacturer wheel, thanks

[relic]

I repeat a option to select artwork from another hardrive rather then having to always use the default location or being able to pick another directory to run with the main if it can happen for videos why not artwork also backdrops would be nice it would make backgrounds have a variety of pics for default rather then blank in which case to replace ones which dont have a theme use backdrops instead.

[Deadly]

First of all - the subwheel of a subwheel - imagine the option to run clones simply by stopping the wheel on a game (lets say stop on Donkey Kong) and by pressing the joy to the right it opens another sub menu showing the clones. This way the wheel stays clean with parents only. How f-ing brilliant would that be? Atari 2600 or any other console that has protos could utilize this as well.

Ok, so this comment will probably get me banned. Now please keep in mind I swithched to Hyperspin for a reason. In Gameex, there was a setup wizard. It made setting things up pretty much idiot proof. I like that - I miss that. Gotta admit who in their right mind would bitch about that option? heh heh

WIZARD STEPS:

Select System wanting to install

Select Emulator (only emulators listed have AHK's already made)

Where to download emulator and extract it to (goes out and downloads latest available version and installs)

Ask question - would you like to configure emulator now?

If Yes, emulator program starts up and a popup stating to close emulator when finished

Back to wizard menu

If no, Back to wizard menu

So make it idiot proof that way.

Lastly - if this is even possible I don't know. But also make HS dynamic. Being static, hardwired to the paths really sucks.

OK, so my ultimate last request (which I was actually told by djvj to learn AHK) is to build a game verifier program. This to me would be just the coolest freaing thing ever. Why? Because I've found a few too many times that the roms/images are crap and don't work. I'm sorry but I would love the piece of mind knowing that every game on my hard drive works. Maybe that's not possible but damnit that would just be the freaking bees knees now wouldn't it? And at the end of the program running it'd poop out a list of non working games.

[ghutch92]

First of all - the subwheel of a subwheel - imagine the option to run clones simply by stopping the wheel on a game (lets say stop on Donkey Kong) and by pressing the joy to the right it opens another sub menu showing the clones. This way the wheel stays clean with parents only. How f-ing brilliant would that be? Atari 2600 or any other console that has protos could utilize this as well.

I don't exactly remember where I saw this suggested, but they had more ideas than just using it for clones and different versions of the same game. I think they wanted to do something like system -> series -> game. I personally think you should hit the select button to bring up the new wheel since moving the joystick right already makes you skip alphabetically.

WIZARD STEPS:

Select System wanting to install

Select Emulator (only emulators listed have AHK's already made)

Where to download emulator and extract it to (goes out and downloads latest available version and installs)

Ask question - would you like to configure emulator now?

If Yes, emulator program starts up and a popup stating to close emulator when finished

Back to wizard menu

If no, Back to wizard menu

This request should be for HyperLaunch since it is the one dealing with the emulators and not HyperSpin. I would wait on this request until the new HyperLaunch comes out since djvj is busy with that and this would be a huge and time consuming feature for the HyperLaunch team to implement.

Lastly - if this is even possible I don't know. But also make HS dynamic. Being static, hardwired to the paths really sucks.

Agreed, I think the folders in the root HyperSpin (Databases, Media, Settings) should be able to have user set paths. This would be nice if you have multiple machines running the same setup since you could just point hyperspin to the nas instead of needing to copy it to every computer in the house. Beyond just the root folders and the videos, the folder structure should remain the same.

OK, so my ultimate last request (which I was actually told by djvj to learn AHK) is to build a game verifier program. This to me would be just the coolest freaing thing ever. Why? Because I've found a few too many times that the roms/images are crap and don't work. I'm sorry but I would love the piece of mind knowing that every game on my hard drive works. Maybe that's not possible but damnit that would just be the freaking bees knees now wouldn't it? And at the end of the program running it'd poop out a list of non working games.

Yeah this would be nice, along with many other things, but this should be a third party tool and not something built in to HyperSpin, HyperLaunch, or HyperSync. Also how would one know if a game does and does not work? Is it the rom's fault, the user's fault for having the incorrect settings, or the emulator's fault? I think the easiest way would be to test them by hand (plus what's the point of having a program play games for you, aren't you supposed to play the games?). What would be nice is to be able to disable or enable a game from within HyperSpin, but I believe this has already been mentioned to be a 2.0 feature.

Your comment won't get you banned since you are not in violation of any forum rules. Also as long as you treat HyperSpin and it's competitors respectfully, you will be ok.

[djvj]

BBB, I know brolly wants the ability to turn off a game while keeping it in the xml. I know he talked to you a few months ago about it. It would be an external file from the xml that way we can update the dbs w/o losing this information.

[relic]

So i was thinking what would be nice is multi emulation support so if a game dont work with mame you can set that game to a diffrent version of mame but on the same location so it reads from that xml i know you can set it already by typing in exe on the database but a way to do it auto would be even cooler as i say i have the game root beet tapper and none of those work on mame with no nag screens the only one it seems to work on is mame 32 but even then you have to add extras of the same one in hq then delete from database and of coarse add the exe to match it.

heres an example of what ghutch showed me at the time as i never knew you could do multi emulation in the first place 3 games has been set for it as they require a diffrent release of demul to run them to there standards.

<game name="mslug6" index="" image="">

<description>Metal Slug 6</description>

<cloneof>

</cloneof>

<crc>

</crc>

<exe>atomiswavedx11</exe>

<manufacturer>Sega/SNK Playmore</manufacturer>

<year>2006</year>

<genre>Platform</genre>

<rating>AAMA - Yellow (Animated Violence Mild)</rating>

<enabled>Yes</enabled>

<game name="fotns" index="" image="">

<description>Fist of the North Star (Hokuto No Ken)</description>

<cloneof>

</cloneof>

<crc>

</crc>

<exe>atomiswavedx11</exe>

<manufacturer>Sega/ARC System Works</manufacturer>

<year>2005</year>

<genre>Fighter</genre>

<rating>AAMA - Yellow (Animated Violence Mild)</rating>

<enabled>Yes</enabled>

<game name="dolphin" index="" image="">

<description>Dolphin Blue</description>

<cloneof>

</cloneof>

<crc>

</crc>

<exe>atomiswaveold</exe>

<manufacturer>Sammy</manufacturer>

<year>2003</year>

<genre>Shoot-'Em-Up</genre>

<rating>AAMA - Yellow (Animated Violence Mild)</rating>

<enabled>Yes</enabled>

[ghutch92]

So i was thinking what would be nice is multi emulation support so if a game dont work with mame you can set that game to a diffrent version of mame but on the same location so it reads from that xml i know you can set it already by typing in exe on the database but a way to do it auto would be even cooler as i say i have the game root beet tapper and none of those work on mame with no nag screens the only one it seems to work on is mame 32 but even then you have to add extras of the same one in hq then delete from database and of coarse add the exe to match it.

heres an example of what ghutch showed me at the time as i never knew you could do multi emulation in the first place 3 games has been set for it as they require a diffrent release of demul to run them to there standards.

Ummm that wasn't me. This should be done not with the xml nor with HyperSpin but with HyperLaunch. Like I said before HyperSpin does not interact with your emulators nor does it launch your games from your emulator. This needs to be done through HyperLaunch. This feature has already been hinted at in another thread by djvj for the new HyperLaunch, but he may have been talking about the one module per emulator thing. Because HyperLaunch should be the one responsible for this feature there is no longer a need for the exe tag in the database files.

[brolly]

BBB, I know brolly wants the ability to turn off a game while keeping it in the xml. I know he talked to you a few months ago about it. It would be an external file from the xml that way we can update the dbs w/o losing this information.

Yes I do and been eagerly waiting for that to happen

Deadly, I'm curious how would a rom verifier work? You already have that, it's called CRC and you simply need to audit your sets with cmp. If you want to make sure all your roms work, then you need to test them 1 by 1 there's no other way. But roms can be good dumps, but still not supported by some emulators, so you'll have to test them with several emulators. Apart from CRC checking which can already be made, don't know what else can be done here.

[djvj]

relic, like ghutch said, nothing to do with HS at all anymore. If anyone should know this it would be you, being one of the HL beta users. For the next HL, all exe tags will be removed from the db for good and will be rerouted correctly using the games.ini from HL.

brolly's request would open up a huge benefit that we could then have one database for every unique rom, while multiple alternate files to differentiate between custom wheels with certain roms filtered out. This would eliminate many threads discussing what roms should be in the db and what shouldn't. We could just have all uniques on the HList db, and filter out externally so it's safe to update dbs and lose nothing. This allows everyone to use the same db while only showing the roms they want.

[Trnzaddict]

This is almost like HL is becoming the heart of HS rather than the frontend itself. I can't wait to see the new stuff.

[brolly]

yeah that's the idea djvj, I also asked BBB to add a simple wildcard support so if you had say *(Japan) on that list it would filter out all games with (Japan) in the rom name, meaning users that don't like having any jap games on their dbs could filter them out in a really simple way.

Third party generators for these filter files could also be done or even built-in into HyperList. This is the one feature I want to see in HS.

[tastyratz]

Put my vote down for request 4,12,13,31,

Also add to the list my post I just made:

Add <alternate##> tag support to xml database to support roms with different naming schemes (such as redump/trurip/tosec/darkwater/etc while leaving media standardized tosec and intact.

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?24798-Idea-to-support-multiple-rom-naming-schemes-and-make-things-much-cleaner

[ghutch92]

Added your votes.

Add <alternate##> tag support to xml database to support roms with different naming schemes (such as redump/trurip/tosec/darkwater/etc while leaving media standardized tosec and intact.

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?24798-Idea-to-support-multiple-rom-naming-schemes-and-make-things-much-cleaner

This suggestion is more of a suggestion for HyperLaunch than it is for HyperSpin, therefore it won't be added to the list. A valid list suggestion would be something that adds new information to the game that can be used in filtering, the only exceptions are description and crc. A good suggestion would be something like critic scores or separate the manufacturer tag into developer and publisher tags or multiple genres for a game using some sort of separator. The only time these alternate names would be used would be when loading your roms as you have already mentioned. Remember Hyperspin does not check for your roms, HyperLaunch does and HyperLaunch is the one who passes that rom to the emulator. All HyperSpin should do is send the system name and the HyperList rom name. The HyperLaunch team like adding new features, but they have already discussed this feature and will only add it if someone volunteers to make and maintain a list relating alternate names for roms to the HyperList name. They will give you some format to follow in making this list if you volunteer for it.

[Polemicist]

The HyperLaunch team like adding new features, but they have already discussed this feature and will only add it if someone volunteers to make and maintain a list relating alternate names for roms to the HyperList name. They will give you some format to follow in making this list if you volunteer for it.

Would this list be exclusively for MAME or are we talking about lists over multiple emulators?

Also would different versions of that list be required for the base levels of MAME and then another list for the updates?

Sounds like a large project in itself but could be worthwhile. I don't know if I have the HS and HL background to be doing it but am interested in finding out what is required just to see what would be involved.

[ghutch92]

Would this list be exclusively for MAME or are we talking about lists over multiple emulators?

Also would different versions of that list be required for the base levels of MAME and then another list for the updates?

Sounds like a large project in itself but could be worthwhile. I don't know if I have the HS and HL background to be doing it but am interested in finding out what is required just to see what would be involved.

Mame roms and Mess roms do not need to be renamed since they are specific to their respective emulators and these names will be supported by HyperLaunch. HyperList uses mame rom names anyway. Most people are having the naming issues with their console and handheld roms.

I would read up on rom naming schemes. You might change your mind on how hard to maintain this list would be. Read up on goodtools, tosec, no-intro just to name a few. Goodtools encompasses goodset and good merged. For each rom in the database their may be 40+ names for it, and even then it might be that a large number of those thirty are names of bad dumps. (A bad dump is pretty much a game that doesn't work.) Those thirty plus are for good tools alone. Good tools is where most of this naming issue comes from. ToSec is also another one but it also tries to name bad dumps creating the issue again of having 40+ names for a single game. No-Intro is what HyperList is based on so that one might not even be needed. If you do take this project up good luck because new names are added at least every month.

If you want to get started, pick a system like NES and start gathering all the different naming variations from the different naming schemes for every single game in the HyperList database files.

Thanks for being interested/willing to do this many will appreciate it.

[djvj]

Yea we have discussed support for alternate naming and threw it out because I highly doubt we will have anyone dedicated to keep up with good tools and tosec naming changes. It is taking long enough just to get no-intro xmls finalized and added to HList. Let alone adding another database to remap HList roms to other naming schema. Name's get changed all the time, this person would have to keep up with our name changes, and good/tosec name changes in order to keep these remap files current.

[brolly]

Would be easy to generate mapping files using CRC as a primary key, problem is many times the CRCs from the different sets won't match and in those cases it will need to be done manually. Like djvj said maintaining something like this would be a lot of work and would probably require a team fully focused on it.

[chartwel]

Could we get marquee monitor support with this update? Been dying to be able to get this running

[tastyratz]

Alternate tag does not necessarily mean another database has to be maintained, it just means you could easily point a rom somewhere else while leaving the existing database and media schema intact. If someone wants to tackle and maintain the database then GREAT that is a huge service to the community. This lets those with utilities keep from bastardizing their collections... especially since it would be a partial rename/change/etc with hyperspin not having every game possible matched - many collections rematched would leave you halfway in the middle somewhere.

Sorry there really isn't a hyperlaunch specific request list thread or forum so I was thinking this the next closest place to put something like this.

[sandman7793]

Could we get marquee monitor support with this update? Been dying to be able to get this running

Try hyperspinhelper works perfect..