Homebrew Cover Collections for Emulators With Cover Support

Pepois

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Sigh, Just bought more. You should be good now.

To everyone on that note... If anyone is interested in donating to help with hosting costs for this thread, I will gladly accept... Doing the work and then also having to pay kinda sucks! Over the last 5 years, it's cost me quite a bit. I finally added a Donate button this week. Please Help! :)

Also.. I'm working on a set of about 300 Amstrad CPC covers I was sent awhile back. When I finish re-aligning them all I will post them (hopefully by March).

And Finally... I am always working on something, this thread is not dead. It's just that I recently moved into a new house, and am getting married in September, and that's kept me pretty busy lately, and probably will continue to for the next few months. So basically at this point, the more free time I have at work, the more I can get done. I have plenty of pending updates for you all.

Have fun,

ms
Congratulations Mastershoes!!! I really hope the best for you now that you have decided to take the final step and stand before the altar! I am sure you wont have that much time to devote to this great project but again is part of life. Enjoy it and spend a lot of time with your new family.

Best wishes
Pepoiis
 

EvanUnisil

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Hey guys, thank you so much for this pack, it's incredible. I have a question that I've spent the last hour looking for but can't quite seem the answer to...

I have Wiiflow installed on an SD Card, with my roms on a USB drive. My SD card is full; is there anyway I can direct wiiflow to look for the boxcovers on the USB instead of the SD card?

Thanks!
 

mightymuffy

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Hey guys, thank you so much for this pack, it's incredible. I have a question that I've spent the last hour looking for but can't quite seem the answer to...

I have Wiiflow installed on an SD Card, with my roms on a USB drive. My SD card is full; is there anyway I can direct wiiflow to look for the boxcovers on the USB instead of the SD card?

Thanks!
Yep: open your wiiflow config with notepad, do a search for boxcovers and you'll notice it's looking for them in sd:wiiflow/boxcovers...(or similar! Not got the file on me at this moment). Change 'sd' to 'usb1'
You'll also note other stuff pointing at your sd card while you're there, such as the cache - certainly change this to usb1 too, and stuff like custom banners and plugins - these will also save you a few hundred megs if you switch them over to usb too.... remember to put usb1 though. ;)
 

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Guys, I have wanted to get all my roms with cover art on my wiiflow for sometime. I tried a while back and failed. I am trying to take another stab at it now and need some help. Can anyone assist me please? I have hacked everything else on my Wii successfully on my own, not sure why this seems to be such a headache for me. I am running latest wiiflow, 4.2.1 I believe and plugin pack 7. I cannot separate emulators and cover art is not working, obviously I still don't have things in the right place or named appropriately or possibly both. I feel like maybe Skype with someone would be easier at this point so they could be what I'm looking at. Either way, if anyone if feeling up to the challenge let me know. Thank you in advance!
 
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mightymuffy

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I cannot separate emulators and cover art is not working, obviously I still don't have things in the right place or named appropriately or possibly both. I feel like maybe Skype with someone would be easier at this point so they could be what I'm looking at.

separate emulators? hit B with your wiimote or similar and you should get a choice...
Cover art? I don't know what plugin pack 7 is, but I'm guessing abz masterpiece? Every plugin has a config file in the same directory, open one (to start off with) with notepad or similar. Here's an unchanged fceugx.ini:

[PLUGIN]
displayname=FCEUltraGX
magic=46434555
coverfolder=fceugx
dolfile=fceugx-mod11.dol
romdir=fceugx/roms
filetypes=.nes|.fds|.nsf|.unf|.nez|.unif|.zip|.7z
consolecoverid=nintendo
covercolor=ff0000
bannersound=nes.ogg
arguments={device}:/{path}|{name}|{loader}

Bold is the important bit. You can change that to whatever you want, but let's leave it at fceugx for now. Specifically, that means the following directory;

WiiFlow/boxcovers/fceugx

THAT'S where you put the covers. Next up is the covers MUST be the exact same name as the rom. Say you've got Super Mario Bros, and your rom is simply named, say

Super Mario Bros.nes

the cover for that has to be named exactly

Super Mario Bros.nes.png

Don't forget the .nes extension, and don't change the .png extension to .nes either.
If you're using fceugx, try a couple of rom covers using this method, make sure there's no typing errors and everything's in the correct place, fire up wiiflow, jump into the options menu, then look for and hit the 'reload cache' setting and see if they come up.

Finally, Skype? Ye can sod off....:lol: Seriously though, we're in different time zones, and you wouldn't understand my northern England accent anyway :lol:. Do baby steps like I've pointed out and you should get the hang of it though!
 

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Well.. after several hours and messing around with naming and folders, I finally got the hang of it. Funny how one little misplaced letter or space can make all the difference. (hence why my nes covers never showed up) Much thanks mightymuffy.

I used the Fuzzy rename tool and got the nes roms to show up, worked great! However I'm still having problems with the Sega Genesis, Sega Master System and Super Nintendo covers. Its weird because a few covers show up but many do not. I used the renaming tool and they seemed to be named properly. Seems like Master System roms are showing up in my Genesis roms too, I wanted to keep them separated if possible. Can anybody comment on that?

Also, I ended up downloading the masterpack and a different version of Wiiflow, so now I can separate emulators. There are a lot of emulators on on there that I do not use. If I do not want them... How would I get rid of unwanted emulators? (ex. Atari 5200 or something else I don't use) I really only use the main retro gaming ones, nes, snes, sega, and a few others, etc.

Also, if there is no cover art for a spin off/mod game... (ex. GoldeneyeX for N64) Can you just pull an image off the internet and add it to the appropriate location, appropriate name and file type? I tried doing that and it doesn't seem to work.

Thanks again for all the help and this thread. Glad to finally have this working somewhat, been a long time coming.
 
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mightymuffy

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Well.. after several hours and messing around with naming and folders, I finally got the hang of it. Funny how one little misplaced letter or space can make all the difference. (hence why my nes covers never showed up) Much thanks mightymuffy.

I used the Fuzzy rename tool and got the nes roms to show up, worked great! However I'm still having problems with the Sega Genesis, Sega Master System and Super Nintendo covers. Its weird because a few covers show up but many do not. I used the renaming tool and they seemed to be named properly. Seems like Master System roms are showing up in my Genesis roms too, I wanted to keep them separated if possible. Can anybody comment on that?

Also, I ended up downloading the masterpack and a different version of Wiiflow, so now I can separate emulators. There are a lot of emulators on on there that I do not use. If I do not want them... How would I get rid of unwanted emulators? (ex. Atari 5200 or something else I don't use) I really only use the main retro gaming ones, nes, snes, sega, and a few others, etc.

Also, if there is no cover art for a spin off/mod game... (ex. GoldeneyeX for N64) Can you just pull an image off the internet and add it to the appropriate location, appropriate name and file type? I tried doing that and it doesn't seem to work.

Thanks again for all the help and this thread. Glad to finally have this working somewhat, been a long time coming.

You're welcome! Right, next...
A few covers show but not all - have you reloaded the cache? If yes, there's probably one tiny mistake here and there I'm afraid... if worst comes to worst, don't be afraid to rename your rom to something easier to copy, ie removing brackets etc. Check again, then reload cache. Also remember the cache reload takes some time, skipping forward a few pages say might mess things up.

Master System/Megadrive-Genesis problem - HAH here we go....! In your plugins pack you'll notice retroarch, and there should be plugin inis for all the formats genesis plus gx supports... simply fire up each ini you want, look at the romdir location this time, and move the roms to there. If you want you can use standalone genplusgx for Genesis only, and retroarch version for Master System/Game Gear....

Unwanted emulators - Oh fukk this one's even worse to explain! :lol: Again it's ini files , this one being in

WiiFlow/source_menu

Find source_menu.ini and open with notepad. Now you can easily balls this up so backup before editing. First thing you'll see is:

[BUTTON_0]
image=Wii.png
image_s=Wiib.png
title=Wii
source=wii

then it goes up to whatever number. You mention Atari 5200, that's BUTTON_49... you can simply delete the whole entry - all 7 lines -but if say you want to keep Atari 7800, currently BUTTON_50, you should rename that to BUTTON_49.... alternatively you could copy BUTTON_71, the last entry in the default masterpiece ini, and paste over where the Atari 5200 was, again renaming it to BUTTON_49. If that's blowing your brain a bit then stop and don't bother trying, coz quite frankly when you're on about say the NES, that's got multiple emulators, and you'll have to find out which one you're using by comparing the magic number, again found in the plugin ini, and matching it up, then deleting the others if you want....
Baby Steps again with this one! Try deleting one emulator at a time and seeing how you go! Me? I've got one sourceflow entry for arcade with FBA, CPS1/2, Neo Geo and Mame all in the same place (using multiple magic numbers on one button) :D. But you want to do baby steps first.

Finally, covers for spinoff games - if they've not been done and you want them - good ole mastershoes has plenty already of course, but not GoldeneyeX.... the best thing to do really would be to copy the regular Goldeneye cover, rename it to your X rom, then maybe edit it yourself using a paint program? Perhaps something simple like just adding a big X? Maybe you could use the European Goldeneye cover to make it stand out/bit more different (and of course add the X if you like)?
 
Last edited by mightymuffy,

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This looks awesome, thanks for all the hard work.

Would someone please post their wiiflow ini along with an ini of a console they have working with covers?

I have tried everything, fat match roms to png's, renamed png's to end with .a78.png (for Atari 7800 roms), and I just can't get these covers to show.

Any help is appreciated
 

mightymuffy

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This looks awesome, thanks for all the hard work.

Would someone please post their wiiflow ini along with an ini of a console they have working with covers?

I have tried everything, fat match roms to png's, renamed png's to end with .a78.png (for Atari 7800 roms), and I just can't get these covers to show.

Any help is appreciated
I've posted the fceugx ini further up on this page along with a bit of info (no need to post a wiiflow ini in my opinion), which helped the last person with pretty much the same question as you. If you've done what my post said you should be OK (just remember to reload cache afterwards)
 
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I've posted the fceugx ini further up on this page along with a bit of info (no need to post a wiiflow ini in my opinion), which helped the last person with pretty much the same question as you. If you've done what my post said you should be OK (just remember to reload cache afterwards)

I have no idea what is going on, i followed your directions already. my fceugx ini (in the plugins folder) looks exactly like yours.

within the fceugx folder is a sub folder with roms. in that folder I have a rom called "1942 (USA).zip"

within the wiiflow folder is the folder boxcovers. in that folder is one called fceugx. in that folder, i have a png called "1942 (USA).zip.png".

i reload the cache from the home menu and... nothing, no cover for 1942. I can start it and play it just fine, just no cover.

FYI, from this thread, I downloaded the NES pack called "NES Shrunken Spine w/alts" which is recommended for wiiflow.

i swear i'm not an idiot :)

any thoughts?
 
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mightymuffy

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I have no idea what is going on, i followed your directions already. my fceugx ini (in the plugins folder) looks exactly like yours.

within the fceugx folder is a sub folder with roms. in that folder I have a rom called "1942 (USA).zip"

within the wiiflow folder is the folder boxcovers. in that folder is one called fceugx. in that folder, i have a png called "1942 (USA).zip.png".

i reload the cache from the home menu and... nothing, no cover for 1942. I can start it and play it just fine, just no cover.

FYI, from this thread, I downloaded the NES pack called "NES Shrunken Spine w/alts" which is recommended for wiiflow.

i swear i'm not an idiot :)

any thoughts?
...I just can't post my wiiflow ini at the mo :lol:, the lads are playing on my Wii U!

Are you reading from sd or usb? ...Where are the roms and (perhaps more importantly) covers? If they're in your usb you'll need to edit the wiiflow ini - search for boxcovers and change the directory from 'sd' to 'usb1'

Otherwise, oof - running out of ideas! Are you using fceugx or retroarch? Which emu comes up?
Try renaming the cover folder to something a bit more simple, say; nes .......then edit the fceugx ini so it looks for nes as the cover folder, then reload cache.
 

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Just dropping a line to let you guys know I'm still messing around with the Amstrad covers that I got awhile back from @halen . I've ended up putting a little more time into it than i expected. There's a ton of room for improvement on the set i have, so i've been replacing artwork, making some mini-templates for cleanup, and adding some more covers. Also, since there are a lot of "tape" covers in this set, been converting some things over to a little "tape template". Left some examples below. I guess I'll post the set when I burn out from this round of cleanup!
OLD:

NEW:

OLD:

NEW:

OLD:

NEW:
 

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I can't for the life of me get sega de covers to show. I have my bin files on a hdd drive (usb). I have the covers on BOTH my usb and sd card for testing. I have edited the genplus ini file and tried both locations. All covers are renamed properly and 100% match the images (.bin.png).

Please help!
 

mightymuffy

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I can't for the life of me get sega de covers to show. I have my bin files on a hdd drive (usb). I have the covers on BOTH my usb and sd card for testing. I have edited the genplus ini file and tried both locations. All covers are renamed properly and 100% match the images (.bin.png).

Please help!
Getting the genplus covers is easily the biggest problem for people, both on here and in other forums - doesn't help that there's fukkin 12 plugin ini's for it! :lol:

6 are for the standalone genplus emu - 1 'all-in-one' and 5 split between the 5 machines the emu plays
The other 6 have the word retro snuggled inside and are for the Retroarch core of the emu, also split in the same way.

Make sure you're using the right plugin you want..... Personally I use Retroarch, and also the 5 split into different consoles... here's my actual Megadrive (Genesis) ini:

[PLUGIN]
magic=5247456E
coverColor=ffffff
coverFolder=megadrive
fileTypes=.md|.smd|.bin|.gen|.zip|
romDir=genplus/roms/MD
dolFile=retroarch-wii/genesis_plus_gx_libretro_wii.dol
bannerSound=Sega_Genesis.ogg
displayname=Sega Genesis
consoleCoverID=sega
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}

Now I'm not gonna check with the one in Abz pack, and I set this up a few years ago so can't be sure, but if you notice I edited the coverFolder to 'megadrive' (I'm a Euro, that's what us and the Japanese called it), so have my covers in wiiflow/boxcovers/megadrive... and also changed my romDir. You can change both to whatever you like too.
Next I'm gonna show the Megadrive/Genesis portion of my source menu (wiiflow/source_menu/source_menu.ini), this is the part, in my opinion, where you're having a problem. Open it up and you'll see [BUTTON_0], which is Wii games, then BUTTON_1, 2 and so on:

[BUTTON_3]
image=Sega_Genesis.png
image_s=Sega_Genesisb.png
source=plugin
magic=5247456E,5247455E
emuflow=1
title=Sega Megadrive & Mega CD

Now ignore the fact it's BUTTON_3, it's most likely different on your ini, but note the fact the [first] magic number is the same as the one found in my plugin ini (I also added the Sega/Mega CD into there as my collection of those isn't that big so got them both in the same flow, don't bother with that bit, but if you're feeling adventurous, and this goes out to anyone else reading, this is the method you use if for example you want your FBA, MAME, Neo Geo etc under an 'Arcade' for example)
Again, I changed the title to something that suits me.

So :lol: what you want to do is find the [BUTTON_xx] with the same magic number as the one found in the plugin ini you want to use, then in my opinion delete the other buttons:

magic=5247454E ----genplus_gx_retro.ini
magic=5247456E ----genplus_gx_retro_md.ini
magic=53454741 ----genplus-gx.ini
magic=53454761 ----genplus-gx_md.ini

--whichever one you're using, delete the other 3 buttons and edit the rest of the buttons accordingly: my last source_menu.ini button is 31, yours is most likely a lot higher - if I wanted to get rid of button 3 I'd select and cut button 31, then paste it over button 3, then rename it to button 3....:lol: (that sounds complicated! Pretty easy to do though, and if you spend a few minutes you can really tidy up your source menu/flow using this method!). Best to delete them one at a time, making sure your button numbers are still OK (best if you don't miss a number out!)
Then once done, fire up wiiflow, then select the right (ONLY!) Genesis button (or flow, depending on what you use), do a reload cache and you should be OK (fingers crossed lol)
 
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hey mightymuffy, thanks so much for the in depth walk thru. i wish it could say it worked but it is everything i tried already. just to be sure, i went thru your directions and tried everything again. i'm going to use turbo drop cd images instead, same issue as sega cd but fewer variables.

first up, source_menu.ini. i deleted everything i don't use, renumbered things, etc. it all is working just as it should, except for turbo cd (and sega cd). they play just fine but no boxart.

for the source_menu.ini, for turbografx cd, i have the following:

[BUTTON_15]
image=Turbo_Duo.png
image_s=Turbo_Duob.png
title=Turbo Duo CD
source=plugin
magic=4d45454e
emuflow=9

that magic number points to wiimednafen_pcecd. opening wiimednafen_pcecd.ini, it has (which I edited):

[PLUGIN]
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}|{loader}
bannersound=PCECD.ogg
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
coverfolder=PCECD
displayname=WiiMednafen PCECD
dolfile=wiimednafen-mod3.dol
filetypes=.cue
magic=4d45454e
romdir=wiimednafen/roms/PCECD

cover folder points to "PCECD" which is in wiiflow/boxcovers/PCECD. FYI I have covers in this directory on BOTH the USB HDD and internal SD card.

roms (.cue format) are in wiimednafen/roms/PCECD on my USB HDD. file name sample:

Addams Family, The (USA).cue
Addams Family, The (USA).cue.png

I am at a loss, any other ideas i'm all ears!

thanks
 

mightymuffy

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..... Well I've no idea! Sorry pal, your ini's look bang on! The only difference I can see is your emuflow of 9 - are you using the cd cases? Just looked through my source menu ini and don't have that one, using 6 instead for the likes of those and the Game Boy covers. That number does of course depend on the theme you're using, perhaps your current theme doesn't support that emuflow number and is simply defaulting to a standard, without loading the off-ratio images (for the standard size case)?? I seriously doubt that myself, but looking at the info you've posted, it's the only thing I've got left for you.

....Perhaps try to rename the boxcover folder? Do you have other folders that are all caps? Just looked and none of my cover folders have either any caps or special characters - maybe try renaming the folder to turboduocd, or even tdcd, edit plugin ini accordingly, reload cache etc etc....(and perhaps change the emuflow number too - you can 'fix' that to what you prefer while in Wiiflow anyway of course afterwards).

Otherwise I'm stumped too :(
 
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