Hacking WiiFlow Lite with emulator's database

Wiimpathy

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90% comes from screenscraper.fr. It's very slow even for registered users. And you'd need a scraper or write your own(what I've done). At first, I used and hacked the code from skyscraper.

Most screenshots can be found here : https://github.com/libretro-thumbnails/libretro-thumbnails
They are already in 8-bit colormap by the way.
You may need to rename them like in the xml. Probably resize them too. Some platforms required a montage to respect aspect and max dimensions: resize snap and center on a transparent 256*224 image.

For carts/disks raw images, it's another story. Except screenscraper I don't know any website that centralize most of them.
A lot of the carts also comes from various sources: mobygames, gamebase, worldofdragon.org etc. Mainly for the less known platforms. But I've also deleted most of them...

I didn't know adding palleted png support in pngu was trivial. That was my first idea to compress. But already too much work for this shit(all scripts+Wiiflow code).

In short, the easiest way is just to take the snap pack here, compress and share. Easy.
 

derekfcc

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Do the screenshots and cart disk images need to match the name of the rom with the file extension included, similar to the box art?
 

Tetsuo Shima

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@derekfcc In my opinion, the best and easier thing to do is to rename the roms (and the covers) with the titles from the database.
This way you'll be sure that game info and snapshots will appear, even if roms CRC's are not matching with the database.
You could then use custom titles .ini to change the titles you don't like (e.g. changing "Addams Family, The" to "The Addams Family").
 

derekfcc

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@derekfcc In my opinion, the best and easier thing to do is to rename the roms (and the covers) with the titles from the database.
This way you'll be sure that game info and snapshots will appear, even if roms CRC's are not matching with the database.
You could then use custom titles .ini to change the titles you don't like (e.g. changing "Addams Family, The" to "The Addams Family").
Makes sense. I'll have to dig into the database to get a list of titles.

Had a couple of crashes yesterday using the background music. Had an .mp3 that I converted to .ogg. I don't remember the file size off the top of my head, ran a syscheck that I can post if needed. I only have one track in the music folder and it crashed twice right as the track was set to repeat (all default settings for music). Think it could possibly be an issue with trying to cross-fade over itself? I'm going to try and put a second copy of the same file in the folder to see if I can find a quick and dirty fix. Who knows, it could work... maybe.

Also, I didn't do much to prep the file. I wasn't able to locate any file type or settings restrictions so all I did was convert the raw .mp3 directly to .ogg. Are there any other specific steps that need to be taken? I've seen other GUIs require that you run the tracks through Audacity for a couple of adjustments before ultimately converting the tracks to the proper file type.

Thanks for any help/input. Let me know if you want me to upload any crash info.
 
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Tetsuo Shima

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@derekfcc I don't know, music tracks are something I never use. I remember that sometime ago @fledge68 made a fix in wiiflow regarding single audio tracks, but for a different issue (titles were not showing). Maybe it could be a little bug connected with it
 
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Shoche

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@wimpathy Can I put banner or trailers on the latest version of wiiflow?

If yes, which route does it follow?

I appreciate the answer
 

Wiimpathy

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RunningSnakes

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Here are some updated files if anyone is interested. Most are .ini file updates for rom translations, with a few carts and snaps fixed.

Edit:
I added to the updated files, one minor update to SUPERNES.ini plugins_data file. I included some NES carts & snaps along with dozens additions to the NES.ini plugins_data file. I did some editing/fixes to the NES.xml which i consider complete now.

The thing that bugs me is, i cannot figure out how to get a few game carts & snaps to display correctly. Most notably Tetris (Tengen) and Airwolf (Japan). They display art of both USA versions and cannot be changed evidently, after trying everything i can imagine. I am no expert editing .xml files and it could be something simple im not aware of how to edit. As for now, i have made at least a few dozen edits to the .xml and hundreds to the .ini, and all is working well on my side. Please post if there are problems with any file(s).
 

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  • wiiflow.zip
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matto21

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Wiimpathy

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Thanks for sharing.

The xml has a few invalid utf8 characters. In line 150 for example. I don't know if Wiiflow displays that, maybe it's not a problem.
But once again, if on windows, an xml validator could be useful and a better editor too(Notepad++ ?).
 
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matto21

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Thanks for sharing.

The xml has a few invalid utf8 characters. In line 150 for example. I don't know if Wiiflow displays that, maybe it's not a problem.
But once again, if on windows, an xml validator could be useful and a better editor too(Notepad++ ?).
all settled
added
ClayFighter 2 - Judgment Clay
Doom 64 (Doom 32x Hack) .32x
Sangokushi IV
Wolfenstein 3D for 32X
 

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  • wiiflow.zip
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Okko

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Please find attached a games database for classic electronic LED handheld games (LedHead) simulators.
It contains the fifteen games included in the version 1.1 of the port to the Wii of LedHEAD, by Nebiun (see https://wiibrew.org/wiki/LedHeadWii).
 

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  • LedHead games database (15).zip
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ukigh4ie

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Hi @Wiimpathy,
may I ask you what's your source for the XML database files and how do you convert these? I'm actualy missing some games in the scummvm.xml file.

I neither have the necessary information for the games nor an XML editor to add them.
 

Wiimpathy

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The xmls were first generated with an homemade parser that retrieved info from screencraper.fr.
Various other sources were also used : LusSpace, GameEx, MobyGames etc...
See linux shell script to grab extra info (only genre here) from offline databases: https://github.com/Wiimpathy/CreateCat/blob/master/makelist.sh
You'd need an xml editor anyway.
I had a huge offline mobygames database. With sql tools the genres were extracted. Can't remember how I got it...
Can't share the parser, it was dirty and despite reasonable grabbing, my ip is blocked now...

If it's just a few games you want to add, you just have to edit the xml and maybe the ini if the game doesn't have any entry. The process was explained in this thread.
You could always use any good text editors, notepad++ windows etc.. But it's important to have a way to check xml validity. Various tools for linux, no idea for windows.
 
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UmJammerRammy

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How long does the snapshot folder usually take to extract? I've been at it for 15 hours and I'm not sure if something has gone very wrong or if it really just takes this long lmao
 
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