GameBrowser 3 plugin

[CBers 6766]

Gamebrowser is one of the more complex plugins to set up as it contains many aspects that need to be considered. We've done our best to try and make it as easy as possible. Below is a guide discussing the standard setup steps.

Step 1: Organizing your games.

The first step is to make sure your games are organized in a format that mediabrowser supports. The preferred layout is to have a folder for each game platform (Super Nintend, Sega Genesis etc etc) with all games in their own folder beneath that game platform folder.

Folder examples.

 

 

Step 2: Installing and configuring the Gambrowser server plugin.

Gamebrowser is available for download in the MediaBrowser plugin store. It is a free plugin.

 

 

Once Gamebrowser is installed. Navigate to the installed plugins tab and then click GameBrowser in the list of installed plugins. Then click the "Platform Configuration button"

 

 

The Platform Configuration page is how Gamebrowser determines which files are games. Add each game folder and select the appropriate game system from the platform dropdown. Once you press save the newly entered location is added to the Game Platform Folders list. The below image shows how the folder structure in the first three images would be configured.

 

 

Now that Gamebrowser knows what folders are games, the parent directory of all your game systems needs to be added to the Media Library so that MediaBrowser can see them. The below image illustrates how the parent folder of the very first image above is added to the Default Media Library.

 

 

Once that's done, MediaBrowser should have started a Scan Media Library task. When the task is completed the games should be visible in the Web Dashboard. If the Games view is not available then GameBrowser is not correctly configured. If local images are not present, games need to be named exactly as they appear on thegamesdb.net and internet providers need to be enabled.

Step 3: Installing and Configuring Gamebrowser for MediaBrowser-Classic.

GameBrowser-Classic can be installed from the Plug-ins tab inside the MediaBrowser-Classic config pages.  Select "Plug-in Catalog" then navigate to GameBrowser-Classic and select it. The plugin is free but requires the server to have a valid supporter key.

 

 

Once installed, it needs to be configured to define what emulator to launch for each game system.  You must do this from a separate configuration program installed with MBC called the Configurator.  There is a shortcut for it placed in your start menu.

 

 

In the Emulator Games tab, the list on the left will show each Game System that was configured in step 2. For each Game System, you would define the location of the emulator that will play the games and the default Switches. For most emulators "{rom}" will work as the default Switch. Some will require specialized switches, google can be a great asset here.


Step 3a: Configuring emulators in MediaBrowser-Theater.

MediaBrowser-Theater doesn't require a client-side plugin to launch games. Emulators can be configured using the External Players configuration.

 

 

In the Add Media Player page, the Media Type needs to be changed to game. Once that is done, all the game specific configuration options can be set. Very much like the above description for MediaBrowser-Classic, an external player needs to be configured for each Game System in your library. The path to the emulator executable must be provided and the default command-line argument. {PATH} should work for most emulators. Once configured click Submit and then rinse-and-repeat until all your Game Systems have been added.

Extra: Configuring Windows and DOS games.

Due to the client-server nature of MediaBrowser 3, Windows game setup is a little different from setting up emulators. The games have to be visible to the server for metadata downloading, but there's no guarantee that the client is running on the same machine as the server. Enter the game.gbwin and game.gbdos files. To get Windows and DOS games to be visible to the server, create a game system folder those platforms (as in the very first image). Inside that folder you would create a folder for each game you wish the server to be aware of. If it's a windows game place a game.gbwin file within that directory. This file can be anything. An empty zip file, a blank text document. It's the name that's important.

 

 

Now that the server is aware of the games, they should be visible within the Windows Games (or DOS Games) tab of the GameBrowser-Classic plugin configuration.

 

 

For each game in the list, you need to tell the client where to find the game executable or shortcut.

Extra 2: Using DOSBox.

Many (most) DOS games don't run well in modern windows PC's. DOSBox is a great tool to overcome that. If DOSBox is configured in GameBrowser-Classic, then any games with a game.gbdos file will be launched through DOSBox.