Gamebrowser suggestions

[jachin99 82]

@@shaefurr Because I am having trouble, and I have seen others struggle with the gamebrowser, I'd like to see if you or anyone else for that matter has considered using retroarch as the sole emulation engine over configuring all kinds of switches with different syntaxes.  Speaking soley in terms of file execution, this seems like it would simplify the code, and provide for easier setup.  Feel free to tell me that I'm nuts if need be. 

Edited November 15, 2017 by jachin99

[shaefurr 1337]

@@shaefurr Because I am having trouble, and I have seen others struggle with the gamebrowser, I'd like to see if you or anyone else for that matter has considered using retroarch as the sole emulation engine over configuring all kinds of switches with different syntaxes.  Speaking soley in terms of file execution, this seems like it would simplify the code, and provide for easier setup.  Feel free to tell me that I'm nuts if need be. 

I've considered using other frontends before for all my emulators, but I don't handle any of the GB code, thats all done by @@Luke now. And yeah it can be a real pain to get up and running, I've set up GB probably 15 different times and I still run into issues sometimes when reinstalling it. In the previous version of emby theater the switches would be automatically added, I don't know if that was removed or just isn't implemented yet in the new version of theater.

 

Currently I just use Steam in combination with ICE to handle all the emulation stuff. (some ICE users are switching to SRM since ICE hasn't been updated in a long time but I haven't made the switch yet)

[jachin99 82]

I don't use gamebrowser at the moment either but I'm trying to move towards it.  Right now I'm on big box.  Just to be clear, I don't want to use retroarch for a front end, but instead It seems like it would be easy to use its emulation cores.  You can emulate MOST systems with JUST retroarch, all the way up to the WII I believe.  I understand that for some setups, people will want to use specific emulators (The first one that comes to mind is dolphin) but retroarch might have a core for those as well.  I'm wondering what would happen if I tried to install retroarch, and configure a few systems for just that.  This way users could setup their emulation through retroarch's settings, and possibly their libraries through emby.

[shaefurr 1337]

I don't use gamebrowser at the moment either but I'm trying to move towards it.  Right now I'm on big box.  Just to be clear, I don't want to use retroarch for a front end, but instead It seems like it would be easy to use its emulation cores.  You can emulate MOST systems with JUST retroarch, all the way up to the WII I believe.  I understand that for some setups, people will want to use specific emulators (The first one that comes to mind is dolphin) but retroarch might have a core for those as well.  I'm wondering what would happen if I tried to install retroarch, and configure a few systems for just that.  This way users could setup their emulation through retroarch's settings, and possibly their libraries through emby.

Oh ok I see what you're saying, sounds like it would be easier, ill download it and play around with it.

[jachin99 82]

Here's an illustration of my point: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/52707-gamebrowser-woes/ In post 8 throggmorton had to spell Sega Genesis two different ways to get it working. Once with a space, and once without. Hopefully with retroarch, most of this can be alleviated. When I get time, I'll have to try this out as well.

[shaefurr 1337]

Here's an illustration of my point: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/52707-gamebrowser-woes/ In post 8 throggmorton had to spell Sega Genesis two different ways to get it working. Once with a space, and once without. Hopefully with retroarch, most of this can be alleviated. When I get time, I'll have to try this out as well.

Funny I just had that issue yesterday and found the game.xml had no space in  <GameSystem>SegaGenesis</GameSystem> when there should have been one.

 

I know with GB the resolver removes the space, but it was never an issue before, now in emby theater you won't get a play button unless you add one, I assume its a bug somewhere in GB.

 

But yeah stuff like that could be avoided.

[shaefurr 1337]

So I got Retroarch setup, surprised I missed this little gem before, so much easier than setting up 10 different emulators. But I haven't had any luck getting games to launch from Emby Theater, I can't even get the -L command to work to open a core, nor load a rom of any sort.

 

From what ive read on RA and knowing emby, example usage for snes should be something like this:

-L "path\to\retroarch\cores\snes9x_libretro.dll" {path}

Ive tried every variation of that, quotes, no quotes, just loading the core, but so far nothing. Works fine from a command prompt though so ill have to dig deeper into this. Hopefully I can get it working tomorrow.

[cash84 4]

I use retroarch as much as I can. I did get this figured out a while back. Have to set it up like this in the command line

 

-L
c:\users\admin\emulator\retroarch\cores\nestopia_libretro.dll
{path}

 

You MUST have -L on its own line or it will not work. Not sure why but thats how I got it to work.

 

This is done on Emby Theater

 

On WMC, I finally got it to work.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameBrowserSettings xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <GameSystems>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Nintendo</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Users\Admin\Emulator\RetroArch\retroarch.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>-L C:\Users\Admin\Emulator\RetroArch\cores\nestopia_libretro.dll "{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
  </GameSystems>/>
  <DosGames />
  <WinGames>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>BlazeRush</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\Targem Games\BlazeRush\game.exe</Executable>
      <Switches></Switches>
    </anyType>

    ...
    
  </WinGames>
  <EnableQuitKey>false</EnableQuitKey>
  <SelectedQuitKey>0</SelectedQuitKey>
</GameBrowserSettings>

Edited November 18, 2017 by cash84

[shaefurr 1337]

I use retroarch as much as I can. I did get this figured out a while back. Have to set it up like this in the command line

 

-L

c:\users\admin\emulator\retroarch\cores\nestopia_libretro.dll

{path}

 

You MUST have -L on its own line or it will not work. Not sure why but thats how I got it to work.

 

This is done on Emby Theater

 

On WMC, I finally got it to work.

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<GameBrowserSettings xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <GameSystems>

    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">

      <Name>Nintendo</Name>

      <Executable>C:\Users\Admin\Emulator\RetroArch\retroarch.exe</Executable>

      <Switches>-L C:\Users\Admin\Emulator\RetroArch\cores\nestopia_libretro.dll "{rom}"</Switches>

    </anyType>

  </GameSystems>/>

  <DosGames />

  <WinGames>

    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">

      <Name>BlazeRush</Name>

      <Executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\Targem Games\BlazeRush\game.exe</Executable>

      <Switches></Switches>

    </anyType>

 

    ...

    

  </WinGames>

  <EnableQuitKey>false</EnableQuitKey>

  <SelectedQuitKey>0</SelectedQuitKey>

</GameBrowserSettings>

Yeah that works, I had tried placing each argument on its own line, but never removed the quotes from the core path, taking those off fixed it. Good work!

I'll update the gamebrowser tutorial with this when I get a chance over the weekend.

Edited November 18, 2017 by shaefurr

[cash84 4]

Yeah that works, I had tried placing each argument on its own line, but never removed the quotes from the core path, taking those off fixed it. Good work!

I'll update the gamebrowser tutorial with this when I get a chance over the weekend.

 

Awesome! Hope this helps with more people. So it's not so hard to set up Gamebrowser.

[jachin99 82]

Alright so I've made some progress also but I still haven't been successful.  One thing I did that hasn't been brought up is I updated my gamebrowser settings to point towards the file locations of my roms.  This gave me better metadata but no live backgrounds like launchbox, and some of the games don't get any cover art.  I have a premium emu movies account, and I get better metadata from bigbox so far.  I also updated my gamebrowser xml file but for some reason, it kept marking my .xml file as .xml.old.  After a few tries of renaming the file, and deleting the blank new gamebrowser.xml Gamebrowser quit deleting my updated xml file.  Now when I go into a game through EMC it doesn't act like an empty folder.  For games that have metadata I get a backdrop and coverart but I still get an error when I try to launch a game.  I can't really eliminate any errors on the side of retroarch at this point either, and I performed a minimum setup of that.  "an unkown error prevented this application from launching" or something similar is the error I get.

[cash84 4]

Alright so I've made some progress also but I still haven't been successful.  One thing I did that hasn't been brought up is I updated my gamebrowser settings to point towards the file locations of my roms.  This gave me better metadata but no live backgrounds like launchbox, and some of the games don't get any cover art.  I have a premium emu movies account, and I get better metadata from bigbox so far.  I also updated my gamebrowser xml file but for some reason, it kept marking my .xml file as .xml.old.  After a few tries of renaming the file, and deleting the blank new gamebrowser.xml Gamebrowser quit deleting my updated xml file.  Now when I go into a game through EMC it doesn't act like an empty folder.  For games that have metadata I get a backdrop and coverart but I still get an error when I try to launch a game.  I can't really eliminate any errors on the side of retroarch at this point either, and I performed a minimum setup of that.  "an unkown error prevented this application from launching" or something similar is the error I get.

Are you running this on WMC or ET?

[jachin99 82]

Emby for wmc

[cash84 4]

There is no match to Launchbox. I have it but I like to keep my media all in one interface. If Gamebrowser was a lot more popular, there would be a lot more support. Did you use the code I posted for retroarch? Can just copy and paste but need to change the path where retroarch is and the core path.

[jachin99 82]

I'll have to post it for you when I get home. In the meantime would anyone know why my game browser xml file keeps getting marked as old

[jachin99 82]

I completely forgot to do this but I'll still post my setup as soon as I can.  I also wanted to point out post 18 in this thread https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/52875-gamebrowser-megadrive/  This user was directed to strictly use UNC paths when setting up their games, and game system paths but I'm not sure if gamebrowser megadrive is something different than regular game browser or what.  

[shaefurr 1337]

I completely forgot to do this but I'll still post my setup as soon as I can. I also wanted to point out post 18 in this thread https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/52875-gamebrowser-megadrive/ This user was directed to strictly use UNC paths when setting up their games, and game system paths but I'm not sure if gamebrowser megadrive is something different than regular game browser or what.

He was just trying to get genesis games to run, but emulators like Fusion won't take the path sent by emby unless it's a unc path. (it will load up the emulator but not load the rom) If you plan to use games over your home network it's always a good idea to use a unc path instead. I actually have that in the gamebrowser tutorial but it's a small note, maybe I should make it more direct.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

[jachin99 82]

There is no match to Launchbox. I have it but I like to keep my media all in one interface. If Gamebrowser was a lot more popular, there would be a lot more support. Did you use the code I posted for retroarch? Can just copy and paste but need to change the path where retroarch is and the core path.

My edited gamebrowser.xml file looks like this but keeps getting renamed to gamebrowser.xml.old

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameBrowserSettings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<GameSystems>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Gamecube</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Emulation\RetroArch\RetroArch.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>LC:\Emulation\RetroArch\cores\dolphin_libertro.dll"{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Wii</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Emulation\RetroArch\RetroArch.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>LC:\Emulation\RetroArch\cores\dolphin_libertro.dll"{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
<EnableQuitKey>false</EnableQuitKey>
  <SelectedQuitKey>0</SelectedQuitKey>
</GameBrowserSettings>

[cash84 4]

My edited gamebrowser.xml file looks like this but keeps getting renamed to gamebrowser.xml.old

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameBrowserSettings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<GameSystems>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Gamecube</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Emulation\RetroArch\RetroArch.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>-L C:\Emulation\RetroArch\cores\dolphin_libertro.dll "{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Wii</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Emulation\RetroArch\RetroArch.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>-L C:\Emulation\RetroArch\cores\dolphin_libertro.dll "{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
<EnableQuitKey>false</EnableQuitKey>
  <SelectedQuitKey>0</SelectedQuitKey>
</GameBrowserSettings>

Okay I found couple problems. I fixed the switches for you. Just recopy and paste. Let me know if that changes anything. As for it renaming .old file, I'm not sure why it's doing that. I would have to see what your server setup is like. You have all your roms in a NAS correct?

[jachin99 82]

Thanks for the help, and I will make this change as soon as I get a chance and report back

[jachin99 82]

I guess suggestion 2, or question 2 would be what happens if I Make a folder named backdrops in all of my game folders, and drop a video in said folder? Will it show up as a video backdrop in gamebrowser, and if it does, how can I automate the process of getting these videos into the backdrop folders of every game. Video backdrops in Gamebrowser kind of goes back to the whole idea that some of us use Gamebrowser to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout Emby/WMC. Emby also still has an issue with not finding metadata for about half of my games. I'm glad to see Gamebrowser moving along overall though.

Edited November 21, 2017 by jachin99

[shaefurr 1337]

I guess suggestion 2, or question 2 would be what happens if I Make a folder named backdrops in all of my game folders, and drop a video in said folder? Will it show up as a video backdrop in gamebrowser, and if it does, how can I automate the process of getting these videos into the backdrop folders of every game. Video backdrops in Gamebrowser kind of goes back to the whole idea that some of us use Gamebrowser to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout Emby/WMC. Emby also still has an issue with not finding metadata for about half of my games. I'm glad to see Gamebrowser moving along overall though.

As long as you name it theme.mp4 or what not in the backdrops folder, yeah it should play as a video backdrop. You can also add trailers for games.

 

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

[jachin99 82]

I would have to see what your server setup is like. You have all your roms in a NAS correct?

For the time being, I'm trying to play my games in WMC/Gamebrowser locally on my Win 7 server. No NAS involved in the games setup and emby

[jachin99 82]

I'll try to create some backdrop folders if I get time, and see what happens. It would be nice if Emby/Gamebrowser could create a backdrop folder for each media file as it is added to my server but maybe there is a way to do this already, and I just don't know about it.

[cash84 4]

I guess suggestion 2, or question 2 would be what happens if I Make a folder named backdrops in all of my game folders, and drop a video in said folder? Will it show up as a video backdrop in gamebrowser, and if it does, how can I automate the process of getting these videos into the backdrop folders of every game. Video backdrops in Gamebrowser kind of goes back to the whole idea that some of us use Gamebrowser to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout Emby/WMC. Emby also still has an issue with not finding metadata for about half of my games. I'm glad to see Gamebrowser moving along overall though.

It would play the video in the background.