[Dweezilkid]

Huzzah! I've got my first two systems properly configured with artwork and launcher settings (NES and Sega Master System). I've encountered a few additional wrinkles, but nothing too serious:

- My old XML files work better than the latest versions from Hyperlist (they better correlate to my older ROM collection). Thank you so much for tweaking the plugin to allow XML files with missing info tags!

- Sometimes when I exit a game, Kodi will have switched my skin to a different view. Not sure why this is happening. I'm running Cirrus Extended -- it might be an issue specific to that skin. Once everything's configured, I'll probably create a new Arcade profile using Aeon Nox -- those views seem to look better with this plugin anyway.

- I recently upgraded to Windows 10, and some of emulators don't play nicely with display scaling. It's not an issue with your plugin... it's an emulator specific issue I'll have to deal with.

- One of the features I really liked in Hyperspin was the ability to create a list of favorite games and toggle between "favorites" and "all games." Is this something that would be possible to implement with your plugin? As much as I enjoy having all 1000 NES games, sometimes I just wanted to browse through my favorite 50, you know?

Off topic, teeedubb: Unfortunately, I've got the PS4 version of Dark Souls 3. My pathetic little GTS 450 really wasn't up for the challenge (I'm waiting for nVidia's new Pascal chipset before upgrading my video card). Game's great so far. Already got that wonderful feeling of addiction and terror that comes with any Souls game. Pure masochism!

[Dweezilkid]

Regarding favorites -- I know I can create separate XML files for my favorite games... I'd just rather not have to have two entries for each system.

Alternately (or maybe in addition), is there any way to add individual games to Kodi's "add to favorites" or a playlist? That'd be an awesome way to curate a list of favorite games across multiple systems.

[billyc666]

@teedub ive figured some of it I think, here's the link https://github.com/billyc999/Game-database-info

obviously ill need to add incomplete ods files or any other file which may be better to work with
the ones ive uploaded are probably missing stuff so ,I suppose that could be edited

I'm unsure how you get people to join in or does that automatically happen

[Zpectre87]

@joebloggs12 from windows it easy to use git, download the client, create a repo, add your files and then sync the changes. It will allow others to fork your repo and keep a updated copy, contribute, rollback changes etc. Its really handy. If you need a hand pm me. I just had a look at your xmls, theyre looking good! Game info is something thats sorely missing from hyperspin.

I use official HyperLists tailored to my config.

The process:

1) Download Don's HyperTools.
2) Create HyperList XML from my ROM collection.
3) Use "Filter" tool to create a filtered list from the official HyperList with only the games I have.
4) If necessary I use the Renamer to rename my ROMs to what's in the HyperList.

For PC games I use Steam Wheel Creator and the rest I add by hand since there's no HyperList for PC.

[mechevarria]

@teedub, Running Jarvis and I noticed the kodi.log gets constantly filled with the following block over and over while the plugin is active.

12:03:28 T:139933620283520 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: false
12:03:28 T:139933620283520 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
12:03:28 T:139932832093952 NOTICE: Creating InputStream
12:03:28 T:139932832093952 ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [false]
12:03:28 T:139932832093952 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
12:03:28 T:139933620283520 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
12:03:28 T:139933620283520 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
12:03:28 T:139933620283520 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
12:03:28 T:139933620283520 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()

Did a clean install and its still getting pumped out every second. Doesn't seem to be hurting anything, just blasting the logs.

[teeedubb]

- Sometimes when I exit a game, Kodi will have switched my skin to a different view. Not sure why this is happening. I'm running Cirrus Extended -- it might be an issue specific to that skin. Once everything's configured, I'll probably create a new Arcade profile using Aeon Nox -- those views seem to look better with this plugin anyway.

I've noticed the same with AN5, skin view needs to be reset after a kodi restart, I think this could be because its being called another way. But after setting the view it will stick after a kodi restart.

- I recently upgraded to Windows 10, and some of emulators don't play nicely with display scaling. It's not an issue with your plugin... it's an emulator specific issue I'll have to deal with.

Yeah I got stug with that with win7, I just resort to squinting now...

- One of the features I really liked in Hyperspin was the ability to create a list of favorite games and toggle between "favorites" and "all games." Is this something that would be possible to implement with your plugin? As much as I enjoy having all 1000 NES games, sometimes I just wanted to browse through my favorite 50, you know?

You can currently add games and folders to Kodi's favourites, but a favourites list in the addon would be cool. How does it work with HS? Is there a favourites list per system or is there one favourites list system wide? Both approaches have merit.

Off topic, teeedubb: Unfortunately, I've got the PS4 version of Dark Souls 3. My pathetic little GTS 450 really wasn't up for the challenge (I'm waiting for nVidia's new Pascal chipset before upgrading my video card). Game's great so far. Already got that wonderful feeling of addiction and terror that comes with any Souls game. Pure masochism!

And the frustration too!

@teedub ive figured some of it I think, here's the link https://github.com/billyc999/Game-database-info

obviously ill need to add incomplete ods files or any other file which may be better to work with
the ones ive uploaded are probably missing stuff so ,I suppose that could be edited

I'm unsure how you get people to join in or does that automatically happen

Very nice, thanks! I see youve got a few commits up your sleeve People can add info by creating commits, its similar to creating a git repo. People can also clone your repo and follow changes. So do you work in the ods format and then convert the ods's to xml?

@teedub, Running Jarvis and I noticed the kodi.log gets constantly filled with the following block over and over while the plugin is active.

Did a clean install and its still getting pumped out every second. Doesn't seem to be hurting anything, just blasting the logs.

Fixed in service.hyper.launcher-1.2.1

[billyc666]

yes I create the ods then use a formula to convert to xml. then just a quick find and replace in notepad++ to tidy up
the formula is in column K already

I'm not sure if there's a better file type to use with git rather than ods

[teeedubb]

Cool, I need to take a closer look at the new ods's. Personally I prefer the xmls, purely because I'm familiar with working with them-) - the add-on already parses xmls for system config and game lists.

[Dweezilkid]

- One of the features I really liked in Hyperspin was the ability to create a list of favorite games and toggle between "favorites" and "all games." Is this something that would be possible to implement with your plugin? As much as I enjoy having all 1000 NES games, sometimes I just wanted to browse through my favorite 50, you know?

You can currently add games and folders to Kodi's favourites, but a favourites list in the addon would be cool. How does it work with HS? Is there a favourites list per system or is there one favourites list system wide? Both approaches have merit.

Hyperspin allows favorites on a per-system basis. You assign a key to toggle between "all games" and "favorite games." The favorites are stored as "favorites.txt" in the system folder. It's a very simple text list:

http://pastebin.com/uLX9xH2B

Hyperspin handles MAME a little differently. It still allows for a "favorites.txt" file, but it also breaks the games down into individual genres using a series of XML files that sit alongside the complete MAME.xml database. Here's an example of the "Driving Games.xml" genre:

http://pastebin.com/Xrx6WNue

I recently discovered the Super Favorites plugin for Kodi, which is AWESOME (can't believe I've gone so long without using it). Super Favorites has allowed me to create a single folder with ALL my favorite games, regardless of system. I've even included games from Steam, Windows, and Dosbox which I installed via the Advanced Launcher plugin. The only downside is that the Super Folder doesn't seem to allow background video previews, which is kind of a bummer. Still, it's nice to have all my favorites in one place.

[bakito]

You can also use advanced launcher to make a favourite category that you populate with favourite instead of game, i found it better than super favourite in many case, maybe it will be better for your setup...

[teeedubb]

@Dweezilkid thanks for the links, favourites is something I will definitely implement, I'm thinking a per system and a all favourites list. Not sure if they would be displayed via a toggle or just have the favourites at the top of a ROM list.
You can currently sort games lists by genre and I'm sure you can cycle through the various genres with a certain button map.

[Dweezilkid]

Hey Teeedub -- I'm just getting my head around RocketLauncher (a REALLY nice upgrade to Hyperspin). I noticed your post on their message boards about trying to map the guide button on a 360 controller to bring up the Hyper Pause menu. I'm trying to do exactly the same thing. What was your solution? I'm already running Xpadder - is there a way to map the pause command without additional software?

[teeedubb]

Ibdont have one ATM.. I haven't looked into if the upgrades discussed in that thread have made it into RL yet.

Mapping the guide button seems complicated.. If steam is running a short press will open steam, long press open bpm. Retroarch also uses the guide button. I think the guide button needs to be remapped at absystem level.

[J7AYU]

You can get an app called Controller Companion from Steam that allows you to map any keyboard key to the guide button. Its like a more polished version of Xpadder. I think its only £3, and runs at startup and you can have profiles for different programs.

[Dweezilkid]

I realized you *can* map the pause command to the controller... just not the guide button. I set it to open the pause menu by clicking both sticks (L3+R3) at the same time. Works just fine.

I'm having another annoying problem though. When I exit an emulator and return to Kodi, I get the error message "failed to start commoncache" and am forced back to the main menu. I can continue using Kodi normally from there. However, when I try to exit Kodi after receiving this error, Kodi generally crashes. Here are the chunks of log before launching the emulator and after I return from it (when the error happens).

BEFORE LAUNCH:

08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "rom_path"
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "rom_extensions"
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "launcher_script"
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Boxes\3DBox
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Titles
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Boxes\3DBox
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Cartridges\CartsTop
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:38:05 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\HyperSpin\Media\Nintendo Entertainment System\Video
08:38:07 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Folder loaded:
08:38:07 T:4360 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Nintendo Entertainment System.xml
08:38:09 T:8604 ERROR: CImageLoader:oWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.studios.white/SquareSoft.png
08:38:09 T:3104 ERROR: CImageLoader:oWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.studios.white/Thinking Rabbit.png
08:38:09 T:10080 ERROR: CImageLoader:oWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.studios.white/Irem.png
08:38:09 T:5152 ERROR: CImageLoader:oWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.studios.white/Mindscape.png
08:38:11 T:10028 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Attempted command is:
08:38:11 T:10028 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\launcher_scripts\RocketLauncher.bat" "Nintendo Entertainment System" "1942 (Japan, USA)" "D:\Games\HyperSpin\Emulators\RomFiles\Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System\1942 (Japan, USA).nes" "1942 (Japan, USA).nes" ".nes"
08:38:11 T:2876 NOTICE: Storing total System Uptime
08:38:11 T:2876 NOTICE: Saving settings
08:38:11 T:2876 NOTICE: stop all

RETURNING FROM EMULATOR (error: failed to start commoncache)

08:40:15 T:9964 NOTICE: script.tv.show.next.aired: ### TV Show - Next Aired starting background proc (6.0.15)
08:40:16 T:2196 ERROR: EXCEPTION: Unknown addon id 'script.games.rom.collection.browser'.
08:40:16 T:8348 ERROR: Window Translator: Can't find window filestackingdialog
08:40:16 T:5460 NOTICE: script.grab.fanart: Grab Fanart Service Started
08:40:16 T:7472 ERROR: CImageLoader:oWork - Direct texture file loading failed for resource://resource.images.studios.white/
08:40:16 T:7472 ERROR: XFILE::CDirectory::GetDirectory - Error getting //extrathumb/
08:40:16 T:9508 ERROR: Previous line repeats 2 times.
08:40:16 T:9508 WARNING: CPythonInvoker(13): Script invoked without an addon. Adding all addon modules installed to python path as fallback. This behaviour will be removed in future version.
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "rom_path"
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "rom_extensions"
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Found config: "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata\addon_data\plugin.hyper.launcher\systems_config\Nintendo Entertainment System-config.xml" for "launcher_script"
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Boxes\3DBox
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Titles
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Boxes\3DBox
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\RocketLauncher\ARTWORK\Nintendo NES\Cartridges\CartsTop
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: Path exists:
08:40:17 T:10148 NOTICE: plugin.hyper.launcher.log: D:\Games\HyperSpin\Media\Nintendo Entertainment System\Video
08:40:18 T:11260 NOTICE: script.tv.show.next.aired: ### TV Show - Next Aired starting GUI proc (6.0.15)

I uninstalled Rom Collection Browser (never used it), so I'm not sure why that's showing up. Any ideas?

EDIT: Also, thanks for the suggestion, J7AYU! I'll have to look into that.