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For generic emulation, Metropolis Launcher lets you add files of any format and file extension, so there is no restriction. If you import packed files (.zip, .7z or .rar extension), Metropolis Launcher will look inside those packed files and will treat every single file within the packed file as a single game - this is the concept of "file" (i.e. the zip file) vs. "inner file" (the file/s inside the zip file).
Example 1 - Add games for single-volume systems
In the following example, we'll import a No-Intro set of SEGA - Genesis / Mega Drive games. The No-Intro set contains individual .zip files for every rom in one directory. You can get No-Intro sets on archive.org. The SEGA Genesis is a typical single-volume system, i.e. there is only one medium (cartridge) per game. The same applies to SEGA - Mastersytem, SEGA - Game Gear, Nintendo - NES, Nintendo - SNES etc.
1. Open the Rom Manager - by pressing the Rom Manager button on the Settings page, or - by using the context menu (right click) on the main list in the Games & Emulation Main Screen and clicking the Open Rom Manager ... menu item.
2. Select Platform = SEGA - Genesis / Mega Drive The Rom Manager will show a (possibly empty) list of imported files on the left and the MobyGames Database for SEGA - Genesis / Mega Drive games on the right.
3. In the (empty) file list: open the context menu (right click) and choose the Add Games (Directory) ... menu item
4. Browse to the directory containing the roms (within .zip files) and press OK.
5. The Tag Parser Settings dialog opens up The to be added files may contain tags, for example: - attributes in parentheses: Starflight (USA, Europe).zip - version information prepended by a "v", with or without parentheses: PGA Tour Golf II (USA, Europe) (v1.1).zip
The Tag Parser scans all the tags and you can map one or more attributes to those tags.
If a tag is newly added, the font of the tag will be written in bold. Else it will be in normal font weight. Please have a closer look at the newly added tags - Metropolis Launcher will have analyzed them and added appropriate attributes by itself.
If the Tag Parser does not find any tags in the file names, you will be prompted with a message and the Tag Parser will be closed afterwards.
In our example (No-Intro Sega Genesis set) we have amongst others the following interesting tags: - "(1.00l)", "(1.00S)": this is clearly a version information, if Metropolis Launcher did not detect it as Version, so we tick the Version attribute here - "(Acclaim)": is a publisher info, if Metropolis Launcher did not detect this, so we tick the Publisher attribute here - "(Earlier)" is a tag that Metropolis Launcher does not recognize, the information may be interesting, so we double click the tag - this will automatically fill in the Additional Note field so that the information will be shown in the game list alongside the game's name - Language based tags like "(En,Fr,De,Es,Nl,Sv)" are well detected automatically - Alternate titles separated by a tilde e.g. "Sonic 3D Flickies' Island" in "Sonic 3D Blast ~ Sonic 3D Flickies' Island (USA, Europe).md" are also part of the tags list
After looking through all provided tags press the OK button.
6. The roms will be analyzed and added Metropolis Launcher shows a progressbar of the import process. When it is finished you will be prompted with an information on - how many games have been added - how many of these games have been mapped to MobyGames info (Metropolis Launcher should be able to automatically map more than 1500 games to MobyGames info) - how many duplicates have been ignored (you will have a duplicate if you re-add a game that is already added)
7. Press the Save button After successfully adding games, press the Save button to save your changes.
8. (Optional and not necessary) Link games to their respective game info in the MobyGames Database Metropolis Launcher should have been able to automatically detect more than 1500 games of the set and map them to the correct MobyGames information. If you want to link MobyGames info to one or more games yourself, do the following:
For the game in the file list (on the left):
8.1. Select the game
8.2. Select the appropriate game entry in the MobyGames Database and perform a double click on either side
8.3. Read and accept the information about linking games and replacing game names
8.4. Your game entry is now linked to the MobyGames information Games that are linked to MobyGames information profit hugely from the data provided by mobygames.com, for example genre, number of players supported, multiplayer game modes, description etc.
9. Cleanup Some added files in the list are not needed to be launched by themselves, BIOS files for example. Select them (multi-select with the help of Ctrl. + Leftclick or Shift + Leftclick) and either: - hide them by choosing the Set hidden on ?? games menu item from the context (right click) menu of the file list, or - remove them by pressing either the Delete key or choosing the menu item Remove ?? games from your collection from the context menu (right click) of the file list.
Dont' forget to press the Save button after linking games with game infos and performing the cleanup.
Example 2 - Add games for multi-volume systems
In order to properly add multi-volume systems (e.g. disk-based systems like Commodore C64 or CD-based systems like Sony Playstation) we have to carefully check, how to group individual volumes (disks/CD images etc.) into one game, so that a game may consist of multiple volumes.
For this example, we'll import the C64 TOSEC Games\[D64] Disk Image collection, get it via archive.org and unpack the main .zip file.
Attention: TOSEC sets come with lots of tags, so if you're in a rush, don't consider an import now. Metropolis Launcher is able to identify and pre-configure almost every tag, it is important however to at least quickly check each tag.
1. Open the Rom Manager - by pressing the Rom Manager button on the Settings page, or - by using the context menu (right click) on the main list in the Games & Emulation Main Screen and clicking the Open Rom Manager ... menu item.
2. Select Platform = Commodore C64 The Rom Manager will show a (possibly empty) list of imported games on the left and - a Discs / Volumes list (here you will see the individual disk files for each game) and - the MobyGames Database for Commodore - C64 games on the right.
3. In the (empty) file list: open the context menu (right click) and choose the Add Games (Directory) ... menu item
4. Browse to the directory containing the .d64 files (optional within .zip files - it is stronly recommended to use non-zipped disk images in order to preserve savegames) and press OK.
5. The Tag Parser Settings dialog opens up The to be added files contain tags in parantheses, e.g. "(Commodore Inc.)" or "(Beta)". The Tag Parser scans all the tags and you can map one or more attributes to those tags.
As we're dealing with a multi-volume system, we should have a closer look on how to configure those tags:
Avoid the Noid (1989)(Sharedata)[cr Mirage].d64 Avoid the Noid (1989)(Sharedata)[cr Mirage][a].d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft).d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft)[a2].d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft)[a].d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft)[cr EMU][t EMU].d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft)[cr EMU][t EMU][a].d64 Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft)[cr REM][t +2 REM][Docs][#266].d64 Fugger (1988)(Bomico)(De)(Disk 1 of 2)[cr PWR].d64 Fugger (1988)(Bomico)(De)(Disk 2 of 2)[cr PWR].d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side A).d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side A)[a].d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side A)[cr TCS].d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side B).d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side B)[a].d64 Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls)(Side B)[cr TCS].d64
Shown here are 16 files. However, we don't want to add 16 games. We want to group these files in a way, that we get 4 games in total. In order to achieve this, we have to let - everything in green be group criteria (the game's name won't be shown in the tag parser, but the year, publisher and language are properties of a game that should be used to distinguish each individual game) - everything in blue be no group criteria (the same game may be cracked or trained by multiple cracking groups, however we don't want to list the same game numerous times because of that) - everything in orange be no group criteria, but tell which volume number it represents.
If we configure the tags in this way, we will end up with the following 4 merged games:
Avoid the Noid (1989)(Sharedata) with 2 files Bruce Lee (1984)(Datasoft) with 6 files Fugger (1988)(Bomico)(De) with 2 files Guild of Thieves, The (1987)(Magnetic Scrolls) with 6 files
With this information we configure the following tag types: - date tags, for example year "(1984)" or dates "(1984-04-18)" as group criteria - developer/publisher tag, for example "(Sharedata)" as group criteria - alternative dump tags, for example "[a]", "(A)", "(A2)" as no group criteria - cracker/trainer tags, for example "[cr Mirage]", "t +2 REM" as no group criteria - volume information, for example "(Side A)", "(Disk 1 of 2)" as no group criteria and: - (Disk 1) as Disc/Volume 01 - (Disk 2) as Disc/Volume 02 etc.
- (Side A) as Disc/Volume 01 - (Side B) as Disc/Volume 02
- (Disk 1 Side A) as Disc/Volume 01 - (Disk 1 Side B) as Disc/Volume 02 - (Disk 2 Side A) as Disc/Volume 03 - (Disk 2 Side B) as Disc/Volume 04 etc.
6. The disk images will be analyzed and added Metropolis Launcher shows a progressbar of the import process. When it is finished you will be prompted with an information on - how many games have been added - how many of these games have been mapped to MobyGames info (Metropolis Launcher should be able to automatically map more than 1500 games to MobyGames info) - how many duplicates have been ignored (you will have a duplicate if you re-add a game that is already added)
7. Press the Save button After successfully adding games, press the Save button to save your changes.
8. (Optional and not necessary) Link games to their respective game info in the MobyGames Database Metropolis Launcher should have been able to automatically detect more than 1500 games of the set and map them to the correct MobyGames information. If you want to link MobyGames info to one or more games yourself, do the following:
For the game in the file list (on the left):
8.1. Select the game
8.2. Select the appropriate game entry in the MobyGames Database and perform a double click on either side
8.3. Read and accept the information about linking games and replacing game names
8.4. Your game entry is now linked to the MobyGames information Games that are linked to MobyGames information profit hugely from the data provided by mobygames.com, for example genre, number of players supported, multiplayer game modes, description etc.
9. Cleanup Some added files in the list are not needed to be launched by themselves, BIOS files for example. Select them (multi-select with the help of Ctrl. + Leftclick or Shift + Leftclick) and either: - hide them by choosing the Set hidden on ?? games menu item from the context (right click) menu of the file list, or - remove them by pressing either the Delete key or choosing the menu item Remove ?? games from your collection from the context menu (right click) of the file list.
Dont' forget to press the Save button after linking games with game infos and performing the cleanup. |