MiSTer Games Menu - Launch Games from the MiSTer Menu

[wizzo]

This is a script which scans all your game files and then populates a folder called Games in the main MiSTer menu. I think this makes them a little nicer to browse, since you don't need to launch a core first, and it pairs well with the background music script.

Download & installation: https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/MiSTer_GamesMenu

Zip files are also supported as far as MiSTer itself supports them. The directory layout of your games folders will be reflected in the menu.

games.jpeg (355.83 KiB) Viewed 11375 times

menu.png (63.35 KiB) Viewed 11375 times

[Insert Disk Two]

This is nice, hopefully it will have favourite games feature added one day!

[wizzo]

This is nice, hopefully it will have favourite games feature added one day!

Cheers! I have another script to do that here: viewtopic.php?t=4470

They work separately but I suppose I could add support to favourite mgl files

[Insert Disk Two]

Wow. Thanks!

[Wave]

You're just on a rampage with these awesome, feature-adding scripts, and I'm here for it. Thank you as ever.

Does this script have update-all functionality like I think you added/are adding to BGM script?

[cursedverses]

Oh this is very cool! I think I'm going to use this and look for a way of exposing the last loaded rom into a "jump back in" menu item.

One click reload of core and rom? Yes please!

[Stupid Dufus]

You're just on a rampage with these awesome, feature-adding scripts, and I'm here for it. Thank you as ever.

Does this script have update-all functionality like I think you added/are adding to BGM script?

Looks like it does! From the github:

Games Menu can be automatically updated with the MiSTer downloader script (and update_all). Add the following text to the downloader.ini file on your SD card:

Code: Select all

[games_menu]
db_url = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wizzomafizzo/MiSTer_GamesMenu/main/games_menu.json'

[Sigismond0]

I'd be interested in having an option for putting these in the root menu, like how the favorites script provides that as an option. The root menu always feels so empty with just five folders in it, and shortcuts to favorite consoles there would be great.

[wizzo]

You're just on a rampage with these awesome, feature-adding scripts, and I'm here for it. Thank you as ever.

You're welcome! Thanks for the support

I'd be interested in having an option for putting these in the root menu, like how the favorites script provides that as an option. The root menu always feels so empty with just five folders in it, and shortcuts to favorite consoles there would be great.

I like this idea. What I'm thinking instead is to allow the favorites script to symlink these folders. I reckon that will be the same outcome, and save on a lot of complexity in this one

First I would like to fix up the gui on this script so you can fully use it with a controller

Oh this is very cool! I think I'm going to use this and look for a way of exposing the last loaded rom into a "jump back in" menu item.

One click reload of core and rom? Yes please!

I've been asked for this a few times. Have you tried mister's built in support for this feature? You add something like recents=1 in your mister ini file. After that you can press select on your controller and it shows recently launched games and cores. It's easy to forget it exists and I think it would be better as an entry on the main menu, but I'm reluctant to duplicate all that effort and add another daemon for monitoring core changes

[cursedverses]

I've been asked for this a few times. Have you tried mister's built in support for this feature? You add something like recents=1 in your mister ini file. After that you can press select on your controller and it shows recently launched games and cores. It's easy to forget it exists and I think it would be better as an entry on the main menu, but I'm reluctant to duplicate all that effort and add another daemon for monitoring core changes

I just tried this, and it's recent cores only?
I'm really looking for core/rom combination e.g.
- Final Fantasy Disc 3 on PSX core
- Sonic the Hedgehog on MegaDrive core
- Metal Slug 2 on NeoGeo core

Rather than reinvent the wheel, it seems it just needs an extra parameter (the rom file)? There was a project that allowed people to load core/rom from their phones around here somewhere so the implementation of executing that is already done.

[wizzo]

Rather than reinvent the wheel, it seems it just needs an extra parameter (the rom file)? There was a project that allowed people to load core/rom from their phones around here somewhere so the implementation of executing that is already done.

Now that I've looked at the feature a bit closer I think the way it works is based off recent launches from the menu not recent roms launched in a core. So for me it's actually picking up recent games because I recently started launching them from mgl files through this script. Try launch a game through my script games menu and see if it shows up in the select menu now.

[cursedverses]

Ah I see! That would make a lot of sense. Ok, I will try. Thanks again!

[tekn0]

This seems like an awesome script. I am excited to try it.

[wizzo]

I've put a new update up on github with these changes:

• .zip files are now fully supported. The behaviour for this is that the contents of the zip will be put in the parent folder while the zip filename itself is dropped. I think before it would create the zip filename as a folder. This is better suited for people dropping in files directly from places like the HTGDB archive. I will eventually add a config option to use the old behaviour for people who use the zip filename for organisation.

• Super Gameboy is supported.

• Now shows a basic progress bar during the file generation.

• Have made some optimisations to make the scanning speed faster. Though it's still bottlenecked by the SD card's write speed.

I haven't pushed this out to the mister update script yet. I'd still like to test it a little more. But it should be working fine already.

[JAJT]

Question - How do you get rid of the games menu after running the script?

I ran the script, toggled a few cores, played around with it, then decided to remove it for now. When I un-toggle all the cores and try to generate the menu, it just reboots and makes no changes. I can toggle and generate any combo of cores I want, but if I toggle none of them, it just reboots and keeps whatever the last toggled version of the menu was.

Is there a way to just untoggle them all and remove the games menu entirely?

[wizzo]

Question - How do you get rid of the games menu after running the script?

I ran the script, toggled a few cores, played around with it, then decided to remove it for now. When I un-toggle all the cores and try to generate the menu, it just reboots and makes no changes. I can toggle and generate any combo of cores I want, but if I toggle none of them, it just reboots and keeps whatever the last toggled version of the menu was.

Is there a way to just untoggle them all and remove the games menu entirely?

Hi. You can just delete the _Games folder entirely off your SD in that case. There will be nothing important in there

If you want to wait a couple days as well I can make an update that will delete it automatically if everything is deselected. Good idea

[wizzo]

Alright I've put up an update which lets you uninstall but toggling all the systems off and hitting generate.

[JAJT]

Sweet! Appreciate it

[misterrocks]

This is a great script but I've found three problems:

• Mega Drive toggles itself off in the menu even if it was previously toggled on:

viewtopic.php?p=86871

• Filenames are used for game titles instead of full names:

viewtopic.php?p=86874#p86874

• Deleting a ROM from the filesystem and regenerating the games list does not remove the deleted game from the games list.

[Alf]

This is an awesome script, I use it all the time.

I just have 3 problems with it:

1. NeoGeo ROMs don't get added for some reason. FIXED
2. Certain Yes/No selections don't get saved.
3. Doesn't scan for arcade or DOS games.

[dickhardpill]

1, what format are your roms?
.neo seem to work fine

2, viewtopic.php?t=7978
this could be related

3 i don't know

[Alf]

1, what format are your roms?
.neo seem to work fine

They are zipped but I've also tried unzipping them and they still don't get added.

edit
I'll try different formats...

[dickhardpill]

what format are they in the zip?
all my .neo files are in 1 monolithic zip and it works with gamesmenu
are your roms all individually zipped?
what's the output of unzip -l <insert rom location here>

[Alf]

Thanks, it appears I had all my NeoGeo ROMs in a funky format (each game had multiple files with extensions such as ".p1", "c1", ".sp1", etc...

I've now downloaded a test ROM in ".neo" and gamesmenu added it normally.

[Alf]

One more question, is it possible to link N64 turbo core in gamesmenu instead of the normal one?

[dickhardpill]

i don't think there is a way with the script but you can edit the mgl files

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
        <rbf>_Console/N64</rbf>
        <file delay="1" type="f" index="1" path="/media/fat/games/N64/N64.zip/Blues Brothers 2000 (USA).z64"/>
</mistergamedescription>

I think this would work

Code: Select all

<mistergamedescription>
        <rbf>_test-builds/N64_80MHz</rbf>
        <file delay="1" type="f" index="1" path="/media/fat/games/N64/N64.zip/Blues Brothers 2000 (USA).z64"/>
</mistergamedescription>

the location of my turbo core is

Code: Select all

/media/fat/_test-builds

it may require the date, i'm not at home and can't test it.

[dickhardpill]

okay, if the above works-
you could probably edit gamesmenu.sh
line 46

Code: Select all

("N64", "_Console/N64", (({".n64", ".z64"}, 1, "f", 1),)),

and change it to

Code: Select all

("N64", "_test-builds/N64_80MHz", (({".n64", ".z64"}, 1, "f", 1),)),

and it should work for all your N64 games. You would probably need to delete from /media/fat/Games/N64 for it to generate new mgl files

[dickhardpill]

okay... wrong line number. i must have edited gamesmenu.sh on my MiSTer because it looks mostly like the one at
https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/MiSTer_ ... mesmenu.sh but not exactly

The correct line appears to be 58

edit to add it looks like i flattened out the atari5200, coleco, intellivision,etc... entries. that's the only differences i see.

i'm not at home but using VPN/remote and screenshot it launches but i'm not able to make it through the OSD because it doesn't show in screenshots. but the games are launching
editing gamesmenu.sh totally works if you want to change all your N64 games to the turbo in gamesmenu, though i'm not sure ifall roms are compatible