ROM Collection Browser
- About ROM Collection Browser
-
Using Rom Collection Browser
1. The Context Menu
2. Browsing the main screen
3. Importing Games / Artwork and Info
4. Changing emulator Launch settings - Configuration File Locations
- Manually editing RCB
- Formats
With this XBMC addon you can browse and launch emulator roms and standalone games (Windows, Linux, Mac and Xbox). It will scrape game info and artwork from various online sources or imports local available game descriptions, images and videos. RCB can also parse simple text and xml files with additional game information like genre, publisher, developer, release year, etc.
Using RCB is quite easy. Refer to the gamepads section for the layout of the controller you are using. Most of it is self explanatory, but here are some hints:
The context button (X on the 360 controller or □ square on PS3) will bring up a list of things you can do with RCB. From here you can import games or scrape the game systems for artwork, as well as define favorite games you can easily launch from the fly-in search menu (by pressing left) There are other advanced settings here, which are best left to the developer page below.
The only thing to be aware of, is if you chooose to skip the game scrapers for obtaining boxart and game information, the default large view can look a little sparse. By default, pressing down on the dpad a few times will pop up a small bar that will allow you to change the view to something you would prefer. Depending on your current view, you may have to press right on the dpad a few times to get this same menu. Pressing up will always bring down the emulator sort screen (for now).
Summary of browsing actions
- Left - filter menu with submenus)
- Right - Game info)
- Right (twice) - Game artwork view
- Up/Down - browser games
- "C" on your keybaord, or the assigned gamepad button (Gamepad Layouts)
A common question or issue is folks not getting the proper game artwork or meta information. There are a few things you can do:
- Try a different scraper as the first one in the list when importing games
- Choose to "rescrape selected title" using the context menu (C on keybaord or see the gamepads section for XBMC controls)
- Visit the game scraper's website, and manually search for the game. Often enough, you can simply adjust the title of the Game, and it will pull in the proper animation
- Adjust the scraping mode to a more "loose" mode that may match the title you are looking for
- Add the game art manually from file ("local" scraper option)
For Neo Geo (AES) users, it is best to use the "Interactive: Select Matches" mode. The default scraper should be "GiantBomb.com" (preset scraper). You will sometimes get artwork for, say Sega Saturn, or Neo Geo CD, but artwork is better than no artwork! This is what the source scraper website has uploaded. If you wish to have proper artwork, you will need to contact or work with the scraper site to get the proper artwork uploaded. Some sites allow you to upload proper artwork without trouble. You can also change the scraper to local artwork and select a file.
The current list of scraping websites (base on RCB's config.xml) is:
For all other information, please see the RCB Google Code page.
RetroRig (since 0.9.x) uses it's own "dotfile", meaning, instead of configuration files living in your user directory in areas like ~/.xbmc or ~/.mame, the project employs its own dotfile called .retrorig. This is done to separate our configuration files from anything the user has, avoiding confrontation and conflicting scenarios.
For Ubuntu Beta Users (soon to merge to master after testing), you can use the "RetroRig Settings" menu from the main screen of RetroRig. Some files are text-only and require editing those files and knowledge of how to do so. Please see the Individual Components page for help, as well as the Advanced Configuration wiki page. Both of those pages will expand over time.
One way to tweak your settings (rather than copy files outside retrorig into the ~/.retrorig area), is to remove the emulator params, and relaunch RCB. This time the emulator will pop up (for those that have a gui), and you can tweak your settings. Otherwise, please see the emulators standalone wiki page for configuration file locations.
Example:
Change:
<emulatorCmd>/usr/games/dolphin-emu</emulatorCmd>
<emulatorParams>-b -e "%ROM%"</emulatorParams>
To:
<emulatorCmd>/usr/games/dolphin-emu</emulatorCmd>
<emulatorParams></emulatorParams>
Replace the second lines option when you are done.
The configuraiton files for this component are located at:
/home/your_user/.retrorig/.xbmc/addons/script.games.rom.collection.browser
/home/your_user/.retrorig/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/script.games.rom.collection.browser
<RomCollection id="11" name="MAME">
<useBuiltinEmulator>False</useBuiltinEmulator>
<gameclient />
<emulatorCmd>/usr/games/mame</emulatorCmd>
<emulatorParams>"%ROM%"</emulatorParams>
<romPath>/home/test/RetroRig/ROMs/MAME/*.zip</romPath>
<saveStatePath />
<saveStateParams />
<mediaPath type="boxfront">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/boxfront/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="title">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/title/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="gameplay">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/gameplay/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="action">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/action/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="marquee">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/marquee/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="romcollection">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/RCB/%ROMCOLLECTION%.*</mediaPath>
<mediaPath type="cabinet">/home/test/RetroRig/Artwork/MAME/cabinet/%GAME%.*</mediaPath>
In the example above, you will see a common block of XML you can alter for ROM Collection Browser, if you should want to use other emulators. Much of this and other information can be found on the RCB Main Website.
-
useBuiltinEmulator
RCB Can use built in emulators, but honestly, I've never tried them extensively. -
emulatorCmd
This is where you can subsite the command of you emulator you would want to use. To find out the path, typewhich zsnes, for ZSNES, as an example. Substitue your own emulator name of course. -
emulatorParams
Here you can specify command line parameters, such as--fullscreen --escape-exit "%ROM%"for PPSSPP. -
romPath
This pre-set to the root install directory, but you can change your ROM path here. Notice the ending*.zipline. This tells RCB what formats are accetpable to import. Each<romPath></romPath>should be on a sepearte line. If you were to type the formats*.zip,*.binin the RCB gui, it woud show two lines, rather than one in the example. -
saveStatePath
This is typically handled by the emulator but can be changed. -
mediaPath type
These sections denote where box art and other marquee/graphical images can/will be stored for a given game system.
<useEmuSolo>False</useEmuSolo>
<usePopen>False</usePopen>
<ignoreOnScan>False</ignoreOnScan>
<allowUpdate>True</allowUpdate>
<autoplayVideoMain>True</autoplayVideoMain>
<autoplayVideoInfo>True</autoplayVideoInfo>
<useFoldernameAsGamename>False</useFoldernameAsGamename>
<maxFolderDepth>99</maxFolderDepth>
<doNotExtractZipFiles>False</doNotExtractZipFiles>
<diskPrefix>_Disk</diskPrefix>
<imagePlacingMain>gameinfobig</imagePlacingMain>
<imagePlacingInfo>gameinfosmall</imagePlacingInfo>
<scraper name="thegamesdb.net" replaceKeyString="" replaceValueString="" />
<scraper name="archive.vg" replaceKeyString="" replaceValueString="" />
<scraper name="mobygames.com" replaceKeyString="" replaceValueString="" />
-
useEmuSolo
Solo mode means that RCB tries to quit XBMC before it launches the emulator -
usePopen
Popen is just another way to launch emulators from XBMC. If you have trouble with launching emulators from RCB it is worth to try if this option helps to solve your issues. -
allowUpdate
If set to "False" RCB won't update your already imported game descriptions. All additional files (e.g. screenshots) will be imported if not already in database. -
autoplayVideo
Automatically starts video playback while browsing the game list if a video is available for the selected game. Read this guide to learn how to add videos to your Rom Collection. -
autoplayVideoInfo
Automatically starts video playback when launching the info window if a video is available for the selected game. Read this guide to learn how to add videos to your Rom Collection. -
useFoldernameAsGamename
Pretty much as described -
maxFolderDepth
Default is 99. If you really have a game nested in more than 99 folders, Jay-Z is most likely the least of your problems. -
doNotExtractZipFiles
This is normally false, but if you wish, you can make this true so you keep zipped files inttact -
diskPrefix
I am not entirely sure what this is for. -
imagePlacingMain
With the image placing options you can select which image types are shown in which image controls. Note that not all RCB skins fully support image placing. Atm only the default Confluence skin has full image placing support. -
imagePlacingInfo
Same as above, but a secondary area to change the layout. -
scraper name
Here you can change the order of the scrapers or delete the ones already made. This mainly is for ordering, as you cannot just substitute a website name here.
RCB accepts many formats for emulators, as well as many launch flags and options. Below is how RetroRig currently has these setup:
Emulator in use: Stella
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.bin
Notes:
Emulator in use: Mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.lnx
Notes: Requires BIOS bios files, see Mednafen
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.gb
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.gbc
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.gba
Notes:
Emulator in use: MAME (Ubuntu build)
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.zip
Notes: Some games require BIOS files to be placed under RetroRig/ROMs/MAME
Emulator in use: MESS
Emulator parameters: neocdz -cdrom "%ROM%"
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.zip
Notes: Requires BIOS files be placed under RetroRig/BIOS/MESS
Emulator in use: MESS
Emulator parameters: neocdz -cdrom "%ROM%"
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.cue
Notes: Requires BIOS files be placed under RetroRig/BIOS/MESS
Emulator in use: mupen64plus
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .v64,.z64,*.zip, *.bin
Notes:
Emulator in use: Dolphin
Emulator parameters: -b -e "%ROM%"
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.iso
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.nes
Notes:
Emulator in use: Dolphin
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.iso
Notes:
Emulator in use: PPSSPP
Emulator parameters: --fullscreen --escape-exit "%ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.iso
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.cue
Notes: You must specify .toc or .cue (with .bin or .img) file, if you use .bin directly, it will recognize how genesis/megadrive rom. Requires BIOS bios files, see Mednafen
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.cue, *.iso
Notes: Requires BIOS bios files, see PCSX2 for more
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: zip,.smc
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.gg
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.sms
Notes:
Emulator in use: Gens GS
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.bin, *.32x
Notes:
Emulator in use: Gens GS
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: *.iso
Notes:
Emulator in use: Gens GS
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip,.bin
Notes:
Emulator in use: mednafen
Emulator parameters: %ROM%
Accepted formats for ROMs: .zip ,.PCE
Notes: