Another Low Lines Poll XD

[Low Lines]

Thought it might be semi appropriate to do a poll since the last one was Closed before being finished. Also this poll may be straying a little bit from the thread name, but this place is still my projects home so yeah

This time I'm asking people what should be the next emulation compatibility addition to my Resource project?
Gamecube? PS2 or N64 (might be annoying)?

Keeping in mind I am a single person of course but I enjoy doing this stuff and given the free time, I WILL do it no prob, though I'd be relying on the people of the forums and maybe I could even seek permission to extract information from offical compatibility lists to be used in my one? Cos all I am doing is getting data and reworking it into another form, possibly to make it easier on others.

Any further feedback would be appriciated and also, do not expect anything like this to happen in the near future as yes I am behind with updating my list but not by much and I do have homework and other things to do for another 6-7 weeks.

But then I have 9 weeks of holidays, so having a poll now would probably be good provided I can get a decent number of participants.

Also in the case that I do get round to it, the will be slight redesigns of the database (most likely just color schemes and custom options) to suit whichever emulation I choose to be as my next compat continuation Images will be of the same size parameters, but simply scaled to fit.

ALSO PROGRESS UPDATE
It may seem odd to be saying this, but I am still working on improving the functionality of my compat database. Though I have not done any major improvements thus so far.....NONE OF THESE UPDATES ARE ON THE PUBLIC VERSION

- I have perfected my scrollbar 100% as there were some bugs in it that probably no one took notice of but I knew they were there
- People have complained about me using Flash 8 instead of downgrading it to Flash 7 for compatibility issues, well after a bit of meddling I may have some other ways of doing that so a more universally compatible database might become possible when I get the time to work on it

Updates I'll be working on getting happening during the holidays....
- More search options, better functionality
- Fix preloader errors that occur
- Add the capability of saving your settings (using SharedObjects) allowing you to view the list in the custom layout you may have chosen (ie the next time you load up the web page all previous settings will still be there, very nifty trust me )
- Possible work on a downloadable version, though I haven't done any sort of "check for update" thing for something such as an automatic updater to save checking the site, but i only have room to learn
- Plus any other things I come up with to make it the best it can be

Also I am fortunate enough to be ridding myself of lousy dialup and getting a decent connection meaning I'll be able to upload all those LOVELY large boxart covers for all you people to see and take if you wish (as I stole them from other people so it gives me no right to prevent you from stealing them from me lol XD) as I have more than 85% of all covers in 450x405 pixels all have been personally edited carefully by myself ridding of those icky edges and such you get with public boxarts.
The only thing that would stop me is if I have an FTP quota or something and if it comes to that I can always get a photobucket account but keeping things all together is my own preference.

 

[Cyberman]

PS2
Ahem... silly interjection I recomend when you are testing your FLASH apps to check the CPU usage and see if it spikes. I've noticed several flash proggies are abusive to the computers CPU usage (Netflix on Yahoo eats up 50% of my CPU time... GRRR makes my videos stutter when I'm playing them.)

Cyb

 

[Agozer]

Chankast. Just because. And NullDC when/if it gets out.

 

[zaba_3]

Chankast. Just because. And NullDC when/if it gets out.

ehh chankast isnt console is it?=]

my vote goes for gamecube

 

[Doomulation]

- People have complained about me using Flash 8 instead of downgrading it to Flash 7 for compatibility issues, well after a bit of meddling I may have some other ways of doing that so a more universally compatible database might become possible when I get the time to work on it

Then those people will have to UPGRADE. Is it that hard, really? Flash (player) is FREE. Seriously, what's wrong with them? You don't have to listen to them.
On a side note, Flash is seriously a bad multimedia program. It eats CPU like heck for NOTHING.

 

[spotanjo3]

my vote goes for gamecube, PS2 and NullDC.

 

[Toasty]

Another vote for PS2 or if not that, Gamecube.

 

[Cyberman]

Then those people will have to UPGRADE. Is it that hard, really? Flash (player) is FREE. Seriously, what's wrong with them? You don't have to listen to them.
On a side note, Flash is seriously a bad multimedia program. It eats CPU like heck for NOTHING.

Hmmm how to describe the problem...
Flash 8 is only available for 1 platform. That descibes the problem pretty well. So some people can't upgrade. That's what's wrong with them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation Instructions


1. Click the "Download Now" button. A dialog box will appear asking you where to save the Installer.
2. Save the Installer to your desktop and wait for the file to download completely.
3. Unpackage the file. A directory called install_flash_player_7_linux will be created.
4. Navigate to this directory and from the command line type ./flashplayer-installer to run the installer (Note: this can only be run from the command line). The installer will instruct you to shut down your browser(s).
5. Once the installation is complete, the plug-in will be installed in your Mozilla browser. To verify, launch Mozilla and choose Help > About Plug-ins from the browser menu.
Get answers about Adobe Flash Player privacy practices, licensing, Macromedia Flash content development, and more in our list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
For more information on Adobe Flash Player and privacy, please read about Adobe Flash Player privacy settings and the Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager , or view the Macromedia privacy policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you can see the only version is 7 for linux

Cyb

 

[Doomulation]

I see... well, I extend that to Windows as there probably is windows whiners out there. And there really are better alternatives than flash for a database, no?

 

[spotanjo3]

Umm..it is off the point, isn't it ? Get back to the vote!

 

[Urameshi Yusuke]

ps2 for sure

but are you going to add every ps2/gamecube game to the database? ho ho ho that's a lot of work... you should stick to n64 first since it has less games

 

[Cyberman]

Java and XML maybe?
He's using Flash because he's familiar with it.
After Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia. I suspect it's doomed <pun intended> as a web standard (flash that is).

As for flash it'self that's a thing I debated with ol LL himself heh. It's not a big deal honestly.

PS2 definately

Cyb

 

[Low Lines]

PS2
Ahem... silly interjection I recomend when you are testing your FLASH apps to check the CPU usage and see if it spikes. I've noticed several flash proggies are abusive to the computers CPU usage (Netflix on Yahoo eats up 50% of my CPU time... GRRR makes my videos stutter when I'm playing them.)

Cyb

Hmm you forget that I designed my flash project whilst having Dial Up and I am very aware of the well known complaint that flash chokes the CPU and connection speed but that is normally due to the number of objects placed on the scene and especially bad when you have things such as loop functions running continously. Say for instance my last flash game project I made tile game that involved a player, enemy, item and wall object that all interacted with each other, and the wall detection used a continual loop function to detect each and every wall tile one after the other to see if it touches them as there is no real easy way to tell two different movieclips stuff about one another when they are generated through code. This probably sounds really stupid to coders, but it was quite okay with about 20-30 tiles on the scene (2.83 GHz CPU btw) and I was running low on time to write up a code that could do it without killing the CPU.....as Normmatt found out....poor thing XD It was also a tile/map editor too, if anyone was curious.......Also I wouldn't lose marks for slow code as the actual requirements were to design a puzzle and a moving character game

But with this flash the ONLY thing that should spark the CPU is the generation of the list, and this depends on how many records/items it has to parse. This is used ONLY when you either load a list (XML file) or you hit the reset button. Searching is pretty fast from what I can see XD

The flash itself is just a skeleton that holds the data, so therefor it uses the bare minimum in crap that takes it to load....Hmm where are some stats......

okay atm the flash file is 109KB, that's no imported crap, just code and vector images.....but that I'll admit could be reduced if I went over my code cut out chunks of stuff I probably don't need....Like such, a particular function may be used in multiple instances but differs slightly depending on the situation and instead of having two separate functions, I can fuse them together so the single function can act out multiple operations, but my first goal was to do what Cyb said and to make sure it works properly (which in some cases it still doesn't)
plus as my teacher has told me, it's much easier to keep your code all in the one place, (atm about 500-600 lines in the main frame and about 200 elsewhere). but again this is my project and like cyberman said, I do it cos I am familiar with it and the thing is if people believe there are much better ways to do it, then how come nobody has yet done one? (take what you are given, and don't ask for more XD) but I plan on starting another language over my Xmas holidays (perhaps) as it seems next year they'll actually have proper programming classes for yr12 (so excited).

also the data files (XML) are getting close to 100 KB by now with about 600-700 games in the database......most of the stuff (provided you keep some of your tempory internet files) almost never changes so loading in a browser should always be faster the second time you visit. But what I figured I can do is instead of having xml data stored like this.....

<game>
<serial>AHBE</serial>
<status>graphic errors</status>
<playability>2</playability>
<name>4 In 1 - Monopoly, Boggle, Yatzee & Battleship (U)</name>
</game>

I can put it all together.....

<game>AHBE;graphic errors;2;4 In 1 - Monopoly, Boggle, Yatzee & Battleship (U)</game>

And do up a visual interface to change them Plus the alternative is separating all the games into separate files, and if it came to that I'd be writing them using a loop function that would generate the files for me, loop functions work wonders, i did one to download Pokemon Diamond/Pearl sprites, as there were about 1000 of them

Java and XML maybe?
He's using Flash because he's familiar with it.
After Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia. I suspect it's doomed <pun intended> as a web standard (flash that is).

As for flash it'self that's a thing I debated with ol LL himself heh. It's not a big deal honestly.

PS2 definately

Cyb

Screw Adobe.....just like Microsoft and RARE *cries*.....


*CHECKS VOTES*

Hmm NGC and PS2.... I won't vote but I was gonna go for Gamecube cos I am a Nintendo fan and I've played more gamecube games, plus I sorta got the idea from seeing Gekko back at work *blushes* XD

Hey what would I be putting for file size for DVD/CD games :s Maybe just exclude that field all together? and perhaps CRC too? Feedback please would be helpful on this

Keep it up people, and your feedback is most appriciated, good or bad.

 

[Cyberman]

Use the S--- number Sony gives the games.
There are no CRC's or MD5's for Ps2 games unless you want to consider ISO images of DVD's, howsumever those AREN'T dumps


Cyb

 

[Low Lines]

Use the S--- number Sony gives the games.
There are no CRC's or MD5's for Ps2 games unless you want to consider ISO images of DVD's, howsumever those AREN'T dumps


Cyb

Hey I'm cool with that.....means less work I think for a start though I'd probably construct my own list based on say the PCSX2 Compat stuff and from then on people could maybe PM me stuff on games not on the list or something Aren't I gonna have a fun filled holidays XD (not sarcasm) just I've only gotten up to the Pirates of the Caribbean world on KH2 in 11 hours on Normal Mode My 9 year old bro did it in 10 on easy mode but I also take away points since he watched me play and didn't have to stuff around trying to work out where he was going X(

How many PS2 games are there anyways, if we were to treat different regions of certain games as the same game....I figured it would be better doing lists for those consoles as they will soon stop making new games for them, thus there would be no need for list updating, just changing compatibility status

[EDIT]

Okay not sounding like I ain't doing my homework and working on my hobbies but I've been looking into PS2 and NGC a little bit just to see how easy it's going to be to do them.

PS2 has a shitload of games....there's no question on that (ToTheGame had 1500+ which is combined US & PAL) but I found a page with definite SERIALS which looks pretty reliable. (has PAL, NTSC, U/C)

GAMECUBE on the other hand has probably half as many games, but getting IDs on them will be a bit harder as the only real source I have on that is CKEMU's compat list for Dolphin. (which only has about 1/2 of them) And nFos on ISO dumps, which are again, don't cover all of them (I could always sneak into shops and write down IDs too LOL)

Though there won't be much difficulty doing the database with missing information, it's still easier if you use a numbering system that is already in place, otherwords it's easier to look for "AMCE" than "Mario Kart DS" which could be incorrectly typed or whatever
And alternative, is that I order them originally as they were released and then, have an auto number generator to ID them.

btw, this may be a bit silly but the day my poll ends is my birthday XD though I wish I could get some more voters Boxarts won't be hard to find either as I already have a few reliable sites with good quality images.

[EDIT 2]

Right I found some other sites with Gamecube Serial IDS, though still not complete ones

 

[Cyberman]

Warning PAL NTSC and ASian games have different serial numbers for a REASON. They ARE different. Sometimes significantly.

Some PAL versions of games run better than NTSC and visa versa.
Just use the Serial number, don't try combining them (each version has a different one).

Cyb

 

[Low Lines]

Warning PAL NTSC and ASian games have different serial numbers for a REASON. They ARE different. Sometimes significantly.

Some PAL versions of games run better than NTSC and visa versa.
Just use the Serial number, don't try combining them (each version has a different one).

Cyb

Cyberman got confused XD

ToTheGame lists their database according to whether a game is different as in game not region.....aka Say Kingdom Hearts 2, the US & PAL would be one record with information on both. (that's where the 1500+ figure came from)

Why do company's try to be so different from each other? *sigh*
The serial list I am looking at the moment hasn't been updated since mid September (but that's not too bad) and the most annoying thing about Sony's serial ids is that they are for the actual packaged product, not actual game ID

example:

SLPM-65060
Biohazard Gun Survivor 2 - CODE - Veronica

SLPM-65059
Biohazard Gun Survivor 2 - CODE - Veronica + Light Gun

So what I think I'll do for games like these is fuse them together instead of having separate games, cos I mean things like Limited Edition and Bundle Pack differences does not make them different games when it comes to playing them. Just means you've wasted more money on them

[EDIT]

Here's some more info....

By the looks of things, Sony numbers their games in sets/chunks, as in numbers between say 20000-21500 are US games with the SLUS id. And they do them in batches, as in for the first 1000 is all Japanese, the next 1000 USA, etc. Ulitmately this means there can be shitloads of games (up to 99999) worldwide, but obviously consoles die before ever getting that far.....still I wish they'd stick to the 4 digit id system that Nintendo uses, where the 1st specifies the console (ie "G" for gamecube, "A" for NDS) the 2nd & 3rd digits are the game's personal ID and the 4th digit being the region identifier (ie "E" USA, "P" Europe", "J" Japan)

Gosh I wonder what brilliant way Xbox games are ID as......

[EDIT 2]

Okay scratch that assumption......I didn't have my sorting function working properly, and now that I fixed it, there's no batch thing or nothing......makes it annoying cos I can't really shorten the serial in any way....oh well, atm I am just constructing an XML list of games (Serial & Title) for PS2, and I shall do one for NGC later, and depending on how things go I'll start working on them during my holidays, starting with which ever ones has more votes by then.

[EDIT 3]

3350 Japanese PS2 Games
1500+ USA PS2 Games
1200+ PAL PS2 Games

Also, the list takes longer to load/reset once you are into the 1000s, on slower computer (less RAM) it may freeze, but I can write up the data into XML and with that I can parse it into any format later on (ie PHP, etc)

 

[Low Lines]

Here's a quick question for people......How are the sizes of these images?
They are of PS2 but since NGC games also use DVD cases a NGC cover should be the same size as these.

Thumbnail Cover
Firstly we have the thumnail image that would be displayed in the layout view of the database (140x200).

Large Cover
And second the large cover image (350x500). Now I am guessing that must be small to some of you, but I think that's reasonable considering NDS large box covers are 450x405. But I don't think getting the biggest image possible would be any good because there's not doubt gonna be quite a few games (of roughly 5000) that won't have high quality scans.

The PS2 database would take several months (maybe 1 month for writing up the information on games and a couple of months for cover images), but I figured if it gets done anyway, it will be one of the most detailed lists on the net

I am considering a fair few changes in the way I do things atm but won't start anything until the school year is over. At current, it takes about 1-2 hours to write in 100 games using a quick form interface I wrote up in Javascript (generates a game in xml format in a display textbox). And most likely I'll be doing it in chunks at a time (ie A-B games today, X-Z games tomorrow). Also I think I might redo my main page as HTML/PHP as my news formatting sucks and perhaps updating a PHP version might be way easier

Also the lack of updates for the NDS list doesn't mean I ain't doing them, I update the databases immidiately when a new rom comes out, but I haven't even had a chance to glance at any new compatibility testing so I saw no point in updating the list on the site (which kind of sucks cos I am getting 20-55 unique hits a day).

I would ask for some help with writing up the initial database, but atm I am using about 3 different websites (US Playstion, Jap Playstation, and some site that has Pal games) and it's a real fiddly arse thing, which I personally don't mind doing. Plus I am so used to doing such things, that I make next to no errors (especially since it is practically cut & paste atm).

From now on I shall try to pretend to be gone so it can be assumed I am doing what I should be doing at such a point in time. And get back to my delightful hobby in 4-5 weeks.

If I am seen any sooner it would mean that Yoshi's Island 2 came out on the NDS!! LOL XD

 

[Low Lines]

Hmm okays....Gamecube shall be done first then ^_^

which is good cos 7500 games is a bit much for me right now

I shall start work on it this coming Wednesday after my last exam is over!!

 

[Cyberman]

I have this feeling you are just procrastinating! 7500 games is nothing...
When I was young we walked bare foot for 600 miles in fields of volcanic glass, and we liked it!
(evil laughter belongs here)

<sniff> I agree the game thingy will be easier to obtain.
Did you know there are a lot of crappy games out there?

Cyb