Emulator Front-End

[Tiree007]

Hey Guys,
I’m currently trying to create an easy to use, no hassle interface for my rom collection; making it painless to access my backups from a cd. How would I go about that? I honestly have no idea where to begin; I can manipulate the basic aspects of Autoplay quite well, but as for this, I’m completely and utterly clueless…

Thus far I’ve been able to get the Znes Emulator to launch, but not the individual roms. I don’t want to have to fool with the Emulator setup, instead having each rom load up separately at the click of a button.

[Corey]

Re: Emulator Front-End

Well I'm not sure I get your specific *question* bt I would start personally by opening up Photoshop and creating a GUI for your ROM. It might be fun to do some type of futuristic interface and maybe even have it as a transparent form so that the app is *shaped* like your GUI.

If you have a handle on the basics of AMS then you should have no problems planning your buttons and attaching the corresponding actions.

If the menu needs to be dynamic leave a space on your GUI for a list box which you can populate at runtime or whatever...

A few thoughts.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Tiree007]

Re: Emulator Front-End

I can get all the proper buttons down and the interface, but as for acutally executing the rom, I dont know how to do that. I dont know what command actions to use.

This is what I've done thus far:

I have a button with the rom name on it, under the actions
folder, I have File.Execute("%SrcDir%\DATA\RSO.11\Gundam Haz-duel.smc","",Continue)


I havent put anything in the command line argument or
working directory slot because I dont know what to put there.

When I try and test it, I get "Error Executing File. The System cannon find the specifed file" and I know for a fact that its
in the distribution folder along with the Emulator files...

[Corey]

Re: Emulator Front-End

I don't really know what you're talking about when you say "ROM" sounds like a gamer thing. I'm not a gamer. Tomorrow some gamer will come in here and help no doubt.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[kpsmith]

Re: Emulator Front-End

My guess is that you have to launch the ZNES emulator .exe with a command line switch indicating what rom you want loaded.

Check out the documentation that came with the emulator or the emulator website. Your looking for command line switches or command line options.

something like c:\znes.exe -L game.rom

Once you figure that out you simple use the file execute action in AMS to launch the .exe with the correct switch for the rom you want to load

[Stoutpuppy]

Re: Emulator Front-End

darn, i worked so hard on the exact same thing and everyone seems to know how, yea just keep emulator and roms in same place and execute emulator with command line arguement "-(ROMNAME).rom

like Zsnes -smfsmss.smc

[Stoutpuppy]

Re: Emulator Front-End

Sorry let me make that clearer. Put the emulator and the rom image in the same folder. Now only some emulators and capable of this but you use:

File.Execute ("FileDirectory\zsnes.exe" , "ct.smc" continue.

so thats the filedirectory and emulator, in this case zsnes.exe
and the rom is CT.smc in the same folder (Chrono Trigger). so the command line arguement is "ct.smc"

good luck i did the exact same good thing [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Lorne]

Re: Emulator Front-End

Tip: you might be able to get it to work with the emulator in a different folder if you set the Working Directory to the folder where the ROM is located.

And for the uninitiated blokes like Corey, a ROM is shorthand for the term "ROM image," referring to a file that is an image or snapshot of all the data inside a ROM (read only memory) cartridge, in this case a ROM cartridge that you would have plugged into a Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Although I've never used one, emulators like zsnes are widely used by people to enjoy their favorite console games on their PCs.