Your opinion on my possible new project...

صفحة 1/2
| 2

بواسطة cesco

Champion (453)

صورة cesco

27-06-2008, 12:46

I'd like to make an application that could be similar to what GAMEBASE is. GAMEBASE64 is a wonderful application that displays informations, screenshots and many other things about (almost) any game published for the Commodore 64; you can also hear the music for a lot of games listed, and play the actual game if you have an emulator and a copy of it in your hard disk.

It's since no less than 4 years that I dream of making a similar tool for the MSX... I was thinking about adapting OpenMSX Peashooter, making it multiplatform (so Windows, Mac OS X and Linux would be supported) and with some new features, like for example the ability of playing music, searching games, and showing small videos.

I don't want to compete with Generation-MSX or MSX-Files... my final goal is to create a convenient application where you can browse a big off-line database that could be store as much information as possible about the MSX Games ever appeared on the platform.
The database used by the application will be based on SQLite and XML, so anybody could develop his personal application or his very own website with the information about those games

So, the question essentially is this:

Which name do you like best?

MSXBASE

Or

MSXPEDIA

?

Login أوregister لوضع تعليقاتك

بواسطة wolf_

Ambassador_ (10088)

صورة wolf_

27-06-2008, 12:55

How about Generation MSX for a name? :P

Seriously tho: genmsx is rather complete, but it's online, which would be the main difference with your plans if I understood corrctly. I don't know whether you'd want to create your own database and thus more or less reinvent the wheel again, or whether you can 'sync' to genmsx and update your offline database.

بواسطة cesco

Champion (453)

صورة cesco

27-06-2008, 13:09

Generation MSX is a really good website... I have visited it so many times, and (shame on me) sometimes I have even copied descriptions from some games, but IMHO it still lacks a final touch...

when I browse generation-msx and I find a game that I like, I'd really love to be able to play it. This is naturally not possible at the moment, for technical and copyright reasons.

Actually it is possible to launch an application from a website. Wouldn't it be lovely if generation-msx could launch openmsx and tell the emulator to run that particular game ?

This is actually possible... using HASH CODES, that allows an application to recognize the proper game... however, both Generation-MSX and OpenMSX should have a built-in database with some thousand of HASH Codes linked to each MSX Game... and of course somebody should convince Manuel and the other guys to support this function Wink

This is one of the purposes of MSXBASE/MSXPEDIA/WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT Smile

You could see a page with the description of a MSX game, push the "PLAY IT" button, and then the website could invoke OpenMSX and ask to load the file with that particular HASH code; for the homebrew games and for the abandonware you could even download the binary file to the user hard drive and then launch OpenMSX in order to run it.

This would be totally awesome IMHO.

بواسطة Tanni

Hero (556)

صورة Tanni

27-06-2008, 13:12

MSXGameBase?

بواسطة cesco

Champion (453)

صورة cesco

27-06-2008, 13:21

You could invoke OpenMSX (or BlueMSX, or any other emulator) with a simple command like:

openmsx -run a1e14912d45944b9a6baef1d4d3a04c1ae8df923

And OpenMSX would know that you'd like to play "RIVER RAID". It would know this, because it could have an internal database with a list of thousand of games -each one stored with one or more unique codes-... and reading that database, OpenMSX would also know how to run it (as a disk, tape or ROM image) and which machine configuration it should use.

If, for some reason, you don't like to pass a long alphanumeric code, instead you could pass a shorter alias for the game... for example:

openmsx -run "river raid"

And OpenMSX could try to guess which game you want to play (exactly what is already doing the emulator MAME)

Terrific, IMHO. And it would save a lot of time because in OpenMSX you won't have to type something like:

<CTRL+L>
Machine Philips_VG_8020
carta /users/cesco/documents/msx/games/3D\ Golf\ Simulation\ (High-Speed)\ (1984)\ (J).rom
reset

But you could just write:

<CTRL+L>
run "3d golf"

And OpenMSX would be able to fetch that ROM by guessing its probable name, even if the file is called "T&E Software presents 3D Golf Simulation - This is the High-speed version (1984) (J).rom" or even if you don't know exactly the name of the game. OpenMSX would know that the game have to be loaded as a ROM image and that it wouldn't work with the default C-Bios, and that it would need to run it with another MSX1 machine configuration. So many information with just a single string.

But to be able to do this kind of things you need to develop some specific functions AND you need a proper database... and that database is exactly what I'm dreaming about Smile

بواسطة Manuel

Ascended (19273)

صورة Manuel

27-06-2008, 13:36

cesco: there are already plans to link the data of Generation MSX and the software database which is in openMSX (and blueMSX). It's not a matter of convincing. It's just work, and apparently we chose to do other things first.

Please do not start a completely separate project again. If you can help GenMSX and us, it would be a lot easier for everone!

بواسطة cesco

Champion (453)

صورة cesco

27-06-2008, 13:44

cesco: there are already plans to link the data of Generation MSX and the software database which is in openMSX (and blueMSX). It's not a matter of convincing. It's just work, and apparently we chose to do other things first.

Please do not start a completely separate project again. If you can help GenMSX and us, it would be a lot easier for everone!

Ah, ok... do you already have some information about the structure of these database ? Maybe I could help you by collecting the HASH codes from the games and the applications that I have at home.

بواسطة SLotman

Paragon (1242)

صورة SLotman

27-06-2008, 14:11

I would just love a site like "world of spectrum" for MSX, where you could have a database just like on Generation MSX, with every game, with screenshots, cover scans, magazine reviews, musics, and also could play it online.

Unfortunaly there are copyright issues, the only "online" emulator is the MSX Java Emulator, which only emulates MSX1 and with no sound... and the source (de-compiled from the classes) is outdated and don´t compile on newer Java SDKs... Sad

بواسطة ro

Scribe (4902)

صورة ro

27-06-2008, 14:35

IMDB
(International MSX DataBase)

I'm having similar plans concerning the MSX (demo) Scene. It's been on my list for years. already claimed msxscene.com Smile
(which is not connected atm)
BUT, I'm lazy.. haha, neh. Short of time.....

بواسطة wolf_

Ambassador_ (10088)

صورة wolf_

27-06-2008, 14:54

ro: MRC has a similar plan laying around for years already, heck, it was the primary reason why I joint MRC back then..

بواسطة Manuel

Ascended (19273)

صورة Manuel

27-06-2008, 22:04

cesco: the hash codes are mostly in the software database. At least, for ROM games. IIRC, in blueMSX there's also a database with sha1sums for disk games. (Problem is that there can be a lot of variation, e.g. due to savegames.)

صفحة 1/2
| 2