Welcome!

Final Burn Neo => FBN Discussion => Topic started by: Whipon on January 14, 2023, 09:16:22 PM

Title: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 14, 2023, 09:16:22 PM
Greetings:

I have two custom arcade cabs with the RetroFE frontend.
I'm setting up the frontend to add FB Neo to the menu.
I managed to convert the FBNeo dat to XML so game names are shown instead of rom names.
However, the arcade games list has 7238 games.
So I want to filter them by genre.
RetroFE include txt files are just a list with the desired games rom names.

I couldn't find any info regarding how to create these lists.
For example with MAME I can do it with MAME XML Full List Generator.
I can't do it with FBNeo because it doesn't support -listxml.
So I don't know how to generate the XML files I need.

I found some lists through Google from 2020 that are currently outdated. More than 900 games avalaible in latest rom set are missing from them.

I'll really appreciate any info.

Have a nice week.

Whipon.
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 15, 2023, 06:08:41 PM
Hi,
You could use the latest windows ui version to generate the game lists, under the "Misc -> Generate Dat FileS"

best regards,
- dink
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 15, 2023, 06:43:50 PM
Hi,
You could use the latest windows ui version to generate the game lists, under the "Misc -> Generate Dat FileS"

best regards,
- dink

Hello, Dink.
Thanks a lot for your reply.

I already did that, but the resulting DAT file contains all the Arcade games without any genre info.
So I can't filter them.
I tried with both January 9 and January 15 X64 releases.
I didn't find any way to generate separated dat files by genre.

Regards ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 15, 2023, 08:10:48 PM
Could you link me a file which has genre info?  I need to see how it is supposed to look in order to possibly implement it.

best regards,
- dink
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 15, 2023, 08:30:54 PM
Excellent!.

I have attached 3 files, Fighter.xml and MAME.xml are both from MAME, first one are fighter games, second one has all MAME games.
FB Neo.xml is the FB Neo dat converted from dat to xml, with rom info nodes removed.

Regards ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 16, 2023, 01:11:11 AM
Could you link the mame file before it had been converted?
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 06:41:31 AM
Good morning.

I created those XMLs with Mame XML Full List Generator:

http://r0man0.free.fr/index.php/download-mame-xml-lists-and-generator/

It generates the files from MAME exe file.
I didn't modify those files, I just used them to generate the include txt game lists.

I tried to do something similar with FB Neo since you can filter the games by genre, manufacturer, etc, in the game selection menu.

Here's the web where I found the outdated lists:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/26761/fbneo-rom-filtering-vertical-genre-bootleg-demo-hack-etc

I attach a game include txt list for reference.

Have a great week ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 16, 2023, 09:27:44 AM
I'm comparing mame's -listxml with fbneo's arcade dat file, and neither of them have a genre tag, so there must be something else to this.  Hmm
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 09:42:41 AM
I'm comparing mame's -listxml with fbneo's arcade dat file, and neither of them have a genre tag, so there must be something else to this.  Hmm

Exactly, you can only generate xml files from Mame with Genre info with Mame Xml Full List Generator.

Since FBNeo already allows to choose games through genre in the game selection menu, maybe a xml file can be generated with that info?. Maybe there is a list in another format in the source files?.

Thanks in advance ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 16, 2023, 10:29:01 AM
Couldn't you use the fbneo dat file(s) with this MAME xml list generator app?
fbneo dat file are the xml files, they're just named .dat for historical reasons that I don't quite understand

best regards,
- dink
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 10:52:03 AM
Hello Dink.

The mentioned app can only be used with the Mame executable.

I can't use the Mame files directly because there are a lot of roms for FBNeo with different rom names. For example all the hacks not avalaible in Mame.
Those games are not mentioned in the Mame xml files.

Where does FBNeo get the genre info from the game select menu?. Any format will suffice, dat, xml, txt, xls...I just need to generate several txt files with the rom names under each category.

Thanks a lot for your assitance.

Regards ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: barbudreadmon on January 16, 2023, 11:09:05 AM
Afaik, people are using some tool called "catlist" when sorting romsets by genre. I can't give you details about it though since i never used it.
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 11:12:19 AM
Afaik, people are using some tool called "catlist" when sorting romsets by genre. I can't give you details about it though since i never used it.

Hello.

I will see if I can sort the games that way.

I was hoping a list in any format already existed, since you can sort the games through FBNeo menu.

Thanks a lot.
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: barbudreadmon on January 16, 2023, 11:31:14 AM
Afaik, there is no such thing as a genre tag in dat files. MAME doesn't have it either.
Most likely that tool you are using is internally using catlist.
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 11:41:40 AM
Thanks again, I will see what I can find.

Regards ;).
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on January 16, 2023, 08:40:40 PM
I've added the -listxml parameter to fbneo, in-case it might help.  you'll need the latest exe from here:
https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/tag/latest

best regards,
- dink
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: Whipon on January 16, 2023, 08:42:58 PM
Thank you very much, Dink ;).

I'll give it a try  :smilie:
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: geese howard on March 07, 2023, 11:01:01 AM
I've added the -listxml parameter to fbneo, in-case it might help.  you'll need the latest exe from here:
https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/tag/latest

best regards,
- dink

@dink, Which folder this xml is generated?
I cannot locate it...
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: dink on March 07, 2023, 08:51:22 PM
@dink, Which folder this xml is generated?
I cannot locate it...

it's outputted to stdout (an output pipe), so certain rom manager / frontends can get the arcade list directly from fbneo's exe
if you want it as a file, run this command:
fbneo -listxml > listxml.dat

and it'll output to the file listxml.dat

best regards,
- dink
Title: Re: I need help creating Arcade "gamelist.xml", filtering games by genre
Post by: geese howard on March 08, 2023, 08:22:58 AM
it's outputted to stdout (an output pipe), so certain rom manager / frontends can get the arcade list directly from fbneo's exe
if you want it as a file, run this command:
fbneo -listxml > listxml.dat

and it'll output to the file listxml.dat

best regards,
- dink

Thanks!!!