DemoBaseST

Post by **SkylineDave** » Wed May 31, 2006 8:14 am

I remember a brief conversation on a thread (which I have been unable to locate) about the possible use of GameBase to select demoscreens. I had an hour free the other day so I thought I'd have a crack at it - and here is the result!

It uses STeem memory captures, ZIPped up (pleasantly surprised they're still only 100-200k in size) and upon launching a screen, it starts within one second delay (from what would have been the loading screen).

I've taken screenshots from different points of each screen to show what goes on in the demo, and also the crew who made the demo (eg. Carebears) and from which megademo the screen is (eg. Cuddly Demos). Obviously I could go on to include music, year of release, etc.

Although this is obviously a gargantuan project I think it's something that I'd be interested in doing (on and off).

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

unseenmenace · Post by **unseenmenace** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:23 am

Great idea and looking good so far m8

Post by **Mug UK** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:25 am

And a good way of including the hidden screens

aktiv8 · Post by **aktiv8** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:30 am

Excellent stuff... An absolutely great idea - wish Id thought of it lol

I agree too, it certianly is a good way to see the hidden screens especially those most of us wil lhave forgotten about!

Post by **Mug UK** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:50 am

There were a few hidden screens which were only available if you hacked the demo itself.

Use the Demo Breakers by The Avengers (on my site) to get at them all.

Post by **ggn** » Wed May 31, 2006 3:16 pm

That's a nice idea, but one request: PLEASE don't use the gamebase frontend. Pretty please? Personally I find it pretty naff and uninspiring.

I took a look recently at Lemonade (http://www.lemonamiga.com/), which is a frontend for amiga games. The interface looks much better than the (very boring imho) gamebase frontend.

I would appreciate a nice custom front-end.

aktiv8 · Post by **aktiv8** » Wed May 31, 2006 3:23 pm

ggn wrote:I took a look recently at Lemonade (http://www.lemonamiga.com/), which is a frontend for amiga games. The interface looks much better than the (very boring imho) gamebase frontend.

I would appreciate a nice custom front-end.

That is a very nice frontend - I agree a redesign of gamebase's front end would be most welcome

Certianly the tabs are easy to create in various "visual" languages since as Visual C++ or Delphi to name but two, so why not go down this route. Shouldn't I trust take too much of a code rewrite

Post by **lotek_style** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 3:44 pm

Very nice idea...

you can raid my archives:

http://no-fragments.atari.org/

I'd also like to see: DemocrewBaseST

Post by **SkylineDave** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:41 pm

ok point taken about the GB front end.

ive thought about knocking something more interesting up using VB, which can communicate with an Access/Excel DB. will have a further play...

Post by **SkylineDave** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:43 pm

lotek_style wrote:Very nice idea...

you can raid my archives:

http://no-fragments.atari.org/

HOW many demos????

Pugsy · Post by **Pugsy** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:57 pm

GameBase64 Team Member Hat on...

ggn wrote:That's a nice idea, but one request: PLEASE don't use the gamebase frontend. Pretty please? Personally I find it pretty naff and uninspiring.

I took a look recently at Lemonade (http://www.lemonamiga.com/), which is a frontend for amiga games. The interface looks much better than the (very boring imho) gamebase frontend.

I would appreciate a nice custom front-end.

Well I personally don't find it naff and uninspiring at all, it hasn't been updated for a while granted and you may consider it a bit 'staid' because of that. But there are several things that gamebase does that no other frontend can do, it's search/custom views are second to none, the GEMUS scripts means that the frontend can be used with virtually any emulator with no need to make massive changes to the frontend source - so the person making the database can fix it themselves. It's fairly easy for people to make new databases for (though granted a lot of work to test/find and enter all the info for lots of games) - see GBST and GBAmiga ( http://gbamiga.elowar.com - 4500 games ). Oh and it's also opensource so if you don't like the look of it you are always welcome to modfy the source to change the way it looks.

Lemonade is as far as I'm aware an Amiga only frontend (just winUAE in fact), it's currently in beta and because of various problems it is only able to run about 1600 games (a third of what GBAmiga runs). It's also closely tied to the Lemon website so you are not even able to add new games to the database yourself (so a none starter for anything else). Oh and it's closed source....but hey it looks nice!

Oh but wait but you actually want a completely new custom frontend, maybe somebody has a spare several hundred hours that they can devote to this project you'd have ggn's appreciation at least.

Perhaps gcn could download the gamebase source and tart up the user interface himselft so it looks colourful and inspiring? Here's the link to the gamebase source, I look forward to seeing his enhancements....don't think I'm going to risk holding my breath though if you don't mind.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gamebase/

Cyrano Jones · Post by **Cyrano Jones** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:06 pm

Someone is a little touchy... take a chill pill dude.

Post by **SkylineDave** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:42 am

thanks for your reply Pugsy. I'd rather do the lot using GB so I can concentrate on actually filling it with demos and not writing a new frontend. Not sure where you got the hundreds of hours from though - I'm part way through a brand new front end using VB4 already - a mere 3 hours later. All it requires is simple database access, sortable columns, and a launcher for the emulator. Job done

Cyrano Jones · Post by **Cyrano Jones** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:55 am

There's a thread somewhere about memory snapshots not working if transfered to another machine. You might want to check that....

*EDIT*
Actually, I think that post was deleted along with the entire thread it was in... oh well.

RetroGamerUK · Post by **RetroGamerUK** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 8:19 am

I remember that one CJ, as I recall the actual original point raised by someone was that memory snapshots from Steem "probably" would not work with future versions of Steem...
It is indeed worth considering, but the worst that could happen is that DBST has to be used only with one version of Steem....

Post by **SkylineDave** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:06 am

thread was deleted... ah that explains why i cant find it

attached is a single memory snapshot - can someone try it to see if it works?

EDIT: hmmm im trying to find a way to disable that 'this disk was in the drive at the time' warning. the handful of snapshots ive tried so far work ok still (ive renamed the original .MSA file so the memory snapshot couldnt refer to it)

as you say Retro, sticking to STeem 3.2 isnt a problem at all - IIRC, GBST comes bundled 3.1 and 3.2 anyway.
i'm also including Introscreens, Main Menus, Reset Demos and Hidden Demos too

oh, just out of interest, here are the stats so far:

55 demoscreens
6 megademos
115 screenshots

watch out gamebaseST!

EDIT: attachment removed, please see next post!

Post by **SkylineDave** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:50 am

ok im going to start reloading the memory captures and removing the disk from the virtual drive for each one. can someone please check these two screens to see if they work ok.

RetroGamerUK · Post by **RetroGamerUK** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:53 pm

They worked ok for me, all it asked for was the location of TOS 1.04.img as I was using Steem and not any frontend....

Post by **SkylineDave** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:15 am

wahey superb! i can continue then. if for some reason they fail to work on someone's machine then please let me know. we're close to 100 demoscreens now

Post by **Goldrunner** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:45 am

Well, Dave, while I have been busy you have have also been busy and its great to see a demo database taking shape. Well done mate

As for people not liking the GBST and DBST frontends thats your opinion and your entitled to it, many do like it and use it on a daily basis. In anycase I'm hoping frontend is going to be replaced with a custom one soon but it won't look like Lemonade (Amiga only, BTW).

Post by **SkylineDave** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:50 am

Hi Paul!!!! Great to see you back. Hope all's well with you and your family.
Thanks for the compliment - I just felt like going for it and here it is - I'll try and release what I've done so far so people can get the feel for it. I'm just hoping the memory snapshot facility works OK for everyone.
Front-end-wise, I'd like to develop a custom one later on but for now GB will do. I can easily use the same database and screenshots, and I've already mocked up an interface which launches the memory snapshots successfully with STeem.

Post by **Goldrunner** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:15 am

I would love to help more but have to many things going on at the moment. Besides I know next to nothing about ST demos so will look forward to seeing them in Demobase. If anyone can make it work you can since I know you have the energy and commitment from working with you

Post by **SkylineDave** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:32 am

im going to continue with DBST updates in the "GameBaseST & DemoBaseST" section of the forum

Post by **lotek_style** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:08 pm

[quote="SkylineDave"][quote="lotek_style"]Very nice idea...

you can raid my archives:

http://no-fragments.atari.org/

[/quote]

HOW many demos????[/quote]

It's over 900 diskimages on this version... but there will be an update that will reach 1000... Almost all ST demos are on there.

Post by **Mug UK** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:24 pm

Skyline .. thanks to Lotek's supply of the CDs from his collection that I was missing, I've got all the No Fragments and all the Fading Twilights (well, I think I've got 100% of F.T's) so if you don't want to download them all, drop me a line.