July 04, 2004
Chankast Wrapper 2.0 Daemon Edition.

As the development of chankast progresses, it appears that some dc images only run with Daemon Tools. Since Daemon Tools uses command line options to mount images, I decided to make a special version of the wrapper just for it. Unlike the last wrapper, this one doesn't require you to have any of the games pre-mounted. All you need to have is daemon tools installed and one virtual device mounted.

Since running from a real cdrom is so similar, this version is also reccomended for people using real cds. I even added a special command line tag just for them. :)

p.s. Unlike the regular version almost all of the options are now passed via the command line... so PLEASE read the readme before you even think of starting.

Also the daemon edition and the regular edition can't co-exist, so use one or the other. :)

As usual, the wrapper page is on the right, go get em!

Posted by Howard at 04:13 AM
July 02, 2004
Oh Crap! We are in Trouble!

MAME .84 is out and brings with it tidings of baddness. The -listxml format has finally been perfected. That's all and good; I'm all for it. The problem is they removed the -listinfo tag! To you non-programmers out there 90% of all fes with any filtering what-so-ever are based around the -listinfo file that mame generates. Now they did include a utility, but there are catches to using it.... anyway.

How this effects you:

Dk now takes approx 2 minutes to generate a list with a lot of emus. Xml takes longer to generate and then it'll have ot be converted, taking this time up into the 15-20 minute range.

These converter utilites are often abandoned..... If this one is many fes might die in the transition. I'm sorry to say dk may be one of them. I know a little xml, but xml is very difficult to parse in vb because it has to be done manually. I really don't have the energy to do so. :(

My suggestion to you..... go to the message boards, contact the mame devs and POLITELY ask them to add the -listinfo option back into mame.


Update:

The mame devs did think ahead. Imho it's still a bad solution but it's better than nothing. You can pipe the converter through the exe making a seamless change (at least on the coding level) which hopefully means that the utility will stick around. I modified the exe accordingly and tested on my system. The new conversion that has to be done takes approx 2 minutes longer to perform. My machine is a xp 2600 with 512 megs of ram. If your machine is considerably slower, it will take that much longer to convert.

So it's not the end of the world afterall, but its frikkin annoying.

Expect two listgen links to your right before the night is out, one for pre .84 and one post .84.

Posted by Howard at 11:16 PM