game list clean up

[sms2169]

along the lines of my ds map file question im having headaches with my gamecube, playstation, and wii files because they come in many different formats and styles . for instance with wii roms some come just in iso to extract and others come in a folder with say 26 rar files that I have to extract and then put all the isos on the main rom page because if I don't I have 26 selections for one game with zip, rar support and scan sub folders enabled and I never know the game im opening because of the abbreviation like ps-rezh. I have rom filter set also. like with the ds im going through all files and removing numbers and changing iso or gcm etc. abbreviations in the name, was just thinking there is an easier way to clean up the iso, bin gcm type files, thanks

[DazzleHP]

You should always extract roms that have multiple archives ie many .rar's etc to get the actual disc/image from it. Split archives like that are BAD news. And it would benefit you immensely to try and have all your disc images in one format, but understand that this is not always practical. In the case that you have multiple disc/image formats ie: .iso, .img, .gcm, you should add them to the ROM Filter in Emulator Setup, each separated by a semi-colon. Using the previous example you would enter this:

*.iso;*.img;*.gcm;

[sms2169]

I am going back through and setting rom filters but I notice every emulator that uses bios lists them in game ex game list how do I remove those thanks

[greatflash]

With gc and wii games, I tend to use dolphin to compress them and then delete the originals. This keeps everything the same format and also saves a little space (and is preferable to zip based compression for speed).

[Adultery]

Just highlight the bios while in the GameEx list and press the delete key to remove it from the list.

I also believe you can set your rom filter to *.* to show everything instead of having to add each filter.

[sms2169]

I have deleted most from the game ex list by pressing delete and also tried to put [bios* in the excluded files in the setup wizard and it did not remove them. do I need to enter that another way I was going by the example they showed

[DazzleHP]

I have deleted most from the game ex list by pressing delete and also tried to put [bios* in the excluded files in the setup wizard and it did not remove them. do I need to enter that another way I was going by the example they showed

Try two wildcards, like so:

*[bios*

With only the one wildcard as you had it, it will only exclude roms with [bios at the front of the filename. Using one either side should exclude all roms wherever it is present, no matter where in the filename.

[sms2169]

is this also how I can exclude various regions like [g] (j) or (eur) etc. thanks

[DazzleHP]

is this also how I can exclude various regions like [g] (j) or (eur) etc. thanks

That is correct

[sms2169]

okay so when I try to enter *[bios* or any variation of this it does not exclude this from my list but rather associates the game im trying to delete from the list with the game before or after it so im wondering if its a problem in game ex, but probably most likely me but I have tried to exclude bios and regions and the only way to do it is to delete which doesn't make it convenient when you want to exclude various regions

[DazzleHP]

You are separating each filter argument with a semi-colon right? IE:

*[bios*;*(eu*;*[proto*

etc. Also do not close the brackets either because it reduces the criteria by a significant amount, which is why i left them open in my example. I would explain wildcards in detail if it would help, but i'm hoping it "clicks" with you in the meantime

[sms2169]

yeah I was doing it right but still messes up game list even using delete option it says it deleted but doesn't disappear and deletes other games on the list

[uberpubert69]

Being someone with multiple systems installed, I've had to tidy things up on more than 1 occasion to get GameEx looking and working properly. For your Wii/GameCube games you should download a couple pieces of software called Wii Backup Manager: http://www.wiibackupmanager.co.uk/downloads.htmland google GCM utility. Wii Backup Manager can compress your Wii games to .wbfs format so all your Wii Games will be .wbfs. The GCM Utility allows you to shrink your GameCube ISOs, which usually changes the file type to .gcm. Apparently though you can just change your GC iso file type manually. For example rename Super Smash Bros Melee.iso to Super Smash Bros. Melee.gcm and it will work fine still. Having the bonus of shrinking your image is a plus though.

For your PS1, you should mount any ISO that isn't in bin/cue format manually using Daemon Tools Lite and then opening up something like IMGBurn and Rip your mounted .iso/.img/.mdf or whatever into a .bin format and delete your old image. This is something I actually need to do. My list for PS1 is a little whacky lookin from having bin/cue and cue files with img files as well, (my rom filter is *.cue;*.mds;*.img;*.iso;) so there are a couple duplicates in my list. Also look up Bulk Rename Utility to rename multiple files at once. I use it to get rid of release numbers at the beginning of my filenames.

As for your confusion with what you're left with after extracting your rom/iso from the multi-split RARs, you're just going to need to familiarize yourself with the filetypes of your games. multiple RAR files exist merely to piss people off and to apparently "save space" as it compresses the file inside it and splits it up into separate parts. I have over 30 systems installed onto my setup, with all different file types and formats. It can be overwhelming at first but once you get into this hobby it gets much easier as you go.

Your BIOS files don't need to be in the same directory as your ROMs/ISOs btw just make a separate folder for your bios and point your emulator to that folder.

Hope I've been of help!