Extra System for SWP Games

Hello guys,

I wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction here?

I have been working on the emulation of SWP (skill with prizes) Games, which were extremely popular for many years especially in the UK's pubs, clubs and bars - if you're not familiar they are mainly quiz games, they were touchscreen but I have them working cleaning with a mouse. FYI - the machines that were mainly either windows XP for win 7 based/powered.

Currently I use a batch file to run the emulators, play the game then kill the emulator afterwards and now I just want to create a plug&play frontend, which course, I want that to be Retrobat and add to my already huge Retrobat collection.

I hope that all makes sense, so to be clear.... I'm looking to setup a new system on Retrobat (maybe called SWP machines) that runs in exactly the same way as Retrobat works with it windows games menu collect. (so I don't need to add any additional emulators)

Yep I know I could add these games to my windows /pc games collection but this seems extremely messy as I have 500+ in there already and these games are not PC windows games, they are totally different.

If anyone could point me in the right direction to learn how to achieve this then I would be extremely grateful to you.

I am also happy to share my work with the community once done (legal files only of course)

Keep retro gaming on!

Best wishes

Jay28

Hello

You can create an es_systems_customs, to simulate a new system.
https://retrobat.forumgaming.fr/t135-faq-retrobat-wip#4073
Them, you can create for the theme that you use, a new folder, with the name of your new system, to get something clean like if it was fully integrated to RetroBat 

PS : per curiosity, what is the name of the software ?

Hello,

Thank you getupor,

I want to apologise as I never thought the answer to this question would be in the faqs, although I did search for my answer both on here and google many times before posting .....

Anyway, I thank you for the link. I've only had a quick glance so far it sounds like exactly the info I need but also sounds like I need to take my time getting it right!

With regards to software, obviously the original game files from the machines, the executable files need to be set usually to Win xp compatibility, occasionally they need to be set up to win7 or even rarer, win vista and sometimes the compatibility also needs to be set to 640x480 screen res, once that's done...

Then the emulators are freeware either "itbox shell emulator" or/and "indie shell emulator", there's a few versions out there (hard to find) but I use the versions by "IS0-Mick".

If you are interested in getting involved, I'm happy to share copies of the freeware files - just drop me a PM or an email.

Thank you again for your help!

Jay.

A little update - this worked perfectly - thank you. I now have setup the 11 the most popular SWP games running perfectly with RB and will slowly work on setting up much more games soon

But now I need to learn to set up system profiles. Is there a guide anyway on how system logo's and other images are saved and how to do this? Please share any previous posts & info if so, I'm pretty smart but just new (on hacking) em station and new to using retrobat from a developers side...... I would appreciate any help or pointers to further info..... there so many files and dirs for me to explore within the em st/retrobat file structure, i would get there eventually but a short cut would be so much very appreciated.

Thanks in advance..... I will share my hard work with the community once done! (legal files only of course)

Retro on!

Jay.

While I haven't attempted to add any systems from scratch, I have had to make a lot of missing theme artwork. Open up your preferred theme and look to see if your theme has a matching system artwork for it. If not, you can make your own. I use the free art software Gimp. Same goes for logos.

Jay28 wrote:
But now I need to learn to set up system profiles. Is there a guide anyway on how system logo's and other images are saved and how to do this? Please share any previous posts & info if so, I'm pretty smart but just new (on hacking) em station and new to using retrobat from a developers side...... I would appreciate any help or pointers to further info..... there so many files and dirs for me to explore within the em st/retrobat file structure, i would get there eventually but a short cut would be so much very appreciated.

Hello

Glad to see you succeed.
Concerning your request, what are you looking for exactly ? To add picture on your new system ? > (in this case it's theme relevant).
Or add medias on the games that are part of your new system ? > for this, you got to use a xml file called "gamelist.xml". You can see the form by downloading a free game on the downloader.
You can also see this

Hi Guys,

I thank you for your interest in this project and hope you enjoy it once complete.

I created this video to try to explain a bit more, hoping it explains it much better and also answers all your questions:-

https://screenrec.com/share/oSJbmL7f2B

Any comment, pointers or help would be very much apricated.

All the best

Jay28

A little update and thanks!

https://screenrec.com/share/OCNMeqVUHo

The Mission is (almost) complete - I thank everyone that helped in pointing me in that right direction! You help was much appreciated..... As we say in the UK and which is totally applicable to this particular build..... CHEERS!

https://screenrec.com/share/yw6TuPQvFS

Still need a tester?

Hello
I got my swp's to work by:

creating a batch file that runs each game eg "1 vs 100.bat"
putting the game files, the batch file and the appropriate emulator (inde_sim/itbox emu/platform emulator) all in a game folder eg "1 vs 100"
putting that folder in a folder roms\windows_pubquiz
creating a shortcut to the batch file in the roms\windows folder

Only problem with shortcuts is they use the absolute path rather than relative, so not fully portable

Still working on the artwork!

I had 87 titles to share if anyone wants to msg me

R