Convert your Gamebase64 C64 ROM files to Emulationstation (RetroPie & Recalbox) format

Monday, January 4th, 2016 | Dennis D. Spreen | Raspberry, Retro

I’ve written a small bash script which extracts the VERSION.NFO informations from your Gamebase64 C64 ROM collection and converts them to the Emulationstation (e.g. RetroPie and Recalbox) compatible gamelist.xml format.

This is a linux script. Don’t try to run it on Windows!

This script is based on the Gamebase64 v14 release.

1. Put the Gamebase C64 ROMs (incl. subdirectories) in the appropriate rom folder (this tutorial is done with a RetroPie installation), copy the contents (incl. subdirectories) of the Gamebase64\Screenshots folder into ~/.emulationstation/downloaded_images/c64/, then open a shell and verify roms & screenshots folders:

2. Download & run the script

3. Reboot if finished (~2 hrs)

Emulationstation parses the gamelist.xml in this ROM folder OR in the ~/.emulationstation/gamelist/c64/ folder! Be sure to have only one gamelist.xml file!

 

12 Comments to Convert your Gamebase64 C64 ROM files to Emulationstation (RetroPie & Recalbox) format

1013149086
April 19, 2016

看看!

Luke
October 1, 2016

Hi Dennis,

Thank you very much for sharing this! its fantastic.

Kind Regards,
Luke.

Ross
December 3, 2016

Thank you very much for this! Works perfectly, followed the instructions, no issues. Cheers!

Dennis D. Spreen
December 4, 2016

You’re welcome!

NkdBoB
December 23, 2016

This worked fantastically!!! Thanks a bunch!

nbolmer
January 23, 2017

Heya Dennis – this really made C64 on the RetroPie worthwhile, it was EXACTLY what I was looking for… but… I notice that for whatever reason, the NFO files have an “unknown” field. So, the info under the screenshot in emulationstation always, annoying displays “UNKNOWN” as the first, and possibly other fields.

Suggestion: How about eliminating any fields that have the word unknown in them, OR labeling the fields, so at least we know what’s unknown?

Also, the dates are justified all the way to the right, and linebreak oddly in every entry (at least for me).

I’m running a RP3B and RetroPie, latest everything.

Another, related topic. Since you’re obviously a vice user, I wonder what you think about the save disk situation? Playing games from these archives (zips) is great, but when you need a “save disk” there is no way to associate it with that archive. Vice runs everything in a temp directory, so when you create a save image there, it will be deleted.

Is there a simple script that would create a save.d64 for EVERY archive, so that Vice will pull it into the temp directory, and put it back after the session?

Dennis
January 24, 2017

@nbolmer: I’ll take a loot at the unknown fields the next couple of days (I’m currently updating my old retropie installation to the newest version, that includes a lot of systems.. )
about the save disk situation: I’ve written something similar with the help of “linked” save files. If I’m done with the big update, I’ll test it and then send it to you

Peter
February 16, 2017

Thanks for the script and best of luck with the new retropie installation.

Mauricio
April 7, 2017

Wow! I can’t wait to try this!! I was never happy with the packs from the net, too many missing games!! I hope you can fix what nbolmer says about the UNKNOWN field.

Ali Bengali
June 15, 2017

Hi Dennis,

i own a new raspi3 since a few weeks and allready tried recalbox and retropie – but without c64/Amiga games (lakka 2.0 is still waiting to test). I miss a good substitute for the c64/amiga gamebase or fs-uae arcade. The Gamebase/fs-uae is really great because of the tons of screenshots/informations and easy way of starting the games.

I’ll try your script and hope i will ever reach my goal:
ONE comfortable UI/Surface for playing all nes, snes, sega, atari, c64 and amiga-games.

Greets
Ali

Ali Bengali
June 27, 2017

Update:
I used your (unmodified) Script with Gamebase64 v15 on Retropie 4.2.
Now all 24000 Games are showing up in Retropie/commodore c65.

And thats nice:
There are Folders in the Retropie-Gamelist like: A, B, C – and in this Folder you find every game beginning with A, B, C….
Thats great because there is no huge long list with 24k entries.

Thanks to Dennis for the Script. By the way: Do you plan to create a Script for Amiga Gamebase (2.0/2.1)….?

Greets
Ali

edo
December 18, 2017

Hi, could anyone share gamelist.xml file generated from the script? I have windows so I can’t use this script to generate it. Thank you very much.

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About Dennis D. Spreen

I'm an avid programmer working on a variety of platforms in a variety of languages with a wide technical interest.

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