As I had started to talk about it here : http://www.mgalaxy.com/forum/index.php? ... 40#msg1240
Maybe an option which would desactivate the auto-scan at the start?
I noticed that Mame's gamelist is a bit long to load, even if I only have two roms in it for now, compared to some others emus (like Snes one, when I have ~1500 roms) which load pretty fast.
Maybe it's because mGalaxy check Mame's database at each start?
So maybe an option to desactive the auto-scan (and so save the actual roms lists in a file) might be a good idea, especially for someone who would have a lot of Mame's roms (like the guy on the link I posted).
And when you would reactivate the option, mGalaxy could force an auto-restart to rescan the roms again?
Auto-Scan
The loading is not "slow" (about 2 seconds on my i5...but, that's true, about 8 on an old Pentium IV...for the whole romset!!!) because it's reading the Mame database...but because the system is then verifying, for each rom, that (1) you have this rom (2) whether it belongs to favorites or not (3) whether it's a clone or no (4) what's his genre (5) what's his category (6) how many players are allowed to play....All of this is necessary for a good filtering later and is...really quick!!!
You're talking to me of an emulator which simply list the content of a folder...this is not really the same job which is done by mGalaxy ;-)
This action will always be present and will be extended to other systems (Using databases with other systems than Mame will be introduced with the next version...to reply to many request for it)...but you'll be given the choice to use it or not (and in this case the folder's content will just be read)
You're talking to me of an emulator which simply list the content of a folder...this is not really the same job which is done by mGalaxy ;-)
This action will always be present and will be extended to other systems (Using databases with other systems than Mame will be introduced with the next version...to reply to many request for it)...but you'll be given the choice to use it or not (and in this case the folder's content will just be read)
Last edited by mgalaxy on Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Core2Duo 2.67 Ghz here, seems to take a few secondes (probably 4 or 5), but if it won't take more time with more roms, it seems okay (I tried with 2 roms and so, the concern was to know if the load time is exponential).
Well, slow is maybe not the best word, but it's not as fast as the emus which just load the roms content.
And I don't think what I talk about is because of the favorite/clone/genre/categories and such as I don't use any (for now) on any emus (if it was the case, it would be the same speed for the other emus, no?).
It was just a proposition anyway so that's not a problem, but the proposition wasn't to remove the database support, rather to be able to save the database to a file, to avoid reading everything at each startup, when you always use the same set of roms.
Well, slow is maybe not the best word, but it's not as fast as the emus which just load the roms content.
And I don't think what I talk about is because of the favorite/clone/genre/categories and such as I don't use any (for now) on any emus (if it was the case, it would be the same speed for the other emus, no?).
It was just a proposition anyway so that's not a problem, but the proposition wasn't to remove the database support, rather to be able to save the database to a file, to avoid reading everything at each startup, when you always use the same set of roms.
Last edited by davhuit on Sun Aug 18, 2013 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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citizengodden
- Member
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I agree - I think the delay is tiny thinking about the amount of data the program is accumulating. It's manageable by anybody's standards. To be honest if people are worrying about 8 seconds of lost time, then avoid playing games completelymgalaxy wrote: The loading is not "slow" (about 2 seconds on my i5...but, that's true, about 8 on an old Pentium IV...for the whole romset!!!) because it's reading the Mame database...but because the system is then verifying, for each rom, that (1) you have this rom (2) whether it belongs to favorites or not (3) whether it's a clone or no (4) what's his genre (5) what's his category (6) how many players are allowed to play....All of this is necessary for a good filtering later and is...really quick!!!
You're talking to me of an emulator which simply list the content of a folder...this is not really the same job which is done by mGalaxy ;-)
This action will always be present and will be extended to other systems (Using databases with other systems than Mame will be introduced with the next version...to reply to many request for it)...but you'll be given the choice to use it or not (and in this case the folder's content will just be read)
LOL
Last edited by citizengodden on Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's not easy being green.
In fact, I was concerned about that because I thought the speed was exponential.
I only have 2 roms in my mame directory right now (just for testing purpose), so it seemed to me long for only two files (like, if it's 4-5s for 2 files, it would be 40000/50000s for 10000 files).
But as mGalaxy said the speed would be pretty much the same (aka, non-exponential) for the whole romset, it's not a problem anymore and so yeah, such a function would seem to be useless
I only have 2 roms in my mame directory right now (just for testing purpose), so it seemed to me long for only two files (like, if it's 4-5s for 2 files, it would be 40000/50000s for 10000 files).
But as mGalaxy said the speed would be pretty much the same (aka, non-exponential) for the whole romset, it's not a problem anymore and so yeah, such a function would seem to be useless
Last edited by davhuit on Tue Aug 20, 2013 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yes davhuit, I understand your concern.
This is the way it works with Mame ONLY! The whole database (about 20000 roms) is loaded, then all the steps described in my previous post are launched !
I can assure you that it WON'T be exponential! Actually that will take exactly the same time on 2 roms than the whole romset of 20000 roms!
I will add that you could, in case you're using only a couple roms :
(I suppose that you know where are the mGalaxy files and how to edit them)
1) Duplicate the MAME folder in users/appdata/roaming/mgalaxy and rename it (ex.: MameEasy)
2) Duplicate the MAME system in 'systems.xml' and edit the name to be the same as the one chosen for your folder (ex.: MameEasy) - the important here being that it won't be named "MAME"-.
3) Rename your few roms with their "real" description name.
4) ...and voila!
Since this is not seen as a MAME system, there won't be a database creation/loading/check...but simply a folder list of your couple files. So this will be faster than...Sonic's run ;-)
Hope that it'll hope you add to your pleasure to use mGalaxy!!
This is the way it works with Mame ONLY! The whole database (about 20000 roms) is loaded, then all the steps described in my previous post are launched !
I can assure you that it WON'T be exponential! Actually that will take exactly the same time on 2 roms than the whole romset of 20000 roms!
I will add that you could, in case you're using only a couple roms :
(I suppose that you know where are the mGalaxy files and how to edit them)
1) Duplicate the MAME folder in users/appdata/roaming/mgalaxy and rename it (ex.: MameEasy)
2) Duplicate the MAME system in 'systems.xml' and edit the name to be the same as the one chosen for your folder (ex.: MameEasy) - the important here being that it won't be named "MAME"-.
3) Rename your few roms with their "real" description name.
4) ...and voila!
Since this is not seen as a MAME system, there won't be a database creation/loading/check...but simply a folder list of your couple files. So this will be faster than...Sonic's run ;-)
Hope that it'll hope you add to your pleasure to use mGalaxy!!
Last edited by mgalaxy on Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.