@database Nostalgia.guide @$VER: Nostalgia.guide 1.75 (13/05/2000) @(C) 1999-2000 Melina Softworks @wordwrap @node Main "Nostalgia" @{b} #### #### ## #### ## ## ## ###### ## #### ## ###### ## ####### ### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ####### #### ### ### ## ## ## #### ## ## ## ## ####### ###### ### ### ## ## ## ### ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ### ## ### ## ###### ## ### ### ## ###### ## #### ### ## ### ### ###### ## #### ## ## ###### ## ### ###### ##### ### ## ## ## ###### ## ## ## ## ## ### #### ### ## ## ## ## #### ## ## ## ## @{ub} @{i}"More than just a GUI..."@{ui} @{" Introduction " link INTRODUCTION} @{"System requirement" link REQUIREMENTS} @{" Installation " link INSTALLATION} @{" Usage " link USAGE} @{" Emulation tips " link TIPS} @{" Greets " link GREETS} @{" Contact " link CONTACT} @{" History " link HISTORY} @{" Known bugs " link BUGS} @{" To Do... " link TODO} @{i}(c) 1999-2000 Melina Softworks@{ui} @endnode @node MENUS "The menus" @{b}@{u}NoStAlGiA@{uu}@{ub} : - @{b}About@{ub} : display the about box. - @{b}Quit@{ub} : Close Nostalgia! @{b}@{u}List@{uu}@{ub} : - @{b}xxx games@{ub} : Lists only the games of the xxx console. - @{b}All games@{ub} : List all the available games. @endnode @node KEYCUT "Keyboard shortcuts" @{b}ESC@{ub} : Close a window or quit Nostalgia! @{b}SPACE@{ub} : Display/Close the full sized display of the preview. @{b}ENTER@{ub} : Run the selected emulation. @endnode @node REQUIREMENTS "Requirements" @{b}@{u}Minimal requirements :@{uu}@{ub} - an Amiga :o) - AmigaOS 3.x - at least a 68020 - High resolution screen (at least 640*480) - some Fast RAM (4Mb should be enough...) @{b}@{u}Recommended :@{uu}@{ub} - 040 or 060 and PPC (not needed by Nostalgia! but by the emulators...) - a GFX board (any WB emulation) - 8Mb Fast RAM - Some roms :o) - these emulators : AmiGenerator, DarcNes, Handy, GBE, WarpSNES, WarpNeoMAME. @endnode @node BUGS "Known bugs" I spent a lot of time for the debugging so I hope there is no more bugs. There is actually no known bugs but if you encountered one, please @{"contact" link CONTACT} me. @endnode @node INSTALLATION "Installation" @{b}@{u}For Nostalgia! itself :@{uu}@{ub} - Simply double click on the installation script. - To uninstall Nostalgia!, simply delete the Nostalgia directory, all the preferences files are kept within. @{b}@{u}For the emulators :@{uu}@{ub} @{b}!!! we assume that "Nostalgia:" is the complete path of the installed Nostalgia! system !!! @{ub} - @{b}AmiGenerator@{ub} : get the archive, uncompress it and copy the executable file in "Nostalgia:bin/. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "amigenerator". - @{b}DarcNes@{ub} : idem but also, copy the file "COLECO.ROM" in the same directory as the executable file. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "darcnes". - @{b}GBE@{ub} : idem. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "gbe". - @{b}Handy@{ub} : idem but also copy the file "lynxboot.img" in the same directory as the executable file. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "handy". - @{b}WarpSNES@{ub} : idem. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "warpsnes". - @{b}WarpNeoMAME@{ub} : idem but the file "NEOGEO.ZIP" must be copied in Nostalgia:roms/NeoGeo. The name @{b}MUST@{ub} be "warpneomame". @{b}@{u}For the roms :@{uu}@{ub} - They must all be copied in their corresponding directories in "Nostalgia:roms/". @{b}NEVER@{ub} put a rom in the roms/ path otherwise it will never appear, place them in their correspondig sub-directory (roms/Nes or roms/ColecoVisio for example). - The roms @{b}MUST@{ub} have the good extension. The actual supported extensions are : - .bin, .smd for Megadrive/Genesis roms - .col for ColecoVision roms @{b}<=== VERY IMPORTANT@{ub} - .sms for MasterSystem roms - .gg for GameGear roms - .nes for NES roms - .pce for PCEngine roms - .gb for GameBoy and GameBoyColor roms - .lnx for Lynx roms - .smc, .swc, .fig, .sfc for SNES roms - .zip for NeoGeo roms @endnode @node TODO "To Do..." Nostalgia! is quite complete but it can be completed a lot : - More emulators support (N64 for ex.) - Resizeable window - Cleaner "running from WB" procedure... - Selectable ROMPATH - Customizable ROM list - More keyboard shortcuts @endnode @node HISTORY "History" @{b}@{u}1.75@{uu}@{ub} : - Minor update in order to support latest release of Handy (1.05) @{b}@{u}1.7@{uu}@{ub} : - *Working sorting list menu, you can now display games of one type only.* - Smaller and faster - fixed some bugs and cleaned up the code a lot (thank you Farid) @{b}@{u}1.6ß@{uu}@{ub} : - NeoGeo support added (WarpNeoMAME) - Added some keyboard shortcuts - Added some menus preparing next release (list sorting) @{b}@{u}1.25@{uu}@{ub} : - little update to support new AmiGenerator features - some little corrections @{b}@{u}1.2@{uu}@{ub} : - Many bug fixes - Fixed the stack problem with DarcNES, now the sample saving option is possible :o) - GUI rewritten to kill latest bugs - Found a workaround for the "running from WB" problem - Display preview option added - Smaller and faster execution - Corrected the bad refresh problem @{b}@{u}1.0@{uu}@{ub} : Localisation added. Fixed the bug that made Nes and Lynx roms using GBE... silly one ! Fixed a bug due to some extension in lower case (such as .bin) Lynx emulation working correctly now ! No more stack problems @{b}@{u}0.9ß@{uu}@{ub} : first Aminet release. Lots of bugfixes, normally everything should be ok now. WarpSNES support added. @{b}@{u}0.8ß@{uu}@{ub} : Never released. Working but still very buggy. @endnode @node CONTACT "Contact" You can contact me via e-mail or snail-mail : @{u}e-mail@{uu} : @{i}wmoghrab@club-internet.fr@{ui} @{u}snail@{uu} : @{i}Walid MOGHRABI 28 Square Michelet 13009 MARSEILLE - FRANCE@{ui} @endnode @node GREETS "Greets" @{b}Many greetings to those wonderful people :@{ub} - AmiDog for his emulators. - Steffen Haeuser for WarpSNES. - Timm S. Muller for his wonderful GuiGFX.library. - BadMax, Titan, Lanza, Tcheko, Kakace and the whole Artbas guys for their help. - Kaiser/iGlOo and FlyBuSt/iGlOo for the moral support. - Farid for his precious help. - The BlackSNESGui author for the icon I stole (sorry guy but this is a very nice one :op) - All the people who send me bug reports.... @endnode @node TIPS "Tips" - If you have a fast PPC, set the frameskip to 0 for DarcNes, it will be smoother. - A lot of features are "by default" in the emulators so sometimes, it is better to let them choose for you. - Nostalgia! may have some slowdowns while launching/changing prefs/exiting. This is because Nostalgia! do some internal stuff on the hard drive such as loading/saving prefs or listing the roms. This is not a bug and the slowdown will depend a lot of how far your HD is and how much roms you have. - Currently, there is only one emulator that is able to save a preview of the games but I contacted the authors and they are working on it. By the way, if you want to do your own preview (with a screen grabber for ex.), you can do it, simply call the preview like "gamename.smp" and put it in the samples/ directory of Nostalgia!. Don't bother about the file format, the datatypes are used to read it... By the way, you should prefer IFF for speed and compatibility reasons. - WarpSNES is slow for roms loading, be patient, this is NOT a bug from Nostalgia! - WarpSNES is using RTGMaster.library, the first time you launch it, it pops up a screenmode requester. If you encounter difficulties to run it with a 8bit screen, try with a 15/16 bit one. - The NeoGeo support is still very experimental so there are some missing stuff such as snapshot saving. This will be corrected in the next release of WarpNeoMAME. - The NeoGeo roms are very long to load, be patient and don't click too much on the "GO" button. - Actually, Handy, DarcNES and AmiGenerator are able to save preview if you press HELP in game. @endnode @node USAGE "Usage" It couldn't be simplier ! Run Nostalgia! by double clicking on it's icon. The rom files will be listed and sorted by type, just select one and click on the "GO !" button. That's all ! If there is a preview available, it will be displayed. You can modify somme settings in the "Emulator settings..." menu. @{"Keyboard shortcuts" link keycut} @{"Menus " link menus} @endnode @node INTRODUCTION "Introduction" What is Nostalgia! ???? Well..., I wasn't satisfied when using using some GUIs for some emulators as I was fed up to use the shell sometimes... What I wanted to do is a very intuitive system that let me launch any game I had without having any command line to type or having to know a huge list of parameters. I didn't want also to care about the name of the emulators such, for example, having to know that if I want to play to a SMS rom, I must use DarcNes... I wanted also a system that was able to show me a preview of the game I want to play. So I did Nostalgia! With Nostalgia!, the only thing you have is the possibility to choose a game and launch it without having to think to anything else. @{b}@{u}Here is the features list of Nostalgia! :@{uu}@{ub} - simple nice and intuitive GUI - support for many emulators which cover a lot of consoles, more to be added (Neo Geo for ex.) - saves all the options for each emulators (you don't have to change them all the time) - preview of game (if available) - auto scaling/dithering of previews and pictures (yes! you can use Nostalgia! on an AGA screen with few colors) - auto loading/saving of the preferences - easy to install and easy to remove (no assign added, no files copied to the system) - FREE !!! @endnode