RC4b10 comments
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 11:42 pm
OK, i currently have some free time and also the will to play with RC a little. It seems to me we're up to a point where some cosmetic comments could be made since RC's engine seems to be in a somewhat good state, so i started playing with some TOSEC collections i have, to see how it behaves in that area.
One problem i have noticed here (which i had feared would appeared since RC4's design time) is that it's pretty difficult to handle a large number of dat files. TOSEC for instance has several dats for a single system, with which certain steps must be performed in order for RTC to handle:
1. Each dat has to be converted to a database.
2. At least one rom path must be added to the database.
This repetitive set of tasks must be done manually for a large set of dats (i.e Amiga:49 files, Atari ST: 40 files, C64: 180(!) files) one by one (RC won't at least accept drag-n-drop of multiple dats). Well, for systems like C64, this would simply be torture. It would take several hours to do those two tasks and i don't want to think what will happen when the next update gets released by the TOSEC maintainers.
So far, RC4 seems to play pretty nice with TOSEC dats but IMO when the 4.0 final version is released, a new functionality to help with large number of DATs should be discussed and designed. Since the engine will be sharp and ready, this should mainly be a GUI thing.
What are your thoughts on that Eric? Do you think it would be a nice addition to RC at that point? If so, how could anyone contribute? Discuss about design ideas and let the implementation to you? Help in the implementation perhaps?
One problem i have noticed here (which i had feared would appeared since RC4's design time) is that it's pretty difficult to handle a large number of dat files. TOSEC for instance has several dats for a single system, with which certain steps must be performed in order for RTC to handle:
1. Each dat has to be converted to a database.
2. At least one rom path must be added to the database.
This repetitive set of tasks must be done manually for a large set of dats (i.e Amiga:49 files, Atari ST: 40 files, C64: 180(!) files) one by one (RC won't at least accept drag-n-drop of multiple dats). Well, for systems like C64, this would simply be torture. It would take several hours to do those two tasks and i don't want to think what will happen when the next update gets released by the TOSEC maintainers.
So far, RC4 seems to play pretty nice with TOSEC dats but IMO when the 4.0 final version is released, a new functionality to help with large number of DATs should be discussed and designed. Since the engine will be sharp and ready, this should mainly be a GUI thing.
What are your thoughts on that Eric? Do you think it would be a nice addition to RC at that point? If so, how could anyone contribute? Discuss about design ideas and let the implementation to you? Help in the implementation perhaps?