Paul Thompson and Rob Perry are using the Gamebase engine to create two separate Atari ST databases.
GamebaseST is still a young project, but has already over 100 Atari ST games catalogued. There are many variables that can make a particular ST game right in an emulator, such as TOS version, memory and STe enhancments. The GamebaseST team are fully utilising the GEMUS scripting capability within Gamebase, and are taking great care to make a clean and friendly game collection.
Here is a rundown of their process to add a game:
1. Find the best version of the game. Most original ST game disks are protected, and disk protection isn't currently compatible with any Atari ST emulators. Hence they have to find the best *alternate* version, with the perfect match being a very clean self-booting disk without a menu, but with a trainer. Of course some of the menus themselves are of interest but that is where DemobaseST will take over.
2. If necessary, they will re-author the disk(s) to get as close to their perfect version as they can. This can also include de-packing ice/fire/pompey/lsd etc packed files if they think GamebaseST can benefit from it. Currently both Steem and SainT will automatically fast forward disk access but will not speed up de-packing without user intervention.
3. Then they try the game under TOS 1.62. That way, if there are any STe enhancements they can make the most of them. If TOS 1.62 is rejected, then they move down to TOS 1.04/1.02/1.0 as required. They can also move up to TOS 2.06 if there are any gains to be had. Thanks to the flexibility of the Gamebase engine, they can easily select the TOS version they want on a game by game basis.
4. Then they play the game to take the screenshots they need and get all the information they can from the credits. At this stage, they can also find out if the game works better at a faster CPU speed. For instance Frontier and No Second Prize work really great at 16MHz. They can enter this ideal speed setting into GamebaseST.
5. All the details are entered into the database and the screenshots are optimised. Any other information they can find on the game they add into the extras section, e.g. maps, manuals, tips, Magazine ads and artwork.
6. GamebaseST currently supports YM, SC68, SNDH and MOD music files. Work is in progress to add in custom file header recognition into Gamebase, so that they will be able to read all the composer information from each music file.
Rob is primarily working on DemobaseST, which has a slightly different database to accomodate the interesting facts about ST demos. He is hoping to have the most complete ST Demo database there is, all with screenshots and perfect emulation settings within Gamebase.
Both the SainT and Steem authors have been very helpful and have supported their efforts so far. Thanks to Leonard, Russ and Anthony.
They are looking for more Atari enthusiasts to join the GamebaseST team, so let them know if you are interested. The best place to find them is in the Atari forums here:
