Announcing "AGSP Enhance" v1.0 for the MyArcade Atari Gamestation Pro

[tjrtech]

AGSP Enhance is a utility that makes it easier to add games to the MyArcade Atari Gamestation Pro (AGSP) whether those games are for the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Arcade, Nintendo Gameboy, Sega Genesis, etc.
 

All you need to use AGSP Enhance is access to game ROMs (for the aforementioned consoles and arcade) as well as image files for things like box art, arcade cabinets, screen shots and banner titles. Yes, that all sounds daunting but it really isn't.  Some links to resources and helpful tips are included below.

Much of the curation (finding ROMs and image files) has been done for you. However, rather than load up your AGSP micro SD card with games you do not want, the final steps of curation have been left to you, and they include:
 

1. Editing a "curation list" in order to define which games you wish to import to your AGSP.

 

2. Adding need game roms and images to the appropriate Games subfolder(s) of AGSP Enhance for each game you wish to import. For more on this refer to the "How To Curate Games" section below.

3. Executing agsp_enhance to import your curated games - this is where the magic happens. See "The Magic" section below for details.

AGSP Enhance includes 600 curated ROMs that show up within the existing AGSP menus.  You will need to have added the v1.3c Community Firmware to your AGSP.

Attached is a PDF file with further instructions along with a ZIP file which is the complete v1.0 AGSP Enhance utility:

README.pdfagsp_enhance_v1.0.zip

Edited April 14 by tjrtech

[hwrd]

thanks!

[tjrtech]

55 downloads of the ZIP and nobody really commenting.  I guess it either works, it sucks, or people are busy???

[Boots01]

7 hours ago, tjrtech said:

55 downloads of the ZIP and nobody really commenting.  I guess it either works, it sucks, or people are busy???

Nobody wants to be the first one to ask a dumb question.......🤣

[tjrtech]

Updated to v1.00.1agsp_enhance_v1.00.1.zip to include a fix to curated list items for Star Wars Arcade 2600 and 5200 (had ... ellipses in descriptions removed as causing issues on Windows 10).  

No other bugs known at this time.

Edited April 21 by tjrtech

[Handy DG]

3 hours ago, tjrtech said:

Updated to v1.00.1agsp_enhance_v1.00.1.zip to include a fix to curated list items for Star Wars Arcade 2600 and 5200 (had ... ellipses in descriptions removed as causing issues on Windows 10).  

No other bugs known at this time.

I use Windows 10 and experimented with your utility.  I found and corrected the ellipse errors with the Star Wars Arcade descriptions, but experienced another strange problem.  For some reason, the "games.ini" text file created by your utility cannot be recognized by the GSP.  I attempted multiple runs with your software, ensuring that the "update_db=1" flag was set properly, but the GSP always refused to recognize it and update the "games.db" database.  The only way I was able to solve the problem was by starting with my known good "games.ini" file I had been editing to add games, deleting everything, and then cutting and pasting everything in your utility generated "games.ini" file into it (all editing done using Windows Notepad).  I could not find anything obviously different with your generated file (file attributes, extraneous carriage returns, etc.), but this is the problem I experienced.

[flaggskull]

5 hours ago, Handy DG said:

I use Windows 10 and experimented with your utility.  I found and corrected the ellipse errors with the Star Wars Arcade descriptions, but experienced another strange problem.  For some reason, the "games.ini" text file created by your utility cannot be recognized by the GSP.  I attempted multiple runs with your software, ensuring that the "update_db=1" flag was set properly, but the GSP always refused to recognize it and update the "games.db" database.  The only way I was able to solve the problem was by starting with my known good "games.ini" file I had been editing to add games, deleting everything, and then cutting and pasting everything in your utility generated "games.ini" file into it (all editing done using Windows Notepad).  I could not find anything obviously different with your generated file (file attributes, extraneous carriage returns, etc.), but this is the problem I experienced.

I have the exact same problem using Windows 11.  I was finally able to get the GSP to update when I used the cut/paste method into a backup game.ini file on my SD card.  Thanks for the tip!

 

[frogstar_robot]

I did a quick and dirty job on this to use it with Debian Linux (this should work with derivatives like Ubuntu as well):

 

As root :

    apt install python3-venv virtualenv python3-virtualenv

 

As user
mkdir agsp

 

Copy or save the agsp_enhance_v1.00.1.zip to this directory.

cd agsp
unzip agsp_enhance_v1.00.1.zip
mkdir venv
python3 -m venv venv/
source venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install psutil
python3 -m pip install pandas
python3 -m pip install pillow
python3 -m pip install openpyxl

 

edit agsp_enhance.py
find the lines that read:

    else:
        print("Unsupported Operation System '" + platform_text + "' found.")
    return None

 

change them to read:

 

    else:
        print("Unsupported Operation System '" + platform_text + "' found.")    
    return "/path/to/sd_card"

 

The "/path/to/sd_card" should actually be where the custom firmware sd-card is mounted.

There is doubtless a better way to do this but I'm no python coder.

 

Then run:

 

python3 agsp_enhance.py enhance

 

It'll spew a bunch of "Unsupported Operation System ..." to the console but this worked for me.

 

 

One thing I did find.  Pitfall! isn't set up as a paddle game and uses the stick.  Won't get very far that way.

[tjrtech]

7 hours ago, frogstar_robot said:

 

One thing I did find.  Pitfall! isn't set up as a paddle game and uses the stick.  Won't get very far that way.

Do you mean Kaboom!?  

[tjrtech]

On 4/21/2024 at 7:56 PM, Handy DG said:

I use Windows 10 and experimented with your utility.  I found and corrected the ellipse errors with the Star Wars Arcade descriptions, but experienced another strange problem.  For some reason, the "games.ini" text file created by your utility cannot be recognized by the GSP.  I attempted multiple runs with your software, ensuring that the "update_db=1" flag was set properly, but the GSP always refused to recognize it and update the "games.db" database.  The only way I was able to solve the problem was by starting with my known good "games.ini" file I had been editing to add games, deleting everything, and then cutting and pasting everything in your utility generated "games.ini" file into it (all editing done using Windows Notepad).  I could not find anything obviously different with your generated file (file attributes, extraneous carriage returns, etc.), but this is the problem I experienced.

Weird, not something I am seeing on MacOS.  I am wondering if Windows is putting an EOF (end of file) character at the end of the games.ini file before the additions the utility adds and then the AGSP is not reading past that?   If you can post a games.ini file here that does not load I will take a look with a binary editor and I apologize for Windows (and not testing on Windows...that is not my primary OS).

[tjrtech]

On 4/22/2024 at 1:20 AM, flaggskull said:

I have the exact same problem using Windows 11.  I was finally able to get the GSP to update when I used the cut/paste method into a backup game.ini file on my SD card.  Thanks for the tip!

 

I apologize for the need to cut-paste, but beyond that, how are the 600 extra games working for you?  Any favorites?

[frogstar_robot]

9 hours ago, tjrtech said:

Do you mean Kaboom!?  

Brainfart.  They're both Activision.  But yes, Kaboom isn't configured to use the paddles.

[Handy DG]

16 hours ago, tjrtech said:

Weird, not something I am seeing on MacOS.  I am wondering if Windows is putting an EOF (end of file) character at the end of the games.ini file before the additions the utility adds and then the AGSP is not reading past that?   If you can post a games.ini file here that does not load I will take a look with a binary editor and I apologize for Windows (and not testing on Windows...that is not my primary OS).

I have attached the "games.ini" file generated by your utility that fails to update the games database.

 

I noticed something else interesting.  If I just start with an empty text file in notepad and then cut and paste, it still does not work.  The only successful method I have found so far is to start with a "games.ini" file originally generated by the custom firmware, and then cutting and pasting your data into it.  It seems there is something unique about the original "games.ini" file that the GSP recognizes.

games.ini

Edited April 24 by Handy DG

[+Torq]

3 hours ago, Handy DG said:

The only successful method I have found so far is to start with a "games.ini" file originally generated by the custom firmware, and then cutting and pasting your data into it.  It seems there is something unique about the original "games.ini" file that the GSP recognizes.

Given that the Gamestation Pro reads directories in their low-level directory record order (which is basically the chronological order the files were created in on the SD card), if there's a LOT of files on the card I can see it just not seeing a new version copied over LATER.  In theory it should overwrite the original FAT DIR entry, but in practice it might be creating a new entry, then removing the old, leaving it out of order and possibly beyond the limit of the number of files the software will read.

 

Easy way to test it ...

 

Start with the original games.ini file, open it in an editor, remove everything it contains (without saving), copy and paste in the ENTIRE contents of the one from the "AGSP Enhance" tool, and then save THAT back to the original games.ini file.

[Handy DG]

18 minutes ago, Torq said:

Start with the original games.ini file, open it in an editor, remove everything it contains (without saving), copy and paste in the ENTIRE contents of the one from the "AGSP Enhance" tool, and then save THAT back to the original games.ini file.

That is precisely the method I used to solve the issue.  Perhaps I did not describe it adequately.

[+Torq]

1 minute ago, Handy DG said:

Perhaps I did not describe it adequately.

It's more likely I didn't read it properly.

 

And if that's what you did, and it worked - then I'm more confident that the underlying issue is as I described (or related to it).

[Handy DG]

12 minutes ago, Torq said:

It's more likely I didn't read it properly.

 

And if that's what you did, and it worked - then I'm more confident that the underlying issue is as I described (or related to it).

No worries.  If that is indeed the problem, I wonder how @tjrtech was able to get his utility working under MacOS but not Windows?  Of course, I know absolutely nothing about the differences between MacOS and Windows regarding low-level directory record order of files.

Edited April 24 by Handy DG

[flaggskull]

20 hours ago, tjrtech said:

I apologize for the need to cut-paste, but beyond that, how are the 600 extra games working for you?  Any favorites?

No need for apologies.  I appreciate your work on this.  I have a list of games that I was slowly putting on the gsp.  Now,  I will be using your tool to initially transfer the bulk of them over.  I will then add a number of Homebrews and any others not included in your list.  Lastly, I'll go into the .ini file and tweek and/or add game descriptions and control instructions and modify any artwork more to my liking.  Still a lot of work but you definitely saved me a ton of time.  Thanks so much.  

 

Meanwhile, I have been sifting through all of the games in your build  and so far they have all worked fine. My favorites include most of the Activision titles, namely HERO, River Raid, Robot Tank, Megamania, etc.  All to be included in my final build.  

 

[+Torq]

54 minutes ago, Handy DG said:

If that is indeed the problem, I wonder how @tjrtech was able to get his utility working under MacOS but not Windows?

 

If it is the problem, in addition to considerations about how Windows writes to volumes vs. macOS, (e.g. whether copy-on-write was default) it would also be affected by a) how many files were on the card and b) what order they were written in and c) if/when a second .ini file was first written to the card (i.e. how any files were present then).

 

[tjrtech]

On 4/24/2024 at 2:39 PM, Handy DG said:

I have attached the "games.ini" file generated by your utility that fails to update the games database.

 

I noticed something else interesting.  If I just start with an empty text file in notepad and then cut and paste, it still does not work.  The only successful method I have found so far is to start with a "games.ini" file originally generated by the custom firmware, and then cutting and pasting your data into it.  It seems there is something unique about the original "games.ini" file that the GSP recognizes.

games.ini 433.24 kB · 1 download

Sorry for the delay.  Maybe, just maybe it works for me on MacOS, not because of a MacOS issue, but because I update the original games.ini file pulled out of the AGSP by the custom firmware manually, with a text editor and that put that version of the file into a format that it works, with updates/additions, go forward.  That would be a simple test.  Open the games.ini file of the SD card, add a blank line to the end, change the update to a 1 and put the card in the AGSP.  Possibly from that point on it would work???

I no longer have the original and I certainly don't feel like resetting my AGSP to factory defaults.

If "we" (and I appreciate you all because teamwork makes the dream work) figure out it is some weird format with the stock version that if appended to directly makes it unreadable (for the new additions) then I can probably work-around that in the code (when copying the initial version to lost+found, open it, read it, save it back to the SD card).

 

[tjrtech]

22 hours ago, Torq said:

Given that the Gamestation Pro reads directories in their low-level directory record order (which is basically the chronological order the files were created in on the SD card), if there's a LOT of files on the card I can see it just not seeing a new version copied over LATER.  In theory it should overwrite the original FAT DIR entry, but in practice it might be creating a new entry, then removing the old, leaving it out of order and possibly beyond the limit of the number of files the software will read.

 

Easy way to test it ...

 

Start with the original games.ini file, open it in an editor, remove everything it contains (without saving), copy and paste in the ENTIRE contents of the one from the "AGSP Enhance" tool, and then save THAT back to the original games.ini file.

I really don't think it has anything to do with the files curated.  I suspect there is an EOF character or something special in the factory version of games.ini that is not in a version of that file that is saved by an editor (or in my case a Python program running Win/Mac).  Simply editing that file, in it's original contents and saving via a text editor I bet would avoid the issue.

I have had other Windows users use the AGSP Enhance utility successfully, and I will reach out to them to see if, by chance, they "hand edited" their games.ini before using the utility.

[tjrtech]

If someone can send me an original, factory, just after installing the 1.30.c Community Firmware games.ini that would be great.  Post it here.  Thanks!

[Handy DG]

1 hour ago, tjrtech said:

If someone can send me an original, factory, just after installing the 1.30.c Community Firmware games.ini that would be great.  Post it here.  Thanks!

Please see the attached file.

games.ini

[tjrtech]

1 hour ago, Handy DG said:

Please see the attached file.

games.ini 135.99 kB · 1 download

Thanks Handy DG.

I took that "factory" games.ini file onto my system, replacing the games.ini in data, removing the games.ini in lost+found and re-ran my script on macOS and...
...

...

...

wait for it...

...

...

IT WORKED JUST FINE in the AGSP, all the new games showed up.

So, I am kind of stumped.

I will look at that original games.ini file you sent me with a binary editor.  Something about it must be hinky.

I will report back and thanks for the assist.

[tjrtech]

On 4/24/2024 at 6:31 PM, Handy DG said:

That is precisely the method I used to solve the issue.  Perhaps I did not describe it adequately.

Hey, Handy DG, a few questions:

1. When you say that the original games.ini, when updated by AGSP Enhance, "doesn't work" when loaded up by the AGSP, what do you mean exactly?   I assume the AGSP runs, loads, but with no new games.

2. After using the file contents copy "hack" extra step does that new games.ini work from that point on when adding new games, updating games via AGSP Enhance?  (wondering if this is truly an original games.ini issue)

Thanks,

TJR