Forums

Sega Master System / Mark III / Game Gear
SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / OMV
Home - Forums - Games - Scans - Maps - Cheats - Credits
Music - Videos - Development - Hacks - Translations - Homebrew

View topic - How to contribute

Reply to topic Goto page 1, 2  Next
Author Message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
How to contribute
Post Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:51 pm
Last edited by Bock on Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:49 am; edited 1 time in total
This is the topic for contributing to building the site contents.
If you have general questions or you are unsure how to proceed please discuss here.

Wiki edit access
We haven't yet decided on a definitive policy to grand edit/write access to the Wiki data. Right now edit access is given on a per-user basis. If you want to be able to edit the wiki let us know here and we'll enable access on your account.

All Contents Summary Table
http://www.smspower.org/Games/All
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Recent changes
Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 4:20 am
Last edited by Bock on Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:08 am; edited 1 time in total
Some links to see what is being worked on. It is useful to follow a section, search for correction, and generally learn about the site if you are curious or wish to contribute.

All recent changes
http://www.smspower.org/Site/AllRecentChanges
This is an heavy page showing the latest changes side-wide.

You can also browse the "RecentChanges" page on separate sections eg:
http://www.smspower.org/Games/RecentChanges
http://www.smspower.org/Cheats/RecentChanges
http://www.smspower.org/Scans/RecentChanges
http://www.smspower.org/Credits/RecentChanges
etc.

If you like to use RSS, you can add "?action=rss" to these URLs, eg:
http://www.smspower.org/Site/AllRecentChanges?action=rss

On any individual page if you click "History" on the top-right you can see the list of changes applied to that page. Browsing history is also helpful to figure out how things are done (I often watch Maxim's changes and learn thru examples how to do some of the things myself).
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 3
  • Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:35 am
I'd like to contribute :) I'll mostly work on entering barcodes for each title's release.
I previously used to post here under the alias "Bu||et" about 6 years ago if that helps :) Point me in the right direction and i'll go to work.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:43 pm
The barcodes are associated to individual scans entries. There's also a pretty good separate list on the separate Development section:
http://wip2.smspower.org/Development/Barcodes-Index
But I guess they should be completed and linked to the scans.
Maxim can probably tell you about the details and enable your account

(PS: Do you want us to merge your old posts into your new account in some way, or you'd rather keep them separate?)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
All Contents Summary Table
Post Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:48 am
We have a special page here:
http://www.smspower.org/Games/All
That shows in a glance which kind of content was added to which game. Obviously we'd like to turn all red into green :)

Right now the sections we'd more gladly and easily take input would be:
- Screenshots
- Logos
- Sprites

Also the state of scans is pretty uneven right now.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 05 Jun 2010
  • Posts: 757
  • Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 3:46 am
I'd like some wiki access, can try and fill in some screenshots and whatnot when I get some spare time.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:02 am
Maraakate wrote
I'd like some wiki access, can try and fill in some screenshots and whatnot when I get some spare time.

Added :)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 19 Jul 2010
  • Posts: 3
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:57 am
Sorry i wasnt sure where to post. Game thats not on the list The Chess Master.
----
Edit

GG The Chess Master
GG Leader Board Golf
cm.PNG (33.9 KB)
The Chess Master lol
cm.PNG

  View user's profile Send private message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:30 am
The GG section is quite incomplete at the moment, particularly lacking non-Japanese games. We are avoiding adding pages without basic info, else we could dump out a huge number of pages with nothing in them...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 01 Oct 2008
  • Posts: 1
Reply with quote
i want to help
Post Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:55 pm
hi!

i supported your project some years ago, by donating some hardware stuff and games....now i want to help to complete the game-database, add some missing screenshots to the games and also some more infos!

if you need my help i would be happy to help!

regards,
crazy
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:57 pm
Crazy2001: thanks for your recent contributions!

Maybe you know that already, but if use the auditing page you can check easily which games are missing screenshots.
http://www.smspower.org/Site/Auditing#GamesWithNoScreenshotsPage

I can see you've been working on games missing screenshots so its all good :-)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 12:24 am
I can help with screenshots too, I didn't know there were so many games which lacked one.

How many screenshots per game should be taken?
As a test... http://www.smspower.org/Screenshots/SonicTripleTrouble-GG :)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 8:35 am
Tom wrote
How many screenshots per game should be taken?

Broadly, we'd like to represent the whole game (so it's best to do games you can complete) and to highlight any interesting parts - and to have just enough screenshots to achieve that.

It might be interesting if an emulator could record an entire playthrough (not necessarily a speedrun, though) and then one could scrub through it to take screenshots in hindsight. When I'm playing a game, it's hard to remember to take shots.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 22 Jul 2012
  • Posts: 51
  • Location: The Netherlands
Reply with quote
how about game tips
Post Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2012 7:41 pm
Example, alex kidd in miracle world has some parts that can be beaten easily by positioning alex in the perfect spot.

Also the RPS moves are not listed - i'm not sure if they are static in the game or random.

E.g. see the attached file, this boss has a moving head but you can stand behind him and you will never be hit and can easily take him out.

  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 20 Aug 2013
  • Posts: 30
  • Location: brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:09 am
Hello, I'm from Brazil, and I have an extensive collection, with all the national titles released only here, all complete with manuals.

How do I help send scans that do not have here on the site?
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:31 am
You can post them on the forum as attachments, or, if the files are too big for that, you can create an archive (ZIP or RAR) and upload it somewhere (e.g. dropbox). You can also ask to get editing priviledges on the wiki, but you should wait for the opinion of an admin (Bock and Maxim) for that.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 10:58 am
http://www.smspower.org/Scans/HowToContribute
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 27 Apr 2014
  • Posts: 281
  • Location: Texas
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:51 pm
I want to contribute a bit of info on the game gear that I picked up on the internet.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 8:21 pm
What info?
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 27 Apr 2014
  • Posts: 281
  • Location: Texas
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:08 am
I've learned how to tell the age of a sega game gear, and I wanted to post that info on the serial no.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 5:42 am
You should see an edit link on this page:

www.smspower.org/Development/GameGearSerialNumbers
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 04 Sep 2014
  • Posts: 37
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:57 pm
Hello,

I've been doing some occasional exploration and disassembly of Dragon Crystal for SMS (with plans to move to the Game Gear version eventually) and I'd like to share some PAR codes and information I haven't really seen elsewhere (eg on the GG version, holding down start makes the player move faster, which seems to be well-documented, but on the SMS version, pressing pause toggles fast/slow player speed) and possibly start a development page for the game with information on the RAM map and other things I come across.

My ultimate goal is to be able to document the game enough to produce a romhack with altered monster and item behavior- I've been able to decipher some sections of the code (mostly to do with game setup, the auto-playing demo after the title screen, and the food/heal/status timers), and I've located most or all of the text (I have a table, but am still figuring out how the control codes work) and some of the tiles in the ROM so far, but I'm still working on the data structures for items and monsters.

Is it okay to discuss disassembly and reverse engineering rather than homebrew in the Development forum, and share source code? I saw a couple of topics related to a Sonic 2 disassembly, but most of the posts I saw about editors and the like didn't seem to share source code so I wasn't sure whether there were legal issues or anything like that.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:25 pm
That's totally fine. You might want to post the code somewhere like Github or Google Code so others can get it and contribute changes, it's a bit unwieldy to deal with more than a few dozen lines on here. Version control is super handy too.

You can write notes on our development wiki, that is always welcome. Go here: www.smspower.org/Development/DragonCrystal-SMS and see how it goes.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 04 Sep 2014
  • Posts: 37
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 4:32 am
Thanks! I've added most of my notes to that page and will add more as I go. I do have a Github repo created, but haven't properly checked the code in yet- once I have that done, I'll link it from that page as well.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 12 Jan 2005
  • Posts: 187
  • Location: Reconquista, Santa Fe, Argentina
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:21 pm
http://www.smspower.org/Games/All does not seem to work for me. It gives me a 503 error.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 27 Apr 2014
  • Posts: 281
  • Location: Texas
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:18 am
It works for me, it just takes FOREVER to load the page. Probably one minute or so.

TinchoDJ, what browser do you use? I'm using Chrome version 37(37.0.2062.124 m to be exact).
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 12 Jan 2005
  • Posts: 187
  • Location: Reconquista, Santa Fe, Argentina
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:26 am
Chromium (the open source version of Chrome), v 34.0.1847.116

Itseems some sites don't like Chromium. I use Chrome at work. Will check from there on Monday.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:10 am
It's just slow. If it takes too long, the web server gives up and returns 503. These huge list pages are quite bad in our framework...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:22 pm
We should probably remove the "All" link until our framework can be improved to handle that better.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 12:07 pm
I don't know if this is the best place to post this, but i'm always reluctant in opening topics for simple questions.

Who do i talk to in order to update the music software section?

I was under the impression, by browsing smspower, that vgm playback on android was not a reality, but a google search, let me to this player: Droidsound-E, which is opensource and really cool.

So, i looked at the music tools page again, and realized that stuff like mid2vgm aren't listed also.

I don't mind updating and trying to maintain that page updated. But i don't think it is possible?


Anyway, let me know..


Links to DroidSound-E:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droidmjt.droidsounde
https://github.com/droidmjt/Droidsound
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:44 pm
We just need maintainers. Do you want to help?

I use Droidsound-E myself - it has faulty track length handling, and seems to muffle the sound a bit, but otherwise it's good. There's several alternatives like DeaDBeeF and Modo, I'd say none of them is perfect and all have weird interfaces and aren't as nice to use as common MP3 players.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 3:28 pm
I couldn't get DeeDBeaF to work on my Moto G (Android 5), it keeps crashing randomly.
Droidsound-E is not perfect, but it never crashes, but yes, i have noticed the song length issue.

And yes, i want to help. I don't mind updating the page with new software, new versions and etc.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:06 pm
OK, you can now do it. I suggest you start by copying an existing page:

http://www.smspower.org/Music/Droidsound-E?action=edit&template=Music.Audaci...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 12:17 pm
Thanks Maxim. I'm already gathering information about the different players and i'll start updating today.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 7:58 pm
It's looking good. Could you also attach the downloadable packages where possible? While we will be horribly out of date, it's still good to provide an archive for when the original site is lost. Also, where the wiki page name munging is bad, you can override the page title - I did this for Droidsound-E, you may wish to fix some others.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 8:15 pm
Thanks Maxim.

I'll get around to add the downloads (i suppose i use the "drop file to upload" right?) and i agree, it's good to have a local archive, even if it's out of date sometimes.

How do i override the titles? Haven't found a option to do that.

Also how to handle ports?

I have found VGMPlay for MSX (https://bitbucket.org/grauw/vgmplay-msx), which looks like a port of VGMPlay, do i add its own entry, or edit VGMPlay 's page?
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 10:01 pm
The source to http://www.smspower.org/Music/Droidsound-E shows how to set the title.

Put ports on the same page as the original.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 10:19 pm
"found" is a big word, it was posted a few days ago on vgmrips :P
http://vgmrips.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1938
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 11:15 pm
Thanks, i hadn't realized the first line on the DroidSound page, sorry. I'll go update the other titles now.


Tom: i guess the "about" portion wasn't too clear. :) I meant "found about.."
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:35 pm
It would be nice to start hosting local copies of the files. You'd be surprised at how many files seemingly disappear from the internet (or at least extremely hard to find) nowadays because people are not hosting copies anymore.

I would like to do the same with emulators. I have a rather extensive collection of emulators from the early days say 1996-2003 I could start uploading. We can use the template from Homebrew, it would be nice if we could use the original filenames but not required. It would also be nice if we could store the date of the release when known.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:57 pm
Yeah, as you and Maxim predicted, imageshack became useless some time ago, and surprisingly even one of my webhosts decided to close my account due to violations to their terms of use. The stuff on vgmrips isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon, though; besides, ValleyBell is extremely zealous at making backups so everything in there should be safe.

But yes, I agree that stuff hosted on mediafire / megaupload / rapidshare / angelfire should be preserved.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:28 pm
I'm not even talking about those. For those hosting service it's been obvious for years now that they should be avoided. It still drives me crazy that people are posting here, a website about preservation, using pictures stored on those services. It's madness. I am now methodically replacing all of those posts with pictures hosted here.

I'm talking here about .zip files hosting on the authors website. They also disappear. They need to be stored somewhere.

It would be nice to backup the contents of forums. Like it or not,
http://shinobiman.proboards.com (the other popular sega 8-bit forum) will disappear sooner or later. Proboards.com is a slowly dying service, it's closed tech, and we have absolutely no reason to trust it.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 05 Sep 2013
  • Posts: 3762
  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 11:34 am
Bock wrote
Like it or not, http://shinobiman.proboards.com (the other popular sega 8-bit forum) will disappear sooner or later. Proboards.com is a slowly dying service, it's closed tech, and we have absolutely no reason to trust it.


They should switch as they still can do that.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:04 pm
sverx wrote
Bock wrote
Like it or not, http://shinobiman.proboards.com (the other popular sega 8-bit forum) will disappear sooner or later. Proboards.com is a slowly dying service, it's closed tech, and we have absolutely no reason to trust it.

They should switch as they still can do that.


I guess lots of custom-made solution exists. They are all likely to be complex and flawed somehow, would be worth improved on them. e.g quick search
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=776295
?
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 5:55 pm
I started adding files, but i ran into a couple of problems.

.bz2 extension is not valid. I don't know what is the best format for linux users nowdays, but since most of the distribution is in this format, i take this is the most popular one?

.dmg extension is not valid. I haven't used a Mac since OS7, so i take StuffIT is not the norm anymore?

filezile limit. What is the maximum size allowed?


Thanks. I will continue to add what i can.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:14 pm
We (and by we I mean Maxim ;) can add the missing extension and lift up all quotas as needed.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14687
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 7:19 pm
I think it's now configured to allow 15MB for the necessary extensions. At worst, you can zip a file to get it on here, although it's nice to support original compressed archives.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:14 pm
Yeah, i thought about zipping the files, but since this is about preservation, i imagined it would be better to just upload the originals ?

Also, the extensions i would so far are: .bz2, .dmg and .apk
And the biggest file is 33mb (DroidSound-E's apk).
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:40 pm
I have added APK, increased the maximum file size to 35 MB and added 1 GB to our hosting account (we were using about 9 out of 10 GB, so we now have 11 GB).
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 30 Mar 2009
  • Posts: 282
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:39 pm
Bock wrote
I have added APK, increased the maximum file size to 35 MB and added 1 GB to our hosting account (we were using about 9 out of 10 GB, so we now have 11 GB).


Thanks Bock.
Added a lot of players to the servers.
Pretty much only missed the iOS / Android ones that are only on the iTunes / Play Store.


I'll tackle the VGM Tools next.

Do we have some platform icons to add to the download pages? It would pretty them up a bit. :)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Reply to topic Goto page 1, 2  Next



Back to the top of this page

Back to SMS Power!