No "no-intro" db for Atari 2600 roms

Libretro Lakka
#1

I installed Lakka (nightly 21205) on an old Dell e1505 laptop (64-bit 2-core Intel T7400 cpu, 2GB ram, ATI X1400 gpu).

My Atari 2600 roms are not associated with a core after doing “Scan Directory” from the UI.

I understand that Lakka (RetroArch ?) uses rom databases provided by “No-Intro”, apparently to ensure the validity of roms (and probably for implementing additional features in the future). However, “No Intro” does not seem to provide a database for Atari 2600 roms.

What is the work-around for getting the UI to recognize Atari 2600 roms? Alternatively, is there documentation for the file format for the playlists appearing in [FONT=courier new]/storage/playlists? I notice that in some playlists generated as a result of “Scan Directory” in the UI (N64 and NES), there is no pair of “DETECT” lines above the first CRC line. However, in other playlists (Sega MegaDrive, Super NES), there are “DETECT” lines above the first CRC line. I’m not sure what to make of that.

If I knew the format better, I could write a script to generate a playlist from a directory full of Atari 2600 roms. Or if I knew where the “No-Intro” roms database is (and it’s format), I could create DB entries for the checksums (or hashes) of my actual Atari 2600 roms, allowing the “Scan Directory” functionality to recognize the roms.

I know doing so would bypass the intended benefits of using the “No-Intro” rom databases, but it would allow the UI to identify roms not otherwise appearing in the rom database.

Short of becoming a contributor to the project (which isn’t out of the question), what is a good approach to getting the UI to recognize Atari 2600 roms? Thoughts?

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#2

If you want a quick and dirty way, you can write a minimal bash script that will generate the playlist for you.

Here is mine:

#!/usr/bin/bash

for fullpath in $1; do echo $fullpath filename=$(basename “$fullpath”) echo “${filename%.*}” echo $2 echo $3 echo “DETECT” echo $4 done

One entry takes 6 lines.

  1. the rom path
  2. the display name
  3. the path to the core, or DETECT
  4. the name of the core, or DETECT
  5. the CRC, or DETECT
  6. the name of the playlist
#3

In this topic they discuss adding 2600 to no-intro http://forums.no-intro.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=283

#4

Cool! That’s just the info I needed. Thank you.

#5

So once you get a dat, you have to add it to the libretro-database repository, to transform it to an rdb file readable by retroarch. All this process can be eased by the libretro-super scripts. Ask me or Twinaphex about it on irc to get some live guidance.