Import Games from Emulators (ScummVM, RPCS3, Cemu, RetroArch)

[OneAngryGamer]

The idea for this extension came from ScummVM game importer by Crow (link here) I could not have made this without standing on the shoulders of giants.

This extension reads the config files of various emulators to import any valid games detected into Playnite





Features:

• No duplicates - This is designed to detect games already imported and will automatically skip those when importing.
  

• No deleted/moved games imported - Extension verifies paths for every game it imports. It will not import deleted games and/or paths that have been broken.
  
• Auto detect location of emulators - No need to type paths or pick folders.
  
• No more game names like EBOOT.BIN - Extension will read the rom meta files to return the official title for each game. If it is unable to detect the name, it will look up a list (RPCS3 only) or, as a last resort, attempt to extract the game name from the game install path.
  
• Auto set Region - Attempts to read the game region codes from the rom meta files (PS3 and Wii U) and uses these to set the region field in Playnite. (RetroArch has basic region detection based on the No-Intro/Redump file names)
  
• Auto set Official Game Icons (Cemu only. Only available if ImageMagick installed)
  
• Auto set Cover Art (RetroArch only)
  
• Auto set Official Background Art - The extension will check for the existence of the background art PNG in the folder of the PS3 game imported and set it as the background art in Playnite. If you have ImageMagick installed, this will also import background art from Wii U roms. (Example of PS3 import below)
  

   











Expected Questions:

• Why use this extension to import ScummVM instead of using ScummVM game importer? This detects already imported games by the game location. (I found I had to keep manually deleting duplicate entries after running ScummVM game importer because it detected duplicates based on game names and I had renamed those entries.)
  

• Why use this extension to import RPCS3 and/or Cemu instead of using Playnite to import? This extension reads the game locations from the emulator config files (no folder drilling to the rom folder),  selects the correct game file (no more de-selecting multiple .BIN files for RPCS3), sets game name, attempts to set the game region and can even import official background art and icons from the roms themselves.
  
• Why use this extension to import roms from RetroArch instead of using Playnite to import? This extension reads the game locations from the emulator playlist files (no folder drilling to the rom folder) and imports cover art.
  

Known Issues:

• Emulator location not found - From v1.2.0, import the emulator into Playnite first before importing games.
  

• No games were found in the emulator - The extension was intended for switching from using the emulator frontend to Playnite. You need to have set up your emulator first before you can import games from it. (For RetroArch you need to create playlists.)
  
• (RetroArch only) Playlist refuses to import because no default emulator set - It only imports if a default emulator has been set for that Platform. (I intend to add emulator per rom in a future update)
  
• (RPCS3 only) A few PS3 games imported may include one or two square symbols within their game name - This is caused by an unsolved string conversion issue when reading game names from their SFO files. Until this has been solved, manually edit the game names for the few affected roms.
  

Future Plans - New Features:

• Import PS3 games that have been installed into RPCS3 (This is not detected by reading the config file so perhaps release as a separate extension)
  

• Set background art for Wii U games - The images are found in the game folder as TGA files. For this to work I would need a third party tool to convert a copy of the TGA file to PNG format during the import process. (Maybe something like ImageMagick as used by Game Media Processor by azuravian) DONE
  
• Set icons for Wii U games - As above. DONE
  
• Add Dolphin emulator - I have found the game list file but I am unable to parse it. Please reply to this thread if you can help.
  
• Add support for more emulators - This is possible if the emulator has a config file that contains the fullpaths for the games. If you find a likely candidate, reply to this thread with the details of the emulator including the location of its config file and I may look at adding it to a future release.
  

Future Plans - Improvements and minor bugs:

• (RPCS3) Proper read of PS3 SFO file format (instead of the hacks I'm using) - Please reply to this thread if you know how this can be done.
  

• (RPCS3) Convert UTF8 to ASCII for game names read from SFO files - Please reply to this thread if you know how this can be done.
  
• (RPCS3) Read the game name from the compat_database.dat in RPCS3 - Please reply to this thread if you know how this can be done.
  

DONATIONS?

I'm not taking donations. However if you want to give back, please consider donating to one of these projects:

• RPCS3 Patreon
  

• Cemu Patreon
  
• RetroArch Patreon and other donation methods
  

Change Log

• v1.1.0 - Importing games from Cemu will import official background art and icons from the rom folders. For this feature to work, you need to have ImageMagick installed. See announcement post in this thread for details.
  

• v1.2.0 - Beta support for RetroArch, name change, bug fixes. See announcement post for details.
  

[*]This extension was designed on Playnite 8. It may work with Playnite 7. It will not work with Playnite 9.

[sheepbeep]

You should work on PlayNite 9 support, as 8 is dead.

[OneAngryGamer]

Announcing v1.1.0



Importing games from Cemu will now set official background art and game icon from the roms.



For this feature to work, you will need to use of ImageMagick (If you fully set up Game Media Processor by azuravian then you already have this image program and this extension will detect your existing install)

ImageMagick can be downloaded here (See the "Windows Binary Release" section): https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php



You can still use this extension without ImageMagick but you won't be able to get the background art & icons set for your Wii U roms. (Playnite doesn't support tga images. A third party program is essential to convert a copy of the tga into jpg format)

[OneAngryGamer]

"I want to import games from Cemu/RPCS3 but I don't use Discord"

You don't need to use Discord. All you need is to open your emulator and enable the Discord option. (Doing this enables the extension to find where your emulator is located)
You can always disable the Discord option in your emulator after you have imported the games into Playnite.
UPDATE: This is no longer required from v1.2.0


"I like the idea of importing the official background art into Playnite but my PS3 games are already in Playnite."

I have uploaded an extension that lets you import the backgrounds for any of your PS3 games in Playnite. See https://playnite.link/forum/thread-889.html


"I like the idea of importing the official background art & icons into Playnite but my Wii U games are already in Playnite."

I have uploaded an extension that lets you import the backgrounds for any of your Wii U games in Playnite. See https://playnite.link/forum/thread-891.html

[OneAngryGamer]

Some screenshots to demonstrate the official icons and background art for Wii U games.

   

   

   

[OneAngryGamer]

Update Announcement - v1.2.0 - RetroArch (beta), Name Change, Fixes

• The name has changed from 'Import Emulated Games' to 'Import Games from Emulators'
  
• Dropped all of the 'Enable Discord' requirements. Instead of detecting the location of the emulator on your PC, I decided to read the emulator location from Playnite. (I'm shelving all of my 'emulator detection' code. I may revive this for a future extension which finds emulators on your PC and imports them into Playnite)
  
• Numerous bug fixes. Do not use v1.1.0 - it contains a few minor bugs. Including - incorrect safety check for icons (it was checking if the background image was not a TGA instead of the icon), a potential unhandled error if ImageMagick is not detected and needs its executable selected by the user (I overlooked including this function in v1.1.0. I didn't notice this before release because the program was already being detected by one of the earlier detection methods so it never reached the 3rd method)
  
• You can now import games from RetroArch (Beta) - Select which playlist to import to import games + cover art. Also has very basic detection of regions and versions. I consider this beta because it can not handle separate emulators for each game. It needs to have a default emulator set for each playlist imported (I will change this in a future release)
  

[Lurker000]

"(RPCS3) Proper read of PS3 SFO file format (instead of the hacks I'm using) - Please reply to this thread if you know how this can be done."

If you haven't done this yet:

https://github.com/xXxTheDarkprogramerxX...RAM_SFO.cs

Copy that class to your project.
Usage:
var sfo = new PARAM_SFO("path to sfo");
var title = sfo.Title;
etc etc.

[OneAngryGamer]

"(RPCS3) Proper read of PS3 SFO file format (instead of the hacks I'm using) - Please reply to this thread if you know how this can be done."

If you haven't done this yet:

https://github.com/xXxTheDarkprogramerxX...RAM_SFO.cs

Thank you Lurker000. I plan to make large changes to this extension so it may be a while before I can get onto implementing this.

(The SFO read is not a high priority since my hacks can read the desired data for almost all PS3 SFOs.)

[OneAngryGamer]

A few more changes:

ScummVM now records platforms (using data from scummvm ini)
ScummVM now records version/edition info in version field
OPTIONAL ScummVM can include the edition after the game title
OPTIONAL / BETA RetroArch can try to remove regions from game names
IMPROVED remove game code from game name (RPCS3)
IMPROVED Installation directory now records the root directory of the rom (instead of path containing the rom executable)

[OneAngryGamer]

More changes:

• Dropped feature - Import Icons from Wii U roms
  
• Dropped feature - Import Backgrounds from Wii U roms
  
• Dropped feature - Import Backgrounds from PlayStation 3 roms
  

I'm dropping the image importing from this extension for those who want to use this extension to import roms but don't want the official artwork.

The ability to import images from rom contents will still be available by using other extensions:
Sony PlayStation 3
Nintendo Wii U


I intend to switch to Playnite 9 after the available plugins reach feature parity with Playnite 8. Before I convert this extension, I will drop the ScummVM import after moving it to a separate v8 extension.