Universal batch-script files for running Daphne and Singe 1 / Singe 2 games outside Hypseus Singe directory.

[ElektroStudios]

Imagine that you want to have your laser disc catalog organized outside of the Hypseus Singe directory, each game in its individual folder, with its cover and its additional artwork and its info and its everything, and you also want to add a .bat file (or in general, a script file) to automate the execution of Hypseus Singe to start the emulation of that game that resides outside of Hypseus Singe directory...

Well, that's where the problem begins, because - apparently - the emulator takes the directory where hypseus.exe it is as its working directory regardless of the path specified for the -framefile and -scriptfile parameters, so if you have your game directory outside the singe directory, with the -framefile and -scriptfile parameters pointing to that directory outside of Hypseus Singe directory, hypseus.exe will try to search for the game files inside its own directory instead, and it will give an error due not finding the required files.

That's at least what happens to me with all the games shared by "certain user with a japanese kanji avatar" on archive.org. I have a feeling that the MYDIR variable within the singe scripts is what causes this problem, but I'm not sure.

The first thing I tried was, using a PowerShell script (relying on .NET System.Diagnostics.Process class), to start the hypseus.exe process with a different working directory, but there is no way, by default hypseus.exe it continues looking for the game files in the emulator directory.

After a bit more trial and error, I came to the conclusion that the most viable option was to copy all the game content (remember, from outside the emulator directory) to the emulator directory, but excluding the video (m2v) and audio (ogg) files. This is just a few megabytes. And it worked.

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So here I share for you all this customizable script to load your singe 1 and singe 2 games ( and below a script adapted for the Daphne games ) outside of the Hypseus Singe emulator directory...

✔️ This is a batch-script example for loading DL2e (Dragon's Lair 2 enhanced, Singe 2 structure) game:

💾 DL2e.bat

@ECHO OFF

SET "gameDirName=DL2e"
SET "frameFileName=DL2e"
SET "scriptFileName=DL2e"

SET "singeArgs=-cheat -fullscreen_window -volume_nonvldp 5 -volume_vldp 20"

SET "SingeDirPath=..\..\Emulators\Hypseus Singe"
SET "SingeExePath=%SingeDirPath%\hypseus.exe"

ECHO:Copying game files (excluding m2v video and ogg audio) to Singe directory...
(
Echo:m2v\
Echo:ogg\
)>"ExcludedFilesList.txt"
XCopy /E /Y "%CD%\Framework\*" "%SingeDirPath%\singe\Framework\*" 1>NUL 2>&1
XCopy /E /Y /exclude:ExcludedFilesList.txt "%CD%\%gameDirName%\*" "%SingeDirPath%\singe\%gameDirName%\*" 1>NUL 2>&1
DEL /Q "%CD%\ExcludedFilesList.txt" 1>NUL 2>&1

ECHO+
ECHO:Running Hypseus Singe with arguments:
ECHO:%singeArgs%
ECHO+

"%SingeExePath%" singe vldp ^
 -framefile "%CD%\%gameDirName%\%frameFileName%.txt" ^
 -script    "%CD%\%gameDirName%\%scriptFileName%.singe" ^
 %singeArgs%

ECHO+
ECHO:Emulator closed...
ECHO+
ECHO:Deleting game files that were copied to Singe directory...
RD /Q /S "%SingeDirPath%\singe\%gameDirName%" 1>NUL 2>&1

ECHO+
ECHO:Finished.
TIMEOUT /T 6
Exit 0

ℹ️ Usage Instructions:

-✱SingeDirPath variable points to the directory path where hypseus.exe is. It can be a relative path as seen in the code above.
-✱SingeExePath variable points to the file path of hypseus.exe is. It also can be a relative path.
-✱singeArgs variable specifies the game specific arguments to use when running hypseus.exe.
⚠️-framefile, -scriptfile, "singe" and "vldp" arguments must not be specified.

-✱-gameDirName variable specifies the name of the folder that contains the game files (e.g. "DL2e"). This directory must exist at the first level in the directory where you put the .bat file, for example:

└───📁Your Dragon's Lair 2 container directory
    │   📄DL2e.bat
    │
    └───📁DL2e
        │   📄DL2e.singe
        │   📄DL2e.txt
        │   📄README.md
        │
        ├───📁Cfg
        ├───📁Fonts
        ├───📁Overlay
        ├───📁Script
        ├───📁Sounds
        └───📁Video

-✱frameFileName variable specifies the name, without file extension, of the .txt frame file.
-✱scriptFileName variable specifies the name, without file extension, of the .singe script file.

📝Note that if your games are those shared by "certain user with a japanese kanji avatar" on archive.org, I can confirm that the value will be the same for the gameDirName, frameFileName and scriptFileName always, ⚠️only exception is for the actionmax game folder which has various frame and script files for the different games.

---

✔️ And here is a script adapted for the Daphne games, using as example the Astron Belt game with this directory structure:

└───📁Your Astron Belt container directory
    │   📄astron.bat
    │   📄astron.zip
    │
    └───📁astron
            📄astron.commands
            📄astron.txt
            📄astron512.dat
            📄astron512.m2v
            📄astron512.ogg

💾astron.bat

@ECHO OFF

SET "gameDirName=astron"
SET "frameFileName=astron"

SET "singeArgs=-cheat -fullscreen_window -volume_nonvldp 5 -volume_vldp 20"

SET "SingeDirPath=..\..\Emulators\Hypseus Singe"
SET "SingeExePath=%SingeDirPath%\hypseus.exe"

ECHO:Copying game files (excluding m2v video and ogg audio) to Singe directory...
(
Echo:m2v\
Echo:ogg\
)>"ExcludedFilesList.txt"
XCopy /E /Y /exclude:ExcludedFilesList.txt "%CD%\%gameDirName%\*" "%SingeDirPath%\roms\%gameDirName%\*" 1>NUL 2>&1
Copy /Y "%CD%\*.zip" "%SingeDirPath%\roms\*" 1>NUL 2>&1
DEL /Q "%CD%\ExcludedFilesList.txt" 1>NUL 2>&1

ECHO+
ECHO:Running Hypseus Singe with arguments:
ECHO:%singeArgs%
ECHO+

"%SingeExePath%" %gameDirName% vldp ^
 -framefile "%CD%\%gameDirName%\%frameFileName%.txt" ^
 %singeArgs%

ECHO+
ECHO:Emulator closed...
ECHO+
ECHO:Deleting game files that were copied to Singe directory...
RD /Q /S "%SingeDirPath%\roms\%gameDirName%" 1>NUL 2>&1
DEL /Q "%SingeDirPath%\roms\*.zip" 1>NUL 2>&1

ECHO+
ECHO:Finished.
TIMEOUT /T 6
Exit 0

ℹ️Usage Instructions are the same.

---

✔️ Finally, and for better understanding, I attach here a zip file containing a replica of my directory structure and all of the bat files already configured:

📥 Arcade Laser Disc Collection (dummy).zip

📝Note that all the files inside the zip are dummy files (zero byte), except for the batch-script files.

Just search for "Play Game.cmd" files inside the "Games" folder.

I hope these scripts and information helps someone. Enjoy!.

[DirtBagXon]

I didn't get a notification on this discussion so missed it for a while.

It may also be worth a look at the -homedir and -datadir arguments when trying run the from outside the executable folder.

These arguments are used in Linux/Unix/Mac extensively for this very purpose, but rarely in Windows due to it's quirks.

Perhaps worth an exploration....