The once popular Commodore 64, an 8-bit personal computer, had many thousands of games created for it that C64 users enthusiastically played and stored from, and on, cassette tapes and 5 1/4" disks. The GameBase program was developed so that software written for the C64 could be preserved for posterity and continues to be enjoyed. This "emulator frontend" program, as its creators know it, will allow you to view and launch C54 games on your personal computer, today, if you download the C64 Collection of games entitled GB64, and Screenshots, which are freely available. You must also make sure that Visual Basic 6 runtime files are installed on your computer, which are also freely available, from Microsoft. You can also use this universal emulator frontend to create your own game databases for other emulation systems.
The C64 database collection includes more than 15,000 entries and it can store music files, game docs, and any other file you wish, via the Extras option featured in the program. You can also store multiple versions of games using this Extra feature since the program uses the GEMUS scripting language to run them. The database is also a useful record of a game's history, and information includes references to each game's Publisher, year of Publication, Programmer, Genre, Musician, etc., all accessible and searchable using the database's extensive search engine. The search engine allows customization of views that you can create to say, view all games by your favorite developer, or view games that allow a certain number of players, for example. The program's Windows' style interface is also fully customizable so you can create the look and feel that you want or even substitute any images or sounds with your own.
v1.3 [Aug 24, 2010]
- You can now stick .wav files in your database's /Splash folder. GB will play a random one as it displays the splash screen
- Can now specify how long (in seconds) each splash screen is displayed (see updated docs)
- Clicking on the splash screen will now close it
- Can now set the default Picture sizes per database
- Added new fields: Artist, Developer, License, Rarity, Original, Playable, TitleScreen, Info WebLink, Version WebLink, CloneOf, Review Rating
- Views can finally show more than 2 columns!
- Now able to set the order of custom views
- Added new Default View: to complement the new CloneOf field
- Can now hide/show/re-order fields in the details tabs (tabs themselves will be hidden if no fields are shown on them)
- Added 2 new 'Extras' types: URL (opens extra in default web browser), and MUSIC (uses the configured Music Players)
- Added new Sidebar, showing all "launchable" items such as game file, music file, weblinks and extras
- New "Import Personal Info..." feature under Tools menu. You can import personal data (favourites, highscore, difficulty, rating, times/last played etc) from another (e.g. previous) database
- Added 2 fields for database settings: "DatabaseName" and "GameBaseWindowTitle", editable from the GBToolbox (right-click the mdb file and select "Database Settings...")
- Can now edit the FirstLoadGemusAsk and FirstLoadMessage fields from the GBToolbox (right-click the mdb file and select "Database Settings...")
- RomLister Export - Now you can export GB databases and run them in a variety of popular arcade cabinet frontends
- New App: GBLauncher.exe - runs games using GEMUS silently via command line
- New App: GBRegRun.exe - re-registers required COM dlls and runs GameBase.exe (can be used to register other DLLs and run other apps too)
- Added per-database option to show 'image' extras (png/jpg/gif/bmp) in the screenshots area
- Archive unpack/repack routines completely reworked employing 7-Zip command line utility to do all the hard work. :)
- Can now unpack the following archives (thanks to 7-Zip): .7Z, .ZIP, .GZ, .GZIP, .TGZ, .BZ2, .BZIP2, .TBZ2, .TBZ, .TAR, .LZMA, .RAR, .CAB, .ARJ, .Z, .TAZ, .ISO, .LHA, .LZH
- Can now repack the following archives (with/without sub-archives) (thanks to 7-Zip): .7Z .ZIP .GZ .GZIP .TGZ .BZ2 .BZIP2 .TBZ2 .TBZ .TAR
- Dropped legacy support for .LNX and ZipCoded files (C64)
- Now keeping the folder structure intact when extracting archives
- Can now use environment vars in key=value pairs (values only). E.g. foo=%emupath%
- Can now use empty values in key=value pairs and Set_* functions
- Added following environment vars:
Great platform for gamers who want to have access to all their favorite Electronic Arts games in one place
