JoeViking245

March 27, 2023

52 minutes ago, BrainyCabde said:

maybe to add them hotkeys to the running script section of Launchbox/BigBox?

Instead of creating/adding/using the hotkeys and using AutoActions, just use the command(s) available in MonitorProfileSwitcher to load the profiles.

If it works to change the profile while the game is loading (vs. it HAS to be switched PRIOR to loading the game), add to the Running Script for that emulator:

(For cxbx emulator)

Run, "MonitorSwitcher.exe" -load:Profile-1.xml, F:\Misc\Monitor Switcher

Process,Wait,cxbx.exe
while winExist("ahk_exe cxbx.exe")
    sleep 700

Run, "MonitorSwitcher.exe" -load:Profile-2.xml, F:\Misc\Monitor Switcher

Change Profile-1.xml and Profile-2.xml to your saved profile_names.xml you want to load when the emulator launches (1st line) and after it exits (last line). Respectively.
Change F:\Misc\Monitor Switcher (2 places) to the full path where your MonitorSwitcher.exe is located.

For your Xenia emulator, do the same thing(s), and also change cxbx.exe to xenia.exe (2 places).

If they have to be switched before loading the game (emulator), then you'll [instead] need to add Additional Apps for each game and have them checked to Run Before Main App and Run After Main App using only [modified] line 1 above and the last line. Respectively.

1 hour ago, BrainyCabde said:

I wish LB/BB had a feature built in like this so we could avoid using this many third party applications to get the desired result.

LaunchBox can't 'fix' finnicky emulators. But it can accommodate most all of their shortcomings.

March 26, 2023

If you have an EmuMovies account

Select the Platform you want to add manuals to
Click on one of the games in that platform then press Ctrl+A to select all games
Click Tools, Download, Update Metadata and Media for Selected Games...
Follow through the prompts until you get to Would you like to download media from EmuMovies?
In that view, scroll down and check the option Manual
Kepp going through the prompts until you get to Ready to Download
Click Finish

Note, not all platforms will have manuals available.

March 25, 2023

When you replaced the icon, I presume it was in

..\LaunchBox\Images\Platform Icons\Platforms\Super Nintendo Entertainment System.png

It needs to be a .png file (vs .ico).

If you didn't have LaunchBox closed while replacing it, you may be able to select the Platform (on the left pane) and press F5 to refresh the image. Worse case, close and restart LaunchBox and it should appear.

March 21, 2023

7 minutes ago, latin625 said:

The mame emulator settings are these:

Change the last line to

RunWait, "D:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME 0.243\mame.exe" -skip_gameinfo -waitvsync -keyboardprovider dinput -rompath %romlocation% %ROM%, D:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME 0.243

March 21, 2023

6 minutes ago, latin625 said:

Worked! Only thing now is that the bezels are gone. On regular MAME they are there, but when I use the "new emulator" the bezels are gone. Odd!

What does your existing MAME emulator (in LB) Default Command-Line Parameters look like?

March 21, 2023

13 minutes ago, latin625 said:

Am i missing something?

No. 😊

Try changing these 2 lines to:

romlocation = %1%
ROM = %2%

March 21, 2023

(another "try this") For the fullscreen thing, create a new file ("BSfullscreen" or whatever). In it, put:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
WScript.Sleep 10000
WshShell.SendKeys "{F11}"

Save the file with a .vbs extension. ("BSfullscreen.vbs")

Create an(other) additional app to Run Before. Have the Application Path point to this file.

If that works, you can thank @AliMujahid20 (you. lol). If it doesn't, you can blame me.

March 21, 2023

If, after the game loaded, can you manually press F11 and it goes fullscreen?

BlueStacks may not be able to accept key presses from an AHK script.

But you might try:

SetKeyDelay, 125, 50 
Sleep, 10000
Send, {F11}

..and then add your escape sequence.

March 21, 2023

8 hours ago, latin625 said:

I run this as an application "before main application" on all the MAME games only.

This won't work when running as an Additional App because you can't send parameters to them. (EMU = %1% ROM = %2%)

To have the parameters sent to the script, you'd need to have it as-the-emulator.**

In your script "EMU" is always going to be "MAME" since you're only using this for MAME. Correct? If so, replace that variable. i.e. (replace the 1st line with the 2nd line) This assumes your asset folder is called "MAME".

;ROM_STK_PROF := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraStick\" . EMU . "\" . ROM . ".ugc /showfeedback"
ROM_STK_PROF := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraStick\MAME\" . ROM . ".ugc /showfeedback"

**To set the script up as the emulator, you'd need to add a new emulator in LaunchBox that points to this script.

Give it a name
Point the App Path to ..\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.exe
In quotes, set the parameters to point to your .ahk script
- add a [space] and then %romlocation%
Check 2 boxes

Then at the bottom of your script, you'd have it launch MAME with the ROM file. Something (but not necessarily exactly) like this. (added some beeps when it loads a specific config)

romlocation = %2%
ROM = %3%

;Process UltraStick Profiles
ROM_STK_PROF := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraStick\MAME\" . ROM . ".ugc /showfeedback"
EMU_STK_PROF := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraStick\MAME\MAME.ugc /showfeedback"
DEF_STK_PROF := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraStick\default.ugc /showfeedback"

ULTRAMAP := "D:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\UltraMap.exe"

;Load the joystick profile
if FileExist(ROM_STK_PROF)
{
   SoundBeep, 750, 500
   RunWait %ULTRAMAP% %ROM_STK_PROF%
}
else if FileExist(EMU_STK_PROF)
{
   SoundBeep, 750, 200
   SoundBeep, 1350, 200
   RunWait %ULTRAMAP% %EMU_STK_PROF%
}
else
{
   SoundBeep, 750, 200
   SoundBeep, 1350, 200
   SoundBeep, 750, 200
   RunWait %ULTRAMAP% %DEF_STK_PROF%
}

RunWait, "D:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME\mame.exe" -keyboardprovider dinput -rompath %romlocation% %ROM%

Not tested, but looks really good 'on paper'.

Depending on how your MAME is setup and where it's located, you may need to change something on the last line.

March 21, 2023

4 hours ago, AliMujahid20 said:

It didn't worked for me.

What didn't work? You need to give more details. Or at least one detail. Help me to help you.

After 10 seconds does it go fullscreen? Then what?

March 20, 2023

30 minutes ago, Kinglifer said:

This is a bit old but.... Where the heck is Dolphin.ini?!? Are you talking about Retroarch?

Stand-alone Dolphin. Definitely not RetroArch. The post you quoted pretty much says exactly where Dolphin.ini located.

..\Dolphin\User\Config\Dolphin.ini

March 20, 2023

3 minutes ago, knux666 said:

Any advice and help would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Try this:

RunWait, D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Vampire Survivors\VampireSurvivors.exe
ExitApp

z::Enter

March 20, 2023

@Merovingio To create Playlists in LB, you pretty much need the games to already be in an existing Platform.

A cheesy, not-100%, but pretty close work around could be done like this:

Install RetroAchievement Badges plugin
Run the Updater as described in the How to install the plugin: instructions
- This will create, in the plugins' folder "AllGames.xml"
Download/save this AutoHotkey script Parse AllGames.xml to folders-files.ahk
- Open it with any text editor and edit lines 1 and 2 ONLY.
  - Change Line 1 to the full path to your copy of "AllGames.xml"
  - Change Line 2 to the full path to a temp folder you want to save the console-folders/files.txt
Run the script from Windows (this is not a plugin)
- This will parse the AllGames.xml file
  - Inside the folder you set on Line #2
    - It will create folders named after each Console
    - In each of those folders, it will create .txt files named after the games Title
  - It'll create about 40 [Console] folders and about 6000 .txt files total
  - Takes less that 10 seconds to complete
In LaunchBox, import these .txt files ("games") into
- (Option 1) your existing Platforms. (Yes, one platform at a time)
  - (Option 1a)
    - Leave "import duplicates" un-checked and don't import any media (yet). Then any game in that platform that doesn't show an image (box-front of whatever you have set as default) should be ones you don't have.
  - (Option 1b) [this will meet the request of the OP]
    - Check "import duplicates".
- (Option 2) new Platforms. (Again, one platform at a time)

[With Option 1] Create a new Playlist
- Check Auto-Populate this Playlist
- Set Field to Application/ROM Path
- Set Comparison to Contains
- Set Value to ".txt" (without the quotes)
- [EDIT] Set (on the next line...) Field to Platform
- Set Comparison to Is Equal To
- Set Value to "the_exact_name_of_your_Platform" (without the quotes)
- Click OK to save
If you selected Option 1a above, you should now have a Playlist of missing achievement games for that Platform
If you selected Option 1b above, you should now have a Playlist of all achievement games for that Platform

The caveat is that you will have oddball situations. You might already have "The Addams Family" and it may still import "Addams Family, The". And other similar oddities.

Also (with Option1) you'll have a bunch of extra shtuff in your main Platform.

Plan "B" is to go back to plan "A"...

14 hours ago, retroNUC said:

do a side-by-side against the platform lists on RetroAchievements

March 19, 2023

10 hours ago, OldSkool8bit said:

When I running Coinops the usual alt F4 script (which I use for my other emulators) does not work when I hit the Esc key. I have a program called Super F4 which does work via the combination of Ctrl + Alt + F4. I have tried looking for a script to put in for my Coinops Emulator to enable/bind those keys to Esc but I have not had much luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So, you use LaunchBox, to launch CoinOps, to launch games? Seems redundant.

Anyway, to 'press' Ctrl+Alt+F4 instead of just Alt+F4 via AutoHotkey, you can use

Send, ^!{F4}

March 16, 2023

25 minutes ago, youremum said:

When updating launchbox, i received a critical error saying my system produced unexpected results. The error code, and upon uninstalling and

attempting to reinstall, it happened again.

I would appreciate any help

The error indicates something is up with your license file. Email support@unbrokensoftware.com and they can sort it out for you.

March 16, 2023

18 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

Be sure to add this to the start of the script btw as I got a dialog window about running the same script when starting another light gun game "#SingleInstance Force"

If you're not using Escape to exit the game, the 'original' script is still running. If you are, then you may need to give the esc routine a little money.

$esc::exitapp

If that doesn't work, remove that line altogether. Now create another additional app to Run After that exits the above Run Before addnl. app.

If you named your Run Before script "ConfineMouseMovement.ahk", set this script to Run After.

DetectHiddenWindows, On
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
WinClose ConfineMouseMovement

You don't want to have to add #SingleInstance Force. You really do want to close it when not needed.

March 16, 2023

25 minutes ago, Warped Polygon said:

Can I poach this script for the next Model 2 video I do?

Absolutely!

March 16, 2023

2 hours ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

I have a problem with light gun games on the Model 2 emulator, when I click the edges of the screen the emulator window loses focus and there is no way back to the game. So it got me thinking, a solution could be in AHK where the mouse gets restricted not being able to move about 10 to 20 margin of the edges of the screen. Don't know if this can be done with margin or padding or you need the exact dimensions of a 3840x2160 restricted area minus the 10 to 20 margin. I'm a real noob concerning this so please explain every step I have to make to make this work in LB, thanks so much if you will help

Seems like there has to be a better [built-in] way to do this through the emulator settings. I don't use M2, so I don't know. (full screen? Probably not windowed-full screen [if even an option]).

Anyway, this script assumes you're running the game on your primary monitor and makes use of Windows' built-in ClipCursor function.

Set limitW and limitH to the number of pixels you want the border to be. "limitW" is your left/right border and "limitH" is your top/bottom border. i.e. setting limitW to 20 puts a 20-pixel border on the left side AND on the right side (not 10 on each side). Don't touch any other part of the script. Pressing Escape will exit the script.

This gets the actual Width and Height of the monitor, then subtracts twice the limit from each, respectively. Width - left & right border. Height - top & bottom border. Then using the ClipCursor function, confines the cursor movement to the coordinates supplied to it. Coordinates for a monitor start in the upper left corner.

With limitW and limitH both set to 20, the starting point from the upper left corner is 20 over and 20 down. Then [for your monitor] from there it'll "draw the box confines", 3800 to the right, and 2120 down.

limitW := 20
limitH := 20

W = %A_ScreenWidth%
H = %A_ScreenHeight%
Lw := W - (limitW*2)
Lh := H - (limitH*2)

; Courtesy of:
; https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=180864&sid=79466bc66cbd4f6a4c02689d4fda46e7#p180864
ClipCursor(limitW,limitH,Lw,Lh)

ClipCursor(x,y:=0,w:=0,h:=0){
  static free := dllcall("User32.dll\ClipCursor", "ptr", 0)         ; Frees the mouse on script start up.
  static oe := {base:{__delete:func("clipcursor").bind("unclip")}}  ; For freeing the mouse on script exit.
  if (x = "unclip")
    return dllcall("User32.dll\ClipCursor", "ptr", 0)
	
  varsetcapacity(rect,16)
  numput(x,rect,0,"int")
  numput(y,rect,4,"int")
  numput(x+w,rect,8,"int")
  numput(y+h,rect,12,"int")
  dllcall("User32.dll\ClipCursor", "ptr", &rect)
}

esc::exitapp

To create/add this as an additional app, follow this:

March 16, 2023

7 hours ago, OldSchool80s said:

I need to assign a bunch of games an app to run before and after. Too bad we can't do this via bulk edit in LB

March 15, 2023

32 minutes ago, OldSchool80s said:

Isn’t the “core”, the same as the path to “where it is installed”?

Because BigBox does launch when I run the .bat file, it’s the other software that doesn’t run after I exit out of BigBox.

Think of it as /LaunchBox/BigBox.exe is a 'launcher' for /LaunchBox/Core/BigBox.exe.

or

/LaunchBox/BigBox.exe is a 'shortcut' to /LaunchBox/Core/BigBox.exe.

So what's happening is you batch file is:

it starts /LaunchBox/Bigbox.exe
- this in turn starts /LaunchBox/Core/BigBox.exe
- then exits itself
/wait (/w) is now done because the program you told it to wait for is no longer running.
QRes now executes **
- Note: /Core/BigBox.exe is still running

aka: it starts BigBox, then immediately launches your QRes command.

** I don't know anything about QRes, so I didn't pay any attention to that part of your script. Chances are, it may not have worked anyway if you did point to the Core folder. You may need to "start" it also.

start /w "" "C:\Users\Me\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe"
start "" "C:\QRes.exe" /x:1280 /y:960

March 15, 2023

6 hours ago, RandyMackDaddy said:

-keyboardprovider dinput

If you're determined to use MAME release 0.133, remove that from the command-line parameters.

The only reason a newer version of MAME is giving the appearance of being blurry is because of differing video settings and filters you have set [compared to your 0.133 release].

If you have games that were once playable and are no longer playable with an updated mame.exe, the most common reason is that you didn't update your ROM set to match the new version of MAME. If your MAME emulator is release 0.252 and your ROM set is 0.133, you'll have a lot of issues when attempting to play. 14 years (aka 119 releases) of ROM and emulator updates is pretty substantial.

March 15, 2023

4 hours ago, OldSchool80s said:

I've tried all sorts of variations and can't get it to execute after closing BigBox

On 1/11/2021 at 4:52 PM, JoeViking245 said:

But you will need to make sure to point to the 'BigBox.exe' located in the ../Core subfolder.

start /w "" "C:\Users\Me\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe"

start /w "" "C:\Users\Me\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe"
C:\QRes.exe /x:1280 /y:960

March 15, 2023

What default command-line parameters do you have for your MAME emulator in LaunchBox?

March 12, 2023

This will only work for your Arcade platform because you are using a non-merged set.

Select your platform then press Ctrl+A to select all games.

Tools, File Management, Export/Copy ROM Files from Selected Games to New Folder...

Read and follow the prompts.

When done, move the [remaining] files that are in the original location (/LaunchBox/Games/Arcade/ or wherever they actually are) to somewhere else. (aka, 'save' them in a different location for the time being until you're sure everything else works).

Now move the files from the folder you Exported to, into the 'original location'.

Test your Arcade games and make sure they all work.

March 12, 2023

On 3/11/2023 at 1:51 PM, Retrofrogg said:

A setting in the app should be able to sort this I think!

Try this beta release..↴

MultiMonitor2022 (v1.1.5 beta-3a) .7z ⟵ (replace your existing "MultiMonitor2022.dll" file with the one inside this zip)

Open setup from the Tools menu. You'll see the new option to set the initial 3D Box Model size. *3* is the default.

You can also see a preview by clicking Test. Change platforms in the dropdown box below it. Click Close to close the preview window or simply click Exit. Be sure to click Save 1st if you made changes you want to keep.

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