[LaunchBox 13.25 Beta Thread]

6 minutes ago, bbweiners said:

Importing Epic Games doesn't seem to work. If I try imporitng games through Launchbox then Epic, it will ask me to login to Epic, then it won't show any games to import.

Try:  Open up your Epic Games client (external to LaunchBox), sign [back] in and accept their terms.

[Unable to add roms in Launchbox!]

1 hour ago, RetroExecutioner said:

I managed to download MAME 0.284 (non-merged), imported the set into LaunchBox, and was looking for the game Gunforce2. Nothing. So I downloaded the game, and I imported it manually from LaunchBox—still nothing. Like before, the game is not imported at all.

After doing the import from the updated ROM set, do you [now] have a game with the Title Geo Storm?

After doing the import from the updated ROM set, did your look for Gun Force? or Gunforce?

For the game Gun Force II (vs. Gunforce2), Is your ROM filename gunforc2.zip (vs. gunforce2.zip)?

Are you importing the game into your "Arcade" platform?

When you updated your ROM set, did you also update your MAME emulator (to 0.284)?

When [attempting to] import the ROM, is the emulator you're selecting the updated MAME?

 

[Help - Day 1 and I am in trouble already]

1 hour ago, Who_Dunnit_Roger said:

I also carried over the bios set I have and placed it in the games folder in a BIOS folder I created

Place the BIOS files in the same folder as the ROMs (vs. in a separate subfolder).

e.g.

• D:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\rom1.zip
• D:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\rom2.zip
• D:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\rom3.zip
• D:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\bios1.zip
• D:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\vios2.zip

[How to force Bigbox to open in a certain monitor]

System Menu < Options < General < Primary Screen: Screen 1

Change the 1 to whatever your monitor is on.  Note that what Windows see as Monitor #1, may not be what Big Box sees as #1.  So try the different available #'s to you find it.  

[LB - MAME import wizard questions where updating romset is applicable]

The import wizard is geared towards adding games to your LaunchBox collection. Not really for 'updating' it.  Arcade is unique to other platforms in that its ROM set encompasses all things arcade, emulatable or otherwise.  Including but not limited to Arcade machines, fruit machines ("slots"), pinball and handheld games.  I won't even go into its soflists side of things in which the main ROM set includes all the devices and bios files for.  Even more unique are the 3 types of ROM sets MAME has.  Merged, non-merged and split.  That alone can make updating your collection challenging.  It's primarily because of these differing sets that Arcade is purposefully blacklisted from the AutoImport feature.

With MAME being updated monthly, there's no real automagical way to have newly added ROMs classified into their respective 'genres'. e.g. poker/casino, fruit and handheld (which is a lot of what's being added these past months).  This part of the MAME integration into LaunchBox is done [at least] semi-manually. And doesn't (can't?) happen as-soon-as a new update comes out.  I have no idea how frequently LB developers update that aspect of it.  I presume within a week-ish of the [MAME] new release.  I suspect this is what/why you're seeing the post 13.21 issue.

Thanks for the follow up on the bezel updating.  That's good to know.

RE: -listxml, when importing, LB will actually run that [in the background] to get a list of MAME ROMs your MAME emulator is aware of and use that to import from.  When doing a fullset import, LB doesn't even look at all ROMs you have in your set.  It just goes off "the list".  e.g.  if you have a 0.284 ROM set, but your mame.exe is 0.179, you'll have a lot fewer playable games imported than are in your set.  (a farfetched example, just to show a point).

[LB - MAME import wizard questions where updating romset is applicable]

8 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

Late last year when i applied the same above logic, there was around 600 new roms to import but a majority of those are poker/casino games that i don't want. I applied the use MAME metadata within the scan for update rom wizard and checked skip all poker/casino games but the wizard still wont filter those ones out and the 600 new roms remain

This was fixed in version 13.21 (Apr. 24, 2025)  "MAME Gambling games are now marked as Casino games allowing you to easily filter them out during imports"

8 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

How can i avoid redownloading all the media, i.e. images / videos? would i need to check none for import of videos / images then scan for new media files after the import is complete?

Don't have LB delete media when deleting your existing Arcade platform and then click None for both LB and EmuMovies media during re-import.

Since MAME doesn't really add many "new" machines between releases, those few games will be easy to identify.

8 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

Can i skip updating MAME emulator since its already there up to date? this is one of the first options in the wizard and i don't want to impact my custom controller settings,mame.ini, shaders and etc. 

If you are manually updating your emulator, you can of course skip that step.  I haven't checked in a long while, but I believe when "updating" this particular emulator, LB will install (unzip, basically) MAME into a new folder, suffixing the folder name with the release number.  Essentially giving you a "new" install vs. updating your existing install.  It then reassociates the game to use the "new' emulator.

Do note that a new/fresh install of MAME only includes the base files and that there are no configuration files included.  I manually update my MAME emulator myself.  Which involves downloading the binaries from MAMEDev, right-clicking the exe file and opening it with 7zip (as the installer is just an executable zip file). Then copy the complete contents of the "zip" into my existing MAME folder.  After at least 5 years and doing monthly updates, I've never ran across an issue doing it this way.

9 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

If i check yes to bezel project (as i would want bezels for the new imported roms) will this overwrite all the existing bezels in MAME artwork?

If doing a full import, I don't know.  If after the import is complete you go to Tools < Download < Update Metadata and Media for Selected Games..., I'm fairly certain it will only download the missing artwork (bezel files).  But I not 100% on that.

9 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

Will the import wizard keep the platform categories organised as per my original import

It shouldn't affect your Categories at all.  Since you're importing only one Platform (Arcade), it will still get added under the Arcade Category.  If your current Arcae Platform is under multiple Categories, then you will probably need to reset that in the Platforms Parents tab.

On the other hand, Playlists you had or have manually created that look specifically for games in the Arcade Platform will still be there.

9 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

what should i be checking in the MAME import wizard for best chance of success?

Maybe someone else can chime in on how best use the import wizard for monthly updates.  I don't use it for that.

I update my Arcade ROM set each month, update the emulator as mentioned above then read through whatsnew.txt to see what new Arcade Machines were dumped/added.  If I see something intriguing, I'll manually it (them?) using Ctrl+N.  There's also a plugin in which you can see what new Arcade Machines have been added with each release.  It only shows you MAME cabs, so you're not inundated with fruit machines and the sort.  Unfortunately, since the plugins release, there haven't been any "new" machines added to speak of.  A lot of new or updated ROMs, yes. But not cab machines.

[Are you guys stop updating?]

3 hours ago, TrevorZ said:

the system keep reminding me to update plugins that I don't really need,because some emulator,I would like to keep the old one

The purpose of the emulator integration plugins is for installing and updating those emulators.  It won't actually update the emulator until you specifically tell LaunchBox to do so under Manage Emulators.  To get rid of the update plugin notifications, you can update the plugins [without having any effect on your existing emulator installs].

[Cannot start if License.xml is present]

37 minutes ago, Inacito said:

Error code

The error code indicates there's an issue with your license file.  Contrary to the message, you need to contact support regarding licensing issues.

email: support@unbrokensoftware.com

[MAME cheats only have Autofire as option]

Is the cheats file compatible with the version of MAME you're using (looks like 0.279 is the most recent)?  You're using stand-alone MAME. Correct? Or MAME via RetroArch?  Are you using MAME from MAMEDev? Or a derivative of MAME (like MAMEUI)?  Which version?

 

Just tested here with cheats 0.279 and MAME 0.284.  Placed "cheat.7z" in the same folder as "mame.exe".  Started MAME and enabled Cheats (and Autofire) in General Settings - Plugins.  Exited and restarted MAME.  Started "1942", pressed Tab and selected Plugin Options and both Cheats and Autofire were showing.

 

Maybe the game you're testing doesn't have cheats available for it. Not really sure how that works as I don't use it.

[MAME cheats only have Autofire as option]

24 minutes ago, jruizleon said:

placed the Zip file in the cheats folder, enabled cheats, but only have Autofire as an option

The zip file goes in the same folder as mame.exe.

Individual game custom xml files go in the /cheat/ folder.

Autofire is a MAME plugin.

[Mameinfo.dat Version 0.284]

It moved to here:  MASH's MAMEINFO

[Having issues with Big Box and dual monitors]

3 hours ago, FurabioS said:

I put Monitor 2 (TV) as the main monitor, but it simply doesn't work. Big Box always launch on Monitor 1

What Windows sees as monitor #1 and monitor #2 is not necessarily how Big Box sees them (order-wise).  It's not a bug or something that will cause ill side-effects. It's "just a thing".

In Windows, set your monitors in the order you want them.  Then in Big Box, change it to "1" or "2" until BB is on the monitor you want.

 

Also, though "shouldn't" affect your particular setup, when setting up the monitors in Window's Display Settings, align the tops of the 2 'monitors' and have them side-by-side (vs. one on top of the other).  It "seems" like this shouldn't matter, but (e.g. not having the tops aligned) can have undesirable effects.

[I accidentally hit some key combo that bulk duplicated the title by adding version]

6 hours ago, Jayinem said:

Figured it out, Ctrl + R does it so just hit Ctrl + R again, weird feature. 

At first, it sounded like something was done to do a mass edit on all your games. Which was really odd.

That Feature, also found under View - Show/Hide - Versions, toggles showing the version along with the games Title in the Main section.

[What are the default command line parameters for Suyu?]

1 hour ago, Frex16 said:

like that?

According to the help printout, yes.

What's your games ROM path pointing to?

[What are the default command line parameters for Suyu?]

11 minutes ago, Frex16 said:

How can I make it run the game directly?

When running suyu-cmd.exe -h from the Command prompt, it shows:

-c, --config             Load the specified configuration file
-f, --fullscreen      Start in fullscreen mode
-g, --game             File path of the game to load
-h, --help               Display this help and exit
-m, --multiplayer=nick:password@address:port Nickname, password, address and port for multiplayer
-p, --program       Pass following string as arguments to executable
-u, --user               Select a specific user profile from 0 to 7
-v, --version         Output version information and exit
-l, --applet-params="program_id,applet_id,applet_type,launch_type,prog_index,prev_prog_index"
                      Numerical parameters for launching an applet. If no
                      game is provided, then the applet will launch off of
                      the applet_id.

Make sure you're using suyu-cmd.exe for the executable.

[Starting Themes work in Desktop mode, but not BigBox.]

10 hours ago, onebadveggie said:

Restarted BigBox, tested theme, still stuck on Default. Still no discs moving.

I think it's time to file a bug report.  Top of this page under Help & Support.

[Starting Themes work in Desktop mode, but not BigBox.]

41 minutes ago, onebadveggie said:

the Default theme works properly in Launchbox Desktop as well! Just not in BigBox

A couple quick tests shows switching the games startup theme in Big Box on-the-fly isn't applying the newly selected theme.  But switching theme, exiting/restarting Big Box does work.

Tested back-and-forth between Default, SlipStream and StageBox startup themes.  Same results each time:  The "old" (originally selected) startup theme still showed until Big Box was restarted.

But... (regarding your PS2 dilemma) when I switched back to Default, exited and restarted Big Box, then launched PS2's Arctic Thunder, the spinny disc, spun.  aka it used the 'Sony Playstation 2.xaml' startup file.  So maybe the restart is the trick?

 

"trick".  NOT to be confused with "solution".  BB not applying the changed startup theme seems like it may be a bug. 🐞 Which brings me to, my tests were all using LaunchBox version 13.25-beta-3.  Yours?  (I didn't test on any earlier versions of LB/BB)

[Starting Themes work in Desktop mode, but not BigBox.]

3 minutes ago, onebadveggie said:

If I try to use, say PS2, and I have a Playstation 2.xml, it will only use the Default.xml.

(just some background info...) For game startup themes,

• it will use the xaml file that has the same name as your platform. 
• If it can't find one named the same, it will look for one named after the platforms Scrape-As value. 
• If it can't find either of those matches, it will use Default.xaml.

However, it doesn't explain why you see the spinning disc when launching a Sony Playstation 2 game from LaunchBox and not from Big Box. So call this a non-helpful fyi reply.  

[how can change name on your email]

3 minutes ago, thepersonyes said:

how can change name on your email

Read here:  LaunchBox Licensing FAQ - Name or Email Change on a License

[Themes. Latest Build. Maddening. Need Help, Please?]

Sounds like you had downloaded a custom theme.  Can probably look through the Big Box Custom Themes section of the Downloads area and see if the image previews show the one with the awesome backgrounds, you're referring to.

Alternately, in Big Box itself, you can look at previews of the 20 popular themes via System Menu - Manage Themes - Available Most Popular.  If you find it there, you can install it directly from there.

[Help Us Expand the LaunchBox Games Database!]

On 1/12/2026 at 4:24 AM, XyberDAWG said:

Could we have maybe a LaserDisc platform that covers all the various LaserDisc games?

A Feature Request was made for this that you may want to look at, comment/expand on and/or upvote.  

Missing Platform in the Game Database: Mega LD / Pioneer LaserActive

[I can no longer upload duplicate arcade games since updating to version 13.24]

11 hours ago, CRMarch81 said:

Now I am trying to do the same thing with mspacmanf (speed hack) and clubpacm (another hack of ms.pacman), launchbox will not upload these even with the force importing duplicate games option checked during manual import.

Ran a test for importing... can't find 'mspacmanf' as a MAME ROM.  But 'clubpacm' (and 'clubpacma') should import without issue.  On the How would you like to import your MAME games screen, be sure to un-check Skip hacked games.

[I can no longer upload duplicate arcade games since updating to version 13.24]

You can manually add it.  Press Ctrl+N, enter the games Title.  Go to the Launching section and Browse to the games file and select it.  Press OK to save & close.

[Unable to add roms in Launchbox!]

9 minutes ago, RetroExecutioner said:

The question is how to delete the games from the complete set so I can reduce its size to 4GB. .... Please elaborate on the steps. Thank you! 

1. Carefully follow all of the steps in the "possible solution".
   • Note that the mentioned "curated copy" that is created is your [new] 4GB set.
2. Once done, and satisfied, delete the folder the full set ("complete set") is in.  
   • e.g. F:\MAME 0.284 (non-merged)

You won't be able to later to retrieve a future-discovered "gem".  (Well, you can. By going through the process that initiated this post. )  But this will accomplish what you're asking for.   Having a 4GB set and no full set.

 

Please take some time and carefully re-read my previous 2 posts as they're pretty elaborate to begin with.  Then if you have questions about a specific item in them, ask.

[Unable to add roms in Launchbox!]

2 hours ago, RetroExecutioner said:

how do I properly curate the games from the non-merged set? I mean, I want to make it the same 4GB only games that I want

Follow the steps I outlined above.

 

2 hours ago, RetroExecutioner said:

And you say that it is better to remain on the non-merged version? Can I add new games, or do I always have to create a new set?

As stated above:  

If you were to start with a full set, you can cherry pick from that. Then if you later discover a "hidden gem", you can go back to your full set and "pull it out".

The process I outlined creates your "4GB only games" set.  AND maintains the full set.  Which you can keep on an external drive, or wherever, so that it's out-of-the-way. Yet available.

Again:  Note: This process will only work with a non-merged set!

 

Adding new games:

Then when you discover a "gem" (like Gun Force 2) that's not in your LaunchBox collection, go to your external drive (or wherever) and copy gunforc2.zip to where you have your "4GB only games" set.  Then use Tools - Import (or Ctrl+N) and navigate to where you copied the ROM to.

 

Keeping the full (non-merged) set intact (somewhere, wherever) is cheap insurance in case something was to happen with your "4GB only games" set.  Also, it makes it easy to retrieve the "gems" from.