JoeViking245

They look great when looking through standalone MAME and adds a little pizazz to it. Yes. Within the Extras, the image files (at least) are all named after the ROMs filename. So when placed into the appropriate folder, LaunchBox will associate them with their respective game(s). The DATs and ini ("folders") files can't be used in LaunchBox without the use of third-party plugins. The Multimedia pack does have soundtracks and videosnaps that would work the same when placed in the appropriate folder. I'm not sure about their quality. (Not saying they might be bad. I just have no idea) "Can I gain anything using those over what LaunchBox has available for Arcade Images?" Not really. When you download MAMEs Extras, you get everything. Say you go to pull out just the cabinet images and place them in 'their' folder, you're putting in every single image [they have]. Whereas, when you download media from LaunchBox, you get only the images for the games you actually have. If you have an EmuMovies account (highly recommended), the same thing goes for soundtracks and videos (get only the ones you need). Images available on the LaunchBox Database (where they're downloaded from) are relatively complete for Arcade machines. As are the videosnaps from EmuMovies. Anything that is or may be missing, chances are, they're missing from Extras and Multimedia as well.

MAME DATs Viewer View File View MAME DATs for games using MAME ROMs. Works across platforms (Arcade, Sega Model 3...) and emulators (MAME, Demul...). DAT - A file that stores specific information [data]. MAME uses Dat files to display extra information about its systems. (see The DAT Files below) Inspired from MAME's built in feature in the main UI and via their in-game Tab menu to view game specific initialization procedures (LaunchBox only), commands and history (LaunchBox only). This plugin combines my 3 other DAT Viewer plugins into a one-stop-shop. ⦁ View game specific commands from MAME's command.dat ⦁ MAME History.xml Viewer ⦁ MAME gameinit.dll Viewer Why this plugin? Why now? When I created the 1st one for command.dat, I didn't fathom creating any more. Same thing happened after creating the 2nd one for history.xml. It wasn't until after creating the gameinit.dll viewer that I realized I should have combined them all into one plugin. So here we are. Why use this one instead of the other 3? If you use at least 2 of the other plugins, you may consider using this one instead. Especially if one of them is the command.dat viewer. The original plugin doesn't provide the update feature this one has. All 3 Dat files are contained with this plugins folder. So no need to set them up in MAME (or MAMEUI). This plugin uses LaunchBox's multi-menu feature, making a cleaner look when right-clicking a game. It's just one plugin that LaunchBox has to load instead of [up to] three. Important note if switching from the other plugin(s) to this one: If you are switching from one (or more) of the other plugins to this one, remove the other plugin(s) from your LaunchBox installation! It won't break anything to have all 4 installed. But will create excess duplicative processing. Features: The 3 Dat files are included with the plugin. No need to download them separately or include them with your MAME installation. Option to update to the latest DATs as they become available. (See Updating) Choose which DATs to have available. (Remove or add on-the-fly. No restart required) (Updating and re-adding requires an internet connection) Option to have to always have the DAT Viewer window open full screen Badges are displayed for games that have initialization procedures and/or commands. (See Badges below for enabling them) Option to temporarily disable the plugin and badges (See Settings) Plugin Requirements: LaunchBox 13.3 or higher This plugin file (MAMEdatsViewer.dll) (The download includes all 3 DAT files to get you started) Installing: Download and then open the zip file using 7zip. If you don't use 7zip, first unblock the zip file (Right click, select Properties, and click Unblock) then open it as you normally would. Extract the main folder from inside the zip file into ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\ i.e. D:\LaunchBox\Plugins\MAMEdatsViewer\ Start LaunchBox How to Use: LaunchBox Right-click on a game Select MAME DATs Viewer Select an available option from the submenu(s) BigBox Select MAME commands from the Games View menu Settings: (LaunchBox only) Tools < View MAME DATs - Settings All 3 DATS will be listed and will each show: if the local file exists the local files' version (if exists) the current available version available to download three buttons (depending on the local files' status) Remove Add (requires an internet connection) Update (requires an internet connection) (Option) Full Screen: Check the box to have the DAT Viewer window always open full screen. (Option) Temporarily Disable Plugin: Checking this will remove the plugin from the games right-click menu and will also disable the plugin badges. It will stay disabled until it’s unchecked or LaunchBox is restarted. Badges: (LaunchBox only) A history badge is not included because pretty much all (if not all) MAME ROMs will have some sort of history entry. A badge will be displayed if there is an entry in gameinit.dat for that game. A badge will be displayed if there is an entry in commands.dat for that game. To enable the badge(s), click Badges, Plugin Badges, MAME Gameinit, MAME Commands. The Badge image can be changed by replacing the image(s) ../LaunchBox/Images/Badges/MAMEgameinit.png ../LaunchBox/Images/Badges/MAMEcommands.png Updating: (LaunchBox only) (Requires an internet connection) 2 options: When loading the plugin by right clicking a game, it will check the local version of the selected DAT against what's available online If a newer version is available, you will be given the option to Update the local copy. Updating will attempt to download and then replace the existing file. Tools < View MAME DATs – Settings Here you can check/update all 3 DATs The DAT Files: command.dat Courtesy of: https://www.progettosnaps.net/command/ Lists the various commands of many arcade games. Shows controller command sequences used to make special moves in games. gameinit.dat (LaunchBox only) Courtesy of: https://www.progettosnaps.net/gameinit/ Shows information on how to run tricky systems. This file lists the initialization procedures of some games emulated by MAME. (Not all MAME games require any initial setup to run, but some do.) history.xml (LaunchBox only) Courtesy of: https://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=download Contains game information, trivia, facts and tips on the arcade systems supported by MAME. Navigating the DAT window: LaunchBox Use Ctrl+Mouse-Wheel to change the font size Escape (or click the red X) to close BigBox Left-Joy or d-pad to scroll Right-Joy for page up/down "Back" to close As always, all thoughts, views, opinions, suggestions, comments and accolades are welcome. 😎 See all my plugins here: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/profile/102158-joeviking245/content/?type=downloads_file Submitter JoeViking245 Submitted 01/13/2025 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins  

LaunchBox doesn't have (and pretty sure never had) an innate YouTube scraper. There is an older user submitted "YouTube Scraper" plugin that you would have had to manually download and install yourself. Here's a link to the Support Page for that scraper. But it appears to have been abandoned. To remove it, just delete the folder/file you added to the /Plugins/ folder [while LaunchBox is not running]. There is another user submitted YT scraper plugin call Vidsnap Scraper that is currently active. If you're looking for one.

Follow this and just change Arcade to your NES platform.

Ah Snap! Apologies. I've always construed the limit to be per checkbox item. But it clearly does state "group". And honestly, I've never really paid attention that the "Group" column was even there. (this doubly shows I need to look and read closer. ) I'll defer to the developers.

You have 2 images for that game. One is a Box - Front image type and the other is a Fanart - Box - Front image type. Looking at the LBDB images for that game, is doesn't contain a Box - Front image. But it does have a Fanart - Box - Front image. My guess is the Box - Front came from EmuMovies and happens to be the same image LaunchBox has for the Fanart image type. Though, those 2 types do happen to fall into the same Box - Front 'group' (when looking at Tools < Options < Media < Box Front Priorities).

I think it means change the scrape-as for that platform scan for achievements for that platform ('undocumented') change the scrape-as back to what you had it [for future metadata and media scraping]

Welp... I am at a loss. The only last thing might be (which I tried to avoid [for no particular reason]) is to remove and reinstall MAME.

You said when you start MAME itself ('starting stand-alone MAME'), you also indicated you're actually starting it from a shortcut (which in your case is a file you renamed from mame.exe - Shortcut to just mame, and the whole filename is mame.lnk). Which is fine. This should technically be the same as starting stand-alone MAME from the actual exe file. (Unless of course you changed some of the Compatibility settings of the shortcut. Which I doubt you did.) This shortcut is pointing to E:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME 0.269\mame.exe When you edit your MAME emulator in LaunchBox it shows the [relative] Application Path as Emulators\MAME 0.269\mame.exe. If you click Browse, it opens Explorer to your E:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME 0.269\ folder. Correct? (just double checking) Continuing with 'starting stand-alone MAME', you can "load and save games without any issues". This indicates your E:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME 0.269\sta\1942\ folder (or '1941' from previous tests) has some files in it. i.e. 1.sta, 7.sta, a.sta, d.sta... depending on which numbers or letters you pressed when prompted to save. When you 'start stand-alone MAME' (via the shortcut) and press F6 to save, you can see those previous save states (1, 7, a, d) and can select one of those or press a different number/letter. The fact that you're not seeing those previous saves when starting MAME via LaunchBox (vs stand-alone) and trying to save is a disconcerting. You also stated, "I click on Open MAME 0.269...", meaning you right-click the game and select that. Doing so starts stand-alone MAME (via LaunchBox). You then start 1942 from within MAME and save/load does NOT work. You're also not seeing the 'other' save states as indicated from your screenshots. Again, disconcerting. To summarize, no matter how you run a game via LaunchBox (launch the game directly or right-click and Open MAME and load a game from within it), saves DO NOT work (nor show previous saves). But starting from the shortcut .lnk file, all is good. One last ditch effort... as mentioned earlier this week, it appears to be a write permissions thing. You never did answer if "you use Google Drive or Dropbox or some other cloud syncing service?". Since you didn't, I'll assume you're not. (But if you are, that's a potential can-of-worms that should have been opened earlier.) With LaunchBox (and MAME) not running, in Windows Explorer right-click your LaunchBox folder and select Properties. Click the Attributes - Read-only box until it's empty (no black square or checkmark inside it) and click Apply. Any chance you, at some point manually reinstalled LaunchBox? If so, does a path exist for E:\LaunchBox\LaunchBox\? (double 'LaunchBox') Do you have any other installs of LaunchBox like on a D drive or an F drive? I'm grasping at straws and am at a loss. Besides, unless you have a special needs case (hope that doesn't sound derogatory), you shouldn't be saving, let alone pausing an Arcade machine anyway. "Back in my day, when we went to the Arcade (walking up hill, in the snow, both directions), we never had the luxury to save or pause our games!" (side note: I personally always use 1942 in all my MAME tests. You started this with 1941, so I just went with it. )

If you're talking about seeing them in the Main (middle) section... Go to Tools < Options < Media < Box Front Priorities, check the box for Arcade Cabinets and then click Move Selection Up until it's at the top of the list. Click OK to save and close the Options window. Click Image Group and select Boxes. Moving it the top selection works nice because it won't interfere with other Platforms (as they typically won't have any Arcade Cabinet images). If you're talking about wanting to see them somewhere else, please elaborate.

tldr the whole thread, but someone on Discord had the stuttering issue recently and they turned vsync off and it appeared to fix their issue.

No. Do NOT have LaunchBox extract MAME ROMs. Ever. When you start sand-alone MAME, you can load the games without issue. (correct?) Which tells me you have either the ROMS in the /MAME 0.269/roms/ subfolder or you have the path mapped [to where they're actually located] in MAME itself. So try removing from the Default Command-line Parameters -rompath %romlocation%.

If you disable the plugin, does the game music then play as before? Really though, this plugin enabled or disabled shouldn't be affecting any music playing/not-playing. It doesn't even look at nor touch anything to do with sound.

Via Windows Explorer, in your Data folder (../LaunchBox/Data/), do you have any extracurricular files that shouldn't be there? Maybe something that has in the name or file extension 'backup' or '.bak' Can you share a screenshot of that folder.

When testing stand-alone MAME, in LaunchBox right-click 1941 and select Open MAME (or it should say Open MAME 0.269). If for some odd reason there are 2, that will open the mame.exe that you've assigned to LaunchBox. Try your standalone testing from there (that way). What is the actual full path to your mame.exe? x:\something\something\LauncBox\Emulators\MAME 0.269\mame.exe (what is x and something(s)?) "Do you use Google Drive or Dropbox or some other cloud syncing service?"

No. "In LaunchBox, Edit your MAME emulator. " aka: Start LaunchBox Click Tools < Manage < Emulators In the list of emulators you have installed in LaunchBox, select MAME (or whatever you have it named) and click Edit This will bring up the Edit Emulator window About halfway down, it will show you the Default Command-line Parameters used to when launching that emulator.

Since you have your ROMs and CHDs located in the /roms/ folder under your MAME installation: In LaunchBox, Edit your MAME emulator. In the Default Command-line Parameters does it have -rompath %romlocation%? If so, remove it.

Looking closer, it appears it's not able to create (vs find) the Save State file. Write permissions error? In your /MAME 0.269/ folder, is there a /sta/ subfolder? If so, is there a /1941/ subfolder? If so, are there any files in that folder? If not, do you have LaunchBox or mame.exe set to run as Admin? On a fresh MAME install, /sta/ will not exist. The 1st time you create a save state (F6), MAME will (is supposed to be able to) create it. It will also create a folder within that named after the ROM's filename. Manually creating /sta/ will most likely not fix the underlying issue.

Not sure if this falls under a double entendre or an oxymoron. Merged - (0.273) 76.54 GB Non-Merged - (0.273) 141.6 GB That is course is for the Full set(s) and you'd only be exporting some of those. So "to save space.."? In the end.. Probably not. To have the export feature [more so] work in-your-favor and "Less chances of them not working and less headache"? Most likely.

Depends. If your main ROM file (default game) is the parent ROM, then yes. If it's a clone (located inside the parent ROM zip file [in a merged set]), then no. i.e. path/to/1942.zip (parent ROM) vs. path/to/1942b.zip (clone ROM) In a merged set, 1942b.zip does not physically exist. But that's the [non-existent] filename that gets pointed to. (and it works [plays], because MAME is smart and knows how to handle it) Note: "Only the main ROM files will be copied and not any additional applications." Regarding exporting, it does matter. Regardless of the set. A lot. Again. "Only the main ROM files will be copied..". When imported, the path to the 'game' is (i.e.) path/to/area51.zip. It will export that [Parent] ROM. But it won't touch the other required path/to/area51/area51.chd

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