JoeViking245

@drw4013 @skizzosjt If Windows sees your controller, you shouldn't have any issues with AHK detecting it. With it plugged in and on, press Win + R on your keyboard, type "joy.cpl" (without quotes) and press enter. Here's a little ditty from the AHK Docs that talks about remapping controllers. Remapping a Joystick to Keyboard or Mouse | AutoHotkey Note that remapping via AHK is one-way. That is, you can setup a hotkey to detect a controller button press (joy stick, d-pad and even z-trigger) and remap that to send a keyboard input (or do some other task). But, via AHK you can't setup a hotkey that will send a controller button-press. ; Good 1Joy1:: MsgBox, you pressed button 1 on your controller ; Not good (pressing Alt+a will not "press" button 1 !a:: Send, 1joy1 Test the "Good" one outside of LaunchBox like you did the other. You don't need XInput.dll. It should just work. If you read the Doc from the link above, you'll notice their examples don't use the preceding 1 in Joy1. That 1st "1" is denoting controller #1. If you have more that 1 controller plugged in and it doesn't work, you may be holding controller #2. Myself, I only have 1 controller to test with. Also note that button numbering may vary between emulators. Example, the Start button may be "7" in one emulator but "8" in another. Now, if you're trying to get your script to work in a Windows game, Steam or some variant there-of, that could be a whole 'nother issue. And not a good one, I might add. They can usually be a right PITA. But back to your original issue... "insert coin doesn't work for some games in MAME/FBNeo". If MAME (I'm assuming stand-alone MAME) is accepting your other controller inputs, it surely will accept one for Coin Input. But if it (coin input) works in some games and not others, chances are you have a cfg or ini file associated with that (those) game(s) that's overriding the coin input. The 'fix' is to get it setup properly in MAME. Right-Shift is a very odd coin input for MAME. Also SendKey to MAME can at times be hit-or-miss. If you're intent on 'fixing' it with an AHK script, you will need to use the one that has the sleep timer ("Sleep, 50") in it between key_down and key_up. Or it definitely will never work.

Bulk Convert cue/gdi/iso files to CHD View File Bulk Convert cue, gdi or iso ROMs to chd This plugin expands the capabilities of the existing Bulk Convert .cue to .chd plugin by adding the options to also convert gdi and iso formats to CHD. (For cue/bin files, the process is the exact same between the 2 plugins.) Using MAME’s chdman.exe (“Compressed Hunks of Data (CHD) Manager”, included with MAME), this plugin will convert CD based game files to a single .chd file in your selected Platform. Why convert? • You end up with just a single file per game • A CHD file is, well… compressed. Resulting in less storage space requirements • Most, if not all emulators now support .chd format • chdman applies lossless compression so there should no noticeable difference in load time. Requirements This plugin file chdman.exe (included with MAME) ROM sets that are in a .cue, .gdi or .iso format What happens after converting? After successfully creating a CHD Image, the games application path in LaunchBox will be redirected to the new .chd file. Also, after the files have been converted you have the option to • Leave the old files in place (default) • Move the old files to a separate [backup] folder • Delete the old files Installing the plugin 1. Download the plugin 2. Unblock “BulkConvert2CHD (v1.00).zip” by right clicking the file and checking “Unblock” and clicking “OK”. 3. Open the zip file and copy the contents (1 folder containing 1 file) into /LaunchBox/Plugins/ ../LaunchBox/Plugins/BulkConvert2CHD/BulkConvert2CHD.dll Using the plugin 1. Start LaunchBox 2. Select Tools, Bulk Convert To CHD 3. Select a Platform 4. Select the file format you’re converting from 5. Click Convert 6. (Optional) Check Delete old files when complete  This will permanently delete the old files after successfully converting them to .chd. Check Move old files when complete  This will move the old files after successfully converting them to .chd to the folder you specify. Troubleshooting: If you are getting errors while attempting to convert the files, make sure you are using chdman.exe that comes with the latest release of MAME. If you use multiple versions of MAME in LaunchBox, copy chdman,exe from your latest MAME release folder into the ../LaunchBox/Plugins/BulkConvert2CHD/ folder Special thanks to @faeran for the idea of the original Bulk Convert cue to chd. Without that, I probably never would have made this. As always, all comments and suggestions are welcome. Submitter JoeViking245 Submitted 09/01/2022 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins  

The several MAME ROM zips I looked in for Vectrex games all had single bin files. And MAME should be able to play the unzipped, single file ROMs. Vectrex ROMs can be .bin, .gam and .vec So your blitz.vec should work. To use the unzipped ROMs, you'll need to have the command line point to the "full/path/to/the/rom.bin" Example: mame.exe vectrex -cart "D:\MAME\roms\vectrex\blitz.vec" As for the vextrex System file (vextrex.zip), the MAME zip I have has 2 bin files. And based on the xml file for Vexctrex, MAME is going to be looking for those 2 files (inside the zip). You may get lucky and MAME will read your vectrec.vec file as is. That part I really don't know. Can you just put that file into a zip? Don't know that either.

First things first is to get them working directly in MAME before attempting to launch them via LaunchBox. Once you know they work through the emulator, THEN you can work on getting them to work in LaunchBox. You should keep the ROMs in their original .zip format. Example the game "Blitz!" will be "blitz.zip". This has always been the "special MAME format". You also need the System ROM "vectrex.zip". Now that you know they work directly in MAME: Did you setup a Custom Command Line Parameter for the Platform in the emulator settings? vectrex -cart

You may could just try {Shift}. Also, try pressing all your buttons, including joystick 'buttons'. Just in case. Could you reassign the insert coin (in the emulator) to something that's not a "modifier key"? Usually it's "5" for player one and "6" for player 2.

Try this: 1Joy7:: Send, {RShift} Basically just added a "1" in front of the controller. The , (comma) after "Send" and the upper/lower case letters for "RShift" are more for "proper syntax". The "Return" at the end isn't required because it is implied. Unless this code is in the middle of a bunch of other code. Depending on which emulator you're using, you may need to 'exaggerate' the key press: SetKeyDelay, 0, 50 1Joy7:: Send, {RShift} Which is the same as 1Joy7:: Send, {RShift down} Sleep 50 Send, {RShift up}

For the time being, try putting the video for the Playlist inside the /LaunchBox/Videos/Playlists/ folder and make sure the name of the file is the same as the Playlist. Use either the Playlists Unique Name or Nested Name that you have assigned to it.

I'm the same way. Thanks for the detailed post! Adding to my notes. One thing I have different is for Star Wars Trilogy. My brain works differently for moving left and right (no comments from the peanut gallery please. lol) so I inverted the InputAnalogJoyX ; Analog joystick (Star Wars Trilogy) ;InputAnalogJoyX = "JOY_XAXIS,MOUSE_XAXIS" ; analog, full X axis InputAnalogJoyX = "JOY_XAXIS_INV,MOUSE_XAXIS" ; analog, full X axis Another change I have is for Light guns (Lost World). I made these changes a l o n g time ago and don't really play the 3 games affected but do recall it helped with Lost World. ; Light guns (Lost World) ; Add these 2 inputs ; Originally listed under "Analog guns". Mouse and joy conflict (so removed mouse) InputAnalogGunX = "JOY1_XAXIS" ; analog, full X axis InputAnalogGunY = "JOY1_YAXIS" ; analog, full Y axis ; Analog guns (Ocean Hunter, LA Machineguns) ; Comment out the following 2 lines ;InputAnalogGunX = "MOUSE_XAXIS,JOY1_XAXIS" ; analog, full X axis ;InputAnalogGunY = "MOUSE_YAXIS,JOY1_YAXIS" ; analog, full Y axis

I found this particular script in the folder where I saved it after I was done creating it. lol Don't take this wrong but, dream on. I'm not saying I have that and won't share. I'm saying that would be a PITA to incorporate. Anyway, somewhere 'out there', there is/was a controls.dat (or controls.xml?) that listed button_1 = "Run", button_2="Jump" and so on, for quite a few arcade machines. But it was created a long time ago, but in a galaxy not so far away. And as far as I know, hasn't been updated since a long time ago. There is more recently "mame-portnames" on GitHub. It was last updated 4 years ago. (And yes. I did say more recently) It has the same info but in individual json files for each game. Either of these can be parsed to gather games-specific controls for reference. The script I was referring to just shows an existing image. It doesn't "create" them. (CPWizard created them for me) It was written quite a while ago, is kind of cheesy and somewhat primitive. But was really cool when I wrote it. lol Oh, and it messes up LB's Pause Screen. But that didn't matter to me. Fow what it's worth, here's that emulator script.

In order to help troubleshoot issues with MAME, please provide the following information: Do the games work when starting them directly through MAME? Start mame.exe, select a game and press Enter. Does it run? Or do you get error messages? If so, what game are you trying to run and what exactly is the error? [provide a screenshot if possible]) What version is your MAME emulator? (example “0.246”) Are the ROMs you are using match your version of MAME? (example “0.246”) What version of LaunchBox are you using? Screenshots Go to Tools, Manage, Emulators, select the emulator you’re using for MAME and provide a screenshot of the following sections Details Associated Platforms Select one of your Arcade (MAME) games and click Edit (or press Ctrl+E). Provide a screenshot of the following sections Metadata Launching Emulation

In short, not enough interest. It's been on the Community Poll a couple times in the past but never received enough votes to have it integrated into LaunchBox.

Of the 25 games that are in MAME's software list "megaduck", "Marchen Maze" happens to be the only one that also has an arcade machine with the same name. That's why it imports and none of the rest do. So basically, you got lucky with the one. As you've found, LaunchBox only imports MAME's arcade machines and not any their software lists. It's my understanding the plugin Neil mentioned will do what you're wanting.

Clones are revisions or modifications of the Parent games' ROM set (the physical files of the originally released game). Though the PlayChoice-10 cart version (the one on the left) is part of the 194x Series, it doesn't use any of the original files. So it's not technically a "Clone". You could almost call it a 'Port' of the game. Play the PC-10 Arcade version (released 1987). Then go play the NES Port of the game (released 1985). You might notice some visual similarities between the 2. Now play the original Arcade Machine (released 1984) and see 'how it was meant to be'.

I believe it searches the metadata ("Notes") as well.

I don't recall. I kind of made (modified actually) a pause theme of my own to show the game specific controller image. But just for Arcade. The control panel images are stored in \Images\Arcade\Arcade - Controls Information\. And I bind them using Source="{Binding SelectedGame.ArcadeControlsInformationImagePath}" For all other Platforms I do have a 'standard mapping' image. But I don't really use those anywhere. But I do know that you can create (if it doesn't exist) an \Arcade - Controls Information\ folder under any platforms image folder (i.e. \Images\Nintendo GameCube\Arcade - Controls Information\) and bind the image the same way.

Pretty sure that's saying you need to press them both up to move P1 Up. vs. "JOY 1 UP or Joy 2 UP"

"Favorite" you see in LaunchBox isn't the same as a Playlist you create. Unless you actually created a Playlist. If you want to see your Favorites in BigBox, you can either create a Playlist (in LaunchBox) and set the filter to auto populate based on Favorite = True. Then in BigBox, set to view Playlists. Or In BigBox, enter into a Platform, get into the navigation bar (sorry. not sure what it's technically called. But on my test PC I press the Left or right arrow key) and select the Filter Icon. Once selected, add the filter and apply

Thought so. Glad it's sorted for you.

I'm curious. Between your MAME and M1 emulator settings, does one of them have these 2 boxes checked, and the other doesn't?

If this works perfectly, then MAME is recognizing it. Can you show a literal example? As in the full path and file name plus extension. For Apple IIe floppies, MAME supports extensions: mfi, dfi, dsk, do, po, rti, edd, woz, nib For cassettes it's .wav Honestly, you're creating more work than necessary by not having an actual MAME softlist ROM set. You know. .zip files. But according to your "works perfectly file" statement, you CAN make it work with what you have. You NEED to have the afore mention check boxes un-checked in the emulator settings so that it will pass "{path_to_my_disk_image_binary}" at the end of the command line. Do you mean like, double click a game, and have LB simply just open MAME. And then you navigate to Apple IIe, and then select a game from there? aka: have the LaunchBox frontend open the MAME frontend. You can always Right-Click a game and select Open MAME (assuming it's the default emulator for that Platform) An emulators executable name is simply a name, by any other name.

Scratch that new emulator idea above. Just ran some tests.. As stated in your other post about this, put all your Atari 2600 .bin files into the folder "R:\atari2600\a2600\" R:\atari2600\a2600\adventure.bin R:\atari2600\a2600\pitfall.bin You don't need to add a2600 to the rompath. Since your command line says to 'go into Atari 2600 mode', MAME knows to look for a subfolder called a2600 within your rompath's you have listed. Don't need to change any of your existing MAME setting in LaunchBox. Just add the subfolder, move the .bin files into it, start LB and play Pitfall (and Adventure).

Since your a2600 games are not in MAME's traditional zip format, you need to tell MAME the full path to the bin. Just like your command line above, that worked. Since you are also using MAME for Arcade machines, most likely your MAME emulator settings in LaunchBox have these 2 boxes checked. So, with your Default Custom Command-Line Parameters you have set for "Atari 2600", LB will send the command mame a2600 -cart -skip_gameingo -nowindow pitfall With this, MAME will go into Atari 2600 Cart mode (for lack of better phrasing), bypass the game info window, start fullscreen, and look inside your rompath folder(s) for pitfall.zip. Since (at least for your a2600 roms) you don't have MAME's softlist romset (the ones that are in zip format), I recommend you create a new emulator in LaunchBox. Use the same executable ( ) but give it a different name (of course) like MAME_with_quotes or whatever. You can have the same Default Command-Line Parameters (it doesn't matter anyway), but un-check both those boxes. Then in the Associated Platforms section, Add Atari 2600 and its Default Custonm Command-Line Parameters ( a2600 -cart -skip_gameingo -nowindow ). This will now send mame a2600 -cart -skip_gameingo -nowindow "R:\atari2600\pitfall.bin"