JoeViking245

But there is. (in a roundabout way) Edit your MAME emulator in LB and in the Default Command-line Parameters add (probably towards the beginning of the line): -artpath "D:\this\path\does\not\exist"

MAME bezel information is [typically] stored under /MAME/artwork/ (Without MAME running) try renaming the artwork folder. i.e. "artworkBackup" This will (should?) make it so MAME can't find them.

Thanks! Great to hear someone's still liking and using this plugin! Why would anyone want to select a game, then choose Play Version and then pick the game they originally selected. OK, they wouldn't and that's why it never crossed my mind to put the Parent game as an Additional App. Yes, that makes perfect sense! Thanks for feedback and an excellent reason why it falls within the scope of the plugin. I've updated the original post with version "beta-05". Note: this will only work with new parent game (with additional apps) imports.

MAME and MESS are one-in-the-same now. However you did it in MESS, you do the same way in MAME. You'll note my command line didn't have "-cart" in it as it's not necessary. But you can add it if you wish. That Software List Importer I hear works pretty well for getting softlists into LB. Not sure which xml file your talking about, but as I recall there are pretty thorough instructions on the Download page for the plugin. So don't bypass anything because of tldr: syndrome. lol But you already have your ROMs in LaunchBox, so you don't need that for this particular softlist. If you do use it in the future and have questions about the plugin, you can ask them on the Support page for the plugin. The plugin creator is fairly good about responding and helping out. Can you share 'current' screenshots of how you have it setup? Emulator Details Emulator Associated Platforms Edit one of the games and show the Launching section

I was kind of joking about the rogue part. How you have it will still work. For now. In the Details section, check 2 boxes: Remove Quotes and Remove file extension.... In the Associated Platforms section, add back in that full Default Command-line like you have in your previous screenshot.

Ahh... you went rogue. lol In that case, you don't need that latter part of the command line I showed. Just "socrates" (without quotes). If that still doesn't work, can you share a screenshot of the main Details section of your MAME emulator?

Now that you know they can run in MAME, put socrates.zip inside the /socrates/ subfolder (with the game ROMs) and set up the Associated Platform as shown in my 1st post (including the command line, as shown).

There is. Tools, Options, Media, Box Front Priorities. Check the ones you want as 'back-up' and also move then up or down the pecking order.

Glad you got it working. Most computer systems MAME emulates also emulates their native keyboard. To exit, you need to switch the keyboard to the non-emulated keyboard by pressing ScrollLock. Then you can press Esc to exit. To get images and videos (if there are any) set the platforms' screape-as to VTech Socrates.

No need to apologize. It's a hobby. The Socrates [game] ROMs are not in the regular MAME [Arcade] romset. Only the BIOS (socrates.zip) is. The games are in the MAME Software List (softlist) set. But sounds like you found them. Are the Socrates game ROMs you found in .zip format? (i.e. amazes.zip, aworld.zip) I have an older softlist set (v0.233) but am using mame.exe v0.257 and socrates.zip v0.257 and the 1 game I tested (amazes.zip) worked. So as long socrates.zip (from the Arcade romset) and mame.exe are the same version, you 'should' be ok (even with older or different version softlist ROMs). But NEVER count on that to always be the case. In your screenshot, if on the left, you click Available, do the list of 8 games still show? If not, MAME's not finding those ROMs. Via mame.exe, can you load a regular Arcade game (i.e. 1942)? If so, continue.... If you can play "1942" but the Socrates games aren't showing when selecting Available, exit MAME, create a subfolder under roms called socrates and then move those 8 ROMs into that new folder. i.e. D:\MAME\roms\1942.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates\amazes.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates\aworld.zip Re-start mame.exe. Now search and open Socrates and see if they appear when you click Available. Let me know.

Would you be against using the [recommended] stand-alone MAME emulator to run your MAME ROMs? It would provide a much better emulation experience and in most every instance, works 'right-out-of-the-box'.

For stand-alone MAME, make sure you have socrates.zip in the same location as your (8) V-Tec ROMs (you can find it in your MAME fullset). Then under associated platforms, for your MAME emulator in LaunchBox, use the default command line parameters for that platform: socrates -rompath %romlocation% And enjoy all 8 of those games.

Unless you've added your ROM path into mame.ini, it may be a matter of adding to the default command-line parameters: -rompath %romlocation% You most likely already have both boxes checked.

Of course it's possible. To accomplish what you're asking, first you need to go to https://mameinfo.mameworld.info/ and download: *NEW* MAMEUI 0.2xx Category-, Version and Alltime inifiles (where "0.2xx" is the most recent MAME release) You might get an 'unsafe to download' warning. There are no executable files inside the zip. Just information (.ini) files [I'm guessing that's why it's flagged]. Inside the zip file is a folder called folders. Extract this folder into (the typical location is) ..\MAME\ini\ i.e. D:\Emulators\MAME\ini\folders\ Next (with LaunchBox closed), download and install this plug in following the instructions under "How to use:". In (How to use:) step #3, select the file "Version.ini". In step #4, select the version you updated to (0.256 as of your writing). Now follow the rest of the steps. You could of course make a playlist for each revision update starting from 0.129u5, if you're so inclined. Note: This assumes you imported the updated set into LaunchBox. That is, the plugin will show all the ROMs that were added (per the ini file) but the playlist created will only contain games you actually have in your selected platform (step #5).

Edit you Dolphin emulator (in LaunchBox) and make sure the "Remove Quotes" checkbox is Un-Checked.

Tools - Import - ROM Files When selecting (or entering your custom name for) the platform, be sure to set the Scrape As value to Arcade. [assuming you select MAME as your emulator] Also be sure to uncheck Skip non-arcade games

The registry for sure holds the ID (Steam's ID #) for the Running Steam game (as you can see in the script. The %1% variable). You'd have to start a Steam game and then open the registry to that path under HKCU and see if there's more info like possibly the exe. It's not going to have the PID. And the exe may not even be shown. That's just a guess, and you might get lucky. You can parse through the Process Explorer's processes, but you won't see anything referencing the ID as that's only a Steam reference. Process Explorer will only show the actual executable for the game.

I know the registry holds the value for a "Running" Steam app by its ID. The registry may hold the related exe for the ID. Here's a script you can setup as an 'emulator' in LaunchBox and then use to launch your Steam games (via their ID, just like regular Steam does). It'll launch the game and then wait for the game to exit for exiting itself. Useful for launching an app before and\or after a Steam game. You might be able to look in the same registry location to find the running exe. Maybe. ;========================================================== ; Launch before and after a Steam game ;========================================================== ; (1) If using Run Before and Run After, setup the programs/paths below. ; ("Edit These Paths") ; Save this file file somewhere. (i.e. D:\Misc\SteamLaunch.ahk) ; ; (2) Create/Add a new Emulator in LaunchBox ; ; Under Emulator Name:, give it a name. Something like "SteamLaunch". ; Where it says Emulator Application Path: click Browse and select ; ../LaunchBox/ThirdParty/AutoHotkey/AutoHotkey.exe ; Where it says Default Command-Line Parameters:, type in the full path ; to where you saved this file. Put quotes around it!! ; example: "D:\Misc\SteamLaunch.ahk" ; Check both boxes: ; (no quotes, filename only) ; Save this new 'emulator' ; ; (3) Tell the Steam game(s) to Lauch using this Emulator ; Edit game. Under "Emulation", check "Use an emulator..." ; Choose the emulator you ceated above ;========================================================== ;========================================================== ;=========================================================== ; Edit These Paths ;=========================================================== runBefore = D:\MyFolder\Utilities\myBeforeApp.exe runAfter = D:\MyFolder\Utilities\myAfterApp.exe ;=========================================================== ; ************** Do Not Edit Below Here ****************** ; (except to uncomment the Run Before and/or Run After lines) ;=========================================================== ;gets the path to Steam.exe RegRead, steamLocation, HKCU\Software\Valve\Steam, SteamExe ; Program that runs before starting the Steam game ;Run, %runBefore% Run, "%steamLocation%" -applaunch %1% isRunning := "0" While (isRunning = "0") ; Wait until the game is launched RegRead, isRunning, HKCU\Software\Valve\Steam\Apps\%1%, Running Sleep, 500 Sleep, 15000 While (isRunning = "1") ; Wait until the game is closed RegRead, isRunning, HKCU\Software\Valve\Steam\Apps\%1%, Running Sleep, 500 ; Program that runs after the Steam game has exited ;Run, %runAfter%

I believe that to be true because if you try to Google {{{startup}}} (or however it shows in your other emulators Running Script section) along with 'AutoHotkey', you won't find anything. But can't say for sure as I didn't write LaunchBox. The issue with Steam vs. your other emulators is that LaunchBox will start Steam and pass the games ID to it (just like other emus). And there's probably a 'variable' (PID or whatever) stored for this Steam instance. But Steam then starts the game (using the ID passed to it) and then closes itself (the referenced PID or Task thread or however that works) while the game continues to play. Thus LaunchBox sees this as the 'game' (the program it was told to launch in the 1st place) had exited and abandons any reference to that instance. This assumes you're launching the Steam game via it's ID (seen in the games Launching section) vs. directly to the games exe file. Also, this is unique to Steam only. Or, at least, I've never ran across this with any other emulator or platform.

If you don't have AutoHotkey installed on your system, you can make use of the one that comes with LB (link is to a specific post within that topic). Send Alt + Enter to a .Lnk shortcut? - Noobs - LaunchBox Community Forums (launchbox-app.com) You'll need to make a different script for each game as the exe's are each different. i.e. $Esc:: WinClose, ahk_exe mySteamGame.exe ExitApp You could make 1 generic one that will close the "active" window. The risk is, if they start a [Steam] game and somehow set focus to another window and press Escape, the 'another' window will get closed. $Esc:: WinClose A ExitApp If you do go this route, you can then add this Additional App (set to Run Before) to all your Steam games at once using this plugin:

1) You (they) really SHOULD be exiting those through the game's menu. You might be able to create a script that has your Exit routine in it and set that as an Additional App to the Steam games. Otherwise refer to item 1. You might need to help the 2-year-olds with that, but anyone over 5 can figure it out.

Once you go to the 1st search result, login and download.

Ya, that works much better. Since this is a web-based JavaScript app, I presume that we need to drop each individual file vs the script being able to "grab" files based on a relative path. (This may be where re-learning C# & plugin creation skills could definitely help to 'trim the process'. lol) My suggestions*: Step #1: Use \LaunchBox\Data\Platforms.xml. From it, grab the users platforms' Name and also grab its ScrapeAs value (to use later). Then use those Names to populate the dropdown box in step 2. aka. Show only the platforms the user actually has. (i.e. I might have simply "Famicom" and not "Nintendo Famicom Disk System") Step #3: Can Java set filters for the open file dialog? If so, set the filter to the Name selected in step #2, .xml. This way, people [that aren't stress testing the app] can't inadvertently choose the wrong platform_name.xml. Compare: Use the ScrapeAs value from step #1 to grab the platform from Metadata.xml. (ref: "Famicom") Total missing count: No cheating! lol Maybe break it down. Total LBDB games xxxx. Your total yyyyy. Then have the missing games be a count of the datagrid items. Save results to a text file(?), Excel file(?) button? *These are my thoughts only and may only be worth the 2 pennies you found on the ground or the piece of gum you stepped on. Do with 'em what you will. 🙃

OK, looks like I missed something here. You're running the batch file from within DOSBox? That's completely different and I know nothing about DOSBox. Since DOSBox doesn't recognize "start", it probably won't recognize Windows Scripting Host commands either. So looks like you're back to square one. Sorry.