PurpleTentacle
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Posts posted by PurpleTentacle
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19 hours ago, wagonergenius said:
I’m interested in this controller too. My big question right now is can you remap the buttons to keys on a keyboard for DOS games in LaunchBox? What I would want ideally is a saved controller profile for each DOS game so I wouldn’t have to do a bunch of remapping in DosBox when switching from Doom to Wolfenstein or whatever.
Ohhh, yeah! I didn't even think of that (even though that was something I've been wanting for awhile). I honestly don't know, but it sure looks like it. The question for me is - how easy is to swap between profiles? It seems like it would be clunky to pull up a separate program from LaunchBox/DOS Box every time you want to switch games. Of course, maybe switching those profiles can be automated in LaunchBox by using the "Additional Apps" option, but I typically prefer minimize doing stuff like that because it increases the chance for bugs or stuff breaking (but for all I know, it might be fine).
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I currently have the SN & SF 30 Pro controllers (one for my laptop, one for my desktop), as well as the M30 (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive 6 button style) to really capture that Genesis feeling (it's worth it for me - I never owned a Sega console, but it feels weird to me to play Sega games on a SNES style controller).
So obviously, I don't need a new controller, but as you can see, I also love getting a controller that feels right. For the price & intent, I love the controllers I listed. But the new features on the SN30 Pro Plus seem really nice. Rechargeable battery pack, software to customize all sorts of aspects of the controller, and for me, the most important part are the upgraded components. The main flaws of the SN/SF 30 Pro controllers, at least for me, are that the D-pad, once it gets broken in, is *slightly* mushy. I still greatly prefer it to the X-Box One D-pad for retro games, but I have been wishing that it was a little bit better. The analogue sticks also aren't the literal best, although they get the job done quite well. Basically, I think they're great, but if you tend to be observant for these types of things, you'll notice the little flaws (I've read some people have had more serious issues with the D-pad, but I guess I've been mostly lucky).
I was planning on getting it at the beginning of October, but what ETA Prime said at the end of the video kind of made me rethink it - which was that you don't really have a reason to get the Pro Plus controller if you already have an X-Box One controller (which I do), unless you really want the customization (which is nice, but not enough to warrant the money alone). I prefer the 8bitdo controllers for retro games because the X-Box One controller just doesn't feel right for it, so I'm wondering how much to read into ETA's conclusion.
For those who have a Pro Plus, how much better are the new D-pads & analogue sticks? I'm happy with my current controllers, but if this has the types of improvements to the component quality that I've been looking for, I think it would be worth it for me.
Also, with the analogue triggers, do they act as simple on/off, 0/1 style inputs, or does it work like a gas/brake pedal in a car where the amount you push on it tells the games to read it incrementally? (Obviously, this only applies to games that would make use of such a feature.) That's one of the other things I'd like in an upgrade.
I'm still thinking of getting it, and then using my SN30 Pro controller for my Android, using a clip. With Launch Box for Android, I'm tempted to get something more dedicated for it, but the cheap ones apparently have issues, and the expensive ones are just too expensive for me. Keep in mind that I don't use my Android *too* much, so I'm much more leaning towards the improved SN30 Pro Plus for Desktop, and my older 8Bitdo for my Android.
Anyway, thoughts? Hope that wasn't too long, but there are some specific things I'm looking for.
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Try disabling rewinding, if it's currently enabled. For whatever reason, rewind will crash RetroArch when using Dolphin. I made a separate config for the Dolphin core so that I can keep rewind on by default for all other platforms.
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Someone on Reddit said, "Shaders on N64 run like garbage since I updated to 1.7.8.", but there's no replies, so I have no idea how accurate that is. I guess I'll wait to see what others say. I usually prefer to let people use it for a bit, just to make sure stuff like that isn't made worse.
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2 hours ago, eatkinola said:
At least the notifications seem to be popping up over the bezels now -- that bothered me about 1.7.7 (they were half hidden behind the bezels) and looks like a step in the right direction. I think the new notification framework is pretty recent, so hopefully they will continue refining it.
I was still on 1.7.6, so I actually didn't realize that they changed it inbetween versions. I did dislike how the text used to get covered by the bezel, but I actually just moved the placement of the text so that the bezels didn't interfere with it.
Does anyone know how to change the notifications style? I'd prefer not to upgrade, since it feels like they ruined a perfectly practical aspect of the ui for an aesthetic choice. EDIT: Someone helped me find the setting to revert it back to the text style. It's under settings > user interface > menu widgets OFF. I don't mind the look of the widgets (kind of prefer it it aesthetically), but it's so impractical that it's a really bad tradeoff.
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50 minutes ago, bundangdon said:
Based on my experience, 1.78 seems to be about the same as before with no major changes performance-wise but I could easily be wrong about that, but it's running the same as usual without any bugs or errors. However, the Android version does have some quirks, and I needed to delete my previous data/cache in order for it to work properly
So far, I kind of like some of the new options, even though most are fairly minor (minus the text to speech, which seems like it has potential, but I haven't set it up yet). But there's one aspect that I need to figure out how to change, which is the notification for changing state slots. It scrolls notifications instead of just changing the number, which means that the old notifications has to fade away before the new one can catch up. This means that if I want to get to State slot 50, I have to wait for the notifications to fade away before I can see what number I'm on, meaning that it's *extremely* slow (I have changing the state slot hotkeyed so I can do it on my controller, which is usually more handy than changing it in the menus). I have zero idea what they were thinking of with this design....
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Currently updating RetroArch on one of my backup copies of my LaunchBox collection (I'm following this basic guide by ETA Prime, and I'm guessing nothing has changed in how RetroArch is updated?) , so I'm about to try it. Just curious to see what others thought of it so far.
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Yup! I decided on PVM Style D93 due to it being based on a Sony PVM CRT screen. Not that I have any attachment to a specific CRT TV, but it seems like a good option to base a palette on. My point was that even if there was a hypothetical 100% accurate palette (which there isn't), ultimately, each one of my monitors is going to replicate those colors differently anyway. This explanation gave me a good idea of how the FBX palettes were made. I'm happy so long as it doesn't have that weird high rez glossy look, if that makes sense.
Edit: Just experimented & compared them directly a bit more, and I think I prefer the Unsaturated palette most. It's kind of most accurate to the colors/tones that I have in my head when I try to picture certain NES games...
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49 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:
As for palettes don't get too hung up on what is "most accurate" because there is no such thing because of how the NES and TVs worked together to determine colour, just use what looks best to your eye and don't worry about it.
Yeah, this is the philosophy that I'm leaning towards. I care about palette accuracy in the sense that I just don't want the colors to be wildly off from what it should be (I.E., let's say a sky of teal instead of a sky blue color), but I don't need it to *exact* because there are too many factors to determine what "exact" would mean. Hell, the colors on my second monitor differ from my main monitor a bit, so it's impossible for me to make color representation uniform anyway.
As far as Mesen vs. Nestopia, one of the nice things about LaunchBox is being able to setup multiple emulators, including multiple setups for RetroArch to use different librettos for the same platform. Unless I'm using save states, it's handy to be able to switch back & forth between them as my needs suit me (for example, using the Mesen libretto in RetroArch on Castlevania III causes constant popping noises, so I use Nestopia instead - although the Mesen emulator itself runs it fine).
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4 hours ago, eatkinola said:
I'm in the bezel camp and prefer aesthetics over authenticity. You can use RA per-game overrides as needed for games with black bars. It's a bit of a pain to setup, but once it's done it's done. It'll obviously be more of a pain to setup if you have a complete collection of a26 games; my collection is limited to about 90 games. Per-core override STELLA.cfg:
# FULLSCREEN VIDEO
video_fullscreen = "true"
video_fullscreen_x = "1920"
video_fullscreen_y = "1080"# VIEWPORT W/OVERLAY
aspect_ratio_index = "23"
custom_viewport_width = "1380"
custom_viewport_height = "1000"
custom_viewport_x = "270"
custom_viewport_y = "40"
input_overlay = ":\@my\opsonins\overlays\ATARI_2600.cfg"
input_overlay_opacity = "1"# SHADER: CRT W/CURVATURE
video_shader = ":\@my\opsonins\shaders\crt-geom.glslp"
video_shader_enable = "true"
video_smooth = "false"Per-game override Barnstorming.cfg:
# GAME-SPECIFIC VIEWPORT
custom_viewport_width = "1440"
custom_viewport_height = "1090"
custom_viewport_x = "210"
custom_viewport_y = "0"Nevermind the moire effect -- that's just how the screenshots come out when using the shader:
P.s. Oh man I'm rusty at this game
Oooo, I'll have to take a look at this once my brain starts waking up. Fortunately/Unfortunately, I have the entire Atari library, so it would probably take quite a bit of effort. I kind of enjoy putting on the scanline shaders sometimes, but not by default. I'm still split on how much I prefer aesthetics vs. authenticity, but I find that when the bezels look right, it kind of helps make it feel more authentic & like I'm not playing on a LCD/LED monitor, ironically enough.
Semi-related - I was also reading up about the differences between the various NES emulators because my understanding came down to "Mesen is the most accurate", but not much else, but sometimes I feel like Nestopia runs smoother for me (running on a laptop while watching Twitch w/ a second monitor) . That got me to read up about palette choices for the NES (specifically for Mesen)... point being that once I start down a rabbithole of emulation options, I can't dig myself back out.
I actually recently upgraded the firmware on my 8bitdo controllers, and it actually made a huge difference in latency, so just throwing it out there that it was one of the best things I've done for my setup recently.
Also, Barnstorming is a ton of fun for such a simple game. I actually got a fairly good time semi-recently.
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I usually pick whatever the latest version of the game is, but that's not always the best version. Sometimes some interesting bugs are removed (like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!! had a glitch when you fought Sandman (not 100% sure that it was removed in later games, but that's what I was told), but it's the kind of thing that would almost never happen unintentionally).
Anyway, I'm generally clueless as to which versions of any particular game is the best. I know some arcade databases list some info on differences in versions, but I'm also curious if there are versions of a game that people consider to be the "unoffical-offical version to play". Consoles don't typically have as many updated versions of a game, but obviously some games do, and it would be good to know which to pick.
Anyway, how do you handle the option when you have the choice? Do you look it up? Are you like me & just pick the most recent release?
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8 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:
Just leave it as it is, offset is "authentic"
ha, the ultimate dilemma retro gamers have when emulating...
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33 minutes ago, neil9000 said:
You can just turn it off in the quick menu then save a game override.
Yeah, that's what I do now. I meant a hotkey to make it instant so that I can turn it off/on, depending on my mood. I toggle it off/on in the menus at the moment, but it does make it feel a bit more involved every time I want to load a new game.
Not a huge deal or anything, but it would make it easier for me.
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huh, it's been so long since I've played a real Atari 2600 on a CRT that I don't remember that it does that naturally. I kind of wish RetroArch had a toggle for overlays/bezels, since that would give an easy method of disabling it for games where it becomes an issue. Oh well.
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This is a screenshot taken directly in RetroArch, so the actual bezel got cutoff, but it's obviously there when I'm playing the games.
As you can see, the game is a bit off-center (as far as I can tell, it's not the bezel that's off-center). NES games fit within the boarders (albeit not perfectly - there's a bit of space between the game & the bezel, but the bezel doesn't cover up anything), but Atari 2600 games are off center.
I tend to really like the bezels, so I'd like to keep them where I can. Unfortunately, cutting off the edges is handicapping myself, so I'd like to see if I can fix it.
Related, I also have N64 games that aren't zipped, so they don't follow the NoIntro naming conventions. Is there an easy way to fix that without reimporting the games (like replacing the file extension in a config file or such)?
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Screenshot attached shows what it looks like when I try to download a platform video. If I hit "cancel", the cancel button will get grayed out, but nothing else happens. From there, I just close LaunchBox & relaunch, but none of the Platform Videos will download for me. In the case where there was a video already, the old video just got deleted, although no new video was saved.
Any ideas? I think there was another situation where it would hang like that, but I can't recall what it was (I think it might have had something to do with importing games, I can't remember exactly, though). I am able to download media for the games, though (box art, clear logos, videos, etc...).
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Just now, DOS76 said:
Yeah if you don't have a BT controller to emulate with then its not worth doing it at all touch controls are terrible.
Yup, although I think you could stick to stuff like turn based RPGs & be fine with touchscreen controls. That's why I enjoyed Knights of Pen & Paper 1 so much. Very easy to control, yet still fun. That bluetooth controller that ETA Prime was using looked really interesting, though! Apparently, it's the Saitake 7007X. Maybe if I get into this enough I'll pick one up for myself (I kind of dislike syncing my controllers up all the time, so it would be nice to have a dedicated one).
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3 hours ago, neil9000 said:
Liking what I see so far. Looks fairly straightforward, too. I actually need to buy a new smartphone, coincidentally. The Moto G7 Plus currently seems like the best bang for the buck, but I usually don't keep track of smartphone models until I need to buy one, so just curious if anyone here has some experience with it or some recommendations in that price range (roughly $250 USD).
I typically don't enjoy mobile gaming due to touch screen controls, but fortunately, I bought one of those cellphone clips that work with 8bitdo controllers, so it looks like I'll be getting more use out of that! There are plenty of good solutions like that. Looking forward to messing around with this!
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Ok, thanks! I think thinks are running as they should at the moment.
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On 8/12/2019 at 11:47 AM, eatkinola said:
Regarding LB folders, I ended up syncing Data (excluding LaunchBox and BigBoxSettings), Backups, Images, Manuals, Music, and Videos. I've pretty much got LB setup the way I want, but inevitably I'll add or edit something and only want to have to do this once. Syncthing lets you exclude subfolders or files pretty easily, so you can sync Data with a few exclusions, for example.
Glad it's working out for you. Yes, that made me a little nervous at first because of the time it took to curate games, metadata, and media -- didn't want to see all that work get blown away by a program. Just in case, I made a zipped backup of my LaunchBox install, though I'll probably never need this backup zip.
One other tip (?) -- I put everything I want to sync into one folder I call "Emucloud", and LB or emulator folders will have symbolic links into this folder. I use the windows command "mklink /J", for example, to create a directory junction from E:\meta\LaunchBox\Data to E:\meta\Emucloud\LaunchBox\Data. That approach keeps all my synchronized data in one place (Emucloud), and I only have to setup this folder in syncthing. Making symbolic links is pretty easy, and I just threw these commands into a simple batch file I can run on a computer when setting it up for emulation.
I think I'm gonna hold off on doing LaunchBox syncing, at least for now.
I did just add a third PC, and I made the mistake of syncing my RetroArch saves from the new PC onto my laptop's ScummVM saves... so that was interesting to delete, lol.It did get me thinking, with 3 computers, is it best to have one main computer that the other 2 base their syncs off of, or should I do what I'm currently doing, which is to have each computer sync with the other two at the same time. I.E. computer A shares it's RetroArch saves with computer B & C, computer B shares it's RetroArch saves with computer A & C, etc...
I was thinking of daisy chaining them, so that A shares with B, B shares with C, and C shares with A (so that it becomes circular), but my 3rd computer is set to sleep after enough downtime... and I'm guessing SyncThing stops working then...
Fortunately, I have a backup of LaunchBox with all my saves on both a MicroSD card & another hard drive on my desktop PC... but on Google Drive as well! Yeah, I've put so much time & effort into this that I'm not taking chances.
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Their website says, "Easily save your settings on a game by game basis with custom profiles", but I have to assume that requires you to use the program to switch profiles. I don't know anything more about the software than what that video review shows. It is an interesting concept, though!
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To add onto what everyone else has said, I'm currently using the 8bitdo SF30 Pro controller (I also have the SN30, same thing, but with SNES style buttons), and find that it works wonderfully for balancing between a retro feel with modern functionality. They just released a new model, called the SN30 Pro+, which has some software that lets you customize some aspects of it. I just watched this review of it, and the guy who tested it said that it has 44 ms of lag via USB, which is the same as the X-Box One controller, and 64ms via Bluetooth, which he claims is among the best he's tested.
The only problem I have with the SF30/SN30 Pro is that, after a bit of wear-in time, the d-pad, analogue sticks, and X/Y/A/B buttons become *slightly* stiff. Not that I've had any problem with them, but after a few weeks, they lost a bit of the smooth quality. To be fair, I'm not sure most people would really notice, but people reading a message board on the subject of controller recommendations for emulation are going to be a bit more discerning than your average gamer. They still feel fine, but I do wish they were slightly better. I read that the Pro + has improved components, but that's according to the manufacturer, so I'd be curious to see if anyone else has tested it. I also wish that it had analogue L & R buttons for consoles that benefit from incremental values to their L&R buttons instead of just on or off. Not sure if the Pro + has it.
I also bought the 8bitdo M30, which mimics the 6 button controller for the Sega Genesis. It didn't feel right playing Genesis games on a SNES style layout, and I wanted a D-pad closer to the Genesis style, and this filled that need for me. Retro-Bit also makes a similar style controller, but it's wired.
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15 hours ago, eatkinola said:
Syncthing will keep these two folders in sync, so if the newer version is on PurpleTentacle it'll be copied over the GreenTentacle. It will occasionally ask for clarification about which file you want to keep, but I've not seen this often; when I do see it I just select the newer file.
If you delete the file on one computer, syncthing will delete this file on the other computer(s). I've not noticed syncthing to be resource heavy. It's starts quickly when I start windows and hides out in the tray. If you don't like its windows notifications, you can turn those off. I use it to sync emulator saves, launchbox data xamls, and launchbox media.
I use a three computer setup: a general purpose NAS and two computers on which I play games. I've tested retroarch and dolphin savestates made on one computer and have had no problems loading these states on the other computer. The sync is of course not instantaneous, but it's pretty quick in my experience on my home network (which uses powerline ethernet is not super fast).
Of course, you could see where clashes would occur if you were trying to update the same file on both computers at the same time; syncthing would probably ask for clarification about which file you want to keep. This is a problem with any type of filesync service.
Alright, thanks for your help. From all my testing, it seems to be working the way I want it to (I haven't tried deleting anything, but given that it's syncing things when I create a save state, I have to imagine it works). I do need to set it up on my 3rd PC (I have it connected to my living room TV), but otherwise, I think everything is the way I want it. I'm still debating whether I want to go as far as syncing the data xmls & media. I probably will, although I'm mostly done adding stuff for now (we'll see how long that lasts, lol).
The one thing I need to avoid is that sometimes I'll delete my entire LaunchBox folder on my laptop, and then copy the latest version from my PC. I need to do that one last time, so I'll have to close SyncThing on both computers. I might try syncing the data xml & media folders after I do that so that I don't have to delete the whole thing ever again, although I feel like I'll inevitably leave something out (I was thinking it just needed to be LaunchBox.xml, Images & Video, but I took a look at the folders, and there's also Manuals, Music, etc... And even though I don't use those much, I'd still need to sync them, and I'd also need to sync the games folder as well, so... I'll have to think about it).
I'm definitely glad you suggested SyncThing. I'm always a bit hesitant to have programs running in the background due to how easy it is for them to mess things up, but so far, it's been very smooth, works the way I want it to, and it's fairly straightforward.
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On 7/31/2019 at 10:59 PM, eatkinola said:
FYI recently switched from google drive to syncthing which was pretty simple to setup, I think. So far I find syncthing to work better than google drive, and it let's you create your own private cloud. I use it on my local network only, but I'm pretty sure you can also use it over a wan. It works across linux, windows, and android. Also with syncthing, the only thing that limits storage space is the drives I have, so now I sync not only my game saves but also my LB data and media.
Finally trying Syncthing... I have it set up on 2 computers, where each computer is sharing its RetroArch saves & states directories. The thing is, each one has a different file path because the username on each computer is different. So, for instance, let's say one of them is C:\Users\PurpleTentacle\LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch\saves whereas on the other computer it's C:\Users\GreenTentacle\LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch\saves. I changed the filepath on each computer so that it saves to correct folder, but what happens if I overwrite a save on one of them? I noticed that when I synced one of the folders, it asked me to take care of some conflicts. Will it does that every time?
I'd kind of like it to operate as if they're literally the same folder, but I assume it doesn't quite work that way? What happens if I delete a file on one of my computers? Does it resync that file? Or does it delete it on the other computer? Also, just curious if you've happened to notice, but is running Syncthing resource heavy? My laptop struggles running emulation sometimes, as it is...
Dunno if you have the answers to those questions - just wanted to make sure I set this up right.
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I'm using RetroArch to emulate Sinclair ZX Spectrum - what joystick type should I assign it as default?
in Emulation
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So I just added a bunch of Spectrum games to LaunchBox, and it took me a bit to realize that I needed to make one of the inputs into the Sinclair Keyboard. I read that the Kempston Joystick Adapter was one of the most popular joystick adapters, so as of now, that's what I made my first input. Is that the ideal default choice though? I'm really not familiar with the Spectrum, except from watching people talk about it on YouTube & such, so I'm still learning the in's & out's.