JoJoJuJu59

Here's the directory structure that causes problems: K:\games\C64 Dreams v0.60\C64 Dreams. It accepts where my LB folder is for that first required path but I get the invalid directory message for the C64 dreams folder. Note: the "C64 Dreams v0.60" folder is where the launchbox,exe is.

Update on the problem I've been having getting certain new games e.g. Steel Ranger to run, By checking this thread and messing around with game.cmd and game.bat files, I fixed the problem and even learned how to add some missing games to C64 Dreams I played on original hardware like Stationfall (a difficult infocom text adventure). I also learned how to add my own manuals. C64 Dreams has been a great project and Zombeaver has done a superb job making all the old C64 classics available to us in an easy, curated and pre-configured package. Even if he stopped working on it, I feel it's polished enough to leave as is. All new releases and missing old games can be easily added yourself. Thanks for all the effort. A question though: what's a good color shader/reshade to use to add just a bit more color (very little) to make that C64 palette pop a bit more so the colors look slightly more saturated like the old Sega Master System, Amiga, ZX Spectrum or Atari ST but not oversaturated? That's one thing I miss in the Commodore 64 is the default slightly dull color palette, imo, compared to these old systems.

Good luck trying to solve the issue of trying to get videos to play consistently (or not occasionally reducing to quarter their size in video details pane) in LB. It's a problem that's gotten MUCH worse with later versions of LB.

Some multidisk games like Steel Ranger and Metal Warrior Ultra that I obtained .d64 roms for refuse to swap when I use either the KB or controller. I can eject/insert the disk but when I attempt to swap them only the first disk shows up. I even tried m3u files but no joy. Is there a reason for this?

I have VLC selected in Options but since the last few buuilds of LB, It's not uncommon that when I jump from cover to cover in the main LB program (not BigBox), the audio will play for the game but just a black screen displays for the video. I'm on an SSD with a good rig (i9/RTX 3070) so I don't think my hardware is an issue. It seems to have gotten even worse with the newer builds of LB. I tried selecting Media Player Classic in Options but then nothing plays at all. Is this a known issue and if so is there a fix for this? Btw, I'm using the Neptune third-party theme.

I previous builds of LB (not Big Box), whenever I double clicked on a video in the details pane, it would pick up exactly in fullscreen where the video was playing in its video snap window. In the last few builds, it always restarts the video once it goes into fullscreen. Is there a setting to revert to the behavior of picking up where the video was in details pane? I'm using v12.11 because latest versions reduce the video window size (slightly but still noticeable) in my theme (Neptune) and I prefer a large video window.

You are correct, sir. I just tested it with even old LB default themes and it re-starts the video as soon as I double-click on it to make it fullscreen. I'm thinking maybe it was an older version of LB that I was using (I'm currently on 12.11) that caused the video to pick up right where it left off once I double-clicked to fullscreen. I wish I knew if there was a setting that allowed current builds of LB to do this. Sometimes I see a part of a video in my LB that I want to see enlarged or fullscreen, and now the default behavior is to restart the entire video once in fullscreen. I suppose I can ask in the general forums. Thanks for your help. Meanwhile, I'll continue to use your theme because it's my favorite by far, so thanks for that too 😃

This is still my favorite theme and I just updated to v1.4 but one thing I prefer about the default theme(s) is that when I click on the video in the desktop version of Launcbox to have it go fullscreen, it picks up right where it left off in the LB browser but when I do the same with Neptune installed, it restarts the video from the beginning. Is there a setting to make Neptune behave more like the default theme and have videos continue where they were when I double-click to fullscreen them?

No, just my LB would freeze up Then after it finished downloading the video (or not finding one), it would go back to normal and I could use LB normally again. I'm thinking it was something going on with my Windows installation at the time, either some other program or redistributable that Windows was using that caused this quirk. Now it works fine though. I've since upgraded to Windows 10 build 21H2 which might have helped. This plugin of yours works great and it's one of only two LB plugins (the other being the Steam info downloader) I use. I wanted to use the latest version and now I can.

Heh, just tried it now with the same version that was giving me trouble on the same build of LB and it works fine. Must have been the older Windows build I was using or something. Love the new added features, btw, and it runs much smoother than the older version I was using where it would freeze up my LB until the video was downloaded. Great job on this plugin. Thanks.

Thanks for the tip about the author's thread. Alas, that was one of the first things I tried to get rid of "Platform" but it's not even ticked by default in the game details options so it must be hard-coded in the XAML or something.

Thanks. Is there any type of guide that deals with the text editing aspects of LB's XAML files instead of using the theme creator software (though I imagine it may be even more difficult this way)? There are a few other things I want to remove for my personal use that I don't need that take up space in the game details pane. For example, Platform. All my launchbox games are installed under Windows category so I don't need the description of what platform they are for that.

I tried tinkering with a few xaml files with notepad++ but have no aptitude for HTML code-type endeavors. Does anyone know offhand which part I would have to delete to get rid of the "Overview" and "Related Games" functions in the game details panel? I looked for all instance of those words in gamedetails.xaml and deleted them but it did nothing.

I really love this theme and it's become my default one (I don't use BigBox much; mostly the desktop browser version of LB). I particularly like the innovation with the dynamically resizing video in the game details pane; no more loss of real estate with certain videos that have a smaller, less than ideal or odd aspect ratio. Really good work! There are only a few things I would customize for myself but I'm afraid theme creator software is too daunting and involved for me, unless there's a more newbie friendly way to customize LB themes for the desktop, non-BigBox version *looks at you all hopefully* 😶

This didn't work for me (v0.47). I'm on v12.11 of LB. Putting the new builds of Vidsnap Scraper into my Plugins folder completely crashes/hangs Launchbox at the splash-screen so I had to go back to an old version of Vidsnap Scraper that was in an earlier beta form but with missing features. Would love to try the newer builds with added features because it's one of the more useful plugins for me and I appreciate the author's work.

I don't really use these options and they just take up space in my Game Details panel. Is it possible to hide or remove them? Couldn't find anything in Options. I'm using Old Theme on v12.11.

I don't use emumovies because I think their recurring billing system without notifying you is a rip-off but volunteers getting together and creating and sharing video snaps for C64 Dreams is a worthy cause. I have about 500 video snaps of C64 games but a lot of them are just slideshows, but some are actual game play videos. Since I acquired them for my old Hyperspin collection a few years ago and then transferred them to C64 Dreams I can't remember where I got them from. Would certainly be willing to share. Edited to add: removed slightly humorous typo when I originally wrote above "volunteers getting together and creating and sharting videos" lol

One old windows 95 game I'd love to see curated and released as an optimized standalone is Beasts & Bumpkins, a rare but very fondly remembered "city builder" in the vein of the early The Settlers games but considerably bawdier (but not vulgar and raunchy). It's VERY difficult to get the ISO version (or even the truncated ripped version, AFAIK) to work natively on modern Windows because of corrupted color palettes and severe mouse lag but I tinkered with it recently and got the game itself working perfectly using the dgVoodoo v2.78 wrapper (which is a wonderful fix for a great many old games that run poorly or not at all on new Windows versions). It's my understanding that it's also extremely difficult to get the ISO working with full videos, CD music and no CD check entails additional challenges outside of the game's palette & input lag problems under Win10.

No need. It worked perfectly with your fix in the file attachment. Thanks

Speaking of bat files, I know that some of the newer c64 games in C64 Dreams require that you obtain the roms yourself because they're still being sold, and i've had success obtaining them then running the Install Real Config.bat file after renaming the roms to disk1.d64 etc per your instructions, and everything works; the games install and run, except for one - Planet X2. Nothing happens when I click the bat file, and running the game in launchbox shows the c64 "Loading" prompt for a second, then it stops at that screen. It's the only game where this happened. It's a very minor niggle but I just wondered why it happened. Maybe some type of protection?

I know there are people that simply MUST have every old game ever made and I myself suffer from this terrible syndrome, but I'm trying to fight it because I believe that digital hoarding is as real a mental illness as physical hoarding lol I have pretty much every C64 game/app release that was available or archived on the internet in a great big sloppy ball of disorganization in my old Hyperspin collection bit it feels like a world of difference from this nicely curated package with all the bells and whistles and enhancements. I'm proud to have it in my hoard

I'll look into the global shader thing as an alternative to changing color palettes. I didn't know you could do that with shaders. I prefer a higher color saturation than the defaullt in C64 Dreams because when I played these games on an old Zenith 20" CRT television (not a monitor) back in the late 80s/early 90s, it had a more vivid color to it that was probably the result of the Zenith, which is what I'm used to (and of course the more vivid colors you get with other 8-bit and 16 -bit emulators or even just modern console and PC games). I don't care how accurate or correct the default color palette is; I like a more saturated color that's more comparable to everything else I see in gaming. But it's good to know about the shaders so thanks for the tip.

Yeah, I love that this is a relatively small collection (compared to, say, ExoDos) of games that are not considered complete crap. With 50,000+ games and programs released for the C64 it's nice to see an attempt at a "cream of the crop" compilation. With the recent inclusion of the two Of Might & Magic games, I think every game I ever played (or at least those that are in some way memorable) on my original C64 hardware is now included; a pleasing thing, of course. My next step is to install the Colodore color palette on a few select games since I don't like the VICE core's washed out looking one.

I love the woodgrain main background but I prefer titles underneath the box covers. I know you can enable Text but then it becomes slightly obtrusive with the black background on the titles. Is there a theme for launchbox that would allow me to make the backgrounds on the text/titles transparent so they blend in more seamlessly with the box covers and we just see the titles over the box covers? Just thought I'd ask. This is how the titles and their backgrounds look by default: