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Ahh ok so that's good news, and bad news lol Good news is the script "works", it is finding the emulator window, it is launching Retroarch. So good so far Bad news is the core is buggy and finicky. For ex, I am now launching Ninja Gaiden Black again and.....it works perfectly. Every. Single. Time. didn't change a damn thing from this morning lol. The window is getting focused appropriately via the script making it all automated as intended. I guess I'd rather be lucky than good because I have no idea why it wasn't working earlier, and why it is now I'm on an AMD GPU but I had found many scenarios of weird with this core. No windows with "windowcast" in its title can exist.....I find that out from testing with this thread open. If minimized it can capture Firefox's minimized window and makes it look like Retroarch launched but froze before a window even appears. In reality what happened is it literally captured a minimized window lol. I then restore the Firefox window and that gets captured in Retroarch🤦‍♂️. Doesn't make much sense given there is nothing in the WindowCast.txt file that would make that window get captured hence why I think it is some bug with the core. There is some discussion about GPU settings scattered in that link in the first post. There might be some hidden hints in there for you. Alternatively, if you are using that very first version of the script I posted, you might be having challenges like I did for some scenarios where launching Retroarch into fullscreen was the issue. If you're using the first one, try the 2nd version instead, the "SDR" version. It will make Retroarch more of less a borderless fullscreen window and I found this as a workaround. It is always consistent unlike directly launching into fullscreen. YMMV though So overall sounds like the script is doing what it was set out to do but something specific is causing a challenge on your system. And sounds like you found the potential culprit as Gsync. I'd believe it, there have been weirder things impacting my experience with this core!

sure thing mang Xemu might be some funny business here. I didn't previously test it. I did get it to work right now but it wasn't very automated. I had to use keyboard/mouse to ALT+TAB to the actual emulator window, mouse click into the emulator window, and then ALT+TAB back to the Retroarch window, and THEN use the CTRL+ALT+T hotkey (the WindowCast specific hotkey to change window/control focus) to get the darn window to focus for controls to work. Also seems how this emulator renders affects how a shader would be applied. for ex, I'm not sure why the heck there are black bars on the side here. It's effectively cropping the image used for the shader as this image is 16:9 ratio so should cover edge to edge. aspect ratio is correct, but it's getting cropped. First emulator I've seen do this to me. *further testing proves the keyboard is not sufficient to get proper window and controls focus. for ex, I can launch the game/emulator and then the script and I get no controls in game. I can still see the mouse cursor so I do a normal left mouse click where I know the actually emulator window is and now I have controls. so, seems like Xemu doesn't give controls unless it is first put into focus that way.....would require different methods to make this wholly automated Doesn't sound like you did any redflag wrong moves. for the AHK question that is what Windows calls file extension association. You must have never opened an .ahk straight from Windows Explorer so it didn't know what program to use to open it. It needed to be directed to the main AutoHotkey.exe file in order to run .ahk files. You got that right. Doesn't matter if you use the exe included with LB or if you setup AHK yourself and placed it wherever you wanted. It will remember that going forward so should be a set it and forget it thing clarify for me, this works for you if you launch an Xemu game manually, and then launch Retroarch manually and load the WindowCast core manually? if so, we at least know you got the WindowCast.txt file with proper name in there Note the game/emulator window should be a window rather than fullscreen. Actual window, not a borderless fullscreen window. I do not have the full screen command used for Xemu here. Running the script should be first line in the running script field to make sure it executes. if you put it below something like a hotkey or a WinWait command it may never make it to the Run command line. I wonder if this is the issue for you? further testing if you're still getting stuck..... launch Xemu manually. from what I can tell the last loaded game should boot up automatically. so at this point you should be running Xemu and booted into a game and it should be in a window mode next, manually run the WindowCast.ahk script from Windows Explorer. it should work fine like this. if it doesn't it could be something is not configured right in the script for you if it's not working at this point you should check the AHK tray icon and review the lines of code that have been executed. I would suspect either the script is exiting too soon for some currently unknown reason or some configuration or typo kinda issue. reviewing the lines executed will let us know what ran and where it's stuck if it is stuck. post an image of that window if needed come back with how you make out and we'll go from there!

yes I have proper codecs installed, otherwise webm format wouldn't play at all when using WMP. I was mentioning there are still hit and miss issues with handling audio with webm format within Big Box. I need to amend this comment I want to clarify that WMP does support pause/resume on the game details screen using the "stop video" selection which changes to "play video" when it is stopped. it will resume right where it was stopped. so it seems the play/resume issue is in fact regarding anytime it's transitioning from one view to another (or stuff like viewing images on the game detail screen). but I got a part wrong saying it's also an issue when launching games and returning to the frontend. I tried a handful more attempts tonight and each time it worked. videos resumed right where they left off when the game launched once I returned to the frontend. sorry for any confusion on my end there regarding that point.

In my opinion pause/resume support is hardly as important as figuring out why support for webm format videos are so hit and miss. audio does not play for many webm videos only in Big Box despite said webm videos playing with sound fine when played through WMP outside of Big Box. VLC in Big Box handled all webm format videos OK by comparison.

WMP doesn't seem to support pause/resume properly within Big Box. So when in the platform wheel and you land on a platform, lets say Nintendo 64, the video will start playing. No problems so far. you go into the Nintendo 64 game wheel, and once you are done in the game wheel and back out to the platform wheel the Nintendo 64 platform video does not resume where it left off. it restarts at the beginning of the video. this creates a black screen flash on the video. VLC utilizes pause/resume appropriately by comparison when going into another view or launching a game and returning to the frontend.

I think you are trying to use the executable name rather than the window's title. if so you need to add the proper "AHK criteria" bit ie "ahk_exe" since you want to use the executable. I'd go one step further and declare which alt key is pushed too, using the right one here since that's normal when combo'd with enter. WinWaitActive, ahk_exe xm6g.exe Sleep, 1000 Send {RAlt down}{Enter down}{Enter up}{RAlt up}

also came here to ask is VLC no longer an available option going forward? this would be a terrible thing to implement from my perspective. though I have codecs for webm video files I apparently never noticed when using WMP how many of these videos do not play sound until just now! all play the videos OK, but WMP plays lots of webm videos without sound. please look into this because this missing sound issue only happens in Big Box (maybe in LB too? idk since I don't use vids in LB). said webm videos play fine with sound when I launch them with any media player directly from Windows Explorer. that includes Windows Media Player, VLC and "Media Player" and "Movies & TV" media player apps. additionally, the biggest issue is difference between VLC and WMP is they have different color management and even impact dimensions! WMP stretches the video's content width-wise relatively compared to VLC. I knew about the color handling difference between them for for a while, but more recently discovered WMP even impacts only the width dimension. Height does not change though. I know due to having a theme where the platform and game views both have exact same bezel/overlay where videos play and they are perfectly aligned between them and it's noticeable that things grow/shrink when moving between those views using WMP. On the other hand it looks perfect when using VLC since that is what I was using when aligning everything. being forced to use WMP will ruin all the hard work I put into a custom theme and is why I would expect VLC to remain available, along with resolving any long term freezing or related issue that has been recently suspected to be tied to it.

ahh ok that works, it's the same idea but has a dedicated entry rather than being an additional app to existing entries. you can leave the standard title as something more pleasing like "Duckstation" so it reads normal and then use the sort title field to cram it up to the #1 spot. call it "!1Duckstation" or whatever needed in the sort title so it becomes first. depending on if you have the setting enabled in Big Box, making a game a favorite can also automatically cram it into the top/first slot of the game wheel. It's not dumb if it works and gets the job done!

I assume because you actually have these alternative emulators assigned to at least a single game for whatever platform your in? if so, if you can recall which game(s) specifically have the alternative emulator already assigned as its default emulator, you can go to that game and launch the emulator from right clicking on it there. so if you have every game using the same default emulator that plan falls apart. another way would be to add the emulator as an additional app to the game(s). you can then use the additional apps menu from the right click context menu to open the alternative emulator. there is a bulk additional app plugin that would do the tedious work for you additional apps can be configured to either do nothing when you launch a game (which is what you want to do here) but they also can be configured to either launch before a game launches, or after a game exits. just leave all that stuff unchecked which means it can only be launched through the user manually doing it through the right click context menu in LB or the game's detail screen in BB after trying this just now the only downside I see is if you have startup/shutdown screens enabled they seem to get triggered just from launching an additional app?! I don't necessarily recall that being the way it worked in the past but I could be wrong there. so it's annoying to let the startup screen come up and time out before you can actually see/interact with the emulator you just opened

nope. only launch with

a basic one line script to run explorer.exe added in LB startup applications to run only when BB exits would solve it

it hides the console window if the emulator uses one. console window would be another term for the command prompt window. the one emulator I know for certain it is useful for that I actually utilize is MAME standalone. i'm sure there are more but that's all I've ever needed to enable it on. its not needed for retroarch since no console window is produced hiding the additional command prompt window like this one that is created when MAME runs is what it is meant for didn't mean to imply the hide console checkbox would help the issue. this setting doesn't impact it one way or the other. I wanted to share it was unnecessary to enable so hopefully more people understand its purpose.

don't extract roms. since it's extracting roms to the frontends temp folder also uncheck hide console on startup/shutdown

@stonev it should not be named "temp.rmp", or at least I've never had a remap file get created with that file name. it should be following the expected file name nomenclature which is in line with the other file name you mentioned "sega genesis.rmp" and the other should be "sega master system.rmp" not sure what to think about that goofy temp file name business, it is suspect to some other potential unknown issue though. any chance you installed/unpacked more than one instance of retroarch? and when you're testing from "within" the frontend and "outside" the frontend, are you sure you are running the exact same instance of retroarch? this would be the easiest explanation since making a setting change in one of the instances wouldn't impact the other and vise versa. but it doesn't really jive with the first bit about the temp file name, because that in itself is not normal per my experience. then again, I don't let the frontend manage my emulators or store them within the frontends directory structure so it could be related to that. i'm also not on the latest beta i'm on 13.19 and RA 1.16

I've started getting hangs/freezing in Big Box too. Always manually scrolling. Seems completely random. Literally has never happened before after many years of use. Produces no error, Big Box just instantly hangs up and must be process killed in order to be closed.

you're right about hex, it is universal. but that isn't the issue. if media player A "color manages" a particular file type or any file at that, different than media player B, it's gonna be different. if you only ever used one chances are you would never notice the difference. also chances are you notice the difference because of the theme you use, having colors match solid colors in videos. other themes may not really highlight this ordeal. you can see this difference by playing the videos in VLC and WMP in Windows. it's like why colors look different across different displays, except this due to software rather than hardware.

it is possible to have arcade CATEGORY and arcade PLATFORM use their intended videos (light blue with set of cabs "A" for category, and purple with set of cabs "B" for platform) along with their proper hardware device image. I certainly made it work at least. you're gonna have to make some edits whether that is renaming files and/or changing names or conditions in LaunchBox or the theme.

as far as I know the difference you notice is to be expected across a VLC vs WMP comparison. I've noticed the same thing. it's video player A handles colors different than video player B. if you want to bore yourself to death then read up on how different media players impact colors.

that little guy? I wouldn't worry about that little guy I think the check marks are to indicate if said emulator is on the most recent version. looks like v273 is latest now so....there ya go. no reason to update unless you need to. honestly, not even sure if this feature works for MAME? I just download v273 and pop it into my emulator list and status cell is still blank. idk, regardless, nothing to worry about. who knows where you went wrong. not enough info to help make sure games run ok in the emulator when not launching them through the frontend. if it works ok there, then start showing pics of your emulator window in launchbox since you might have something wrong there. settings I use for ex

exactly!

yes you can combine literally anything. highlight the games, right click, combine selected games.

yes.....partly. and because you use same {{{StartupEXE}}} variable. Consider what is the startup exe.....is it the emulator.....or the batch file? Based on what you communicate it's the batch file. if you used the intended process you want to close in the running script it would work Esc::WinClose ahk_exe xemu.exe

Manually. You'll need to configure all that update and DLC business in the emulator itself. You launch the games the same way through LaunchBox regardless if you have updates or DLC for them so nothing is really needed to be done in LB, only in the emulator's UI

anyone find a texture pack yet? I bet fans likely need some time to actually create and debug them. All I've stumbled across is an issue report someone states their custom textures have created issues with anything with a scrolling property. Said textures will no longer scroll. Looks pretty funny lol, but in a bad way. So at least someone is working on something, when they will release them, who knows. Did indicate they are planning on it, calling them "yet to be released". I've played this game so....so....SOOOOOOO many times since its release. I'm pretty sure my most recently play through on this PC port was the first time I beat the boss on the train stage by shooting all the flag polls and makes the train and said boss smash into a building and die instantly. Hell of a lot easier than beating the boss by brute force shooting him the traditional way I've always done! This "secret" almost feels like cheating lol. Takes you to another stage path which again, I don't think I ever figured out how to get to that stage until now. Just goes to show you, you can always find something new returning to a classic you have played countless times!