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I maybe I got the controller's rumble to work with that example you mentioned too, but I def never got any actual button remapping work. Something seems so fishy about this because it's not like there is a lack of interest in it, yet there seems to be such poor documentation and discussion surrounding it. If ppl found a fix and workaround to use current AHK version on current/modern OS versions, I would think there would be more forums posts and discussions around such a topic.

Hi there @drw4013 I think you are trying to do something that is more or less impossible with AHK. I've looked into this quite a bit myself and never got anything worth while working as far as using AHK to remap xinput style controllers! Key word here is XINPUT! AHK seems to have for the last several years not been able to do what you are trying to accomplish. All Xbox brand or third party Xbox type controllers are going to be XINPUT rather than DINPUT. I cannot confirm if AHK can work at all or better with DINPUT but it may work with DINPUT style controllers in the method you're employing here in your script. When I want to remap my Xbox controllers I use a program like GlovePIE or UCR, these can read xinput for the input, therefore allows you to make the output to something like the keyboard, exactly what you're after! I would have suggested virtualcontroller here too but I realized recently it only reads DINPUT for input. I didn't notice this before because it seems to take an xinput button and put it into the program as a dinput button....but then I found out the output never happens in those cases since it really can only read dinput. virtualcontroller does work fine for DINPUT controllers though. antimicro might be another option, I checked it out after seeing users talk about it here on this forum. I liked it enough I never deleted it after testing, but I admit I cannot remember if it reads xinput for input (like GlovePIE and UCR), or only could use xinput for output? (like virtualcontroller) Here is a couple pages I found a while back that led me to finally wave the white flag and conclude this just ain't happening with AHK and xinput. All the posts I came across there were some ppl saying it works, from posts a decade ago lol, anyone recently is going "hey this isn't working anymore!?!" https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=61326 https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/35848-xinput-xbox-360-controller-api/page-4 @JoeViking245, or anyone at that, please correct me here if I am off in left field on my understanding of AHK and xinput. I would love the ability to do this AHK, so if it is possible, please guide me on some setup steps.

I don't know what "ReShadeManger.dll" does, I can guess it's some sort of manager for reshade lol. I have done basic setups with reshade when going through step by step guides, but otherwise know nothing about its actual operation process. I couldn't advise on anything specific beyond whatever you want to do in AHK

When you get into games, you cannot start what? Did you configure a button or some combination of buttons to trigger exiting the emulator? If you did not, it makes sense you cannot exit the emulator/game via the controller There are youtube channels dedicated to LaunchBox tutorials! Here's one of them! https://www.youtube.com/c/UnbrokenSoftwareLLC/videos If you need to change from default settings then yes you need to configure each emulator accordingly. Everything still needs to be setup in LaunchBox though. If you cannot select Retoarch as the emulator for SNES system then that suggests you never added Retroarch to your list of emulators in LaunchBox. It sounds like you made the SNES system/platform, but never added an emulator to play games you added to the SNES system/platform I suggest to get familiar with the tutorials. They will provide details you need on getting yourself setup.

🤣LMAO I don't know about patience of a saint, but yes, I'd look like a spider web of cracks after reading this thread! I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Who cares if it hits "o" in the Retroarch menu? IT DOES LITERALLY NOTHING.......as long as you are not trying to type! Hit the o key on your keyboard a million times even, it doesn't matter, it doesn't engage with anything within the menu. The only time the script will genuinely frustrate the user is if you are trying to type in Retroarch. I can only think needing to type during something like changing hotkeys or controller remaps. I tested plenty of times with 1 second interval for the key press and just smashing keys on my keyboard, it does nothing. The only time it mattered was when I would go into the hotkey menu and no surprise to anyone, after I hit enter on a hotkey to assign a new key it would populate with "o" if you were not fast enough to hit a key prior to the script sending "o"! That is with a 1 second interval though! This wouldn't happen unless you sat there waiting for the change overlay interval you entered. You are going to be using 60 secs or larger intervals I imagine, so you got up to that interval duration to type before any extra key gets pressed via the script. Do you really think you, your friends or family are going to be running said script at 60 sec+ intervals and trying to change hotkeys and controller remaps? I don't buy it for a split second that you could, with a straight face, say you need the ability to do that. My point here being is I don't think it's a good idea to even have F1 pausing the script, that is what the "PauseHotkey" was for. I did get your request to work with using PixelGetColor and PixelSearch. Using these commands you can search an area or specific coordinates, even looking for variation tolerances. I did it in a way so it was always looking for the CRT TV bezel part that has the 4:3 aspect ratio, as well as looking for colors specific to when the Retroarch menu comes up in any of the corners. But the problem with this is it only works in a windowed mode. Not sure if it will work in a "fullscreen windowed mode" (I'm gonna test that, eventually...some feedback suggests it should work.....others said no so I gotta see for myself), best I could test with so far is it works when Retroarch is in a window or maximized but that is still technically a window. It most certainly does not work in exclusive fullscreen. Tons of threads out and about on this quirk with those commands if you or anyone wants to know the nitty gritty details.

Wow who could have predicted that! lmao glad it's working for you, but c'mon man that should have been checked first thing like I suggested. When troubleshooting you gotta start with the low hanging fruit first!

USE "PAUSEHOTKEY" IN THESE SCENARIOS! I'll say it again...

I did try to warn you about adding the BigBox pause screen hotkey and same train of thought applies here to the Retroarch menu toggle hotkey. There is a reason why I made a pause hotkey in the script! My thoughts were that was sufficient control. On the bright side, I did figure it out after taking a moment to review the script and AHK docs. The single change to fix this problem is highlighted in red RetroarchMenuHotkeyA = $F1 ;enter Retroarch Menu hotkey (physical) Other changes, WinActive function needs the quotes, changed syntax of ErrorLevel for better readability, used SendInput instead of Send. SendInput was my first idea to fix the hotkey issue that was ultimately resolved with the $ modifier symbol. SendInput is better but makes no real difference in this script I was happy to also figure out why certain keys worked like F12 and Left Control. SOME keys DEFAULT to use the keyboard hook instead of through the regular RegisterHotkey function. The $ modifier makes the hotkey use the keyboard hook instead! So that is why it resolves the problem! You can see what hotkeys are in the script and more info on them by clicking on the AHK icon and selecting "Hotkeys and their methods". You get a list like this for ex F12 and Left Control have no modifier, but shows k-hook for keyboard hook, hence why they worked by default during my troubleshooting....this was really confusing me for a moment. At the same time, it's why I figured it out. F1 shows k-hook because it's forced to use it after adding the $ modifier. Should you not want the extra pausing hotkeys on F1 and Pause keys (or whatever you have assigned them as), you can simply remove or comment out those specific lines. Here's what I'm calling the final draft of this. I'm happy with it now. It does what I want it to, I accomplished what you wanted, and I can confirm it all works properly since it got plenty of use over the weekend. I've wanted to do this ever since I noticed RocketLauncher had hotkeys for bezels. I thought it would be neat if it did it automatically rather than require the user to hit the hotkey. You had the same idea, but wanted it for Retroarch. Great minds think alike! Your request was the motivation to finally start, and complete, this project! ;*************************ENTER VALUES HERE************************************************************ OverlayHotkey = o ;enter Retroarch Change Overlay Hotkey secs = 60 ;enter number of seconds between changing overlay PauseHotkey = F12 ;enter key to toggle pausing the script RetroarchMenuHotkeyA = $F1 ;enter Retroarch Menu hotkey (physical) - USE $ IF NEEDED FOR COMPATIBILITY! RetroarchMenuHotkeyB = F1 ;enter Retroarch Menu hotkey (in menu selection) BigBoxPauseHotkey = Pause ;enter BigBox Pause Screen hotkey ExitHotkey = F11 ;enter key to terminate the script ;****************************************************************************************************** #SingleInstance, Force secs := secs*10 Hotkey, %PauseHotkey%, PauseHotkey Hotkey, %BigBoxPauseHotkey%, BigBoxPauseHotkey Hotkey, %ExitHotkey%, ExitHotkey Hotkey, %RetroarchMenuHotkeyA%, RetroarchMenuHotkey WinWait, ahk_exe retroarch.exe ;waits for Retroarch to exist before executing script Loop { Loop, %secs% { Active: If not WinActive("ahk_exe retroarch.exe") ;checks if Retroarch is active window every 1/10th sec { Sleep, 100 Process, Exist, retroarch.exe ;checks if Retroarch exists If ErrorLevel = 0 ;if Retroarch does not exist, terminate script { ExitApp } Goto, Active } Sleep, 100 } SendInput {%OverlayHotkey% down} ;Presses and releases the Change Overlay Hotkey Sleep, 50 SendInput {%OverlayHotkey% up} } RetroarchMenuHotkey: SendInput {%RetroarchMenuHotkeyB% down} Sleep, 50 SendInput {%RetroarchMenuHotkeyB% up} Pause, Toggle, 1 Return PauseHotkey: BigBoxPauseHotkey: Pause, Toggle Return ExitHotkey: ExitApp

except for when you want to search by any number of the various other sets of info as detailed by C-Beats.....

Yes but I found a quirk here, I don't know if it's my hardware which would be my keyboard, Retroarch or AHK. Didn't notice until your latest add on. Using F1 as a hotkey through AHK and having Retroarch use that as it's menu hotkey isn't working for me! It only triggers the AHK hotkey to pause the script, and not the hotkey behavior inside of Retroarch, actually toggling the menu. It seems to be some limitation of having the physical key have the same digital output as normal. If I make my physical key different, for ex F2 triggering F1 then it works. If I use different key/hotkey for both the physical input and the Retroarch Menu toggle hotkey it sometimes work, for example it works with both the physical key and Retroarch Menu toggle hotkey as F12 or with Left Control (but MANY keys I tried did not work when both input and output).....so this is why it might be how my keyboard is built or maybe this is standard issues for all users for all I know.... So you may need to change hotkeys in both the script and in Retroarch but this does work. All the previous stuff works fine still, that is solid, it's this new pause while toggling Retroarch menu being the oddball here Go to this comment for final version of script Old version of script

hi @Sbaby glad it's helping you out, but you should use this version instead. it works better and makes it easier for anyone to put their specific values in. Go to this comment for final version of script Old version of script

Under where the F12 hotkey is add in your BigBox Pause Hotkey so when you go into pause screen it pause the script. Though, I would think if the "o" (or whatever hotkey was assigned) is hit when on the pause screen it would do nothing, this shouldn't be an issue. You also would need to always leave the pause screen through hitting the pause hotkey or use the other AHK pause key to resume it. You're kinda adding an unnecessary layer. Regardless.... In essence you're making more than one hotkey do the same thing, pause the script. make sure to remove the comment marker ";" semi-colon at the start of the line when you do put in the BigBox hotkey so it executes that line I also added in a check to exit the script if retroarch closes Go to this comment for final version of script Old version of script

Setup Dolphin in its normal standalone emulator format, as in don't use the Retroarch core version, and see if the hiccups go away. Be sure to launch your games directly through the emulator, as well as through LB (but to the standalone emulator, not Retroarch core) to see if the behavior changes between them also.

The GPU, that is reasonable suspect to be tampered with if it is in fact only got 4GB of VRAM. I swear there is at least one rando new user every week signing up on TechPowerUp to go "help plz my GPU is fake how to fix!?" Too many ppl buying no name GPU's from China sold on Aliexpress!

I can help with Retroarch, but not MAME because MAME doesn't have a change bezel/overlay hotkey. I don't think Retroarch assigns a hotkey to the change overlay hotkey by default, you need to manually enter the hotkey. In this example I set mine up as "o". What were doing here is using a script to automatically change the overlay every 60secs while still giving the ability to change with the Retroarch change overlay hotkey. You can change the hotkeys and the timing to your own preferences. You will need to edit the associated game and/or core/system configs appropriately to have multiple overlays for this to work. Go to this comment for final version of script Old version of script

OK so I am coming back with bad news, I couldn't recreate the problem. I tested with Virtua Tennis on my existing setup and it worked fine. I then updated my setup to match yours the best I could, meaning I updated Retroarch, LaunchBox/BigBox, and making sure to use the same custome Pause Theme. I even copied/pasted in the settings you sent into the Flycast core option file. Despite doing all that not once did Retroarch ever lose focus when utilizing the pause screen. Whether I toggled the pause screen with the hotkey or actually clicked on "Resume" it returned to the game properly every time. I'd say this is bad news because it doesn't get you any closer to solving it. On the good news side, it eliminates a bunch of variables. It's not the Retroarch version, or core version, or LB/BB version, or Pause Theme. So this basically suggests the problem is on your end. The only differences I can think of are I am on Windows 10 and you're on Windows 11, and we would obviously have different hardware in our PCs. So now the next best thing you could do is to literally take the boot disk and your LB/BB disk (assuming you keep your LB/BB install separate from your boot/OS disk) and put them into another PC system. If the problem continues, it would eliminate your hardware being the culprit and suggest something about your particular OS install or maybe some setting for LB/BB. As long as you did do a test with Retroarch using all default settings, then it shouldn't be Retroarch. But if you have not yet done a fresh LB/BB test, I would try that as a hail marry attempt. Or even try starting with a different pause theme. It didn't matter for me, but who knows if it might matter on your setup Honestly, I gotta wave the white flag. I'm running out of ideas. Sorry, I wish it was easier to get to the bottom of this mystery!

thanks for sharing. I'm def going to snag this program! After seeing your additional posts it seems this confirms raviol will still need to rename files though. I get it that it's certainly not the standard naming convention, but wonder which part(s) of it is the real problem. Is it the periods that are screwing it up? Or is it all the extra info not being in parenthesis? or both? For example, would this still be problematic? Alien.vs.Predator (2010)(English)(Disk 1) Just want to know for my own curiosity!

I found a VBS script a few years ago that does this.....google "script to edit file names" it's the 1st hit. Use this to batch rename files. They provide great instructions on how to set it up and use it https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/use-this-script-to-rename-multiple-files-at-once-in-windows/

OK that's all good to know! To keep testing this methodically I should test using the the same game(s) even I think. What are a couple games you saw this problem with and I'll make sure to test with them also? Also at this point we should consider what Retroarch version you are on? I have no idea what their version naming scheme is or what version I am on (not on my gaming PC right now to check) but for example if you're on 10.2 I'll also get 10.2 and try. My setup is at least a couple years old now and I don't update stuff like this really in fear it will break something. Point being for all we know we could find out it's a quirk of a specific version of Retroarch so making sure we do our due diligence here

In MAME directly, as in the standalone emulator, I don't believe so. I would actually love it if someone could prove me wrong here though, it would be a welcomed feature! If you are using MAME through Retroarch then yes there is a way. Retroarch has a hotkey for the overlays, should be called "next overlay". Seems the intended design was to swap to the next available overlay listed in the associated config file. If you want to turn them on/off on the fly, this is also doable. This is something I recently setup for myself. It's pretty basic overall, but not the easiest to implement in the sense it was time consuming. The main thing you need do is edit the config file for the game or core/system. By default, assuming you got bezels initially setup through the Bezel Project, the config file will only be listing a single bezel associated for that game or core/system. So this file needs to change the line that details the number of overlays being just 1 to list 2 or however many you want if you would like to have multiple bezels available. Then you need to continue editing said config making a fake bezel entry. Take note how the config file lists out the file path to the photo to be used. If you were to leave that empty and not provide a file path at all it simply will not load a photo when that bezel is selected. It will end up looking like to the user, you, as if you had the ability to toggle the bezels on and off. Thanks to it being a hotkey you can assign this to any input Retroarch recognizes to turn them on/off in such an easy way, or to swap to different ones if you have multiple bezels for a single game or core/system. If you wanted for example three bezels to swap between and have a blank one you would need to make the number of bezels 4, one of those entries would need to blank (no file path) and the other three would list the appropriate file path to load the different photos So now you just edited and setup a SINGLE game and/or core/system. Now do that 9,000 more times or however many games core/systems you want to edit lmao sounds like a terrible time right? I ended up writing an AHK script that did all this work for me because doing it manually would be insane! Though I'll admit the amount of time I put into writing the script I probably could have manually edited all the config files in the same time frame 🤣! I am willing to share my script because I know it will make this undertaking so much easier. If you or anyone is interested, please let me know and I'll pass it along Another tip for doing the same thing with shaders with Retroarch. I wanted the ability to turn those on/off with the hotkey also so I setup a shader that basically does nothing so when I switch to that particular one it will look like shaders were turned off. No AHK hoops to jump through for this setup at least! Looks like your question got answered but wanted to make sure you know that RocketLauncher is pretty darn handy in the bezel department. You can setup multiple bezels with various "layouts" as in the size and position of the game displaying, and you can swap between them on the fly with a hotkey too. I think it's the best implementation of bezels I've ever used. As you know you can have multiple bezels with MAME but doesn't have a built in feature to flip between them on the fly

Hey @Sbaby that sure is a bummer the problem still persists but you're doing the right thing trying to drill down what's going on. I unfortunately do not have the flycast core since I have no Dreamcast ROMs. I'm certainly happy to help, but this might take me days to do, not that I think it takes days to setup, just getting time put to the side to find stuff I assume this system needs like BIOS files and get a couple ROMs etc. I'm on slow as molasses internet lol. So I will definitely check this out and report back how it went for me, just be patient, it might take me a bit to complete. But in the meantime I wonder if some other user on here has a flycast Dreamcast setup and could test this out? If you're that person, you'd be doing us both a favor!

Intel's core CPU nomenclature is pretty easy to understand. Bigger # = more power = higher cost. Assuming all comparing is done between the same generational release. You cannot use that same train of thought if you wanted to compare or choose between i7-2770 and i3-12300 for example. because most will go "i7 is better than i5 and way better than i3 so I'll get the i7-2700 of course!" not having any clue that it was released over 11 years ago and performs like it's an 11yr old CPU by today's standards lol. i3 / i5 / i7 / i9 is easy to understand. The 2nd bit of #'s is the specific SKU and designate what generation it's from. 2700 being 2nd gen and 12300 being 12th gen. Also, making sure you know what the F means in their CPU names....It means there is no iGPU! (integrated GPU) Which means you NEED to have a dGPU (discrete GPU) installed or you will have a great time staring at a blank screen lol. So if you really were hellbent on getting the i3-12100f you NEED to have installed a GPU. The one you mentioned is a bit ancient in itself also. Not that it means it's not a good fit, but might want to check into compatibility. It might not work on a newer motherboard because the VBIOS of the GPU might only work on legacy/BIOS systems as opposed to modern ones with UEFI. A new CPU needs a new motherboard, and compatible RAM which after a quick check looks like 12100f is compatible with both DDR4 or DDR5, so will give you more options in both the motherboard and RAM department! It sounds like you're considering building a system from scratch for emulation. So it would be a good time to ask, have you thought about all these considerations? If not I am sure there is several more that need to be considered too.

great suggestion about adding in MsgBox at points in the script! I make use of this too! It's a great way to make sure you have your scripts executing as you intended.

I 2nd PCGamingWiki is a great resource! Also FYI PC games with some sort of "launcher/configuration" window before booting into the actual game usually have more than one .exe file due to this. One is typically the launcher/configuration window, and the other being the actual game. In some instances you can simply boot from the game .exe file instead. So you could point LB/BB to launch that .exe file instead. There are some games that don't like this and will not boot unless you go through the expected sequence meaning the launcher/config window.

If you think it's Retroarch then you could absolutely prove it is the root cause culprit by doing what I asked you to try. If you delete the configs and use all default settings and then the problem goes away....there you have proved your theory and Retroarch settings was the root cause. Otherwise if the problem continues it would suggest there is some other complication going on in your setup. To figure out the exact setting, if you wanted to, you would first have to obviously resolve it. But then continue by adding back in your settings one at a time to determine when the issue returns. Then you would know exactly which setting(s) caused it too.