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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.

Hi @Sbaby I haven't done too much with the pause screen to know all the in and outs yet....but I would take a guess you could use a script that would hit Retroarch's full screen hotkey upon resume ? I know that doesn't fix the root cause, because it comes off as LB/BB is stealing back focus causing Retroarch to lose it, but knowing there is a "Resume Script" tab in the emulators, the scripts entered here will run upon resuming a game from the LB/BB pause screen. Something simple like this, assuming you also have the F key to toggle fullscreen. The Sleep, 3000 bit is telling the script to wait 3 seconds before continuing. I notice there is a slight delay in Retroarch losing fullscreen so you wouldn't want this to hit the hotkey too quickly or the script itself might end up being the cause of losing fullscreen. With that said, make sure there isn't anything already there in the Resume Script tab that might be causing this problem! It should be empty by default though Sleep, 3000 Send {F down}{F up} Further to test the theory if it's Retroarch or not please do the following. Make a copy of your current Retroarch config file, and save it somewhere. Next delete the original config file so it generates a default one upon next launch. Test with a game that doesn't have any specific core/system or game specific overrides so you know it's working with true default settings. I think it would be a good test to see if the issue goes away or continues and would help you figure out where to put your efforts in resolving the issue

Short answer is no you will not have problems. you're confused about something surrounding emulators and platforms. I'd like to mention Retroarch. This single emulator can be used on DOZENS of different platforms and the way LB/BB is setup allows you the ability to provide specific launch parameters for specific platforms. It's as easy as typing in the name of the platform in the list of associated platforms for the emulator you are editing or setting up. Dolphin is another good example, which emulates both Gamecube and Wii. You only need a single instance of this emulator setup in LB/BB for both platforms. Setup a 3rd platform for just "Wiiware" games even if you want! You can setup launch parameters per emulator, per platform, or per game even! To provide specific example for you. Imagine you setup your emulator instance of MAME in LB. In that "associated platform" list you would add both Arcade for arcade games and let's call the other platform Computers for computers, very intuitive, I know! You can check the default emulator checkbox assuming you want them to be the defaults. If they need different launch parameters you have at least two different ways to achieve your goal. Set them up per platform, or per game. It sounds like you tried to set it up per emulator which means you would only get one or the other platform to work if they do in fact need different launch parameters.

Hi @caligvla1 it's not totally clear if you're trying to map buttons for navigating through LB/BB or for actually playing your games on your emulators? If you're trying to change button mapping for navigating through LB then in LB you would find that under Tools > Options > Game Controllers > Mappings If you use BB you will find the BB version of these settings under Options > Controller Mappings If you need to change buttons for when you're playing the games then you need to do that within the emulator itself. LB/BB is just a frontend that launches the emulators and games but it does not control how they work such as button remapping

this is exactly where I was going with this. because I found their support/download page and this appears to be small time niche emulator and I didn't immediately see any docs on what parameters it needs and accepts. if @Sandroace cannot get these commands to work in a command prompt then said commands either don't exist or are being typed in improperly. there is a chance that maybe "-h" or even "-options" (try them with with two dashes -- also) might list out available command parameters/switches? with this all said, due to our line of questioning and the answer Sandroace is after it might be better asking on their forum. this more or less proves that they need to figure out what the proper parameters are if it currently doesn't work via the command prompt. for all we know, like what JoeViking245 was eluding to, the emulator may not even have parameters to launch games like this

Hi @Sandroace Can you post a screen shot of the GensHack emulator > details page? I think it might help seeing what you're currently trying. Initially sounds like the launch parameters aren't set up correct since I've had some emulators behave like that, just open but not launch a game, if I didn't have all the parameters entered properly

lol I clearly confused myself not paying close enough attention when reading, I think I mixed you up with another user 🤦‍♂️ chalk this up to a multi-tasking fail of not keeping track of who I was posting to and what issue they were trying to solve. I mean for fucks sake I even said "glad you work through your challenges" in my first post here and then had a brain fart on the next post apparently thinking there was a need for help. but hey, our ramblings still helped us learn some new bits so it's still all worth it to me! 🤣 12 years! never knew one existed on there either. Now I wonder why they never would update it on the Steam platform, might as well remove it if they want to guide everyone to their main website to download it. If you're feeling cavalier and want to mess around Retroarch should be considered "portable". It wouldn't mess up your current install if you make a new one in a different folder location. Alternatively If you wanted to preserve the current install but test the new install in the same spot you could try this. take the main Retroarch folder and rename it to Retroarch.old or whatever you want so you can put the new folder in the same place and test. If it doesn't work out and need to revert it's as simple as deleting the one that didn't work, and renaming the original back to the normal name without .old or whatever was used.

Hi @Zkyo! OK now I know exactly what you're trying for here. So though my original method does work out just fine, I understand this may not be desirable for a library so large since I did all that setup manually. With that said, I got a couple ideas one idea (lol) of how to do this better that would be useful for you. The easiest idea that came to my head right away is why not launch LaunchBox and/or BigBox from Steam instead of launching just the emulator from Steam? By theory if you launch LB/BB from Steam, then any emulator and/or game launched from LB/BB will still have the Steam overlay and all related options, customization and features available as if you were launching the specific emulator or game directly from Steam. You therefore would get all the Steam related benefits like controller remapping, but everything LB/BB/emulator/ROM related will work as business as usual. You wouldn't need to edit any emulator launching arguments or have custom stuff setup for games etc. Assuming everything works for you now per your "normal" setup, all you need to do is add LB/BB as a non-Steam game and launch LB/BB from Steam. Just confirmed this method works! 🎉 I did not get the ability to open the Steam overlay until I actually launch a game though. It would not come up when navigating around LB or BB. When a game was launched I see the little pop up notification in the bottom right corner from Steam and then I could bring up the overlay! So please give this a shot and let us know if it makes your setup how you need it. I had another idea using AHK to automate a few things but it failed miserably as I tested it tonight. Made a script to look at the ROM files in a selected folder that would then make shortcuts named from the ROM file name, and at the same time insert in arguments/parameters to load the right core and ROM file. This worked, but next steps fell apart because it requires manual work...or at least stuff I'm not going to bother figuring out how to use AHK for lol. Damn Steam does not transfer everything in the target field when you import it as a non-Steam game. It just removes anything written beyond the actual executable. In other words it omits all the arguments and parameters. So you then you have to manually enter that stuff into the Launch Options field, which would be required for every game. Same sort of issue getting it linked up in LB/BB, it would require manual work. Well.....this idea sounded good in my head until I trialed it out. All these photos are showing how this sort of setup would work. The method I original used, but requires manual editing. Great method if it a few games....not if its a few thousand 🤣 Gotta turn of emulation. That's how I got this working in the past. I REALLY liked your idea better....but it just doesn't work like that apparently. LB/BB will determine the shortcuts are "not a valid application for this OS platform" if you make the emulator application path something like a shortcut in the ways we just tried. At least now we know! Notice how arguments/parameters must go into Launch Options. Steam only transfers the text currently shown in the Target field as in just the text to launch the exe. Steam omits arguments/parameters when importing non-Steam game. Quite annoying quirk! Showing you can get steam rungame ID's from viewing the URL shortcut's properties Using the steam rungameid - using the .URL file path here is also OK (emulation is OFF!) Gotta turn OFF emulation so LB/BB treats it like a standard app

Hi @Zkyo From reddit... 🤣 more details the merrier I say though! OK so you have a boatload of unique and exotic requirements here I think, so I'm glad you work through your challenges. I did notice one blurb on the reddit post That's not entirely correct. Shortcuts will use parameters as if they were written anywhere else. The "Target" field of the shortcut is where everything goes. I bet you left out the parameter needed to tell it to load a core. Or, at least, I made the same mistake first time I tried launching Retroarch games from command line/parameters. You would need it pointing to the executable of Retroarch (or the Steam URL that in itself is pointing to the Retroarch exe if you launch Retroarch through Steam), and then follow that with the required parameters. If you tell Retroach to open, that is all it will do. If you tell Retroarch to open, and specify a game to load, all it will do is open Retroarch because it wasn't told to load a core, so doesn't know what to do so defaults to just plain opening. You were so close, but didn't quite connect the last dot. Retroarch requires you to also specify the core. I would type it out so it launches Retroarch, then you tell it what core to load, then tell it what game to load, then I usually also tell it to go full screen as the last parameter. This is partly why we have to specify what core is used for what system in LB/BB. Retroarch launching through command lines needs those three things to work, run the exe, load core, load game. For example, check this help page. Also included a specific example I made a while back to learn this myself along where you would put this https://docs.libretro.com/guides/cli-intro/ D:\Arcade\Emulators\Retroarch\retroarch.exe -L D:\Arcade\Emulators\Retroarch\cores\snes9x_libretro.dll "D:\Arcade\ROMS\Super Nintendo Entertainment System\Contra III - The Alien Wars (USA).zip" -f

hi you will want to put it in the emulators "Running Script" tab. You will get to this page through Manage > Emulators. Select the emulator to edit it, then select the Running Script tab on the left hand pane. Insert that script there. What it is doing is running this script as launch of the emulator, it makes ESC a hotkey. Whenever ESC key is pressed it will execute the code which is telling the program, the emulator, to close

lol totally unnecessary. paying it forward and helping a fellow gamer enthusiast, getting their appreciation is worth more than any tangible object! but I just thought of something that might be giving you a challenge. I just checked out the manual for perhaps what is your specific model? you will have to confirm.... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/2714/files/X-Arcade_Manual_USA.pdf?4536 Check out page 10 about programming your stick, which means changing what your physical buttons correspond to what keyboard key. Did you even know you can change these?! This might be a better method for you, depending on your use case Otherwise I see the default layout would really NOT be friendly for Retroarch. For ex z, x, a, s are default keyboard buttons for retroarch.....yet the default layout on your arcade stick puts z and x on Player 1, and A and S on Player 2....lmao that is NOT going to be a good time! You might want to adjust the global retroarch file then as suggested by HeadRush69 so all their keys correspond to your arcade stick's default layout. This is what I said in my first post, about you may have another layer of remapping to worry about to make sure everything lines up correctly as you want it to. If everything was to be left at default, imagine this, you would be hitting the Z and X buttons over on P1 and need to hit A and S on P2 in order to have a good time playing a SNES game. You wouldn't even be able to move since the joystcks default the numpad for P1 and RFDG for P2.....in other words this thing is mostly useless for Retroarch until you configure everything So like I warned, you have multiple layers of remapping to be concerned with. You need to understand exactly what each button on your x-arcade stick corresponds to on the keyboard, and then use the keyboard keys to be used in the emulators. Thanks to headrush for making the list. you would want something like this if mapping stuff out in the vein of a modern controller. you can of course adjust this to your liking, but I hope this puts you on the right path, finally lol. note Retroarch uses "keypad" before the number for the NUMPAD keys. if you want to press the number keys along the top row of the keyboard those start with "num". also note I just gave example for player 1. you would absolutely need to do this for player 2 also. input_player1_up = "keypad8" input_player1_down = "keypad2" input_player1_left = "keypad4" input_player1_right = "keypad6" input_player1_a = "shift" input_player1_b = "z" input_player1_l = "space" input_player1_l2 = "c" input_player1_l3 = "nul" input_player1_r = "x" input_player1_r2 = "num5" input_player1_r3 = "nul" input_player1_select = "num1" input_player1_start = "num2" input_player1_x = "ctrl" input_player1_y = "alt" Which would like this (refer to photo below) under Settings > Controls > Port 1 Controls When you are done editing you need to back out the Main Menu > Configuration File and then select save Save current overwrites the current one - I recommend this option because Save new will create a new file which you will have to direct Retroarch to load. both work fine, but you have another step that you may not want to deal with

so to clarify, that is exactly what I was suggesting. the internet sounds right to me lol! F1 goes to quick menu, you then navigate to controls and adjust. honestly, it sounds like you may be confused how Retroarch's controls work because you're complaining about making the adjustment you describe you want to make....so I 'm not sure where your challenge might be. it sounds like someone saying "I didn't ask for a pepperoni pizza.....I wanted a cheese pizza with pepperoni on top!" they are the same thing. you can achieve changing controls the global way that HeadRush69 suggested. just understand that a change made there will impact everything, it's a global config file. the way I and the internet suggested to you will give you controls that are specific to either the core/system or game. you can do both methods if needed. maybe you do need to edit the global config, but still need more specific changes made per core/system or game. that sort of setup is also possible. I'll try to be specific to your arcade stick since you gave a couple examples of your buttons and it is basically a keyboard encoder by the sounds of it If "Button 1" engages keyboard key "x" this means if you were to for example, open Notepad and hit "Button 1", you would see a "x" type out in Notepad. Using the photo I previously attached, this is the controls menu found in the quick menu. Notice the names in the left hand side, specifically the first entry says "(Key: x)". This means if I were to press "x" on my keyboard, it would engage the virtual button "A". Since I also had an Xbox controller plugged in, it also shows I could engage the virtual "A" button by pressing my Xbox controller's "B" button Using your arcade stick, if you pressed "Button 1", it makes keyboard key "x", it would by default engage virtual button "A" If you wanted to change this, you simply click on that button in the Retroarch menu, and select a different virtual button, let's pretend you change it to virtual button "Y" Boom, that's it, you remapped a button. Dozo basically. Now to save this change so it loads the next time you boot this game or core/system you need to need to save it accordingly, either for the game or core/system. Whatever you prefer So now next time you hit "Button 1", it will still engage keyboard key "x", you would see x typed out in Notepad for example, but now it engages virtual button "Y". Now if you want to make global changes, or need to change the default keyboard layout you would do what Headrush69 suggested. For example You hit "Button 1" but you edit it so instead of engaging keyboard key "x" you want it to engage keyboard key "a" This would still engage the default virtual button "A" So if you wanted to additionally make a change to the virtual button, you do the method I detailed above. Note you also need to save the global config. That is in settings, configuration file, then save it accordingly Hope this helps you understand Retroarch's controls better. This is a case of all roads lead to Rome, there is multiple ways to achieve changing controls. None are wrong, you just need to use the method(s) that work for your use case That list HeadRush69 include is a good resource also if you wanted to manually edit the global config instead of doing through the built in menu of Retroarch. You could use the search function of Notepad or whatever text editor you use to find those lines in the config and edit accordingly. It's a bit annoying to find them by your eye alone because there are like 16 player inputs along with all the other global options, there are a lot of lines to search through.

I should add I recently realized you can launch any program through Steam and said program will make use of Steam's overlay, which also means it makes use of Steam's controller remapping. So if all you really want to do is swap A/B and X/Y that would be super easy with this method. You would add BigBox to Steam as a non Steam Game, and simply launch BigBox from Steam. Then switch button mapping around as desired.

you mean like a program literally called "virtual controller" ? lol not sure if it does every single thing you listed but I know it will take multiple physical devices and remap them to the same virtual device. yea this link might call it "vjoy-controller" but it's not "vjoy"....this is "virtual controller". though vjoy is usable through this program too https://sourceforge.net/projects/vjoy-controller/ Also, if you don't mind, verify for me if checking or unchecking BigBox's "Use All Controllers" option makes a difference for you. In my recent experience that check box doesn't matter. If I have multiple controllers plugged in or connected wireless, they are ALL detected and usable by BigBox, even when that option is not checked. Which makes no sense to me. I made a post about it here for more details