MetaRidley42

I’m far from useless when it comes to command line interface is and software that’s not entirely user-friendly, but this potential project still has me fairly stumped. There’s really only two games that I want to play as close to accurately as possible, Star Wars trilogy, and the Ocean Hunter. Obviously I’d like to launch them through Launchbox, but my main hangup is that it seems that only certain revisions of this emulator work well with certain games, I can’t find a reliable updated source as to which revision should be the one that I could pick that might work with at least those two games (also Jurassic Park lost world would be nice). i’m also not sure where the best place is to download the actual emulator, as I’ve seen various places saying to avoid EmuCR. I haven’t even gotten far enough to worry about how controls are mapped etc., or Launchbox integration, but at the start I’m just wondering if anyone here has any of these titles up and running. I’m mainly just wondering if anybody here has it up and running to their satisfaction for some or all Model 3 games, and if you could share a little bit of your process on how you got that working generally and with Launchbox.

My dedicated emulator PC is running Debian Linux, I just love how much more stable and console-like it feels than windows, everything from boot to customizing GUI, etc. I like some aspects of it so much more than I’ve quit using Launchbox regrettably, as I find myself trying to avoid Windows for emulating classic games (and even new games, which work surprisingly well on Linux now through Steam). I have a lifetime Launchbox license, but I would buy another one if it meant getting a native Linux version. There’s also like zero competition on that front, because in my opinion all the Linux front ends are TERRIBLE.

I have “enable controllers” selected but not “use all controllers” though I did try both. Odd thing is that the controller works (well, worked) with the default mappings once that was enabled, but I cleared out everything in order to map select to the “X” button etc. and after doing so I cannot map anything. It will not respond to any controller button presses at all on the “awaiting controller input” splash screen. Any suggestions welcome. For what it’s worth the controller is working great in RA cores once a game launches. Steam is not running. I do not have DS4Windows running nor have I ever previously ever installed it on this machine.

Thanks. I can see how that would work, I guess my lingering question (more of a Retroarch one than a LB one I suppose), is what launch arguments in particular I would need to scrape up to make sure that each time I launch a game for the CRT TV it launches with the lower-res GUI, CRT-switchres mode enabled, etc. I'm hoping it''s as simple as "--config [file location to the alternate CRT.cfg]" and be done with it? But that's perhaps more ofa question that I need to dig around in the libretro wiki and forums to determine.

If all you want to do is get the cheapest PC possible specifically solely for emulating most systems on Launchbox, check out getting a refurbished or secondhand Dell office style system (ideally for $200 USD or less), like the newer small form-factor Dell Optiplex, that has a a newer Intel processor (i5/i7), they should be able to play most systems smoothly without super-HD upscaling and the like through the Gamecube/PS2/Saturn era of games. Check out this video for an example of this, noting that your mileage may vary, as even by modern high-end gaming PC cannot run certain Gamecube games smoothly to my satisfaction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XONKVZf0m6o Just note that this sort of PC, designed for an office, is going to be mostly crap at running any modern PC game 3D title, it works better for emulation as most emulators are largely if not entirely drawing on the CPU rather than the GPU.

I want to preserve my install folder for Retroarch, if possible, to preserve same save state and srm files if possible, but allow the ability to essentially launch any given title by default in 1080p full res Retroarch, but with option to right-click if needed and launch via a custom "CRT" alternate config for Retroarch with CRT_switchres enabled. The purpose of this is when I have my CRT TV connected to my PC as a second monitor and want to launch games in the lower, appropriate resolutions using crt_switchres functionality when I am playing on that display instead of my main gaming panel. I would prefer to do this with (in addition to whatever functionality Launchbox has) a separate retroarch.cfg file (i.e. retroarch_crt.cfg or the like) in the same Retroarch install folder. If that's not possible, the only other way I can think to do this is a separate folder/install of Retroarch with some folder symlinks going between the Retroarch "regular" and Retroarch "CRT" respective save/state folders, but would prefer to not do it that way if possible. Thoughts? Thanks!

Thanks for the reply! I’ve heard a little bit about the launchbox .m3u feature, and just to confirm, that’s a temporary playlist file that the software generates on the fly for multiple discs, meaning if I use that option I don’t need to go and create my own playlist file in the same folder as the game files while using that feature, Launchbox should handle it on the fly, correct? I have used a folder > .m3u playlist structure for my PS1 games, some of which have as many as five discs, but never did it for the gamecube games because I wasn’t sure if the dolphin emulator needed or supported that method like Retroarch.

Hi all: If I am importing .ISO files for my GameCube collection in LB/BB, with said files remaining in place in a single folder on an external drive, what steps do I need to take to ensure that there is a smooth disc-swapping experience when the prompt comes up in the game? I mostly play with a controller on a TV via BigBox, without easy access to mouse and keyboard, so automatic swapping or something with a simply controller combo would be best. I have not reached the point in any of my games yet to test swapping, so I am not sure how things will go. I should point out that my .ISO are all uniformly named, with the same filename appended with (Disc 1) and (Disc 2), etc. When I added the titles to LaunchBox via import ROMs feature, it successfully combined them into a single listing. I see that Dolphin has an option for "Automatically swap discs," is it as simple as enabling that? Thanks all! Love this software!