ChristopherNeff

For number 1. I was referring to when it's like a PSONE ROM that is Bin and Cue files and a lot of them even have Track Files. I always Un-Zip them using 7-Zip, put them into a folder and then import the entire folder into LB and it works perfectly. Recently, I noticed that LB has it's own portable/stand alone version of 7-Zip in the Third Party folder, so then I started wondering if I was wasting my time doing extra unnecessary steps all this time, and started thinking that maybe LB would just automatically extract those files from the ZIP, 7Z, or RAR and put them into the Games folder for me during the import process. Not a temporary extract, but a permanent one that it would do as part of the import process when adding those games into LB for the first time. How about ISO games? Can those stay compressed, AKA 7Z, RAR etc? For number 2. Are ROMS that have those weird compressions usually mean they are old dumps and bad? So, good ones don't have all of that extra stuff attached to them? What about 3DS? What's better? Get the encrypted ones and then decrypt them myself, or try and get ones that are already decrypted? And as for the non self bootable DC games, am I still stuck having to make them self bootable or use the UTopia Boot Disc, or are there DC ROMS out there that are already self bootable out of the gate? For number 3. If it doesn't matter, then why do you bother extracting all of yours? Why not just leave them zipped? The saved space might be small for each individual ROM, but it builds up over time. Also, you're sure that I don't need to extract them for any sort of purist/originality/accuracy reasons? For number 4. The Emu Devs COULD be making them all be compatible with compressed files if they really wanted to all this time? Then why don't they for newer games and CD based games? For number 5. It's actually not about functioning correctly. It's about 2 things. One is that newer versions will always have new features that do cool things for you and will be faster. Like a newer version of DOSBox or ScummVM, as an example might play games with better performance and FPS than an outdated one. Two, and this is the most important one, when you leave any program out of date, no matter what it is, you put people's PC's at risk with potential security holes that can open up gateways, and back doors to malware, viruses, and hacks etc. Any program you have on your PC, regardless of whether it is installed, or a Zip file/Stand Alone/Portable MUST be kept up to date at all times to ensure that all vulnerabilities are patched out, or else get rid of it/don't install or download it. For number 6. RA actually doesn't have it's own updater. It has updaters for the components, Assets, and Cores within RA, but not for the actual program itself. As it stands, the only way to check for updates and to update it if needed is to manually go to their website and go the downloads page to see what version they are at, and if you notice it is newer than the one you currently have, you have to download the entire program, and then you have to install it over the existing installation on your PC. That is why I was hoping that the RA Updater within LB would somehow be able to crawl their site to check for new versions against the currently installed one on your PC so I could check within LB and not have to go to their site each time.

Hi, not sure if this belongs here or in trouble shooting, but I got 6 questions about LB and it's features and functionality. It's somewhat lengthy-ish so I apologize in advance. 1. When adding ROMS to LB, do we need to un-zip them first before importing them, or does LB do that automatically? Basically, I noticed in the Third Party folder of LB, it had stand alone/portable versions of usually installed programs such as VLC, ScummVM, DOSBox and 7-Zip, etc. The 7-Zip is what's got my interest the most. So my question is essentially this: When I have ROMS that are zipped as either 7Z or RAR and are ones that HAS to be extracted first in order for an emulator to play them, (such as PSONE Bin and Cue files being RAR'd) then do I need to install 7-Zip and then un-zip those files BEFORE adding them to LB, or is that what LB's built in 7-Zip is for? Meaning, can I just take a RAR or 7Z or Zip of a game that needs to be extracted such as a PSONE game that is a Bin and Cue file and simply add the compressed file to LB, and then LB will just automatically use it's own built in 7-Zip to extract the Bin and Cue files for me during the import process and properly add them to LB's game folder etc, or ISOS, or any other format that HAS to be extracted first for that matter? Essentially laziness and it does literally ALL of the work for me? 2. Sometimes, some PSONE ROMS and other games will have a very weird compression where they will be ECM'd and I'd have to download some weird zip file program that is portable that UN-ECM's those ROMS. Also, maybe other weird things that have to be removed from a ROM to make it playable. Or, there are 3DS games that, in their pure forms, are encrypted and you have to download a zip file program that un-encrypts the 3DS games to make them playable. Or, the really weird one is that a lot of DC ROMS aren't "self bootable", whatever that means, and so, in order to play them on a real DC, or even an Emulator, you either had to use a CD called the UTopia Boot Disc, or you had to make them self bootable. I remember having to go through all sorts of weird and tedious steps to do it, including downloading all sorts of weird zip file programs, and even installing software such as Daemon Tools Lite, and Disc Juggler, etc so I could mount the rom as a Virtual CD, copy it's contents into a folder, do some weird Command Line stuff, and then use Disc Juggler to re compile those altered files into a new ROM, and then discard the old one etc. I can't even remember what I did back then to make it all work, but it was a MAJOR pain in my ass, and I don't know if I'd have the patience to do all of that again. LUL. So, my question pretty much boils down to this: If I ever end up with ROMS that have any of the above again, then can I just import them as is into LB and have LB automatically take care of all of that for me, or will I still need to download all of those weirdo tools, and go through all of those dumb and tedious steps to take care of all of that BEFORE importing them into LB? 3. For the Retro games such as NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, etc that are zipped and DO work in emulators such as RA without being un-zipped first, then which way is better? Un-zip them anyway or leave them zipped to save a minuscule amount of space? Does it matter? Will they run any differently or worse if I leave them zipped? I want to be as purist and accurate as possible so I always go for pure 100% authentic rips, no intro, un-headered, correct/original format etc. Lots of people tell me that if an emulator plays a ROM zipped, then un-zipping it is foolish, and a waste of space and most importantly, time. 4. Why can older Retro games be played zipped, yet newer ones such as PSONE, PS2, GC, Wii, etc can't? 5. Why aren't the programs in the Third Party folder up to date? I noticed that if I click on any of them and run them by themselves from within the folder, most of them ask to be updated to the latest version, but if I click on it, it just takes me to a page to download the main installer which obviously won't update the actual versions within the folder. I'll just have an installed version of the up to date program. So my question is, why doesn't LB update those programs when LB itself updates to new releases or even have it's own updating system for those programs to make sure they are always up to date? 6. And finally, I noticed that it's possible to update RA from within LB, but I also noticed that even if it is already up to date, if I click on it, it will still go through the process of manually downloading and then installing the updated version. My question is this: Is there any way to have it simply check for updates first or at the very least stop me from updating if I click on it when RA is already at the latest version and tell me something along the lines of "RA is already at the latest version" etc? Or, even have an auto updater that will just automatically update RA for me in the background like LB does for itself? The reason I ask is because one thing I don't like about RA is that it has no auto update feature for the program, or to manually update it from within the program, nor does it even have an option to check for newer releases, so I have to manually check the website every so often to see if I need to update or not, and then if I do, I have to download the entire program, and then install it over the previous one. I was hoping the RA updater within LB would eliminate that need for me but I guess not as it will still download and install the latest RA no matter if the currently installed version is still at the latest version, or not. Also, I noticed that using LB's RA updater seems slower to me than manually downloading the program from the official site and then installing it myself. Or, is that in my head?

Okay. Thanks. So, for PSONE, if I don't remove the BIN parts from LB, and just leave them as is, can that cause problems or something? Is that why I had to manually edit each PSONE entry and point it to the CUE file? Because they were all pointing at the BIN file by default at first. So, since it's all working anyway now, is there still a point in removing the BIN files from LB or re-importing them the right way? Is it just for Hard Drive space purposes or something? Or, can it lead to actual problems down the road?

"For the PSone import you should not have imported both the bin and cue files, the bin files as useless to LB. So those extra entries it added into one file will not launch a game. You would just import the cue file. So you really should remove those bin files from the LB import." Wait, I'm confused. Why does that matter though? They DO play in LB and in RA. So, why would I need to redo the PSONE imports when they play perfectly? The bin files are useless? I thought they are both needed to launch a game, because I'm pretty sure that if I deleted the BIN files from my folder, the CUE files by themselves would not be able to play anything. So, if I simply renamed the track files to the same name as the main ROM file, then would LB merge them all into a single entry? Does the file name matter, as in can changing it to something else mess anything up?

I think that worked. But, I have to ask, why are we required to do it that way in order for it to work? When I imported all my PSONE games (which are all BIN and CUE files BTW) to LB the normal way, it didn't add the BIN and CUE files as separate entries. It combined them both together into one entry automatically. The actual files themselves are still separate BIN and CUE files, but LB still made only one entry out of them both. Why doesn't it do that for DC track files as well? Also, now that I did it the way Lord Monkus said to do it, if I ever have to re add any metadata again in the future, it won't automatically add the track files back as separate entries again will it?

The way I imported them is with the import Rom wizard in LB and then I simply selected my DC folder, and chose to allow LB to move it into its own folder which is called Games and configure it however it needed to and it took care of everything for me. It's Gauntlet Legends and it's CDI and GDI BTW. The reason it's both is because I ended up with two of the same rom with different file extensions and so LB ended up importing both of them into a single entry so I would just right click and select which one I want to play. What that means is that I have no idea which one the track files actually belong to, either the CDI, or the GDI one. The track files are in BIN format BTW.

I hope this is in the right section, and I'm sorry if this has already been asked before in the past, but when I import any DreamCast games into LaunchBox that has track files, the track files get imported as separate entries into LaunchBox that has no images, any metadata or info. If you go to play any of them, it shows the DreamCast Bios boot but instead of the animation it just shows the logo instantly. With some of the files, it goes to the main bios menu that has the options to play a game, configure the memory cards and controllers, an audio track player, and settings. With the other files, it shows a Naomi logo and says it can't play it and that it's not an acceptable game for the main board or something, and RetroArch says something about missing files and MAME, which is weird because DreamCast has nothing to do with MAME. It's the FlyCast Core, and it's updated to the latest version, as is RetroArch itself, BTW. Then I have to manually delete them one by one from LaunchBox by right clicking and selecting delete. If I ever update my metadata either, those entries will come back and I will have to delete them individually all over again. My questions are: 1. By deleting them from LaunchBox, will that mess anything up and make it so the DreamCast games won't boot or play, or at least won't play properly or have missing music or sound tracks or anything like that? 2. Is there any option that I can select or even am supposed to select during the actual import process that will make it so the track files won't be added as separate entries or will combine them into one or something? Kind of like how the importer allows you to combine multi-disc games into a single entry in LaunchBox and then you just right click it to select which disc you want to play. 3. If there is an option like that and I'm missing it, then will that make it so the DreamCast games won't boot or play, or at least won't play properly or have missing music or sound tracks or anything like that? Do I need to combine the files somehow? Thanks.

"Citra, Dolphin, PCSX2 core versions are other bad cores that come to my mind." What's wrong with the Citra, and Dolphin cores? And you can't bring up PCSX2 Core because it is still in alpha/beta. You can't compare the two until the core is finished and finalized. That is not a fair comparison. "First off, cores are forked versions ( sometimes unauthorized ) of standalone emulators and mostly of the times they work bad compared to standalone simply because who forked them know less than who created/builded." Unauthorized or authorized doesn't exist and is irrelevant for open source software. There is no such thing as authorization when it's open sourced. A creator of something open source doesn't really have any legal rights to it other than that whoever takes it and forks it or includes it in something or changes it, or whatever they do to it, is legally required to link to the original creator and include the original Copy Left license/GPL or whatever it's called. That's the only legal right a creator to something open source has. You aren't legally required to get the authorization of the original creator of something open sourced to fork it. Literally anyone at all can legally fork, edit, modify, or do whatever they want to any open source project they feel like so long as they credit the original creator and include the original Copy Left license/GPL in it. In fact, you can even legally charge money for your own version of something open sourced that someone else made or make money on it or include it in a paid program, software or service so long as you credit the original creator and include the original Copy Left license/GPL and you don't even have to ask permission either, nor give a cut to the OG creator. Like, if we use Linux as an example, I can legally take Ubuntu or some other distro, make one little tiny change to it, call it something else and then sell it to people as my own OS so long as I credit the original creator of Ubuntu that my derivative is inspired from and include the Copy Left license/GPL with it.

What are you talking about? You have it the other way around. It's RA MAME that is the less troublesome one than standalone MAME. So, sane people would be using the core. Cores are superior to all standalone emulators cuz they strip out all the BS and bloatware and give you just the pure, raw greatness of that emulator. Stand alone emulators are vastly inferior to RA's Cores and are obsolete and a thing of the past. Soon, RA will be all you need for anything at all. And you said Standalone MAME is better than RA's core, controller wise, but you have that the other way around too. When you use standalone MAME, you have to manually configure the entire controller by manually mapping each controller button and stick, and doing it from the main menu before launching a game doesn't work either. No, you have to additionally remap the controller WHILE you are in the actual game itself because if you do it from the main menu before loading a game up, then all you configured was the main menu controls. So you have to remap the entire controller for each individual game. Whereas with RA's core, the controllers are just automatically mapped for you from the get go. Load any MAME game and the controllers are automatically good to go, mapped for that particular game. Standalone MAME always required way more configuration, especially back when they were command line only. RA's Core is literally just plug and play so to speak. You download the core, load it up, launch the game and you're good to go. No configurations or controller mappings needed. The core is vastly superior and more simplified than the standalone by a long shot.

Wait, you use MAME standalone instead of the MAME RA Core? But doesn't RA have just as many, if not more, bezels and artwork than MAME does? Or can't you just download and use the MAME Bezels in RA or are they different than the overlays/borders that you can apply and customize in RA? You said you like the RA shaders more, so can't you just use them in MAME as well? Aren't those shaders universally compatible with pretty much all Emulators if you use something like ReShade etc?

Just out of curiosity, what is it about HLSL for MAME that you like more than just using the CRT-easymode-halation for it? Or the HLSL on everything.

Huh, that's weird. I thought it was the other way around. When I was a kid, I remember having to take my CRT TV in to be fixed all the FREAKING time. lol Also, for the whole modern TV's breaking down quicker thing, maybe I just don't notice it because I'm constantly switching them out to upgrade to the newer and bigger and latest and greatest all the time.

Not enough room. Also, don't know which one to get. And then there's constant maintenance as it keeps breaking down and needing constant repair. Not sure if repair shops even exist for CRT TVs anymore. And then, I'd also have to use the actual consoles and the games which are subject to wear and tear and freezing etc. You can't attach some ancient CRT TV to a modern PC to run the emulators.

What shader did you use to get that effect and do you use any overlays/borders for your set up?

"1. Look for pictures of CRT monitors online displaying a game you know well (e.g. Mario 64, or Mario World --> bonus: check if you can spot the black bars on the CRT or how much of the image is actually cropped)." Will pictures work though? Wouldn't they need to be videos showing it in action since pictures tend to distort the effects of the screen for some reason? Also, is it important for me to be able to spot black borders or cropping in the images or videos? "Alternatively, just buy a CRT TV and compare the real thing to the shaders in your own home." If I bought a real CRT TV, I wouldn't even bother comparing it to the shaders because I'd just throw the shaders away and never touch them again. "As for Acrade shaders. Those Arcade screens were CRTs as well, right? I find that whatever works on retro consoles, such as SNES also works on arcade games. I don't think you'll be needing a separate shader for them." Actually, Arcade CRT's are vastly different than home, consumer CRT's. So a shader that replicates a home, consumer CRT would most definitely NOT work for an arcade CRT. Can you tell me what Retro Shaders and Retro Bezels you use and also if you tweak any of the Shader Parameters or just leave them all at default, stock settings? Thanks.

Is it because it would still require someone to do extensive testing of every shader known to man while simultaneously looking at the actual CRT Monitor while tweaking the settings until they matched as close as possible?

So I need to contact the manufacturers first then and ask them for the exact make and model of the Arcade screen they used and then come back and give you guys that info.

Could you tell me what shader I need and settings to make the arcade roms of Gauntlet Legends and Gauntlet Dark Legacy look as close to the real Arcade Cabinets and CRT Screen as possible?

How about arcade? Are those all different too? Like for example, if I were to tell you that I want to make the arcade version of Gauntlet Legends and Gauntlet Dark Legacy look as close to the Arcade Cabinets as possible, then would you be able to tell me an exact shader that will make it look like what the games looked like on the actual Arcade Cabinets with their Arcade CRT Monitors?

So I'd have to first figure out an exact make and model of a very specific CRT TV and then figure out what cable type I want to emulate, and then after that, go out and look for a Shader that 100% replicates that exact set up?

I meant most accurate to a certain kind and style of CRT TV. Not to every CRT TV in existence.

Wait, I "shouldn't" try to go for the most accurate to the TV look I am going for?

If it doesn't look anything like that shader then does that mean that the shader with the custom shader parameters is not accurate to a real CRT TV or is it that the shader and settings are just replicating a different CRT TV from back then? So you wouldn't be able to tell me any exact settings in the parameters I need to tweak to make it as close as possible or if that even is the right shader for the old CRT TV look I am going for?

Did you look at my two YT videos I linked in my first comment of my thread? Do you think the second video, the one where I used the Dirty Atari TV shader from the Analog Shader Pack with customized Shader Parameters looks close to accurate of an old CRT TV, or is it off still?

So you're saying that there are piles of different consumer CRT TV's too that all look different? Could you at least tell me what shaders I should look at that replicates the lower consumer CRT TV's? I know you say there is no most accurate, but when I ask that, I mean one that replicates a real CRT TV as much as possible. I think I may want to replicate a 70's, 80;s or 90's. The reason I say most accurate is because there are shaders that try to accurately replicate a real CRT TV, and then there are shaders that do their own thing and don't look anything like what a real CRT TV would look like. So by most accurate, I want a shader that replicates an authentic CRT TV as closely as possible. You say it's subjective but it can't be completely subjective because I want something that OBJECTIVELY replicates a REAL CRT TV as close as possible to the actual TV. I want a shader that just shows me what a real CRT TV would have looked like that tries to replicate everything as close as possible without doing any sort of weird alterations or enhancements etc. I just want a shader that gives me the correct, PURE experience. I don't want subjective. I want the correct look to what a CRT TV looked like back then. I would want shaders that use RF as that is the most pure. Can you give me at least a list of shaders that get close to a real CRT TV? I'm just tired of constantly switching them out and never being able to just settle on one because I can't seem to find any that 100% replicates a real CRT TV from back in the older days. I just want to be done with the search and find the correct one. As one person once told me in regards to TV calibration: "There's reference and then there's preference. Only one of those is right."