Nixx

I never use the software bezel border. If i can use bezels with the border and the emulator support it, i use those (be careful with retroarch, their artwork system cause issue with raw mouse input). Otherwise, i use reshade and apply the bezel/border.

Or if you want per game bezel and you already have them installed for retroarch with the bezel pack, you can use my plugin. How to use : Check first if the bezel is working with retroarch, add reshade to your other emulator, it will add a bezel.fx shader, activate it and you are done. (at least for most emulators, some needs tweaking to adjust the bezel when the size of the rendering screen is not exactly the same as retroarch) And as a bonus, it also greatly improve bezel matching for retroarch if you have file naming that are not exactly the same as redump name.

Ok, so just to know if i get it right (i'm currently working on something else, so i have no eta) : In Bigbox, you want an option menu like "Game option", with a list of option Emulator/Platform specific that could be configured, for each option you add an argument like "Enable Reshade" = "--reshade" and set if on/off by default for the whole game/plateform. When you go on this "game option" on a game page of bigbox, it will show a list of option you can either enable/Disable and eventually an extra option, "Set As default for this game". Then when you launch the game, it will apply those arguments of the selected options. One technical limit would be that to browse within the option menu, i will be limited to keyboard and Xinput first controller, i don't know if that can fit your needs.

Sure, but when you have a whole bunch to pass as admin, it simplify the task (like lightgun game where you need to run demulshooter as admin to hook)

It's really a great theme. I love it. I'm making some adjustments because i want more items in the wheel, more speed and i don't want to wait few seconds before having the game info.

Thanks. Technically, you can already do that. You just have to create a Copy of your emulator and add the command -rotate to the command line. Then in BigBox Profile, you detect the arg, do your thing (like editing config file for exemple) and remove the temporary arg before calling the exe. I started to add some exemple of things that i did on the wiki, but i'm kinda short of time at the moment. https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/wiki

Hi. I want to share here how i setup things. I'm not a pro with emulator and stuff, so i could do some things badly, but i think that along the way i found some new and interesting ideas about how to improve your user experience. So i want to make this post, first to share, but also to track what i did. There is probably a lot of useless stuff here, but along the way, you can probably find some idea that's worth it. Brace yourself with a big post full of weird stuff, because i'm a master of overthinking and complicating stuff. 1- My setup. It's important, because some of my choices when configuring emulators are related to the devices i own. Let's start with something weird. My Pc is a big wood box stored over my fridge. I have 10m optic fiber hdmi & usb cable that goes in my office room, and to my tv in the living room. The reason for that setup is that i have a really tiny office (actually, it was made from two closed where i tear down the wall between them) with no window, so i don't want the noise and the heat of my PC here. On my living room : I modified a coffee table to make it lift top, so it's more comfortable to use keyboard and stuff from my couch. I use DS4 as my main first and second controller. I also have a wireless N64 switch controller connected to a 8bit do usb adapter I have one siden gun, i consider buying a second (but that also mean i have to pass a second usb optic cable all around, and it's kinda costly) And to fill extra player, i have some wireless X360 controller, also got some wired in my office. I have a 360 arcade stick. And some sort of shitty wheel (that i got for something like 20€) And i also have some wii remote and an original wii bluetooth module pluged to my usb port with a diy dongle. 2- Apps and Plugin used. DS4Window Turn my DS4 controller into Xinput devices. I use a custom build, that's not up to date, where i added some minor features. https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows I didn't even post a compiled release, it's mostly for my own usage, but if some people here needs it, i will build it. I added an IPC command to assign all profile at once, I use Ipc command with DS4WindowsCmd ( https://github.com/mika-n/DS4WindowsCmd ) to send them. So i can do stuff like .\DS4WindowsCmd.exe -command LoadProfile.all.Default Also, for aside from Default profile, i have profile Default-1, Default-2, Default-3, Default-4. And i made it so that when starting with the default profile it assign to Default-1,2,3,4 according to the xinput slot (so i can get the light color that match the controller slot) And i also have profile called nolag and when i use an ipc command to switch to a profile that contain nolag in the name, it also reboot (stop and start) DS4Windows. The reason is my nolag profile have the checkbox "Enable Output Data to DS4" Disabled, so the input lag go down from 5ms to 1ms. But it stay at 5ms if you don't restart. I also have a program DS4StartCustom.exe that just take a profile name as argument and assign the profile. If no argument, it use Default. (that translate to default-1/2/3/4 in my case), and if DS4Windows is not running, crashed or whatever, it restart it. DS4StartCustom.exe Again, custom stuff, i just share it in case of. You need to have both DS4Windows.exe and DS4StartCustom.exe inside C:\Program Files\DS4WinCustom Since it needs to be run as admin, i have shreduled tasks that run them, so i could change my profile from an ahk script without admins rights. Like this : Run, schtasks /run /i /tn "nolag",,Hide I usually launch it with launchbox on start with default profile, and depending on the emulator i use default or nolag profile (i use nolag when i don't need vibration since they don't work if output data are disabled) One more thing, i don't use the last version of ViGEmBus, i use the 1.17.333.0 because the last one don't report the xinput slot. BigBoxProfile https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile So, that's a big one, and most of my emulator configuration revolve around it. I will not deep dive here, just give a quick summary. The most important feature of this tool is to act as a middle man between Launchbox and your emulator. So, let's say you send emulator.exe romfile. Instead of launching emulator.exe, it will use bbProfile and do some stuff. (could be add arguments to command lines according to rules, editing a config file, execute an ahk script ...) It's made with Launchbox in mind and also offer feature related to launchbox/bigbox (like to make bigbox run on a chosen monitor, for exemple, if i launch BigBox.exe but i add as argument –profile=tv it will activate my tv monitor, make it the main screen and launch bigbox on it) but it doesn't require it to run. It's an independent third party tool. (so no risk of plugin depreciation) Siden Driver Custom Build A version of the siden software i modified so it accept extra parameters, like profile. That way i can use per game or per emulator profile. You can send command lines : .\Lightgun.exe -action "start" .\Lightgun.exe -action "stop" .\Lightgun.exe -action "mouse-pause" .\Lightgun.exe -action "mouse-resume" .\Lightgun.exe -action "load-config test.Config" .\Lightgun.exe -action "restore-config" When you launch them, it will not popup a new Lightgun app, but send commands to the existing one. There is an AHK textbox that is part of the config. It's preconfigured to bind to the Lightgun joystick, so you can use function like GUNA_BTN1(value){} to do something when the joystick button 1 of gun A is pressed. (GUNB_BTN16 function will trigger on Gun B, buton 16) Basically, with some tweaking, you should be able to start and have your game ready with a command like .\Lightgun.exe -action "load-config yourgamename.Config" SindenLightgunWindowsSoftwareV2.05beta_moddedByNixx-0.3 (1).zip BezelMaster Plugin that improve launchbox rom matching to bezel on retroarch using the Bezel project. It also other third party emulator to use Bezel using reshade. DisableUACPlugin Some time, i have games that needs admins right, or could be emulator. For example, when using Demulshooter for my lightgun, i need to run it as admin. With this plugin, when you launch from launchbox an non-emulator exe file or if you execute an emulator with NOUAC in the name, it will first disable UAC for 10 sec. BypassFileExistCheck Niche usecase, I have some roms register in launchbox where the files actually don't exist on my drive. And BigBox Profile does the job of getting them for me. Like games stored on cloud storage. But by default, Launchbox prevent of running a game if the file did not exist, this plugin correct that. BigBoxProfileCompanion https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/releases/tag/V2.0 It's used for the pause menu of BigBox Profile to get metadata info about the game and path of the art image like the background image or the clear logo, to be able to display it on the pause menu. Not requiered to make the pause menu work, it's optional. 4- The Pause Menu Before going into the details on my emulator setup that revolve around BigBox Profile, i have to make a part about the PauseMenu feature of BigBoxProfile Why the pause menu ? I'm really not satisfied with the Pause Menu of launchbox, sometime, it appear behind my emulator, or multiple copy of it appear. It do not allow to choose the savestate i want to load/save, it can't be customized to add extra menu and on top of it i want to be able to adjust the audio volume of the emulator from the pause menu from my couch, controller in hand. This video is outdated but it could give you an idea (there is a lot of time when i had to make the game switch full screen off before the pause, and i reduced the number of case where i need that) I try to make a pause menu for each of my emulator. But it's not something pre-made, it's basically just an HTML viewer that give the html page the ability to execute AHK script. So there is a default hml page that give roughly the same feature as Launchbox pause menu, but if you need more custom one, you need to deep dive into it and code them yourself. Still, i will share what i have done for each emulator and explain what modification i did. I usually just copy my default.html and add extra feature on top of it, but do not expect to have something totally working without getting your hand dirty. A tutorial will be too long here, so i made a wiki post. I'm presenting the basics, with a simple pause menu with 3 buttons. : https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/wiki/PauseMenu-:-Step-1,-a-simple-hello-world The default pause menu : https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/wiki/PauseMenu-:-Set-2,-the-default-pause-menu The Configuration : https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/wiki/PauseMenu-:-Step-3,-the-BigBoxProfile-module 3- Emulator Setup. So, that's the big part, but i don't have the time right now, i will probably take a moment to cover them one by one, and i don't even have finished on my side so it's a work in progress. Sega Model 2. It's the last one i did, and not too complicated so i would like to start with this one. I want to use differents configs depending on the devices plugged on usb (or wireless). Like my keys on gamepad are not totally the same than my wheel. I also want a dedicated config if i use my siden gun for the lightgun games and use demulshooter. For the pause Menu, i don't need much, load/save savestate seems to crash on my PC, i just need to be able to : - Adjust the volume - Reset/Exit the game - Toogle Reshade On/Off - Have an option to go to the system menu and when i do so, reconfigure my controller to bind L1,R1 to Test/Service and Triangle to restore my previous config, that way, i can go into service and edit them on my gamepad without having to bind keys for normal use. When i use my gamepad, i want to use this awesome preconfigured pack : But if i use my arcade stick or my wheel (if they are connected/plugged on usb) i would like to use a different key config. For those two, i will still use the gamepad config as base since both are xinput, but i should be able to modify them. Full configuration details : https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/wiki/Exemple1-:-Sega-Model-2 To continue ... Probably with Retroarch.

I second that.

Yeah, i though of that, but that imply to dedicate a GPU to the VM. And this GPU can't be used by other VM. With Hyper V gpu partitioning, i can use the same GPU on my host and my VM. (And also, i will not trigger anti cheat when i play from my host since it's baremetal)

Ah my bad

you can vote here : https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/7933/add-an-option-order-by-on-the-left-side-of

Thanks a lot for the time you spend testing, sorry if it doesn't deliver as intended. I will take more time later to go though your post.

Agree, 100%, most of the bad review of launchbox is about his speed. That sould be the main developpement focus, not adding some fancy features related to store apps. Speed with bigbox is ok though, my issue is only with launchbox. And i was so bored by it that i made a plugin for that (but using text-list not grid view) :

I pushed a new BigBoxProfile version online, and i have made a tuto just for the Pause Menu. I do not go into technical details, just to the point. It should work. Let me know if you have errors or bugs. (and don't hesitate to screenshot) https://github.com/nixxou/BigBoxProfile/releases/tag/V2.0 The pause menu itself is just html & javascript code, where i added the ability to make ahk call though ajax call, so someone motivated can redesign it from scratch, add thumbs screenshots or stuff like that. For me, the idea behind is that for some emulators, i want to add extra menu entry (like for example, switch between rumble pack and mempak on N64) and launchbox don't let me do that. On the menu, Defaults gamepad controls should be Start to activate a menu option, up/down to navigate, left/right to adjust the volume. While on the menu, gamepad works only with the html code (so in my html file, i'm using this one https://github.com/kallaspriit/HTML5-JavaScript-Gamepad-Controller-Library/ ) On the bigbox profile module, when you set up the controller bind, it only work with Xinput controller 1 for the moment. Otherwise, you have to use keyboard bind. The Pause module support Start and Stop display, but i did not bother coding a html page for that. If you confirm that my code works, i can go into more details about how it works and what the options are doing.

Well, i can put together an alpha version and an "how to" video, but since i don't have userbase, i can't garantie this work out of the box and i would probably need some feedbacks to correct potentials bugs.

I do this with BigBoxProfile third party app, but the module for that is not release yet. btw, i can also use it to manage sound from pause menu. https://streamable.com/21wl3a

I have a beta version of the dll, but i made important change and while it's working on my computer, i'm not sure it works totally fine. If someone can test, just replace the Quickbox.dll by this one. I also added an option to show a youtube player if there is no video, it does not always works though since it rely of the embed video of youtube and those can be block (like if there is copyright music) QuickBox.dll

QuickBox View File I love Launchbox, but the UI is too slow and don't feel responsive enough to my taste. So i made an alternative UI, good enough for me when i'm browsing game on Desktop. Submitter Nixx Submitted 10/25/2023 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins  

Progressing

Starting to slowly move from a Poc to an Alpha. - Icons added to the tree on the right side. - On form resize, the content should resize too. - Hide Launchbox on start (i guess this should be added as an option, but i'm not here yet), Button to show Launchbox. - Right click on a game show a context menu Play, Play With and Play Version. - If you modify column size or hide them, the config will be saved on close and restored on launch. Todo : Config windows The boring part where i have to fill all the missing column Show game info on the right part of the screen when selection change (right now, i only show the clear logo) QuickBox.zip

An other slighly better poc, i will update the original post when i have the time. Loading time should be better when you click on Categories. (for me, it's instant) Release.zip