Nixx

September 11, 2023

I had this issue before with Vulkan and Dolphin. (you can test with Opengl or DirectX12 backend if you still have the issue)
The problem for me is solved, idk if it's because driver update or emulator update.

September 9, 2023

Disable UAC Plugin

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I have a lot of Pre-Win 7 games that need admin rights to run.
So i've made up this dirty solution. Basically, with this plugin, when you run an exe game with launchbox it will lower UAC for 10 sec. That way, launchbox can launch games that need elevated privilege without running as admin itself.

Be aware, this is not something secure !

You end up with a scheduled task that anybody can run that temporary remove UAC !

But if that's something that bother you and the only alternative that was on your mind was removing the UAC entirely, well, remove it for 10 sec is better than having it off.

How to use the plugin :

It's bundled with an exe : UACTemporaryDisable.exe, run it as admin it will generate a task called TempDisableUAC. If you move the file, you will have to rerun it as admin.
Source code is here if you want to compile it yourself : https://github.com/nixxou/UACTemporaryDisable

Once it's done, the plugin should work (basically, just run the the task and wait until "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin" go to 0)

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

09/09/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

August 29, 2023

Thoses days, i'm playing with a side project.

Not gonna make a guide, since i'm still working on it, but i think the idea is interesting and worth sharing.

I have my launchbox installed on my main machine, but sometime i want to access it remotely or kids want to play on TV (my computer is also plugged on the tv) and since i'm working on my PC, it's annoying.
So, why not make a launchbox as a service that run in a virtual machine and that i can access though parsec & moonlight ? I have an obscene amount of Ram, so having a VM always on on background is not a problem.

For that i use https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV
It's a script that generate a Windows Virtual machine with GPU shared. You have to define a percentage of GPU sharing (like if like me you set 90%, that mean the VM can use up to 90% of your GPU) and the basic other config of the vm (number of core, memory ...)

Performance wise, how is it ? Surprising good.
I mean, this is a 3D Mark bench from my Host : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/99114511?
And this is the same test from my VM : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/99114862?

I'm able to launch things like PS3 game inside the VM without issue :

Few tips that i gather along the way to those who want to reproduce this :

- Run something to debloat windows 11 on the vm, remove xbox stuff, this thing doesn't show on parsec and your PS/Guide button not gonna work with the xbox thing.
- If you want to run a sunshine (i use sunshine because i use amd gpu), and your lock with low resolution, the trick is to register a fake display, set as primary and disable the other one. You can use that : https://www.amyuni.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3030
I had to add a schreduled task run as system with admin right on boot to run "deviceinstaller64 enableidd 1" on boot

- For my launchbox, i use a custom tool that make softlink of each files in a directory and recreate the directory, so i just run "hardlinkfolder.exe "\\MyComputer\LaunchBox\Manuals" "I:\LaunchBox\Manuals" --softlink" (and the same with Images and Videos folders)
That ways, when i add collection of files in launchbox, it will use my existing files on host, but if i want i can still add stuff without messing with my host files (the share is readonly btw)
I can share it if someone needs it.

- For PC games, i'm not here yet, but my plan is : On my PC all my games are in F:/PCGames. I plan to create a dummy drive called F:/ on Host, make an hardlink copy of all files in my host with size > 1Mb on F:/PCGames-clone, files <1mb will be copied instead of linked. I will use junction on the server to mount this cloned folder to F:/PcGames and since the files < 1mb are copied instead of linked, i'm confident that configuration files will still be independant so messing with resolutions and stuff will not impact on my host. If a game dont work, i just rename the folder, install it to F:/PCGames on the server, remove the folder and restore the linked one.

So, i still have work to do, but that's promising, there is a short video of bigbox runing on PS Vita though Moonlight :

if you are doing something similar or need help, feel free to post and share your experience.

August 26, 2023

LinkToSSD

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It's a side project, no fully tested, done quickly while on vacation.

So, at home, i have all my windows games manually installed on my H drive, it's a slow HDD drive. I added them one by one in launchbox.
Now, for some games, especially recent one, running them from a slow hdd is not great. But for organisation purpose, i prefer to keep them all here.

So, with this plugin, i can set some path on my nvme drive and ssd, and with a click in launchbox, it will copy the game to the SSD, rename the original folder adding ".original" at the end of the folder name and make a junction link from my ssd to the original folder.

On restore, if needed, you have the choice to just restore the original folder, or replicate files change (like if some files where added, removed or modified while the game is on your ssd).

That way, all my games are stored one one folder in one drive, if i plan to play an heavy game seriously, i can speed it up by moving it to a quicker drive and link it back.

Note :

- You need launchbox >= 13.5
- The plugin will use your game "Root Folder" as registered in launchbox, so if you manually add a game with an application path like : F:/game/SuperFPS/bin/superfps.exe the default "Root Folder" in launchbox will be "F:/game/SuperFPS/bin", in that case, be sure to edit your Root Folder to "F:/game/SuperFPS"

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

08/26/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

August 20, 2023

Interesting, but i see no point to store ps3 iso in encrypted format in the first place.
A jailbroken console can read ps3 unencrypted iso just fine, and it make things easier to just store your collection as unencrypted iso.

August 8, 2023

Yeah, i did not know that, so after no answer on discord i quickly made something to deal with the issue, i locked my original post since there was a bug, it's fixed now, but there is no real point to reupload.
I leave the source code here, could be usefull if someone need to filter out things from a playlist with something more complex or non available atm (like game missing bezels)

https://github.com/nixxou/RemoveGamesWithVideoFromPlaylist/

August 8, 2023

RemoveGamesWithVideoFromPlaylist

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You select a playlist, you click on a button and it will remove all games with video from that playlist.
It's a plugin i quickly made from a specific purpose, i wanted to download missing video using this plugin :

So with my plugin, you can create a playlist, add all games on it, and them remove games with video, so you can select all and download video from youtube.
Do not work with auto populated playlist, you have to select all your game, right click and add to playlist.

https://github.com/nixxou/RemoveGamesWithVideoFromPlaylist

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

08/08/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

August 7, 2023

2 hours ago, Knowcontrol said:

Just from looking at your screenshot it looks like you should add a "check all" checkbox to those columns. Just a suggestion...

Ok, i did an update to fix that.

August 7, 2023

MouseHideAndLock2

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https://github.com/nixxou/MouseHideAndLock2

It's a rewritten version of my plugin MouseHideAndLock, while using the original one, i got some issues & crash that's why i did an other version.
Also, i'm not using startup screen and since disabling mouse requiere startup screen enabled, this plugin is useful for me.

So, in the configuration file, you got something like this :

You can select the configuration for each platform & emulator.

Hide Cursor : Will hide the cursor once the game is launched.
Show Cursor On Move : You need to also have Hide Cursor checked for this to work, with this option enabled, moving your mouse will show up the cursor, it's only hidden when it's not moving.
Lock Cursor : Will lock your cursor on your main monitor, if you press Shift while moving the cursor, you will be able to go to other screen.

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

08/07/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

August 7, 2023

Thank you very much for your detailed answer.

1 & 2) For point 1 and 2, for me it all breakdown to this windows that appear for me way too often. For me it's annoying to the point i have to disable the backup.

3) Could be worth it to get a look to this "font" issue, maybe there is a way to load from memory and that would drastically reduce the loading time ?
"you're effectively asking for the same thing you are criticizing in the 4th point. " No, i'm really not. When i'm browsing my game like in my point 4, what matter to me is to quickly find a game i want to play, having the image show up help me with that. But when i'm clicking on a plateform/playlist on launchbox, what matter to me, is that my list of game load quick. If the platform details get in the way, that's really not a problem if it get loaded after the list is up. Probably not much to gain here though, like few ms at best, but that's always good to take. Also, for a frenetic clicker like me, the cancel loading would be something really nice.

4) I understand your point, but i do still think that give the users some ability to alter this behavior would be a worth the time investment. Like i said, i don't personally care, i can edit a theme with the Community Editor, but that's not something most end users would do.
Something like just a option to adjust the selection delay (and maybe an other one to adjust the video delay to avoid it to show up if we reduce the selection delay too much) could be a nice improvement.

Quote

What most of the items come down to a min/max mindset trying to be applied to a commercial product. While in a perfect world you'd be able to deliver that, in reality it's frankly not feasible to pull off do to money or time constraints. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of opportunities to improve LaunchBox and Big Box, and there are quite a few things you could have pointed out that I'd agree need looked into and corrected but I'm not sure these points are one's that would be in our (or the communities) best interest to devote a lot of dedicated time to. If we can address them while working in parallel on another item we'd love to take a look, but I'm not sure we could block other items for these changes at the moment. Not because we don't care, but because we just don't have the resources to devote to something most people really aren't even aware is happening. That being said I do appreciate you taking the time to voice your concerns. It's nice to understand what's on the community's mind and where they think the product could be improved.

Sure, i understand totally.
But i do things some of the point are worth taking a look. Personally, I would gladly take performance improvement of a feature that i'm constantly using over a new feature.

August 5, 2023

Ok, so first thing first. I love launchbox, i'm not here to denigrate the quality of your work. Your app is great and i use it all the time.
I'm not posting here to spit on your work, and the clickbait title is mostly here to draw your attention.
Also, i'm using currently an outdated version of launchbox the 13.3, my premium licence is expired, i didn't won the lottery and i don't have money to upgrade to lifetime for the moment, so maybe some of the issue i'm talking here are fixed now.

I'm no way an expert, but i just want to point out some things that seems to me weird behavior of your program.

1- Lauchbox / Bigbox make unnecessary xml writing each time it close

Bigbox make new save of Playlist and Plateform time, each time you close. (But, it's not an issue with Launchbox)
In bigbox, if i go into a playlist and browse game, on close, it will regenerate a new playlist xml file. Why ? I didn't change anything in the library, so that feels totaly unnecessary
Like, if i do that and i close :
https://youtu.be/puCQicbiPyQ

Those files are gonna be updated on Bigbox close :
Data\Platforms\Nintendo Game Boy.xml
Data\Playlists\Nintendo Game Boy All Games.xml

Also, lots of files in the LaunchBox\Data root folder get updated : (GameControllers.xml, InputBindings.xml, ListCache.xml, Platforms.xml, Settings.xml, BigBoxSettings.xml)

If i use Launchbox instead of BigBox, strangely, the playlist do not get updated but that happen to the Plateform xmls, and some xml files in the root of the Data folder

Why ? I'm just browsing, i did not change anything in the library, i didn't change my config so it should not have any valid reason to rewrite those files.

So, yeah, writing two files is not gonna take much time, but the reason i'm pointing this will make more sense in my second point.

2- The backup option is badly written

With this option on, a backup is made every time launchbox is started and every time launchbox is close. Even if you do not change with your playlist, configuration or plateform !
With this option disabled, and i close launchbox, the process disapear from my task manager in less than 3 sec. With this option on, it disappear in 11 sec !
There is an huge quality of life improvement to make here !
Save should be only done when there is something new to save.
If xml files where only written if there something relevant to write (so that why i did my first point), and save only done where there is something new to save, that would lead to a real improvement here.
(Also, incremental saves with full save only done like once a week could be nice)

3- Browsing library in launchbox feels slow

Now, i don't know the secret sauce about how launchbox does it things and if improvement could be made here, but i want to point out some strange things i noticed.
If i load my entiere Nintendo Library, it take 2 seconds to load.

But if i monitor the process with Sysinternals System Monitor, i notice something that feels strange to me.

Here i have like nearly one sec that are used to do stuff with fonts. Seems like a lot of time to me. Is there something wrong here ?
I'm no expert, but i suppose there is something to do here, and probably shorten the loading time.

Also, bellow, why does launchbox try to access to one of my file in my library ? I mean, that does not take time, ok, but if it was a network drive, that will. And i don't really see the point.

An other thing, if i uncheck everything in :

I get a slight loading time boost.
That made me wondering, does the platform details get loaded in the same thread that the library data ?
If so, maybe the app should show the list of game first and give the ability to the user to browse it and then load and display plateform data ?

Also, an other thing that come to my mind is : Can you manage a way to abord loading when we click on an other library ?

If that could be done, it will make navigation beetween playlist and plateform much more enjoyable, often when i browse i missclick or go to an other library without waiting.

4- In BigBox Themes, things like Title and Game main image should be updated During selection and not Once selected.
Well, that's maybe debatable, but for me, it's night and day, i did the change using the community editor but i guess that not something the majority of the userbase can do.

So, this is the default theme :

You notice that if you want anything to appear on the right, you have to wait few seconds while a game is selected.

It all break down to personal opinion, but that how it appear after i edited a theme to keep some of the text and image show while selected.

For me, it's just better to have title and image show up during selection and do not have to wait.
But the process to do that is complicated, there should be some option available to end users to get the same result.

August 5, 2023

I have though of something kinda like that using https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV
Make an Hyper V Virtual maching running on my PC and sharing my gpu resources, it would run a clone of my launchbox so when i'm working on my PC, wife & kids can still access to my launchbox from an other client using parsec.

Sadly, i got a technical issue and i was not able to share my AMD gpu resources to my VM, only my IGPU and that's not good enough, so i did not go further.

Edit : Ah, sorry, it was a linux related post, my stuff is for windows.

July 28, 2023

Ok, so i did it :
https://github.com/nixxou/IsoEnablerForRPCS3/releases/tag/V2.0

Now i can launch PSN game as standalone file like for exemple rpcs3.exe D:/ps3/psn/GuityGear.vhdx

July 28, 2023

This is my first draft :

First i go on "creation mode" using admin rights on rpcs3, then i launch a newly generated ps3 psn game.

Still have work to do, but in the end, i want only have standalone file, either iso for ps3 disc game or vhdx for psn game.

July 27, 2023

I like to keep my games as 1 file = one game without installation.

That's why for PS3, i opted for disc library and i mount iso.
But some game are PSN Exclusive and i want to be able to launch them with something like rpcs3.exe <GameFile>

I have an idea about how to do that, but i would need people to help me test it.

July 26, 2023

July 25, 2023

StreamIsoToPS3

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I own a jailbreaked PS3, i mostly use rpcs3 from launchbox, but sometime, i want to launch a game on my real ps3.
With this tool, i can select the game from launchbox and make it run on my ps3.

You need WMan Mod, go to http://yourps3ip/setup.ps3/sman.ps3 and add your PC IP as PS3NETSRV#1

StreamIsoToPS3.exe <IsoFile> <PS3IP>

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

07/25/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

July 24, 2023

IsoEnablerForRPCS3

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It's basic as it get, and there is probably ton of similar tools around but mine is really "fire & forget"
So, you extract the archive somewhere, you execute IsoEnablerForRPCS3.exe to register it and that's it.
There is no launcher, no menu, nothing, if you want to unregister, you click again on IsoEnablerForRPCS3.exe

To use it ? You just use rpcs3.exe as usual, except that now, if you use an iso as an argument, it will just work (mounting the iso thought powershell)

Works only with decrypted iso.
I make mine from jbfolder with makeps3iso. ( https://github.com/bucanero/ps3iso-utils/tree/master )
Also, not included in this release, but i package updates DLC and rap files inside a folder called UPDATES_AND_DLC that i put inside my iso file, dlc package have name that start with "DLC--".
I'm telling this because i plan to add an option to auto install updates & dlc in a future rlz.

Not compatible with BigBoxProfile because it use the same trick to hijack the process, (i will update BBProfile it to include that as a module)

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

07/24/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

July 17, 2023

Hi. I want to update this post.
So maybe things changed this year, but i got bezels files in RetroArch\overlays\GameBezels\PS2

Still, i got nothing inside RetroArch\config\pcsx2 (alpha)
(where there is usually config files that point to the right bezel to use)

Is that normal ?

July 14, 2023

New version up.

Important : Fix a bug that made emulator always use custom actions from the default profile, even if LB/BB was launched with an other profile.

When a BB profile need to change the monitor layout prior to launch BB, check every second and wait up to 10 sec to change the soundcard. Because if you activate a monitor, like a TV from a desactivate state and want to use his HDMI for audio, you need to wait a little before being able to switch to his soundcard.

RomExtractor and CopyFile windows should resize according to your screen resolution.

Some UI Fix

After an emulator close, BB Profile force back focus to BB/LB.

July 8, 2023

The plugin itself is really straighfoward, Let says you have a rom registered as D:/rom/myrom.bin, and launchbox is set to launch emulator.exe "D:/rom/myrom.bin", if the rom is missing, Launchbox will not execute the command line. With this plugin, it will.
But that mean it will execute emulator.exe "D:/rom/myrom.bin" and the emulator will complain that the rom is missing, that's where BigBox Profile come to play. The plugin itself will just bypass the file verification that prevent to launch the emulator if the file is missing, nothing more.

And for bigboxprofile, there is two modules that will be handy :

ChangeRomPath that will change missing rom the rom path to an other one

and CopyFile that will copy a remote file to local.

So, let's say you have on your main computer launchbox install a rom registered as D:\roms\N64\SuperMario64.bin and D:\rom is also shared as \\MainComputer\roms
You have a copy of the install on Computer2, you can install bigboxprofile and register for retroarch.exe a ChangeRomPathModule from D:\roms\ to \\MainComputer\roms. That way, with this plugin installed, launchbox will not complain that D:\roms\N64\SuperMario64.bin is missing, it will execute retroarch.exe D:\roms\N64\SuperMario64.bin but that will be changed by bigboxprofile and retroarch \\MainComputer\roms\N64\SuperMario64.bin will be executed instead.

Now let's says it's D:\roms\switch\Zelda.bin and it's too big to be played over network, and you want to copy it first to local.
You use two module, first changeRomPath from D:\roms\switch\Zelda.bin to \\MainComputer\roms\switch\Zelda.bin
Then the copyFile module with source : \\MainComputer\roms\switch\ and target let says C:\roms
And upon execution of retroarch.exe D:\roms\switch\Zelda.bin from launchbox it will copy \\MainComputer\roms\switch\Zelda.bin to C:\roms\Zelda.bin and execute retroarch.exe C:\roms\Zelda.bin

As for using multiple profile, it's also something that bigbox profile do, but there is no gui for that and it's a little tricky. You have to create a profile in your secondary computer bigboxprofile, let says "secondary", create a directory inside launchbox LaunchBox\Data\Profile_secondary, then you will put inside the xml that you want to change from your usual profile, for exemple Settings.xml. And if you execute bigbox or launchbox with that profile (bigbox.exe --profile=secondary) it will use those file (and use the regular one for the rest). If you create LaunchBox\Data\Profile_secondary\Platforms (or Playlists) it will totally ignore LaunchBox\Data\Platforms and use LaunchBox\Data\Profile_secondary\Platforms instead.

June 24, 2023

BigBoxProfile

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BigBoxProfile is an app that allows you to alter how Launchbox/BigBox and each of the emulators works, adding a profile system and tons of features that allow you to alter/customize how emulators work.

What is BigBoxProfile ?

This app is made of two parts that work together but can be used independently.

1- There is a part that alters how Launchbox/BigBox works and add a new command line parameter “--profile=” that will trigger users' configured settings.
It allow you to bind a specific monitor, sound card for a profile or even use a specifics launchbox profile settings (for example make a bigbox profile that only show some of the platform/playlists)

2- The other part allow you to alter how emulators works, change the command line that they receive on the fly and do tons of stuff (change monitor settings, execute ahk code, use fallback path for rom, copy rom from distant path to local drive or ramdisk, extract archive, executes pre/post command lines, including command line as admin, force the game to be run as admin …)

How does it works ?

The app makes extensive use of a hidden feature of windows called the “Image File Execution” injection.

If you edit the registry at “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\” you can register a key with the name of an executable to target and an app that will replace it.
So, in my case, it create this kind of keys :

That way, when you launch an executable called BigBox.exe, instead of launching it, it will call BigboxProfile.exe. My app will do actions and call bigbox (or launchbox) itself.
So, it’s like an exe wrapper, but from an user standpoint, it’s invisible.

As for emulator, it works the same, once a emulator exe is registered inside BigboxProfile the app will register a registry key to hijack it, do some user configured actions and then launch it.

I’ve written modules that you can chain and order the way you want.

Technically each module have 3 functions, ExecuteBefore, ExecuteAfter and AlterCommandLine

If you chain Module1, Module2, Module3, it will do something like that when you launch the emulator :
Execute ExecuteBefore for module 1, 2, 3.
Pass the command line to module1 and alter it with the AlterCommandLine, then pass it to module2, and then pass it to module3, launch the game with the altered command line.
On game close, execute ExecuteAfter on module 3, 2, 1.

There is a slight subtlety when using launchbox auto-generated m3u for multidisc, but i will get to that later.

I- Altering BigBox / Launchbox

Ok, so first you can create BigBoxProfile Profiles

Beware, here i’m talking about profile for BigBoxProfile (my app), it’s not related to Launchbox/BigBox settings (xml files inside the Launchbox/Data folder).
You can actually alter how and witch xml files launchbox will use with a specific BigboxUtils program, but i will get to that point later.

So BigBoxUtils is shipped with a “default” profile, you can add as many as you want. For example, you can add a profile called “tv” when you plan to use your BigBox on your TV

Once a profile is made, you can call launchbox/bigbox to use this profile when you add –profile=<profilename> to the command line. Like BigBox.exe –profile=tv

This use case is actually what made me code this app. I use bigbox on a computer that’s plugged to both my PC monitor in my room, and to my TV on the living room. I play mostly on my PC monitor, but i wanted to also be able to launch BigBox on my tv from a simple shortcut.

The basic options for a BigBox Profile are here :

Monitor Priority

Set the monitor on witch BigBox (and eventually Launchbox if click on the checkbox) will launch.

It change the monitor option in BigBoxSettings.xml before Bigbox start. (And for launchbox, it will try to move the window)

By default it use as default “main”, and myself, i only use that.
Main means “Main Display”, it’s a primary monitor, the one with that checkbox enabled :

So, with the option set a Main, you are sure that you will not encounter weird Bigbox bug when the monitor change, it will always use the primary one, and if you change the primary Bigbox will launch on it, that’s really handy.

But you can also specify an other display if you want.

I actually wanted to show the real monitor name alongside DISPLAYX, but i ran into technical limitations.

Use Monitor Disposition :

So, here is the game changer, here you can register and set monitor layout.

It actually use code from this excellent software : https://sourceforge.net/projects/monitorswitcher/

But it’s slightly altered to also manage DPI change/restoration.

So, if i go back to my exemple with my TV profile, i will register a monitor layout where my TV is set as main monitor and since my monitor priority is set as main, when i launch bigbox.exe –profile=tv, it set my TV as main display, launch bigbox on it, and once bigbox is close it will restore my usual monitor layout.

As a side note, on the last version of the app, in the bottom of the main form, i added a quick combo list : Quick Monitor Disposition Switch. You can use that to manually switch between saved monitor layouts.

Set Primary SoundCard :

It’s straightforward, once set, it will change the main playback device.

Like with my tv profile, i will force the sound to use the TV HDMI.

Use Specific Launchbox Data profile :

It’s an hidden and experimental feature, please backup your data LaunchBox\Data before !!!

So, with this features you can use a copy of some or all xml files of the Launchbox/Data folder for a BigBoxProfile.

Restriction : It use hardlinks, so that only works if Launchbox/BigBox is used on a NTFS drive, not gonna work if launchbox is used from a network drive.

Like, let says that for some reason, you want a custom InputBindings.xml for your tv profile.

You create a folder called “Profile_tv” and put a copy of InputBindings.xml inside and that’s it.
Now when you launch bigbox, if you use –profile=tv, it will replace the InputBindings.xml with that one.
Now, to go on a more practical use case, if you create a folder inside Profile_tv called Platforms and you put only a copy of Nintendo 64.xml from your original Platforms folder, if you launch with –profile=tv, you will see that’s now it only show the N64 platform.
Same goes with the Playlists folder.

As a side note, if your end goal is to do something like kid profile with a subset of platform and playlist, instead of copy the original files, you should hardlink them (mklink /H linkName target) so in the future, if you change something in the Plateform/Playlist, the change will apply to your kid profile too.

II - Emulator Hijacking

So, if you didn’t do it yet, to understand how it works, you should read the explanation at the start of my documents.

So, basically, you can add modules and order them, when you launch the app, it will do the action of all module, one by one, altering the command line if needed and pass it to the next module until it launch the emulator.

A simple (and totally useless) exemple :

With this configuration, i chain 4 modules, a Prefix, a Replace and two Suffix.
You can play with the Exemple Command IN Textbox to get an idea of how the command line would be impacted.

Once saved, if i use a cmd prompt and execute :

CalculatorApp.exe "C:\MyRomDir\MyRom.bin"

It will go to the first Prefix module and add a -f before, so the second module Replace will receive as input :

CalculatorApp.exe -f "C:\MyRomDir\MyRom.bin"

This module will replace .bin with .rom so the next module will receive :
CalculatorApp.exe -f "C:\MyRomDir\MyRom.rom"

It will add -extraarg so the last module receive :
CalculatorApp.exe -f "C:\MyRomDir\MyRom.bin" -extraarg.
And since the filter condition match and the command line contains -extraarg, it will add -otherarg.

So, bigboxProfile will execute :
CalculatorApp.exe -f C:\MyRomDir\MyRom.rom -extraarg -otherarg

If you want some more real exemple, that whati’m currently using for retroarch and tecknoparrot :

Quick Module list review :

Prefix : Add some argument before the rest of the command line
Suffix : The same, but after the rest of the command line
Replace : Replace something in the command line, support regex
ChangeExe : change the target Exe

FixRetroarchMonitor : Will force Retroarch to use main monitor
FixMameMonitor : Will force Mame to use the main monitor
UseFileContent : Let say you run emulator.exe “D:/ps3/metalgearsolid.txt” and inside this text file you have D:/ps3/metagear/eboot.bin, it will execute emulator.exe “D:/ps3/metagear/eboot.bin”

ChangeRomPath : You can do stuff like, if the file is not on your hard disk anymore, use another path (your NAS for exemple)
CopyFile : You can run something like emulator.exe “\\nas\mygame.bin” and it will copy the file locally before launching. Support Ramdisk and show a progress bar. Great for games stored on cloud like Google Drive.

ChangeDisposition : Use a specific monitor layout

FakeFullScreen : Turn a windowed windows into a fake full screen, removing borders and maximize.

RunAsAdminTask : Execute the emulator.exe as admin.

ExecutePrePostCmdAsAdmin : Execute extra command as admin before and after the emulator launch (like for example, start and stop DS4Windows)

ExecuteAHK : Make your own custom module in AHK

RomExtractor : Show a GUI to choose and extract a game inside an archive that contains multiple versions of the same rom.

About Launchbox Auto-Generated M3U :

There is a special case when BigBoxProfile receive a m3u generated by launchbox (like for Multi-Disc games)

In the command that will be received by nearly all modules, the m3u file will be replaced by the first file in the m3u. Module then will not be allowed to alter the file path in the command line (but they can still alter the rest of the command line, just not the file argument.

Why this design choice ? Because often, you will do stuff like filter on specific rom path, so that way, even when you use a launchbox auto-generated m3u, if you have a trigger on let say D:/roms/n64, that will still trigger it.

Also, there is two modules that will behave differently, CopyFile and ChangeRomPath.

They will run for each element in the m3u.

Modules Deep Dive :

Prefix :

Add some argument before the rest of the command line
You can use a filter to only do that if the cmd line contain something

Suffix : The same thing but as Suffix

Replace :

The thing to not here is that Replace support Regex, the format is similar than those used for Notepad++

ChangeExe :

Nothing to say here, it change the exe, i should add a filter condition when i have some free time

UseFileContents :

Let say you run emulator.exe “D:/ps3/metalgearsolid.txt” and inside this text file you have D:/ps3/metagear/eboot.bin, it will execute emulator.exe “D:/ps3/metagear/eboot.bin”

You can use relative path inside the file too, and use one of the two option in the radiobox

ChangeRomPath

Ok, so this one is a little more tricky. It will trigger when you launch a file as argument to your emulator that match path to replace.

You have two side : Hight Priority Path and Low Priority Path.

Hight Priority path is when you have an extra copy of your file on a quicker drive. Like you launch emulator.exe D:/rom/plateform/mygame.bin , D:/ is a slow hdd mecanical drive.
If you have set C:/rom/ as Hight priority path and C:/rom/plateform/mygame.bin exist, it will use this one instead and your final command line will be

emulator.exe C:/rom/plateform/mygame.bin

Low Priority Path is triggered when the file passed as argument does not exist

Like if i remove the file D:\rom\mygame.bin and i launch

emulator.exe D:/rom/plateform/mygame.bin

Since, the file does not exist, it will search in my low priority path if Z:\home\mehdi\coffre\sf_POOL_JEUX\Roms\mygame.bin exist, and if yes, it will launch

emulator.exe Z:\home\mehdi\coffre\sf_POOL_JEUX\Roms\mygame.bin

Side note : By default, launchbox does not allow you to launch games where the file is missing, you get :

To solve that issue, you can use this addon here :

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/74181-bypass-rom-path-verification-before-launch/#comment-438354

CopyFile :

You can view a demo here where is use ChangeRomPath to point the file to my cloud drive if the file is missing, and then CopyFile to copy from Gdrive to my local storage before launching the game :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI64EIPFmxk

Note : It does support Ramdisk if you don’t want to keep the file and preserve your ssd.

For that you need to install this app : http://www.ltr-data.se/files/imdiskinst.exe

ChangeDisposition :

Use a specific monitor layout

Note : the button to create new screen disposition do not work, to create disposition, use the option on the main window config.

Btw, here you have an use case i do regularly, when i want to apply a filter for a bunch of games, instead to use a filter with the rom name inside, i use a new argument (here –2k) and then i add this extra argument in launchbox

This changeDisposition feature is really handy with tecknoparrot when you have game that can be very picky with monitor framerate and resolution.

FakeFullScreen

Turn a windowed windows into a fake full screen, removing borders and maximize.

It only support search by executable name, you can use emulator.exe, but you can also set one or search in the command line by regex. (i do that because i have a case of instead using the emulator.exe directly i use an application wrapper that do something like launcher.exe emulator.exe argos. )

Timeout is the time to wait for the application.

RunTaskAsAdmin :

I have a few games on tecknoparrot that actually requiere admins rights to be launch. And since launchbox/bigbox is launched without thoses rights, i have an issue and i don’t want to be bother by UAC prompt.

So, how does it works ? When the condition to launch as admin is fufill, it will register a shreduled task (only asking once with UAC).

In my exemple, instead of triggering by some element in the command line, i check into the file passed in the command line if it contain a specific string.

ExecutePrePostCmdAsAdmin

Execute extra command as admin before and after the emulator launch (like for example, start and stop DS4Windows)

ExecuteAHK

This one is tricky, it’s for power users. It allow you to make custom module in AHK.

Execute Before is the code that will execute before emulator launch,

Execute After will execute on emulator close.

And in Modify command line you can alter an array variable called Args

Modify Command Line Exemple only only apply to the exemple command line, so it’s used only for test.

With this module you can create stuff like append specific config if you are remote playing and do a lot of stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxezepuAkLI

RomExtractor

So, i’m using the Hackset with 8bits/16 bits era consoles. Instead of using roms, i have archives filled with alternative versions of the same game.

So, it’s vital for me to have a way to select and launch a game within the archive. As of today, i was using the awesome plugin ArchiveCacheManager ( https://github.com/fraganator/archive-cache-manager ) but i wanted something more suited for my own need, and be able to chain it at the end of my module list.

Also, since BigBoxUtils is a third party application and not a plugin, that allow me to use it outside launchbox/bigbox and do not fear that a future update would break the plugin.

So, if you used ArchiveCacheManager before, this module is straightforward. Some of the feature of ArchiveCacheManager are missing, it only manage archives (zip, rar, 7z), not iso, chd and don’t have a batch extract feature.

On the other side, it have a few features and supports the metadata files packed with the Hackset. (you should put them either in a metadata subfolder on the Bigbox profile install dir or on the parent directory of your rom files)

So, the config :

If you set a max size of the Cache Dir, oldest files inside will be removed if the total size go over the threshold.

You can set multiple priority profile

SmartExtract is similar than ArchiveCacheManager, if a file contains only files with extensions that match the standalone rom extensions and the metadata extensions, when you select a file to extract, it only extract this one. If SmartExtract is not enabled or the archive contains files with unknow extensions, it will extract the whole archive.

If ImDisk is installed, you can use ramdisk to receive the extracted rom file.

The priority list allow you to automatically select witch file should be extracted by default.

On execute, you will see a windows like that :

The file selected by default will be either the first one that match a priority rule or the last played files. It also feature a short list of games (Your favorites games, up to 5 games that match your priority rules and up to 5 last games played)

It does support gamepad, but only Xinput on controller 1.

If you press F1 and have metadata files, you will see something like that allow you to browse the whole archive and show the metadata files.

If you press F2, you will have a desktop version that go a little deeper.

Note : if you use the muppen core or Project64 V3, it will also manage htc/hts texture for N64.

Yellow star is the file that is the first to match one of your priority list.

Blue star are other files (up to 5) that match your priority list

Red star are files that you set as favorite

If the file name is written in dark red, it’s because you launched them recently.

Right click menu allow some extra stuff :

You can filter roms, set favorite, Copy/paste savestate across roms (only for retroarch) and extract them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3SGPnVr8SU

Submitter

Nixx
Submitted

06/24/2023
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

June 6, 2023

Interesting, can we have the source code ?

June 4, 2023

On 6/2/2023 at 2:40 PM, JoeViking245 said:

Nice find. Nice solution. Very creative!

But can you elaborate on why you would even want to launch an emulator if the ROM file doesn't even exist? (Future readers want to know

I have an use case with my other tool here https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/72127-bigbox-profile-if-you-use-bigbox-on-both-your-pc-monitor-and-your-tv-screen-you-probably-need-this/

Basically, it act as a middle man beetween launchbox and the emulator. So even if launchbox execute retroarch.exe D:/roms/myrom.bin, the real command that retroarch receive could be \\MyNas\myrom.bin if i currently don't have the file on my harddrive.

To give a complete exemple : (and i just saw a bug i have to correct for my next rlz)

If the rom was on C:\FavoriteRoms, it would have use it regardless if it's on D drive or not, but it's not here (usefull if you want a game to run from quicker SSD instead of HDD)

For my test, i renamed my directory dreamcast on my D:\ drive so it does not find the rom, so it look for the low priority paths.
My Nas is offline, so no match here.
He found a match on my google drive mounted drive, modify the command to change the path and process to the next module (CopyFile)
And for my google drive, since it's too slow to launch game from there, i use the CopyFile module (not yet rlz), that copy the game to a local drive E:\cache and change the command line to execute it from here.

(And yes, my CopyFile module have an ugly UI, but it's not finished)

June 2, 2023

So, i guess this is for really niche use case and the way i manage to do that is ... well, it works....

So, my point is to get rid of this message and launch the emulator command even if the rom is not there :

You don't have this verification if your emulator name have "Mame" in his name, so it just rename your emulator to MAMEFAKE-emulator name just before launching the game and restore it after.

I'm too lazy to make a github for few lines of code, so here is the source code :

	internal class GameLaunchingPlugin : IGameLaunchingPlugin
	{

		public void OnBeforeGameLaunching(IGame game, IAdditionalApplication app, IEmulator emulator)
		{
			if (!File.Exists(game.ApplicationPath) && emulator.Title.StartsWith("MAME") == false)
			{
				emulator.Title = "MAMEFAKE-" + emulator.Title;
			}
			return;
		}

		public void OnAfterGameLaunched(IGame game, IAdditionalApplication app, IEmulator emulator)
		{
			string prefixToRemove = "MAMEFAKE-";
			if (emulator.Title.StartsWith("MAMEFAKE-"))
			{
				emulator.Title = emulator.Title.Substring(prefixToRemove.Length);
			}
			return;
		}

		public void OnGameExited()
		{
			return;
		}
	}

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Disable UAC Plugin

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IsoEnablerForRPCS3

BigBoxProfile

I- Altering BigBox / Launchbox

Monitor Priority

Use Monitor Disposition :

Set Primary SoundCard :

Use Specific Launchbox Data profile :

About Launchbox Auto-Generated M3U :

Modules Deep Dive :