Zaphod54

Thanks! It'd be nice if an event under SystemEventTypes of something like AttractModeBeginning could be added, with a way to cancel the built in Attract Mode to handle it another way. I've found lots of posts asking for more options or flexibility with Attract Mode. This would be one way to provide at least some customizability for Attract Mode without having to add options to the built in Attract Mode.

I think I know the answer but wanted to verify. Are plugins for Attract Mode possible? Even if there's no way to control the built-in Attract Mode, it would be nice if there was an event hook into when BB initiates Attract Mode so it could be intercepted and create our own entirely different attract mode using a plugin. I'm coming to LB/BB from another front end. What I really want is to just play random game-play videos full screen as my Attract Mode. And I don't want the selection wheel to be rotating games during Attract Mode.

Second follow-up. I found somewhere else, you don't need to run supermodel at the native resolution of your monitor. You need to run supermodel at the same resolution as your Windows system Display resolution. So in my case where the game is unplayable at 1920x1080, I can change my main Windows resolution to something lower and run supermodel at that same resolution and I can find a resolution where I can still play the game with the light guns. I found this monitorswitcher tool for automating the changing of the main windows system resolution. https://sourceforge.net/projects/monitorswitcher/ I also discovered that quad rendering in supermodel is a huge performance hit, so I turned it off. With quad rendering turned off, I'm able to play the games at 1280x720 (still just a bit too slow at 1920x1080). With quad rendering turned on, I had to go down to 800x600 for the game to be playable. Regarding the dpi scaling, I guess my main point for others is that if your main Windows Display scaling is left at 100%, you do not need to set the fullscreen and dpi scaling options on the application itself. But yes, if you're using DPI scaling in the main Windows Display settings, then use the application settings to override that. OH, also, regarding the game.xml file for Lost World, I've read that with newer versions of supermodel, it's recommended to leave the game.xml at analog_gun instead of just plain gun. It works for me.

This thread did help solve my issue with my Gun4IR guns on Supermodel, but to clarify a few things in case anyone else needs help... All I had to do was set the resolution of supermodel to match my monitor native resolution (1920x1080 in my case), and set the Gun4iR content mode to fullscreen. The settings regarding fullscreen optimizations and High DPI settings are only needed if you have scaling turned on in the main Windows Display settings. But my understanding is that most light guns and emulators will have issues with any kind of scaling. Everything I've read has said to make sure that the main DPI scaling setting in Windows Display settings is left at 100% (no scaling). Sadly, my computer running my arcade cabinet is not powerful enough to run the games in 1920x1080 resolution so I guess I won't be playing any light gun games in supermodel. At least I can play Star Wars Trilogy with my analog joystick.

Worst case, use video editing software to take the still image you want and the sound you want, and combine them into a video. There are lots of free basic video editing programs out there. There's even one built in to Windows.

I did confirm that for my purposes, I DON'T want to exclude unplayable games. I'm still setting things up so just to see how it worked, I deleted all my games and reran the MAME importer with that skip unplayable games and it does indeed exclude not working games. The other reason I don't want to exclude unplayable games is back to this earlier question of mine about using a Platform vs. a Playlist. My plan for Naomi, Model 2, etc. is to let those games import with MAME, then use a Playlist to pull these Sega games out, then just mass-change the emulator on them to Flycast, Model 2 emulator, whatever, as appropriate. I don't want these separated out into a separate "platform", I want to keep them under Arcade platform even though they are using a different emulator.

Ah, thank you! I hadn't looked through the genre list close enough to notice the System stuff. I will do that.Ah, thank you! I hadn't looked through the genre list close enough to notice the System stuff. I will do that.

Ok, thank you! What exactly does that filter on? Does it include the MAME "Status" of a game, filtering out "preliminary" games too? I didn't select that only because I've seen a few games that I play in MAME where I get the red "this game doesn't work" warning from MAME, but the game is playable, and I didn't want those excluded. I can't remember which ones off hand though.

Older post, I know, but new to LB and I'm having the exact same problem. I agree with the OP. We should be able to select AND or OR on each condition. Also, the available conditions should include "Starts with"/"Doesn't Start with", and probably also "Ends with"/"Doesn't End with". I'm trying to build an auto-populate playlist that also seems impossible to do. Actually, the playlist I'm trying to create would work if I could do "Starts with" instead of "Contains". Has this ever been officially requested as a feature enhancement? Should I submit one?

The basic question - is there a good way to filter out "devices" with a MAME import? I mean things like the base hardware devices like DACs, PPU, network interfaces, sound and video devices, etc.? I'm surprised there isn't a "Skip Devices" option in that filter screen. Or are Devices part of one of the other categories that can be skipped? Admittedly I did not select all of the Skip categories during the import. My plan is instead look at the playlists for some of the categories (looks like that's covered in the Genre list) and decide if I want them or not, then either just hide them or maybe delete them again. But I definitely don't want all those "devices".

Thanks, all! I think that covers it. This does tell me that even if I just do NAOMI and Model 2 as playlists within the Arcade platform, I should associate Flycast and Model 2 to the Arcade platform, but not make them Default (Default is still MAME). This makes sense too, except I mentioned in my original post that I had found pre-defined playlists that someone had created for the MAME set that separated out all of the Sega arcade platform stuff (NAOMI, etc.), which made it very easy to just select that playlist, then CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist, then bulk-edit the emulator for all of the games in that playlist. But in looking at some of the other playlists that LB creates on its own, I think creating auto-populate playlists for these games would be easy too, using "Source contains naomi.cpp" for example.

I understand that. I do already have the Arcade platform that was created when importing MAME. It was more about whether there was any advantage to treating NAOMI and Model 2 as separate platforms vs. just playlists under Arcade, when using a different emulator for those games, particularly in regard to having an "associated" emulator to the platform? Sounds like there's not though (just for confirmation)? I guess, follow-up question, what does configuring an emulator to be associated with a platform actually do? I can configure the emulator on an individual game inside a platform to any other emulator defined in the system, whether that emulator is associated with that platform or not. So what's the purpose of adding an associated platform to an emulator config?

Basic question - is there an advantage to using a Platform vs. just a Playlist? Or is it purely personal preference? Details... I have a full MAME set imported and working under the default "Arcade" Platform, but I'm going to use Flycast for Sega NAOMI emulation and I have the Nebula Model 2 emulator set up for those games. All the YouTube videos I've seen for "importing" these games using Flycast or Model 2 indicated to import the games into the "Platform" Sega NAOMI, Model 2, etc., and setting the emulator as "associated" to that platform. But I then see this separates out those games in the Platform and Platform Category lists into those NAOMI or Model 2 Platforms, separate from the Arcade Platform. I'm not sure I want that. They're still "Arcade" games, I don't care that they're using a different emulator underneath. I don't feel like I need/want a separate "Platform" for these in the sense that "PlayStation" or "Sega Genisis" or "Wii" are clearly, truly, separate Platforms. So then I found this forum post with Playlists already defined for the Sega NAOMI games https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/64472-sega-playlists-naomi-naomi-2-naomi-gd-naomi-2-gd-atomiswave-model-3 and LB already had a Playlist for Model 2 built in. I then found it very easy to simply select one of those Playlists, press CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist from the MAME imported set, and then change the emulator for that entire Playlist to Flycast or Nebula Model 2. This was MUCH easier than re-importing each ROM for the Flycast or Model 2 emulators separately, and it keeps them under the Arcade platform. Seems to work fine so far. Am I missing something, or some feature advantage, by not doing these as a "Platform" as the YouTube videos indicate?