Jason Carr

@xsilverfuryx So apparently there *is* a game titled Super Mario Bros. available on the retro achievements, but it's blank, so no wonder we're having trouble: http://retroachievements.org/Game/6305 I guess they have some duplication/moderation issues over there sometimes. I'm looking to see if there's a way to filter out any games that don't have achievements and move on to the next option.

I think he means just being able to list which games have achievements, or sort by them, etc., which I agree would be nice. I might be able to do that.

Ah, I see. I guess primarily that's an issue with how retroachievements.org has named the game, as obviously that's not the proper title. Hopefully that's not a recurring issue. I can at least go ahead remove punctuation from the checking though; that should fix that particular use case.

Yeah, as I stated above, the emulators don't currently use the API. They use something further. The emulators are also more intrinsically aware of what's going on since the games are running directly in the emulator, not in a separate application.

As much as I'd love that myself, the API currently doesn't allow for being notified when an achievement is gained, so it's not really possible at this point, unfortunately. But who knows, maybe we can once we get in touch with the devs over there.

Beta 2 is out now guys; it fixes the error reported above and adds achievements to Big Box as well via the game details menu and/or a hotkey/controller button: We may consider integrating the achievements more directly into the game lists here at some point, but there are a number of challenges involved so that probably won't happen right away. The themes would all have to be updated, and it'd be a ton of API calls to the retroachievements.org servers during attract mode, etc. So I'm torn on that, as the last thing we want to do is bring down their servers. This is a great start though I think.

@neil9000 Yeah, from what I can tell the actual emulators do not use the API, which is why they work but not the API. Hopefully they can get that fixed here soon. I'm working on sparking up a conversation with the developers so hopefully that goes well. @xsilverfuryx There's not really any other good way to do it, since the title is the only way to identify the game. We could do rough matching, but then we'd inevitably end up with incorrect matches. What games are you seeing that aren't matching up?

@Invader @neil9000 I remember reading somewhere that the retroachievements.org API is for some reason bugged with Sega Genesis, so unfortunately I don't think there's a way to properly fix it currently. I will stop that error from coming up though.

...and it's out!

First 7.15 beta is out now guys:

The first 7.15 beta is out guys with initial support for retro achievements! We may add more features before the official release, but the important stuff is there in LaunchBox. You can add your retroachievements.org account under Tools > Options > Search > Retro Achievements, and then achievements should start showing up in the sidebar. I'll be adding the achievements into Big Box next. Of course I'm open to feedback on the achievements stuff, because it's actually quite new to me, though I'm very excited about using it. Let me know how it goes.

Eventually, yes, however I don't think we'll be adding support for multiple users for this next release. Retro achievements will be mandatory, I say! MANDATORY!!! There are various different emulators available on their site. I do believe Retroarch is supported. Though honestly I'm not the right person to ask because I'm still new to it myself, in all honesty. Yup.

The only thing that could be an issue is that this could significantly increase their traffic once it officially comes out. So hopefully their servers can keep up. If not, we could certainly help out.

They're smart and they implemented an API early on to do exactly what we're looking to do. I did get the conversation started over there, but haven't received a response yet: http://retroachievements.org/viewtopic.php?t=5527 I have no doubt though that they won't have any issues with it. This is pretty much exactly the use case they're looking for I think.

Hahahaha. And even the monkey costume.

FYI guys, retro achievements are in development. Here's a quick teaser:

Hey all, just a quick teaser so you guys don't think I'm being lazy over here. Currently working on implementing Retro Achievements, which is a slightly bigger undertaking than a lot of things, so that's why the next beta is taking a while to come out. Here's a quick teaser though; look at the game details sidebar on the right: This is still early, but this is the general approach I'm hoping to go with, for LaunchBox at least. I have the retroachievements.org API implemented, now I'm just getting it integrated into the LaunchBox interface. There's a lot that can be done, but for starters, we're going to focus on letting you view your achievements and available achievements in the game details sidebar. Let me know your thoughts.

5-15 seconds isn't "normal", but it does depend a lot on your hardware, of course. LaunchBox does have a lot more data to display at once, so that is at least partially the reason why it's not as fast as Big Box. As always, though, there's always more that can be done to speed things up.

Sorry for the delayed response here. Yes, I am in agreement that we should not be changing the titles of games with duplicate names to include the publisher or the developer. The games database website, as well as LaunchBox and Big Box, can be programmed to solve this issue properly, such as automatically including the publisher's name in parenthesis where it makes sense if it's a duplicate title. This isn't the highest priority, but I would prefer not to rename a bunch of games in the mean time.

@ckp Has some good troubleshooting steps above. Beyond that, try installing a new copy of LaunchBox to a different folder; that will help determine whether it's a data issue or an issue running Big Box at all.

Here's the general best troubleshooting process: Reboot. Back up your LaunchBox\Data folder and then remove it. See if LaunchBox starts up. If it does, then something got corrupted with your data. I am more than willing to examine a data folder to see what might have happened to prevent it in the future, if you zip it up and PM it to me. If it's still not working then it's likely a crappy anti-virus solution that is blocking it. I've also seen corporations block unknown applications from all computers on their network, so that is also a possibility.

The only way to solve this issue for good is for us to have many servers across the world, and unfortunately we are nowhere near big enough to manage or afford that on our own. I know what lots of open source projects do is allow colleges and such to host their own mirrors, but I'm doubtful that would work for us due to the nature of our content. I'm sorry @coleroddy for your issues and I'd do something about them if I could, but the fact of the matter is that this is just the nature of the Internet and there's literally nothing we can do. Multi-threading the downloads won't fix the issue.

Hi @jacobsclub72, yes, this is how the renewal system works. It adds a year to the expiration of the license used for the renewal.

I should do some testing with this theme then. Good to know.