SentaiBrad

DOS76 said Hey everyone I am having a slight issue with Launchbox. I started adding metadata to all of the GBA roms I have that didn't originally get any when I added Game Boy Advance to Launchbox and after editing the first game it told me I had to add a emulator when I tried to click ok to finish the edit. I did so but couldn't for the life of me recall having to ever do so before. Then it happened with the next game I edited and then the next so I hit control A and then went into the bulk editor and changed the emulator to VBA (which it should have already been) then the next game let me edit so I thought great issue fixed then the next game told me I needed to choose an emulator. So I then went into tools and went to manage emulators edit VBA saw that VBA is default for GB GBC and GBA. So now I'm confused if I click on any of the games that already have metadata then it launches VBA but the ones without any meta don't have any emulator set even though I specified VBA when I added the folder That... is strange. In the Emulator window, under VBA. The names of the Platforms its default for is the same exact name as what you specified the platform as right? Or... the name under the Emulator window is the same as the name in your left panel?

Yea, if you manually add a game like normal and select the Shortcut, it should find the .exe in the install path. It should be no different.

So the first part I believe has been suggested in similar forms in the past, I think its also a good idea too. For the second part, that shouldn't rely at all on where we get the Data necessarily. It would just require both games to have their Platform specified. The big problem which may be what your referring to is figuring out which games go together. Do we automatically find games with the same exact name and automatically link them up? That might be the easiest and quickest solution. Though some games will have slightly different names.

As of right now, I do not believe so. Are you interested in helping out with it?

raven_rvz01 said Hello Jason! I got myself a premium version today an it did save me tons of work organizing all my roms. Not sure if this is the right section to post this suggestion though, but can you possible come up with an in-game overlay with few important options like (force) close game, screenshot etc... I dont wanna make it sound like stem bigpicture but i think itll be awesome. Thanks! This would be pretty cool for some emulators. Normally I am all for in-game features and things that Steam can do. Saddly however, this is way more complicated than you might first think. Steam can achieve this easily because it has a certain level of requirement on the developers side and they code with DirectX libraries. Or common Graphical API's. This allows Steam do it but they're also a team of dozens who achieved this years ago. This would require Jason to more or less develop a technology that hooks in to applications by himself. Meaning, he would more or less need to develop gaming software that hooks in to graphical API of dozens of games. I am sure someone could do it, but it is out of the scope for LaunchBox as of now. It would more or less be game development. If the program doesn't want to work with it and requires it to be compiled specially with overlay instructions that would be even more difficult. In the short term, something that works really well for me is Steam. It doesn't work with every game I launch through, and some games work half of the time like Diablo 3, but add a Non-Steam game in Steam and launch it. Some emulators might be able to work this way and you might be able to get some of them to work with screenshots.

Sigord said Thanks Brad. As a start would you care to suggest say around 12 of any of the games listed, I will then upload the page with links to the ZIP files. If you can then drop me a line to the Yahoo address shown on my home page, I will send only you a link to the menu page to check if there are any copyright problems. I will then get an idea of what to look for among other games. Gordon I have a ton of DOS games, I am honestly not all that interested, but as long as they're labeled shareware they should be fine. Shareware unless stated originally, should be ok to share. It is the paid product that is the problem. Even if you post something that turns out to be illegal, the process isn't "Your website is going bye bye". The Process is a DMCA take down. Which we would then just remove the link. So to the best of your knowledge, if they're shareware, go ahead and post them. That was the intention of Shareware in the past, to share them. Also, even If I were to go through the entire list, there is a small chance that I will find any proper information about it. A lot of that information about Shareware DOS games have been lost in the ether. Relegated to old, dead and deleted BBS sites. It would only be a problem if the original author, developer or publisher were to not want it redistributed. Which now days most don't exist or care. Like Elder Scrolls 1 and 2 you can download for free from Bethesda's website. In this case, posting that version of the game which they've deemed freeware is alright. Shareware falls under a similar category by nature. The misnomer is Abandonware. Just because it looks out of date or dead doesn't mean someone doesn't still own the rights to it, which means its still illegal to repost the copyrighted material unless the rights owner says otherwise. Like Bethesda and other free DOS games you get when you sign up to GOG.

As of right now no, because it will be probably the biggest project to date. Bigger than Big Box Mode. Essentially what this will be though, we wont need the help of any outside website for metadata. All of the metadata a user wants can be downloaded from a LB database instead. What this will allow us to do, is let users upload data from inside of LB. This will be a huge feature for us. In the start, we'll have data from TheGamesDB. Since they offer it up for completely free, we can and do have a copy of the entire data on the site and will upload that. Make some changes, LIKE ALL DOS GAMES WILL BE LABELED DOS NOT PC. Sorry... that is a sore subject for me. DOS is not a PC, its a platform. :P Either way, say for example, I have a ton of JRPGs that GamesDB doesn't have. I tried creating entries for them but its cumbersome. Instead I plug that data easily in to LB and hit upload. This will require Jason and myself to moderate the Database frequently but I still think its the best path we can take. If there is no info for a game a user who dedicates them selves to a certain genre or style of game can upload the data they have obtained for everyone else. Functionally, it will be extremely similar to the GamesDB, except for a lot of key areas. Including listening to the users... which is something Jason does very well. I would say I do to, but I don't actually code LB. So what do you think? If there was a Database in place, our own database, would you still want to import Local Metadata? Oh, also. The "local" portion of the scraper now is very similar to what we would have except not local. That is all the data downloaded from TheGamesDB except for images. It's the text data and Jason updates that every so often. Then it just downloads the images if they exist from GamesDB.

Bil said Now that we have a way to use local images, would it also be possible to use local metadata? I know we have the local metadata scraped from TheGamesDB, but I have these synopsis .txt files which I would like to use also. These txt files are named after each gamename, or alternatively as a single synopsis.txt which contains all the games. The format is like this, as an example: For more information - http://www.emuxtras.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=176&t=2610 So if I recall, Jason also has plans for this, but I still think a LB Database is still priority.

Nathan DiYorio said I recently added The Witcher from GOG, which came with a large number of images (more than 150) which I added to my LaunchBox fanart folder. Wow, LaunchBox doesn't like editing Witcher metadata now. It goes through a process of "Not Responding" for five solid minutes before picking back up and saving any changes I've made. Big Box doesn't seem overly bothered by the large number of images, so the problem is exclusive to the library/manager view. Edit: The glitching of game menus is becoming more prevalent. Constantly having issues with the menu displaying "Play" multiple times, among other things like "Stop Music" or additional apps. Also, suggestion: add a marquee effect to Additional Applications whose titles are too long to be fully displayed in the list? It happened again. This time I took a screenshot: Were you getting the lag before you added all of the images? I am not sure we've had someone try to add this many. If you weren't can you remove them to see if the lag continues? Edit: Also, the Witcher 3 is so good... I am mad at myself I haven't been playing it as much. Diablo 3 has been stealing most of my time recently. And my PS4.

marcelo.magri said Thank you. Will give that a try, although what I was trying to do is through command line executing Retroarch. I meant to hit quote and hit thanks... that would make no sense. xD And if you are trying to give a specific core arguments, the program its self doesn't need them. It would try to apply that argument to the entire program, not just the core that will utilize it. If they even do.

Where's my mini pizza's, hydraters and flying cars! Oh, and Jaws 39!

Well kids are a lot smarter than most people think. Granted, a 3 year old probably wont remember something unless it is traumatic, and who's to say what traumatic is and traumatic isn't. I am more worried that parents now day are not parents to their children. They're anything other. Either they dont give a shit or they try to be their best friend. It's really up to the parent to figure out what is suitable for their child and their child only. Not ever other child on their street or in their child's school. It's certainly not the schools priority to be their parent. If I recall, did the original creators come out and say it wasn't originally intended for children either? I don't remember... I didn't even watch Sesame Street growing up. Barney was my jam.

Sigord said I wanted to post below in http://emulation.gametechwiki....../Main_Page But I find the way anyone is allowed to continually alter the info, makes posting rather hopeless. If anyone wants to publicise below they are welcome. I have over 150 old DOS only Games as shown at http://www.sigord.co.uk/TEMP/DOSgames.txt many of which I might be willing to gradually upload to my site for all to download for free as ZIP files. So far as I can remember they are all Shareware. As you cans see from http://www.sigord.co.uk I tinker with creating my own software and web pages, so just as with my daily pages it will be quite a simple matter to continually update a page of Free DOS games, if anyone asks for a few games to be added to the list of downloads. I will start the page as soon as anyone drops me a line which Games to include in the web page. That is extremely generous of you, but I do want to point out one thing so that Jason and the LaunchBox forums are covered legally. Since we are a website based in the United States, United States law presides over the website. As long as the games are all Shareware and were otherwise obtained freely legally, you're more than welcome to post the links, especially if you upload them. But please be careful and make sure they are Shareware only. Even if they are whats considered "abandonware" it is a grey area. Even if the games are obtained legally, if they are the full non-shareware versions redistributing them is technically illegal. Again, I really do appreciate the generosity, I just want to make sure the site is covered.

marcelo.magri said Guys, I know this will probably sound greatly stupid, but I couldn't figure it out by myself after lots of research, so... Does anyone know (and could explain) how can I pass arguments to the core in Retroarch? I mean, let's assume I'm running a MAME game from command line - how can I pass, let's say, the -skip_gameinfo argument to the mame_libretro core? Thanks in advance for any help You're trying to give RetroArch arguments out side of LB? Inside of LB might be easier. To achieve this in LB, Tools -> Edit Emulators. Find the RetroArch entry and edit it. Take any entry you want, for example: http://i.imgur.com/QQc6KNN.png In the default command line field, add your argument after -L "cores\mednafen_psx_libretro.dll". So -L "cores\mednafen_psx_libretro.dll" -skip_gameinfo. Not that it works with Playstation, its just an example. That should be all you need. There is a Default Command Line Parameters path in the middle of the dialogue box, but its for the entire emulator, not each core. Exe's can accept command line arguments usually, if they have specific ones set but this would be the equivalent of setting a command line for the whole program and not the core. Hope this helps.

So I am sure most of you has heard this news already. I wont bore you with long text, but this ... is still effecting me. More than other deaths in the past few years have. This is the best summary of what happened, but its more a look back on his life and a tribute video. Please watch. I and millions of other people will miss you very much Iwata. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLuJTAniRkY

scree said Clean up images for me is approx 15 seconds. But my games database only has 399 games. It's still much slower than it was with the old Images folder layout. Same amount of images but more folders to parse through with more complicated logic. At least this is my assumption and why it takes longer.

Jason Carr said Oh man, back when I originally implemented controller support, I tried for days to make that happen. Apparently that darn guide button is some kind of trade secret or something. I think they make it difficult to do on purpose. I eventually found a way to do it, but would have had to create a separate app in C++ just to make it happen. I didn't try AutoHotkey at the time, though. Let me know if anyone figures it out, I'll integrate it into LaunchBox in a heartbeat. I want that for my own personal use. The other thing that would be nice, is being able to use that as the "hold button" for other AutoHotkey functions. But it might interfere with Steam because If I recall, Steam does use that button for its Big Picture Mode?

Jason Carr said bd000 said Yeah that's what I meant, no hdd activity, but cpu activity. It's OK now, it miraculously started working again and completed the last bit in no time. It definitely stopped for a while though. Cheers Glad it worked. It can take a very long time. There's actually more CPU usage needed than you think in the process. I might see if there's anything I can do to speed it up. Rest assured that it should never be "stuck". Well unless you are on an SSD, if you have a library of even 1000-3000 it will take a while. Let alone a 10k library like bd and myself have. 30,000 images. A bunch of small files packed together like this can take some Hard drives FOR EVER. This is why I always say, put your LB install on an internal non-OS hard drive if you have the means. You will get the best performance out of it. If you have an internal non-OS SSD, its even better.

Sigord said Is this the sort of thing you want . I use it but and have posted in it but I did not create it of course? http://basic.wikispaces.com/ and http://lbpe.wikispaces.com/ Gordon There are dozens of wiki's out there, but the one I had chosen was actually more of a hassle than helpful. I honestly think our best bet is to have a wiki-esque page or pages on the site. That would be best. Or, to utilize the Emulation General Wiki and create our own set of pages there since its already established and gets a lot of traffic.

I didn't make the page, but this is the wiki I use every time I need to figure something out. So either we can use this wiki or our own database. Which ever Jason wants to do.

http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

bd000 said Yeah that's what I meant, no hdd activity, but cpu activity. It's OK now, it miraculously started working again and completed the last bit in no time. It definitely stopped for a while though. Cheers It apparently had a heart attack.

Editing video is something I am very good at. ;) bd000 said Jason Carr said Hi @Sigord, I'll consider that in the future. Unfortunately, development keeps me extremely busy for the moment, so focusing on documentation would be hard to do. Though I understand where you're coming from. Community managed Wiki? I thought this was on the cards many, many moons ago? If memory serves, Brad started a wiki at some site, was it ever used? Could you not revive that? It is quite active here at the moment. I created it, but there wasn't a need for it. I also kept getting spam e-mailed every single day. There is the Emulation General Wiki where I find a TON of info on everything I ever need. We could post one there which would make sense. RetroArch information is all in there. Or, we can wait till we have our own database. There can be an option in LB that just says Manual. It can either update in program when LB gets an update or it can take a user to an online manual hosted by the database.

bd000 said I haven't updated in a month or so and I am trying to do it now, however it appears LB has frozen. It has been stuck like that for over 2 hours. I have a large collection, but the bar has not moved at all. LB is still using the CPU Ooohh, what to do... Mine took quite a while, but I didn't keep an eye on it. So I can't say if it froze at one point. But it took me well over 2 hours to transfer the images. Edit: Also, I expect that CPU is being used to transfer all of the images. Your HDD should have a high transfer rate too since its a lot of small files. If it did freeze, that would explain why no HDD activity for LB but the CPU is stuck high because it's logic might be stuck in a loop.

Windows 8.1, 64bit, i7 930 2.8Ghz. Gonna upgrade my fan so I can Overclock it. xD