SentaiBrad

Yea it sounds like a potentially odd setting in RetroArch. If you could pull a clean RetroArch.cfg (Or update to the latest nightly) and try with completely default settings too, that might shed some light on to what's been changed.

Clear Logo's for games go in with each game. So if you have Super Mario Bros. Clear Logo, that would go in ../LaunchBox/Images/Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Mario Bros/. For Platforms they go in ..\LaunchBox\Images\Platforms\<Insert Platform Folders>\. Obviously, a bunch get downloaded from the Database, but it's not exhaustive either. If you find games that you have the Clear Logo's for, we'd be more than happy to have them on the Database as well, just follow the Guidelines when editing or adding games. Different views in Big Box, and different themes in Big Box (and different views in other themes) will utilize artwork differently, you'd just need to find the right one, or ask one of the theme creators to add a new view to one of theirs, or create a new theme potentially. http://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/

There are a few views with the default, and tons of other themes that can do a lot of what you're asking. If there isn't a view in one of them that exactly does this, maybe a theme creator like @CriticalCid could add a new view to their theme to come up with a closer option? However, I do think what you're specifically looking for, at least for the most part, is handeled, I just couldn't tell you what Theme off the top of my head would do that. Take a look around the downloads section though: http://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/

There might be some changes, things could have changed format slightly, or things renamed, but it should theoretically work. Obviously the best solution is what ever @eXo could come up with.

Sure, I don't disagree, but the focus has to be officially released games currently, as that's what we're set up for, and that certainly might change. I've been debating on letting open the flood gates of rom hacks and homebrew, more so homebrew, but I certainly want a Rom Hack / Homebrew tag. If it's a stand alone mod, then I would probably count that under Rom Hack, so Rom Hack / Mod? However, if it's a mod that goes in to a game and you would otherwise not be able to tell (like Skyrim) unless you launched the game and saw mods installed, then I would say that those don't deserve to go in the database. Basically, individual mods shouldn't be in our database. I would even like a tag for English Fan Translated games as well. In this case, where it was a mod of an existing game, do you need to launch CS to launch one of the mods? Or was it a standalone released product? That could be considered Homebrew, potentially. I guess it could be Homerew / Shareware, it's almost the same thing... but it's hard to figure out what. I know that I wouldn't want to end up adding 15 different tag options... well... maybe, if you selected it like you did a region, but then my concern becomes quality control. If it's an english translation, that's something that should be attached to existing entries. If it's a standalone rom hack, then that could deserve it's own entry, but then it needs to follow the same rules as everything else, and most of those games probably don't have specialized artwork (I know people make special artwork, but every rom hack doesn't have that luxury). Chances are a homebrew title has artwork, but it still needs to follow each guideline. So while having entries for these games seems like a good idea, quality control will inherently be even worse in most cases, unless there is a dedicated user out there who makes the artwork, the creator created it, or someone associated to the project or who loved the project helped and made it. Or could a better, more fleshed out Additional Apps feature be figured out instead? Why not have all your rom hacks listed under the game it's associated with inside of LB instead? Artwork wouldn't have to be worried about, but being able to bulk add multiple entries to one game would need to be a requirement almost. We could even carry that over to the Database instead. Have a section for Rom Hacks and Mods, that goes on the original games page, with a few common names it could be, and during import if it's found it's attached to the game it's attached to on the Database? Homebrew I'm not sure we could get around, that might have to go the tag route, since it could be original creation or a spiritual successor, or a fan made game. This can easily carry over in to PC as well, Homebrew / Fan Game. I think this last paragraph might be the perfect compromise? Thoughts?

I just grab a new update pack, plop in the new stuff, but chances are we're not utilizing all the new stuff anyways. We're using MAME data information, but it's not something the user can add or change around, it's something Jason needs to manually update, the process of LaunchBox converting all the names, and assigning all the metadata properly. We're still using the .174 set. Unless something really breaks or changes with later revisions of MAME releases that requires his attention, there are other things that are taking a higher priority. I would still update anyways, existing games can get updated too, I myself am on .181, but if there is anything new (which wouldn't be many games), it's most likely not getting imported anyways. So if you have a set, have imported things, and plop in a new update pack, if an existing rom was updated then there is no need for a re-import, and anything new is currently not being parsed anyways. Scanning for new roms will work theoretically in that position, if LB was recognizing the new changes after .174.

Since I do a lot of recording, having them all available is nice, but I am more worried about the games that I want and what interests me first. Also, no worries, I did think you were talking to me, but no worries.

All of these ideas are great, but honestly the chances of them getting implemented with Jason doing all of this alone is low, there's so many priorities it's crazy. I get what you mean though, you want all of your games to have all of their metadata.

I would like to say yes, but I don't think so. Right now, the focus is legit released games. Even DOS has this sort of issue to an extent, and it's really hard to know what was "officially released", what constitutes official. I make a game, I put it out somewhere, I've officially put it out. This kind of goes with the Romhacks and Expansions discussion, I think the Database and LB should be updated to have check boxes for these things in the metadata. Rom hack can get added, but it needs to be marked as such, and with expansions I think there is another better method to include that data on one entry, unless a game forces them to be separate entries and not one entry anymore. It's certainly a conversation worth having, because it's fairly confusing.

Yea, I know of ClrMAMEPro and choose to not use it. @CriticalCid will be mad I said that. I just downloaded the .180 set, then the .181 came out, so I just grabbed the split roms updated pack and the chd update pack and just dropped them in. It wont make a big enough difference, and im updated again. I try not to do that update route too many times in a row, but if I feel the need to even upgrade my pack (I was still on .178), and it's been enough versions, I'll just do a re-download.

Yea, if it's blank, that option will fill that in, or any other fields for any other games it finds. If fields do exist, then eventually we'll either have to build in a lot smarter logic to update bits that have changed instead of downloading the entire metadata and media all over again, which is currently the only way to fully update. Well, the metadata is stored in the LB folder, the metadata.xml gets updated when it asks to update, so it's more proper to say that only the media gets downloaded when requested, the metadata is stored in an xml which gets updated when it detects a change every 24 hours.

Yep, LaunchBox gives a list of suggested (that's getting updated along with defaults), but you can add what ever you want for emulators and in to your library.

We all have the same goal, and we're all nerds and gamers, but to some people it's like Microsoft vs Mac, Windows vs Linux, Ford vs Chevy, iPhone vs Android, Sony vs Microsoft vs Nintendo, there's always some allegiance someone feels. We've tried hard to make it as open as we can, make an active effort to make a community that is certainly more tolerant and accepting of new and different ideas, but to some extent you can't make everyone see eye to eye and that's fine. Not everyone needs to agree, not everyone will agree, but if you're there trying to contribute and help and you're trying to be a good person at the end of the day then that's all that should matter regardless of where your allegiances lie. I'm sure stuff we've produced or users have produced is being used on other websites, forums, blogs, other front end websites too, and that's fine, at the end of the day we all love video games and that's the point.

The entire Adobe Suite is really what you'd want. Primarily. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects would be the 4 main ones for graphics and video. For the work I do for LaunchBox, I primarily use Audition, Premiere Pro and Photoshop, with a lot of help from After Effects, but the other 3 are open way more often. Edit: I do pay for Adobe CC 2017, I grabbed it on sale for $30 a month instead of $50, and it includes every piece of software they have. I was even able to install Photoshop on my wifes computer, just logged in as me. For me, it's just a business cost that I factor in to what I get paid, and what client work I do. $50 a month over a year (because if you choose year you get locked in to a year), over several years is still cheaper than CS6 outright, and it's severely more updated. I don't think CS6 (Premiere Pro) for example deals with h.265, 4k video or 360 degree video. Creative Cloud gets faster and more updates, over the entire year, which is also invaluable as well.

That would be Jason's ultimate call, but I don't see why a way to just plop in certain sized png's in to a cursor folder, and then allow the user to choose which cursor they want from within the software couldn't work? Could apply to LaunchBox too when someone tries to use a Controller. I mean obviously, LaunchBox is meant for a keyboard and mouse, Big Box a controller, but customization is always nice. If you could make a feature request ticket on our Bit Bucket by clicking Issues/Requests at the top of forum pages, you're more than welcome to request it! That would be the best place for Jason to see it, as you and other users can vote on it (don't forget to vote on your own ticket!), and he usually tries to go by vote count unless it's bug related. I would also say to normally search first and see if it's been requested before, but I think this is a unique request, 1st time I've seen it.

Try updating to the latest nightly (new Stable should be soon, but the nightlies are fairly stable too considering), and updating cores. Sometimes updates can help fix problems too. I am unsure if this problem is fixed by updating, but it's worth a shot, it's a fairly easy process.

Sweet, thanks for the kind words! I'm not sure we have any RetroArch devs on the forums, but I know @Jason Carr and @eXo are thankful as well.

Yea I launch every game for Saturn just fine in RetroArch. Always check the core info files for more info:

So Jason does have interest in making more features available in Big Box, but remember that LaunchBox is primarily the way you manage roms, and Big Box is mainly for playing them. Still though, someone should probably create a ticket for it by clicking Issues/Requests at the top of the Forums, if there isn't already a ticket for Big Box. I know this was a feature long requested for LB, so there's plenty of tickets for that, but there needs to be a Big Box one so Jason knows the active interest in it. That goes for ANY feature request. Check to see if there is a ticket for it, if one exists then please vote on it, and if one doesn't exist then feel free to create a ticket on it. Don't forget to vote on your own tickets, and you can even post the ticket link on this thread, or any related threads if you're making a ticket, so others can see it and vote on it.

If it's still not working, go in to your updates folder (inside the LB folder), sort it by date, and choose the latest exe, and install it again on top of your current install. Nothing will change or get erased. If that still doesn't work, pick the next exe in that list, then try and update again when LB launches. I think either the download or install got corrupted (potentially).

Sorry for the late reply, but yes. Click on a system, then a game, Ctrl + A to highlight them all, then go to Tools -> Download Metadata and Media. Choose the second option so you don't overwrite anything. If you want to make it go faster too, uncheck all of the boxes you don't want to attempt to download either, but if LB happens to come across a game it can now find, leaving them all checked will update games that were previously not found.

Even VC titles are ripped roms from the community. I forget which NES game it was, but they ripped the VC title and saw it had the same rom header as as the Good NES set.

They don't seem interested in long term preservation because they're living in the moment, and just assume they'll have some sort of method for you to buy the old games you want on new systems. Easier preservation theoretically equals easier piracy to them, or preservation is used as the scapegoat in name only so people can feel like they have a "free pass" to pirate all the new games. Neither side is technically wrong, but the people who are interested in preservation like Frank Cifaldi end up getting shafted from either side.

Wikipedia AND the Huffington post say it is a word! (I don't hold stock in to either, but yea). Modding an Xbox was rather easy, but a majority of people I knew who had one modded used a friend or a service, paid for a HDD and like $30, got it modded, had a ton of emulators, roms and xbox games. Like I said, there's no right equation here. Xbox has been blown wide open by modding like the Wii and PSP (the level of access is so deep you can install custom firmware on the Xbox and PSP), but in this case it's not helping because of the complexity. Working with the console and it's similarities to a PC help developers, but make emulation worse ironically. The PS4 is essentially a PC and it's OS is a proprietary variant of BSD (supposedly). I don't think the Xbox Is far off in using a variant of Windows 10 even. So those could be either extremely hard to crack and emulate in the future, or extremely easy. Too close to a PC, and it could simply be ported or configured to run on a PC. Close enough to a PC to offer easy development benefits, but far enough from a PC that it requires more than that, and you'll have to emulate a PC like environment. Very tricky stuff. Irregardless is still a word though. Edit: A website I do hold stock in for validity of words is Merriam-Webster though, and they say it's real!!!! (though they need to stop changing the defenitions of words, like Literally. Add new words, stop changing existing ones!)

One of the projects wasn't even an emulator, at least mostly speaking. They were trying to figure out a way to almost natively run Xbox games on Windows. It would use emulation in a lot of areas, but it would have been like a combination of emulation and porting. Yea, the Xbox is very much like a PC. There's a full IDE hard drive inside that has the OS installed on to it and uses a lot of Microsoft specific windows type code. Like it using a modified DirectX. So it would be foolish to call the Xbox a straight PC, but it's certainly derived from a PC in how it was built (no surprise). I have a theory in mind, but it's shattered by the mere existence of good PSP and Wii emulation, but I think it's because it was so easy to mod. It's fairly easy to do, but it also took off, way more than Wii and PSP modding did. Kodi (was XBMC) got it's start as being an Xbox Media Center application. So it might be a bit of apathetic-ness on the part of users. Why emulate something when it's easy to mod, easy to replace the hard drive, and have every single Xbox game inside your Xbox. Hell, mine is modded because I got tired of waiting for emulation. I think it will come, but you're right in your Saturn comparison, it will just take some time. The PS2 was much much more popular, and harder to mod (less people knew about that too), so it was emulated faster (even though the 'emotion engine' is apparently a bitch to emulate). The GameCube was also popular, harder to mod, less people knew about it, so it was emulated. Since the Wii shares the exact same architecture and is essentially a beefed up GameCube, that's primarily why the Wii was modded so so fast. They went hand in hand, and the Wii being modded the way it was helped. The Xbox and PS2 being modded didn't really help with emulation, but I think Wii was blown so wide open that it helped. Wii U emulation is progressing so fast because it's yet another extension of the same architecture. 3DS emulation is progressing so fast because it's an extension of the DS hardware. It also helps that some of these systems were so damn popular, irregardless of the mod capabilities, but the harder the system was to mod the more of a need there was for emulation? Some were also modded so hard it aided in emulation? There's really no perfect equation here, and one potential reason doesn't fit nearly at all to another system and it's reasoning.