spycat

Hi CriticalCid. Thanks for that link. As a newcomer to NeoGeo CD I'm still exploring. By the way NeoRaine 1.3.5 also pops up the IPL.TXT error if you try to run a zipped game. Using extracted games works fine just like the latest Raine32.

I've been playing around with Raine32, NeoGeo CD games and LaunchBox recently. While Raine doesn't mind if the NeoCD bios is zipped or extracted, it would not launch zipped games due to the IPL.TXT file not found. I'm not really sure what this file's full role is. It seems that each game zip needs it's own IPL.TXT file. Apparently it's used to decide the initial files in the zip to load. I've sourced several NeoGeo CD games from various places and not one of them contained an IPL.TXT file. What I did was to extract the zipped games and place the extracted game folders in Raine's roms folder where my NEOCD bios is. Some games consist of an ISO and music files, others an IMG, a CUE and music files, and so on. Using the ISO or CUE launches the games ok. To get LaunchBox to launch NeoGeo CD games with Raine don't use the -g parameter in the Edit Emulator's Default Command Line Parameters. You can use the optional -nogui parameter. Then just point LaunchBox to the game's ISO or CUE etc. I've noticed that the same game can be say 40MB or 400MB depending on the source. The difference in size is down to the music files - a game might use MP3 files and the same game from a different source use the much bigger WAV files. Raine can also play NeoGeo cart games (the ones that Mame, WinKawaks etc plays), as well as Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 games, but I already use WinKawaks for these games. So how do these CD games compare with the cart versions for me? The CD music quality aside, I don't see any differences in the games. Some of the cart versions I play with WinKawaks actually look better, but I haven't played with Raine's video settings or shaders yet. The annoying thing is the almost total absence of documentation. I grabbed a text doc but it's for a much older Raine and I can't tell whats still valid and what's not.

Update: The copy of the emulator I was using was not complete. A new source (courtesy of Neo Kobe) works just fine out of the box and can open games from within LaunchBox. The only blot is that there seems to be no feature to save and load game progress - shades of the actual machine. Still, this is a nice emulator that allows 1980's Super Cassette Vision gaming to be enjoyed and preserved. An alternative to this emulator: Mess (pre 0162b) or Mame with Mess integrated (0162b and later) will work. I've tested it with Mame 0170b. For this you will need the Mess bios for the Super Cassette Vision scv.zip You'll also need to use the params scv -cart The possible attraction of Mame/Mess is that saving is allowed and it works fine for me, although it is officially classed as unsupported. A small number of games may not play and sound issues may be experienced. The epochtv.chr bit of the Mess bios is apparently a bad dump and there doesn't seem to be a good dump available yet. The upd7801g.s01 bit is equivalent to the bios rom used by the SCV emulator itself. Having tried out both I prefer the actual emulator over the Mame/Mess version. If you're interested in playing around with emulators for vintage Japanese systems then check out the Neo Kobe emulator pack. The SCV emulator can be found in the Toshiya Takeda subfolder.

Hi Darren. There are lots of emulators out there for the Spectrum. The best by far is Spectaculator. Unfortunately, this emulator comes with a price tag. You can use it on a 30 day fully enabled free trial. If you decide to buy, you have a choice of buying the current version or buying it with lifetime updates. You could also try a selection of free emulators and then make your mind up.

I see some nice games in here. Two of my favourites, however, appear to have slipped under the radar. Swordigo (Touch Foo). Blob Wars: Attrition (Parallel Realities). By the way, if you're looking for a good free PC game then check out The Legend Of Edgar (Parallel Realities).

I have the same dilemma where all my 2D box fronts are a standard tower style, while my 3D boxes are a mixture of portrait (tower), landscape and squareish depending on the platform. So my 2D versions look neater in LaunchBox mode, and my 3D versions suit BigBox where only one box is seen at a time. LaunchBox doesn't currently have a feature to allow different box fronts depending on the mode (traditional or BigBox). There is, however, an unofficial workaround, but this is only valid if you are not using the Steam Banners feature of LaunchBox. Add your 2D boxart as Fronts, and add your 3D boxart as Steam Banners. Then in LaunchBox go to Tools, Options, Viewing, and make sure the Prefer Steam Banners for box art tick-box is empty. Then in BigBox go to Options, Game Images, and make sure the Prefer Steam Banners for Box Images tick-box is ticked. LaunchBox will now always show your 2D (Fronts) boxes, while BigBox will use a 3D (Steam Banner) box if available. If a game has no 3D box then the 2D box will be shown.

If all of your NeoGeo games are causing a common issue, the fault may lie with your NeoGeo Bios version. Since Mame version 0167b the NeoGeo Bios rom requires an additional file called v2.bin

Now on 5.8 beta 4. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing this error. With the right sidebar open and playing a video, running the game works great, but when I quit the game I get the error shown in the attached image below. Clicking OK closes this error box, but the video never resumes. You need to select another game for video playing to resume.

Hi @ochief. Attached are 5 transparent images named after your 5 BigBox Platforms. These are 32 bit depth png images and are sized as per bd000's 600x513 format. You can download these. Then open your LaunchBox folder and navigate to Images, Platforms, Applications, Banner and put the Applications.png in here. Remove any existing file. Repeat for your other 4 pngs and platforms.

Hi Jason. I just grabbed 5.8 beta 3 (I missed out on beta 2). This is working just great regarding the LaunchBox mode videos and all the issues seem to be sorted. The only thing I can report is that there's approximately a 2 seconds delay between selecting a game and it's video playing. However, this may be due to my old system, although I don't remember such a delay when I tried beta 1. I also like that the video is now placed above the notes, although the screenshots are still below the notes. Can't wait for the video feature to be added to the details popup, as I use this rather than the right sidebar. Edit: Looks like I spoke too soon. When the video is playing in the right sidebar, launching a game only seems to briefly kill it (video replaced by a black window)before it resumes playing while the game also runs.

Are you using 5.8 beta 1 by any chance. Just wondering if this is related to the LaunchBox videos issue?

Two images to show what LBox List View looks like. List view currently does not allow unwanted fields to be hidden or displayed fields to be sorted left to right. I believe these features are planned for the future.

Hi rageking I use ColEm but I just added my 6 Colecovision games to Mame168 and they all launch fine via LaunchBox. See the 4 attached images. Bear in mind that these later (162 and up) Mame versions have Mess totally integrated. You can just put your Coleco games into Mame's roms folder. You also need to add your Colecovision bios file. This must be named the same as the Mame/Mess system - in this case coleco and it must be zipped. My Coleco bios is COLECO.rom so I had to zip it as COLECO.zip before putting it into the Mame roms folder. Best of luck.

Installed 5.8 beta 1 ok. Videos are playing fine in the right sidebar. However, when I close this sidebar any selected game plays it's video. Not visible, obviously, but audio can be heard. Also, if I close the right sidebar and exit LaunchBox and then restart LaunchBox, any attempt to select a game, open the popout box or open the right click menu brings up the error shown in reply 1067 above and LaunchBox is forced to close. This applies to both boxart and list views. Now, if the right sidebar is enabled, then all works fine. Rolled back to 5.7 no problem.

Hi Mike10101 I don't use Retroarch so I'm no use to you there. However, Winkawaks can auto load and open games - see attached images on how to set it up. Your paths will be different.

Hi davros01. I'm using Spectaculator with LaunchBox without any problems. You can set it as an emulator and it will launch your games when you click the boxart covers. No special commands are needed. It will handle games that are zipped or extracted. See attached images. Your paths will be different of course.

Hi kedhrin Regarding the specific Burger Time game issue. Burger Time (Data East Set 1) is the parent game. It has a number of clones one of which is Burger Time (Midway). The 6 elements you list as missing are all part of the parent rom btime.zip The Midway clone rom is btimem.zip. If you want to run btimem.zip then btime.zip must also be present in Mame's roms directory.

Hi trevor. Have you tried clicking on the wav files in the Sounds folder in your LaunchBox folder? WMP should kick in here and play the sounds. If no sounds then it looks like your issue is not with BigBox.

Just curious to know if anyone has managed to get the Epoch Super Cassette Vision emulator (Epoch SCV aka eSCV) to launch games either standalone using it's GUI, or via LBox. I found this emulator to be very elusive; all searches took me to it's author's homepage which is a mixture of Japanese and English and a nightmare to follow, but I finally tracked it down on a German site. The emulator opens fine, but I can't get it to open games. I've tried the games in ZIP and also extracted them to their BIN format to no avail. As it seems to look for rom files in Windows Explorer, I tried changing the BIN extension to ROM, also without success. MESS is rumoured to support this console but I don't use or like it.

Hi mrmojoz I'm not sure if you can do this with WinKawaks running as an emulator in LaunchBox. Maybe with a script, but I don't know how to do this. What you can do is to use WinKawaks as an application (Use An Emulator To Play This Game box empty), and set the Application Path to the WinKawaks executable and set the Application Command Line Parameters box to the game romname (less extension) followed by the fullscreen switch - see image 1 below for an example. This will initialise the game in a window and then go to fullscreen. If you get desktop rubbish at screen bottom, you can fix this by changing the Correct Full Screen Setting to Stretch To Full Screen (Video tab within the emulator GUI). While this will let you launch games in fullscreen, WinKawaks seems to have an on-going issue when exiting fullscreen to close a game. I use Winkawaks in emulation mode with the emulator's Zoom Window set to open games in fullscreen windowed view.

Hi teamkory. MAME works fine with LaunchBox. When you installed MAME did you copy your roms in MAMEFXUI over to it? If you're pointing LaunchBox to games that are in your MAMEFXUI folder and you are using your new MAME download for the emulator things probably won't work. Best to get MAME set up and playing games outside of LaunchBox first. Once this works, it's no problem adding it to LaunchBox. Mind you, if you have MAMEFXUI set up to your liking you could discard MAME and just try using MAMEFXUI as your emulator in LaunchBox if you prefer.

If they disappear from your current platform but not others, you can then Refresh All Images from the Tools menu.

Hi TONBOX777 You can try this. Click View and untick the Draw Game Image Borders. Those 3d boxes look great.

Hi TonBox777 I'm not a demul user but maybe you might try -run=cave3rd for the -run= bit of the command line.

Hi ClamLaker. Golden Tee Fore! is one of those romless games which are made up of a bios file and a chd - there is no conventional game rom. The game's rom name as MAME's internal database reads it is actually the name of the folder holding the CHD file. This type of game works fine when run directly from MAME, MAMEUI etc., but LB has an issue as there is no game rom as such to point to. You can't point LB to a folder name Your game consists of a bios file (iteagle.zip) and a chd file. I don't know which CHD you have as you didn't specify which version of the game you are using. Use Notepad to make an empty text file named the same as the game's CHD folder. Make sure you use the folder's name not the chd file's name, as sometimes these are different. Next either rename it's extension to ZIP or just send it to a ZIP. You now have a ZIP file with the same name as your game's CHD folder. Put this in with your MAME roms and point LBox to it. Your game should launch fine now.