CADScott

I have started getting some moderation requests for images now, and I just wanted to check on what is happening before I go too much further. Is the database allowing multiple images for such things as front and back box images, or will there be a single approved image for all. The front image for the one I was looking at (Alone in the Dark for 3DO) was very different to the one that is currently in the database, and I don't want to accept it and overwrite what is currently a pretty good quality image. If multiple images are being allowed for these images, is there any sort of check to stop people uploading many multiples that are just slightly different?

Pinky said For those who collect only certain titles and have less than 500 - 1000 titles total, compression just doesn't make sense, however some people don't have the resources for even that many so compression is a must. For me it's not an issue of have space in a case, it's an issue of trying to find someplace to put another file server in the house! Currently I have 20ish TB of games, 2900 of the 3874 PS2 titles alone, add in the very near 1 PD of movies and tv shows and my basement start getting cramped. I also tend collect complete collections, though I may never play/watch them all, I want them all, and want them ready to play/watch at a moments notice. I know exactly what you mean, I love having complete collections, even if I know I will probably never play them. That is an amazing collection you have, puts my 10TB of videos and 6TB of retro games to shame. Will give me a great argument for when the wife complains about another hard drive purchase though! "No honey, I do not have a problem, you should see the collection @Pinky has on the LaunchBox forum, mine is small in comparison!"

DR9 said Space is cheap, there is no need to zip CD-based games ever. It's not like I am going to use 1000 USA PS2 games, I hand make my .XML lists of games, around 100 roughly. It may be cheap, but that is relative to you. I would rather have a complete collection that takes a little longer to load on games I don't play often than having to choose which games I really need. I find it easier to get complete collections than agonising over which games and versions are the ones I really need. I have 6.5 TB in my main LaunchBox PC, and I can't easily fit another drive into it so anything I can do to reduce file sizes is good. Each person sees the advantage or disadvantages of compressing roms in different ways, and it is up to the individual to decide the way they want to manage their collection. There is no right way, or wrong way, just your way. I am just pleased we have the ability to choose to use it or not.

Drybonz said Thanks guys... have not used Nebula since the big CPS2 explosion. Gonna try out his Model 2. Does it use the same rom set as MAME? The roms are different to mame, but many of the files can be built from a mame collection. There is a CLRMamePro data file for both Model 2 and Model 3 (Depends which version of Daytona you want), so you can build a full collection from that, and I know that those games work.

I have one little nice to have suggestion for the database, which would be a way to see the items that I have added for submission, and the status of each addition. So for example, under my account a menu item of my submissions, and whether they have been approved or rejected. Ideally I would like to see how many approvals and rejections an item has received, but that is just a very nice to have.

Thanks @SentaiBrad, that would be great, many of the items I have moderated have really been questionable in the changes that have been made, and we should have a set of standards for formatting of titles especially. Most of the issues seem to come from sub-titles, and games with odd naming conventions such as Alien 3, which is written with the 3 as a superscript on all box art. Personally I feel the games title should be written as it is on the box, but then this becomes a bit odd for games such as the previously mentioned Arctic: Active Rail Playing Game, I would prefer this to be named Arctic, as the "Active Rail Playing Game" appears to be a sub heading on the box art. I really don't have an issue with whatever naming is selected, but I would like a standard to be decided on and enforced.

Thanks Jason, it is not a huge issue at the moment, I normally use the keyboard to exit emulators anyway. If there is a way to fix this in the future, that would be great.

Jason Carr said Yeah, I think this will really help to improve things across the board. I still need to tweak LaunchBox to support all the various image types, but that is planned for 6.0. We definitely have some stuff in the moderation queue (79 data items at current) so help us moderate, guys! :) How does the moderation queue assign to people, my queue is currently empty.

Would it be possible to add a way to see at a glance what images are missing from items in the database? I would love a way to generate a list of games missing, for example, back of box art so I can then go and find those images to complete a whole lot of games at once. At the moment it is very much a touch a game to see the issues with it process, which can be very slow, and it is easy to miss items.

Hi @Jason, I have played with that as well, and currently I have the first controller selected as the current controller. If I select the second controller as the preferred controller, then the controllers switch in most emulators, which is very confusing! So this means that the controller with the light in the first segment will be player 2 and player 1 is the second controller. It does seem to fix the issue in LaunchBox, but causes problems when switching from single player to dual player. I had issues with a single controller attached and the game thinking that only player 2 was attached, in games such as 2D fighters this meant that I was always on the right side of screen instead of left side as single player normally is.

Wow that is great, so many image types, the LaunchBox DB is going to be amazing!

I have been testing LaunchBox and BigBox with dual wireless Xbox360 controllers recently, and have run into a strange issue with AutoHotKey buttons. I have had no issues with a single controller and can exit all emulators with the Back and Start button combo, and adjust the volume with the Back and shoulder button combos. The issue I have is when I have two controllers attached in BigBox, the hotkey buttons no longer work on the first controller and switch to working on the second controller only. This does not happen when I add the second controller while in LaunchBox, but if I go into BigBox and then come out to LaunchBox the issue persists. The issue continues even if the second controller is switched off while in BigBox / LaunchBox, and the only way to reset it is to restart the PC. I have played with the settings relation to controllers and enabling / disabling all controllers, and selecting different input devices, but none of these settings make any difference to this issue. This is an a Windows 10 64bit machine and I have the latest LaunchBox 5.10 Beta 3.

A single GDI file that is compressed should work fine, I have tried it with nullDC and had no issues. Which emulator are you using, it may be an issue with your emulator and not LaunchBox.

I have used MaxCSO for all my PS2 games, and I have not had a single one fail to work properly afterwards, seems like a very reliable compression method.

Project Tempest is supposed to have support for CD images, but I had a lot of difficulty getting it to work, and MESS was impossible as always to even understand what was needed!

Thanks for that @locvez, will give this a try soon. The Phillips CD-I has been a wasteland for emulation for a long time, would be great to get these games running properly!

I will put my vote in for RetroArch as well. I have had very similar experience to everyone else, I was against it at the start and tried to stick with standalone emulators, but have since moved everything I can over to it. It may seem daunting at first but once you figure it out it is actually quite easy to use, and the best bit is that you only have to figure it out once for multiple systems. I use it for everything I can except MAME and Dreamcast, which I still prefer the standalones for.

DOS76 said @CADScott you mention Jaguar CD what are you using to emulate those from my understanding they don't work in Virtual Jaguar (which I would assume also means that the RA core doesn't support them either). Sorry Derek, I actually haven't got these to work reliably in an emulator yet. I have tried Tempest, MESS and Jagulator and could not get any of them to work well. I have been meaning to get this working so I will get back onto that one and see if anything has changed since I last looked at it.

Do you have a premium account with Emumovies, because if you do not you cannot download their movies. If you do, you should be able to select all the games you want to download movies for, then Select Download Metadata and Images from the Tools menu in LaunchBox. Follow the prompts and you will get the options to download media from Emumovies.

Kristijan1001 said SentaiBrad said Our Premium is not necessary for the Database at all. As far as expanding the offerings of our database, we're focusing on getting the Database fully operational. Right now we're focusing efforts to get full game submission available instead of just editing current games metadata. As far as the images EmuMovies offers, EM only fills in a small amount of titles that we don't have, but a majority of the images comes from our Database which is completely free. "Right now we're focusing efforts to get full game submission" You mean making roms available to download within the launcher ? If that so thats amazing ! Sorry but that will never happen. Downloading roms would be highly illegal, and would open Jason up to major legal implications. Full game submission means that we can add new games with all metadata and images to the LaunchBox database.

Pinky said Something I've used since before these fancy front-ends came around is Pismo File Mount. It works with ANY file type and opens game iso's in less than a second. It will compress files with zip or lzma, (7zips format), it's also free! An example, 3DO Blonde Justice, uncompressed 538 MB, pismo compression 184 MB and plays perfect. This game is mostly video clips and video doesn't compress well regardless of the app used. I use it for all my cd/dvd images and mame's huge chd files. Looks interesting, I will have to look at this one, never heard of it before.

SentaiBrad said Yea, some games wont work correctly. What is Dolphin using for compression? GCM, WBFS? Dolphin uses GCM format.

The start and back buttons combined to exit games is actually a setting inside LaunchBox and BigBox, under the controller options. You can customise which buttons you press to exit but these are default. Retroarch has a similar option, which is to hold a button, then press another button to perform an action. This can enable you to load save states, take screenshots, and many other functions. I am unable to check the exact location of the settings but it should be under input settings, look for settings for hotkeys.

No pressure on Jason, I am amazed by how much he gets done already. He is a one man coding machine!

Ok, thanks Brad, I will search the BitBucket site and upvote those requests.