Zombeaver

Sure thing. Yeah it's really important that you use that option otherwise you're going to just end up with a bunch of gibberish titles with nothing properly connected to the right metadata (which includes the cover art).

When you imported them did you tell it to "Use MAME names/metadata" in the import wizard? There's a special checkbox for it. It should recognize all the MAME file names and rename the game title appropriately.

I'm not sure what you mean... it's not impossible at all. Just follow the instructions I listed and you'll be able to play NeoGeo games through Retroarch just fine.

You're welcome! When everyone lends their talents, whatever those may be, to a common goal we all reap the benefits. I've seen some extremely creative solutions to any number of different dilemmas posted here; solutions that, assuming I even could come up with given enough time, would have taken no small amount of time and effort to get there. I'm extremely grateful to everyone here that lends a hand at making this a better place and LB/BB a better experience. If this is a way that I can contribute to that end, I'm all for it. Hopefully none of that sounds sappy or melodramatic I just want to see us grow and be as great as possible! Atari ST will be up next! As far as the "version 2" images below...pretty sure the difference isn't going to be super apparent (if at all) in BB. They look pretty neat at full size though Normal: Scanlines: Normal - Version 2: Scanlines - Version 2:

The thing that puzzles me about it is that those two options should be functionally identical to the shortcut method. They should all be doing the same thing: Emulator -> Disk 1 -> Disk 2. Jason asked for some examples of platforms that are problematic for importing so I mentioned it there along with ScummVM and Amiga. They're all doable, just not in a practical, time-friendly way (or one that the average user would probably be cognizant/capable of).

It seems like that should help quite a bit for auto-association if that's the case. Obviously I can't speak for @Jason Carr since he'd be the one to make it happen, but as a general principle the less need for "guessing" the easier it should be. MAME importing works wonderfully through LB so it seems like this should be possible.

@Jason Carr I actually thought of another one that could probably use some work - Atari ST. I mentioned this in a different thread but thought it was worth noting here as well since you asked for other platforms that are problematic for importing. Honestly, the existing functionality in LB should work but...just doesn't for some reason. All I need it to do is to load multiple .st files via command line but for some reason this doesn't work in LB. The proper format is simply Emulator Path\Emulator.exe "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" What this should do is load the emulator, load the first disk into "Drive A", the second disk into "Drive B", and then start the first disk. It seems like I should be able to accomplish this in one of two ways via LB (neither of which are exactly practical/user-friendly, but still possible): 1) Leave the application/rom path in a game entry empty, use Steem as the emulator, and then tell the entry to use special command line parameters and simply specify my "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" 2) Direct the application/rom path in a game entry to Steem, uncheck "use an emulator" and again specify special command line parameters of "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" Neither one of these seem to work, however. The workaround I've found, which is a pain in the butt, is to simply create a shortcut in Windows to Steem, then edit the target path to append "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" at the end and then rename the shortcut to the game name, and then use the shortcut as my "rom" in LB, and uncheck "use an emulator". It's a real pain to do that though... I feel like this method should be functionally identical to either of the two above options though... Maybe I'm completely retarded and am just missing something obvious, I don't know.

Yeah I totally understand that, believe me. For my purposes I'm hoping this will help a with multi-disk Atari ST games via the Steem emulator. Honestly for that the existing functions should work but...just don't for some reason. All I need it to do is to load multiple .st files via command line but for some reason this doesn't work in LB. The proper format is simply Emulator Path\Emulator.exe "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" What this should do is load the emulator, load the first disk into "Drive A", the second disk into "Drive B", and then start the first disk. It seems like I should be able to accomplish this in one of two ways via LB - either 1) Leave the application/rom path in a game entry empty, use Steem as the emulator, and then tell the entry to use special command line parameters and simply specify my "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" 2) Direct the application/rom path in a game entry to Steem, uncheck "use an emulator" and again specify special command line parameters of "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" Neither one of these seem to work, however. The workaround I've found, which is a pain in the butt, is to simply create a shortcut in Windows to Steem, then edit the target path to append "Disk 1 path\disk 1 name.st" "Disk 2 path\disk 2 name.st" then rename the shortcut to the game name, and then use the shortcut as my "rom" in LB, and uncheck "use an emulator". It's a real pain to do that though...

There's actually a feature request that @lordmonkus put in for that exact thing here. Vote for it! It was for a different purpose but clearly there are other ways it could prove useful as well.

Can you provide an example of one of the file names? Is there any kind of set-in-stone naming convention/format for them similar to MAME? I would assume it would make the implementation of proper name association quite a bit simpler if so.

Hmm interesting. Admittedly the only game I've tested it with for Saturn is Enemy Zero, so the issue there may be game-specific, I'm not sure. I assumed it was across the board since the RA version doesn't seem to let you do it at all, either via m3u or the "disk management" function in the quick menu. Again though, I only tested the RA swap function with Enemy Zero. Launching the second disc from the start works just fine in both RA and standalone so it shouldn't be an issue with the disc images. Glad it's working for you though! I guess I'll have to test it with some other multi-disc Saturn games. If possible, could you upload your save file? The reason I used Enemy Zero to test is because the first disc swap happens at the very beginning. I don't have a save far enough in anything else to test.

Yep! Those are the keys for standalone. I don't know if there's a way to rebind those if that matters to you...

Here's an Arcade variant for Cave. Since the arcade platform banner I created ages ago has Esp Ra.De as the background I guess I can just change it to a Cave logo and the text to Cave. It also occurs to me that the current one says MAME not Arcade... I think I need to make a list... 1. Make an alternate version of the current Arcade platform banner changing the text from "MAME" to "Arcade" 2. Make an alternate version of the current Arcade platform banner changing the top image to a Cave logo and the text to "Cave" 3. Make a new platform banner for MAME that uses a "classic" arcade game background 4. Make a new clear logo for MAME that uses a "classic" arcade game background Permutations aplenty! Normal: Scanlines:

Yep, it's actually really simple. All you have to do is create a text file with the name of each of your .cue files, in order, one per line. So, for example: Enemy Zero (Disc 1).cue Enemy Zero (Disc 2).cue Enemy Zero (Disc 3).cue Enemy Zero (Disc 4).cue Then save it. Now you just need to rename the file and change the extension from .txt to .m3u and use that .m3u file as your "rom" in LB. In Retroarch you'll need to assign keys to the "open/close tray" function, "next disc" function, and "previous disc" function. These have default keys but I changed them so I don't recall what they are. I changed mine to 0 for "open/close tray", + for "next disc" and - for "previous disc". So if I want to change from disc 1 to 2, all I have to do is press 0 (open), + (next disc), and then 0 (close). At that point you can continue playing normally. Keep in mind, like I said, this doesn't quite work yet for Saturn. It works beautifully for PSX though. This is how I have all of my multi-disc PSX games setup.

Yes, WBFS is it's own file system (that's actually what the "FS" stands for) just like FAT32 or NTFS that's not natively readable by Windows. That's what WBFS Manager is designed to do.

Yeah this is actually one of the first things I tried. It doesn't work currently in either standalone or RA. m3u support is sortof there but only in a preliminary state. The first disc will load when loaded via m3u, but in RA you can't actually switch to a different disc and in standalone you can switch but the graphics are all screwed up afterwards. I think it's just something that's still being worked on. Enemy Zero is a good game to test this with, for reference - the first disc is literally just an intro cinematic.

No problem!

Like I said just add Big Box as your non-steam application and launch it from Big Picture. Once you're done playing a game it should take you back to Big Box and once you close Big Box it should take you back to Big Picture.

ScummVM could obviously use some streamlining. You have to build each entry basically from scratch. I'm actually working on Amiga myself at the moment. I don't use a loader though - I just use regular old WinUAE. The method I've been using is to just load the disk(s) into the swapper, tweaking any game-specific settings I need, saving it as a config (.uae) file, and then importing the .uae file as the "rom" in LB with WinUAE as the emulator. It works fine but it is time consuming. I honestly don't think there's any way that LB could improve this process though, since nearly all of the work is taking place in WinUAE itself. By the time I get to LB in this process I've essentially got a single rom file that works with an emulator just like any other rom+emulator combo so the LB import itself takes about 5% of the total setup time. Regarding the specific question above about proper names upon import, if all of your games are in separate folders by title you could tell it to use folder names instead of the file name. I have all of mine in separate folders as it helps organize the separate disks. This probably isn't the case if you're using a loader though...

How do you have things setup to launch exactly? I have Big Box itself as the "non-steam application". From there you can launch whatever you want (in Big Box) and it'll go back to Big Box afterwards.

You shouldn't need to do any of that so long as you're incorporating the core you want into your Retroarch emulator entry in LB. If you want to use FBA for NeoGeo, you just need to open your Retroarch emulator entry in LB -> associated platforms -> find NeoGeo in the list (or add it if it isn't there already, though I think it should be by default) and add/edit the command line parameter field to be -L "cores\fba_libretro.dll" (there are actually several different FBA cores, so double-check your core dll file name in your Retroarch -> cores folder. Whichever one you want to use needs to be in the command line parameter field after "cores\". After that just add Retroarch as the emulator (if it isn't already) to any relevant games in your library.

According to this post the files should be named as either (Disc #), (Disk #), or (CD #) so, based on that, the ones in brackets might not work (though it might not care what the special characters are, I'm not sure) but the ones in parenthesis definitely should. Drybonz seemed to be experiencing some issues with it as well.

No it's totally understandable. People should be able to organize their own library however they choose (and you still can) we just have to organize things in such a way that they're manageable and so we don't end up with a bunch of duplicates that have to be separately maintained/moderated. The single entry separation is somewhat in place at this point - take a look at the the Contra III entry for example. You can see that the NA, PAL, and JAP covers are all there, and have signifiers for the region (hover over them and you'll see "North America", "Europe" and "Asia") but we don't have region-specific names yet (Super Probotector in Europe). That's being worked on though.

The idea is to still include the differences (including things like region-specific names and unique artwork) but within a single DB entry. It's not quite implemented yet, but with one entry they'll be divided up to still have all the information you want (in it's own subsection), just not spread across multiple "duplicate" DB entries. You're still going to be able to do what you want to do, don't worry. And you can still divide your own library in LB however you choose.

This just in, gifs work in the new forms (maybe they always did, dunno)