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Zombeaver

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Posts posted by Zombeaver

  1. 5 hours ago, pyster said:

    Um, It's not a CPU issue, its an issue with collection. The problem is seen across multiple machines, and only with this collection. c64 emulation has worked very well since the 90s. My 2021 build uses a Intel Core i7-10700KF 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor...  This audio issue, a distortion issue, isn't something I see on my personal launchbox setups, or any of the other collections I have downloaded. Just this one. All of my other collections run c64 stuff, via launchbox, 10+ year old hardware...  The issue follows the collection, across a diverse set of hardware

    Then it's a collection issue that only affects you and your hardware (and software). Do you actually believe that the literally thousands of people that use this, spanning multiple years, 35+ thread pages, and about 200,000 views experience what you're describing and mysteriously choose to ignore it or that, just perhaps, it's something on your end? The issue doesn't follow the collection across diverse hardware. It follows the collection across your hardware. It doesn't matter if you've tested it on a dozen of your computers. I can turn around and say that I have thousands of people that have tested it on theirs and don't have the issue. I have no idea what sort of software you're running in the background or any number of other extenuating factors you have at play that can affect your performance - the same sort of factors that I've seen cause people over the years to convince themselves, for example, that Launchbox is "literally unusable", when in reality there's some miscellaneous element in their setup that they don't consider relevant that ends up being the culprit. What I can tell you is that what you are describing is a hardware performance issue. The audio problem you're describing occurs when Retroarch is struggling to maintain 100% speed, period. That is what you're hearing. Now what specifically is causing that issue is variable, but the number one culprit is the CPU, followed by the GPU. There are a number of settings that can contribute to increasing or decreasing hardware demands, nearly all of which are noted in the config editor and nearly all of which are in their least-demanding position by default. I've already told you what to do to attempt to resolve it. Turn on threaded video in the config editor. It decreases hardware demands but increases input latency which is why it's off by default - it's really just there as a last resort. Go to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams and start Configurator.exe. Double click the config editor button at the bottom. Change the config. Feel free to do this or not. Use the collection or not. You can keep arguing or you could just do what's been suggested. Godspeed to you.

    image.thumb.png.4cd9dd4f5b82b6ed03f0fc3f3b554614.png

    You can also try changing the video_driver= field to say vulkan or d3d12 since it sounds like you're using AMD which has the tendency to not play nicely with gl. This will break the included shaders though.

    5 hours ago, pyster said:

    I's also not the GPU. While I am still rocking a rx570, and an HD6990 in another machine, these are more than capable cards, and are not the issue.

    This isn't necessarily true. It's dependent on a number of factors, like shaders for example. Esper, one of the included shaders, would most likely make an HD6990 have a stroke.

    5 hours ago, pyster said:

    c64 emulation has worked very well since the 90s.

    edit: The Wolfanoz collection, and so on do not exhibit this issue. I suspect there is an issue with how retroarch is setup. 

    ReSID-FP didn't exist in the 90s. It's a very accurate and, perhaps surprisingly, fairly demanding emulation of the SID chip, which is used here.

    C64 emulation itself, has existed for a very long time, yes. I know, I was there, using them in the 90s. C64 Dreams is not analogous to using CCS64 or alternative in the 90s. If it was, I wouldn't have dumped the thousands of hours of my life into it that I have. It's not analogous to other C64 collections either. There are a lot of moving parts that do not exist anywhere else. And those moving parts have a cumulative demand on hardware.

    • Like 1
  2. You can't just dump the contents of a CD in like that. You would have to have the CD mounted as an actual disc using the imgmount function in DOSBox (in drive D for example), install it in the OS, and then direct the run field to the installed .exe.

    • Like 1
  3. 23 minutes ago, pyster said:

    Anyone else experience distorted sound from this collection? I've tried this on 4 machines, and its kinda worthless because of the sound issues. I migrated the collection to mine, and  changed the emulator. But I'd like the original collection to be in a working order. 

    Get a better CPU. Or enable threaded video in the config editor. Or stop changing any of the other hardware-punishing settings from default. Or some combination thereof.

    I have multiple potato office PCs that it works fine on. Your issue is not typical, but points to insufficient hardware, typically in the form of CPU speed, or potentially GPU if you're using shaders.

  4. I'll have to double check but I want to say that you would want to not include the path i.e. just Launcher.exe [UUID]

    All the UUIDs are doing are telling FS-UAE which game - which will already be imported into the FS-UAE library at that point - to start. FS-UAE already knows the path to the game associated with the UUID, you're just telling it which game you're starting, like a title, except that it's specifying the specific version of that game that you're starting.

  5. One isn't any easier or better than the other. They're effectively the same thing. It's creating a .cfg either way, it's just creating one in one folder or another. If you used a content directory override it would create one at config\[core name]\[folder name].cfg. If you used a core override it would create one at config\[core name]\[core name].cfg. The backend is identical, it's just a different name/location depending on what you're using.

    The only time when content directory overrides aren't really viable is if you're in a situation where all your games are in their own subfolders (because the overide matches, as the name implies, based on the folder that the content is located in), which most people typically only do for disc-based games if anything.

     

    • Thanks 1
  6. I want to say that it was actually just created specially for the sort of use case you're using it for before content directory overides were a thing. As in it was just split off to provide an alternate core for core overrides for a different platform, not because of any actual differences in the core itself. I know they did that a while back, I don't know if they're still otherwise indistinguishable now (they probably are though).

  7. Status update: I'm currently at 125 configs complete. There have been several improvements so far, including some games that were previously completely broken, so that's exciting. It should be noted though that I've found three regressions so far:

    18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker: bad audio
    Onimusha 3: graphical bugs
    Summoner: bad audio (though it should be noted that a visual bug in 1.6.0 which required software rendering for this game has now been fixed)

    I'm hopeful that all these will be fixed eventually but for the time being I would recommend 1.6.0 for all of these. Everything else so far has either been the same or better than it was previously (sometimes significantly so).

    • Like 9
  8. Hey y'all. Long time no post in here. I've recently been checking out PCSX2 1.7.3 and have been extremely encouraged and excited by some of the recent changes they've made. One incredibly significant one being that they have their own internal mechanism for per-game configs now, which streamlines things significantly. Better yet is that it functions in a way that's very similar to things like Retroarch's configs, i.e. they function as only changes-from-base settings, so I don't need to specify things like scaling and anisotropic filtering values, those can be set by the end user as a base value and that will apply to any configs I create, which will essentially just include fixes. They're also much more manageable and easy to work with since they're literally just simple .inis that need to go in the right folder and that's it. Everything is based on CRC checksums so it doesn't require any special file naming either - you just scan the games into PCSX2 and as long as your CRC matches my CRC, my config will apply. This also means that things like the LB plugin will no longer be necessary, which has had its own share of issues with continual maintenance and compatibility over time. You'll just have a single zip to extract, merge with your PCSX2 folder, and you're done. It's only taken literally two decades for PCSX2 to get to a point where this is possible, but I'm not going to let that go to waste.

    I've knocked out 50 configs in a couple days so it hopefully shouldn't take too long to make it back through them all. Thanks to some improvements, some major issues have been resolved as well, so a few games have moved from yellow status to green (Echo Night: Beyond, Galerians: Ash, and Gregory Horror Show so far), which is a nice added bonus. Anyway, more to come as I progress.

    • Like 10
    • Thanks 1
    • Game On 1
    • Unusual Gem 1
  9. On 6/16/2022 at 9:45 PM, launchretrogirl2562 said:

    Hi Zombeaver...what's the latest status working towards v0.60? Last u mentioned u were working through "P" and at 62%.

    It's still 62% and will stay there for the remainder of v0.60 as the selection process is done. At this point all the games are picked out and sourced, I just have to test them all and make any config changes as needed. I've tested 70 of them so far. Things have kindof slowed down lately though as I changed IRL jobs about a month ago and it's taken some time to become comfortable enough with it that I don't find the workload overwhelming. In fact I still wouldn't say I'm quite there yet.

    2 hours ago, Ashencos said:

    I have a problem I extracted the folder c64 dreams I click on the launc box, the games open to me, I load a game on the benro screen goes back to home?

    I'm not sure what you're saying/asking here to be honest.

    • Thanks 1
  10. For most 9x stuff I would recommend PCem setup with W98 SE, specifically with a FIC-VA or later motherboard. The reason being is this will allow you to tell the emulated Windows environment to shut down and it will automatically close itself out afterwards - with W95 or even with W98 if using an older mobo when you tell it to shutdown it'll then say "It's now safe to turn off your computer" and you'll have to change to windowed mode and then close the window. I would also highly recommend setting up your virtual hard drives to be dynamically sizing - this means that in the emulated environment you could have say a 32GB HDD, but it wouldn't actually occupy 32GB on your host PC, it will only use as much space as is actually occupied with data on the virtual hard drive which is very useful for avoiding wasted HDD space.

    You can actually run W95 in DOSBox as well, though this is more complicated. I recommend DOSBox Daum if you decide to go that route as it makes things easier with virtual IDE mounting. DOSBox-X includes that feature as well but 1) I don't like X very much and 2) performance between the two favors Daum heavily in cases where you would want to use DOSBox for 9x games. Those cases would specifically be games that are locked to software rendering like, for example, Rocket Jockey or Lifeforce Tenka. In such cases DOSBox maintains a performance edge over PCem. Anything that is designed for video hardware rendering via something like a Voodoo 2 you would want to use PCem.

    There are many video and written tutorials about how to setup PCem and DOSBox for W95/W98 so I'm not really going to get into that here. But basically those are your best bet for this kind of thing.

    There are also video wrappers like DdrawCompat, DgVoodoo 2, and DxWrapper, but your mileage with those may vary (wildly). I used to use those quite a bit but it became more and more clear over time that they're just not reliable on any major scale across different hardware and software environments. I use VMs pretty much exclusively at this point because they "just work". The learning curve is, of course, higher than simply dropping a dll in a folder, but it's worth it in the long run. Otherwise you'll end up troubleshooting the same game over and over every time you switch PCs or in some cases simply do something as simple as updating your video drivers.

    • Unusual Gem 1
  11. 1 hour ago, launchretrogirl2562 said:

    Will version 0.60 be using the latest version of Retroarch (1.10.3 or up)?

    Yes.

    1 hour ago, launchretrogirl2562 said:

    Will there be an easy update from version 0.45 to 0.60 without the need to download a whole new version?

    No. At least until post 1.0 any updates will be complete replacements.

    1 hour ago, launchretrogirl2562 said:

    Have you ever considered implementing the mega bezel reflection shader?
    https://forums.libretro.com/t/hsm-mega-bezel-reflection-shader-feedback-and-updates/25512

    Maybe in combination with The Namec Commodore pack?

    https://forums.libretro.com/t/thenamec-mega-bezel-packs-amiga-commodore-64-vic20-crtgaming-soon/31523

    Both project have githubs and once copied to a retroarch install (vs 1.9.8 and up) will work out of the box. (once u choose a fitting preset)

    Maybe someday. It's not really a priority. I'm quite partial to my own presets.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  12. 12 hours ago, prYldfire said:

    This is so cool.  Thank you! So when I single click on a game in launchbox and then press edit down near the bottom left and then click on media a line is there to point to the sid file.  After doing so, when I click on the game in launchbox, the music starts playing automatically while I'm reading about the game.  (I may have integrated .sid support into my Windows not sure about that or maybe Launchbox music player natively supports?  In either case, I can't seem to change tracks witht he forward and back buttons.  On the multitrack title I tested, 5th Gear, it only plays #3) Anywho,  how awesome!  Looks like I have a lot of work to do...

    I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. The only sids I include are the standalone tracks in the separate SID platform. I have no clue what you're talking about as far as 5th Gear.

    I do include some custom sid tracks for some games that don't normally have music (primarily text adventures), but those tracks aren't accessible from within Launchbox. And again, that would not apply to something like 5th Gear. The specific cases where these are included are listed on the game details spreadsheet on a separate tab. There are about 100 games that include these.

    It sounds like you've downloaded some music externally from this project (like through emumovies perhaps) and are trying to incorporate it into the collection. That's certainly your prerogative but you're on your own with that. If you're having problems with general Launchbox usage, that's a question you should be asking in the Launchbox troubleshooting forums. I would assume the music tracks would just need to be named something like [library title]-01.mp3, [library title]-02.mp3, etc. to be picked up for the same game, but I really don't know as that's not something I've ever messed with at all. If they're actually .sid files I'm shocked they work at all but I would assume they would need to follow that naming convention as well.

  13. Glad you're enjoying it @dan1981football! That's great to hear.

    It's no problem at all, I've added those to my to-do list for the next version.

    While on the subject, to give people a status update, I've finished parsing through all of "M", "N", and "O" in GB64 and am currently making my way through "P". This puts me at 28329 out of 45448 screenshots parsed / 62.3% of the way through GB64. As result, the next version will be 0.60. Between parsing GB64 and user-requests I currently have 489 / 500 games picked out thus far for the update. Some of these will end up getting removed once I get to the testing phase and it turns out that some of them are actually complete trash (this doesn't apply to specific user-requests, just the things that I pick out based on screenshot parsing), but probably not a ton. So the selection/curation process for the next update is almost done at this point. That doesn't mean that the update itself is almost done, as there's a ton of work to be done after that selection process is finished, but it's progress nevertheless. With that said, I don't currently have any plans for any major feature changes / additions this go round unlike the last two updates (manuals and Zzap 64 integration) so the turnaround time should be a fair bit shorter overall with this update.

    • Like 7
  14. 4 hours ago, Ashencos said:

    what would it be with Big Box. can you create a carousel?

    You'd have to look through the available Big Box themes here on the site for something similar.  You'd probably want to look at the coverflow views for them for something along the same lines.

    2 hours ago, Ashencos said:

    I have the registered version How do I INSERT YOUR GAMES?

    You can either A) follow the instructions that are linked in the opening post to merge C64 Dreams with an existing collection or B) add your license.xml file into the C64 Dreams folder (next to Launchbox.exe) and then you'll have access to all the premium features / Big Box there.

  15. On 4/27/2022 at 4:30 AM, Ashencos said:

    I wanted to ask you can you make the carousel like c64 mini?

    Sure, with Big Box. That requires a paid license however, so it's not within the scope of what I can supply with the collection. There are many different themes for Big Box, some of which have views similar to the one you're talking about.

    On 4/27/2022 at 4:30 AM, Ashencos said:

    missing the button to jump over the balconies how to do it?

    I don't know what this means.

    On 4/27/2022 at 5:32 AM, Ashencos said:

    in dragon ninja it goes slow dim audio delayed music etc.

    This is a hardware and/or software issue on your end. The CPU is normally the culprit. There's nothing I can do about this, the default settings are designed to be the least hardware demanding they can be. There's no performance issues with that or any other game on my end, across multiple computers, including an old piece of junk office PC.

    • Like 1
  16. The thing about the cropping in Cabal was reported previously and already addressed in the current WIP. Once the next version is released it'll be fixed. You can adjust this yourself in the meantime if you want by pressing NumPad Minus + F1 and going to Quick Menu > Options and adjusting the top and bottom crop values.

    There's nothing wrong with the colors, it's just a different version as Belgarath mentioned.

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