Zombeaver

I'm not sure what to tell you there. Your PC is likely the culprit as I've not had any other similar reports. Can you start Retroarch on its own by going to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch and starting retroarch.exe?

Something that may help on that front though is enabling the setting to allow all controllers to control Retroarch. I've never needed it before but it might help in this case (I'm not 100% certain that it will, but it might). The problem is, that option was removed quite a while back because it didn't work correctly and was only reimplemented in November 2021, which is newer than the build that's used in v0.45 (RA 1.9.4). Attached below is my compiled version of RA 1.10 (I have to custom compile them to maintain cg shader support) which is what will be used in the next version. Keep in mind that this is not what was used for testing in v0.45 so I can't guarantee that there won't be any unforseen bugs (though there shouldn't be). Retroarch 1.10-cg-al.7z Drop these in and overwrite the files in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch. Then open retroarch.cfg in a text editor and search for the line all_users_control_menu and change it from "false" to "true". That might fix it. If you decide you want to revert to 1.9.4 later you can find it in the C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch\!Retroarch Versions folder.

That has nothing to do with Retroarch. It's the way that Windows rather arbitrarily assigns controller numbers. Retroarch is only picking up whatever Windows is telling it.

Oh, well glad it's sorted in any case. 🙂 Hmm. I'll have to get back to you on that one. I'll ask sonninnos about it and see what he says. I'm not sure if that's something that would be adjusted in some base Retroarch setting or if there's maybe a core option to accomodate it.

That can't be right, otherwise the other stuff wouldn't work. Did you press enter on it first? To fix the problem you have to determine what Retroarch is calling your back button. It's going to be some number. 7 is what it is for most xinput controllers - I test on 360, XB1, and 8bitdo Pro 2 controllers and it's correct for all three of those. Whatever number Retroarch is calling that button, that's what needs to go in the input_enable_hotkey_btn field, but I have no way of knowing what that will be for your controller as I don't have one.

Okay, so with a game running, press Numpad Minus + F1. You can use arrow keys to navigate, Enter enters a section and LAlt goes back. Go to settings > input > hotkey binds and scroll down to "Enable Hotkeys". You should see the button listed as "7". Press enter and then press the back button on your controller. Make a note of what number it changes to (it should change since it's apparently calling it something other than 7 for your controller). Now press Numpad Minus + Esc to quit. Now go to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams and start Configurator.exe and double-click on the "Config Editor" shortcut at the bottom. For the line that says input_enable_hotkey_btn change the number from 7 to whatever it said in Retroarch when you changed it.

Okay, so far everything is pointing to my initital suspicion (which is good because that will be easy to fix). Thank you for the info. You can test the music keys in Zork I - The Underground Empire. Let me know how that goes and we'll go from there.

Please provide a list, specifically, of all functions that are working and all that are not. I can't really determine the problem based on the information you've provided. Below is the list of functions. I need to know everything that's working and everything that isn't. It could be something as simple as just needing to change the button assignment for the combo button, but I don't have enough information to determine that.

That's really great to hear! I love hearing stories like this, and you've pretty perfectly encapsulated why I do this. I think that a lot of people fall in this camp and I totally get it. There's a very real barrier for entry for many people and there shouldn't be, which is why I think this project is important. I actually plan to do exactly that with an Amiga Dreams project in the future. That's likely several years off though as I don't want to get too distracted from C64 Dreams until v1.0 is released. Thanks guys! If you're interested in donating, there's a link to do that in the navigation bar on my website.

The manuals are toggleable in-game. They're not in Launchbox. Please watch the section of the video talking about using manuals.

The video is now done and has been added to the opening post. You can also find it below. I'd encourage people to check it out even if you've been using C64 Dreams for a while as there may be some functions/features that you weren't aware of. The collection has also been added to Archive.org now as well. Links have been added to the opening post. Have fun! Written Guide / Video Script

Okay, links to download the complete collection have been updated to include all the post-release fixes. Just to re-iterate, if you downloaded prior to 2/1/22 you'll need to apply them. Details/Links for the fixes are available in the blog post here if anyone needs them. Back to work on the video now!

No problem. That one was really giving me some anxiety because I'd had one previous report on Discord that I was under the impression was basically a fluke but after it came up a second time today I wanted to take a closer look and, sure enough, it wasn't behaving as intended. I can only assume that either most people that are using C64 Dreams either A) already have AHK installed on their PCs (in which case it'll work anyway) or B) aren't using the local magazine module (or maybe a combination of the two). I'm currently uploading the updated collection to Mediafire, and will post in here once that's complete. Future downloads at that point will already have the 1-31 hotfix and review fix baked in, but anyone that downloaded them previously will need to grab those. Once that's done, I'm going back to finishing up the video, which will probably be a couple more days, then I'll put the collection up on Archive.org, and then I'll finally take that nap I've been talking about lol

Thanks to a couple users on my Discord I realized there was a problem with the code for the local Zzap reviews such that, if you didn't have AHK installed already, they weren't working correctly (and it would prompt you to choose a program to use with an .ahk file). The collection will be updated to include the previous hotfix and to address this as well, but for users that downloaded it already simply grab the below, put it in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Games and start Review Fixer.bat and it'll take care of the rest. Sorry about that y'all. I guess either most people already have AHK installed or they haven't messed with them lol Review Fixer.7z

I'm still finishing up work on the video but wanted to put out a combined hotfix for a couple things. I've made a new bezel designed specifically to accommodate 16:10 aspect ratios as this is something I've seen come up a couple times. It's accessible in the updated Configurator. I've also added "Icons Only" bezels as well as improved a couple manuals. The main collection download will be updated with these changes soon, but for existing users just grab the below and merge/overwrite. Once the video is finished I'll be uploading the collection to Archive.org as well. https://www.mediafire.com/file/t63puiwb1qrbpia/1-31-22_Hotfix.7z/file Update notes: -Fixed missing custom controller mappings for Aquaplane and Spellbound Dizzy -Improved the "Color Corrections Only" shader -Improved manuals for 10th Frame and Fire King -Added a new bezel option for 16:10 aspect ratio monitors -Added a new "Icons Only" bezel for both 16:9 and 16:10 which only displays the note/keyboard icons where relevant but is otherwise transparent/blank

I'm currently working on a video about C64 Dreams that's meant to serve as a project overview, feature demonstration, tutorial, etc. You can find the current script/written guide here. I did notice while working on it that somehow the custom controller mapping for Aquaplane and Spellbound Dizzy were missing in their .bats. I'm not sure how/why that's the case but the below fixes them. I'll be reuploading the whole collection to Mediafire including the fix once I upload it to Archive.org, but that will be after the video is complete. 1-29-22 Hotfix.7z

I made some tweaks to all three uploads above, so if anyone grabbed them already please do so again. I forgot that the internal mapping for PgUp is Restore, which causes some (not all) games to reset when pressed, so I changed the default Start/Stop record button in OBS from PgUp to Numpad 7. The ffmpeg script for adding in a fade animation wasn't using the correct duration calculation if the video was over a minute long, it was only using the seconds - i.e. if a video was one minute and three seconds long it would start to fade out at the three second mark. I fixed this so that it now calculates it correctly even if it's over the minute mark. It doesn't account for videos that are over an hour long but that won't be an issue for the purposes of this project. I made a few additional tweaks to the color correction shader as there were a few scenarios where it didn't look right. It should be squared away now.

So, I've done some work testing things out and have come up with a fairly simple setup that's yielding pretty good results for anyone that's interested in recording video snaps for C64 Dreams. 1) Download a portable pre-configured copy of OBS here and extract anywhere you want 2) Download ffmpeg here and extract anywhere you want 3) Download an updated version of the color corrections shader here and place in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch\shaders\Zombs Shaders\C64 and overwrite the existing one (this step is no longer necessary with current downloads of the set) 4) Open up C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Configurator.exe and in "Overlays" set it to "Blank (controller / notes overlay still accessible)" 5) In "Shaders" set it to "No Shader (color corrections only)" 6) Start the Config Editor shortcut at the bottom of the Configurator 7) Paste the below lines at the bottom of the config and save. Once you're no longer going to be doing any recording either delete these or comment them out with a ; at the beginning of the line. video_fullscreen_x = "1280" ; used for video snap recording, otherwise disabled video_fullscreen_y = "720" ; used for video snap recording, otherwise disabled 8 ) Start OBS in OBS\bin\64bit\obs64.exe 9) Click "Game Capture" in the source section 10) Go to File > Settings > Output and set the "Recording Path" field to wherever you want to save the videos, press Apply, then OK 11) Start up a game and press Numpad 7 when you want to start and stop recording; note that videos should be a minimum of 30 seconds, and upwards of a minute 12) Take all your recordings and move them to ffmpeg\bin, select them all, and drag them onto Fade.bat. This runs a batch job which will add a 1 second audio/video fade in and a 1 second audio/fade out and place the resultant file(s) in the "Converted" subfolder. You can do up to 100 videos at a time. Everything should "just work" if you follow the above steps but if anyone tries it out and has any issues please let me know. Anyone that participates will, of course, be credited in the next version's update notes and, if you care about such things, get a special title on my Discord server. If you want to work on this either PM me or hop on Discord and I'll send you the shared google sheet to keep track of what is and isn't done (so people don't duplicate work). Bruce Lee.mp4

I appreciate the offer but, as I said, I'm not interested in assembling a bunch of clips from various places. They're going to be created, from scratch, for this collection using a unified set of parameters. I've had a few people ask about helping on that front so I wanted to open it up here as well because I know there are people here who have the skills to do it and there are plenty of premium users that would use them if they were at their disposal.

Thanks, much appreciated! 👍

I wanted to take a moment to mention that I've had a couple people ask me about recording video snaps for C64 Dreams for use in Launchbox. This is something that I've been interested in for a while but, given that they can't be used in the free version of Launchbox which is what I have to use for distribution purposes, it's been a lower priority for me. That said, I have to imagine that most people here already have premium and would use them if they could. With that in mind, because there's been some interest in the idea I've added a new channel to my Discord for discussing that project and getting volunteers. To be clear, the purpose is not to gather videos from Emumovies, youtube, etc. - that will be a mish mash hot mess - the purpose is to create entirely new snaps using a unified set of parameters so that everything looks nice, uniform, and correct across the board. If anyone is interested in participating in that, I'd encourage you to hop on my server and join the discussion. You can find it here.

Would you care to share these? I pull them from our DB and then check against Screenscraper for whatever's left after that. There are still gaps of course though. I add the clear logos to the spine of the 3D boxes so it helps for those as well.

Looks like for Planet X2 I'm actually using an Easyflash version. Put the attached in the Planet X2 folder and overwrite and you should be good. I don't know if the disk version requires TrueDrive or not. If it does, I can walk you through how to enable that. Planet X2.7z

Yes, and in some cases I do exactly that. It's not exactly ideal though for a few reasons, not the least of which is that anytime VICE (as in mainline/upstream VICE) releases a new version, it breaks all states from previous versions (which is why I had to remake them all in this update, as I mentioned in the update notes), so I don't rely on them when there are other options. The core has an autowarp function that automatically detects when data is being loaded, engages warp while it loads, and turns it off once complete. This is a better option in most cases but it too isn't foolproof as it doesn't always work in an ideal way depending on the game. I use whatever makes the most sense on a case by case basis. The .bats are used because the collection is entirely frontend-agnostic. Manual swapping, custom music for text adventures, additional custom control mapping, etc. are all functional with or without a frontend / in any frontend. It was designed like this from the get go so that if someone theoretically wanted to use something other than Launchbox there's nothing mechanically stopping them from doing that because nothing's reliant on Launchbox to function. As far as Launchbox or any frontend is concerned they're basically Windows shortcuts. Everything's handled with a combination of batch and AHK scripting.

That's doable. What's there is accurate though. It doesn't use the "VICE" palette, it uses a custom one. What's used is a combination of custom palette and shader settings to produce the resulting appearance. Pay particular attention to the skin color below. VICE Palette with no shader: Radioactive neon garbage. This is totally and completely wrong. Colodore Palette with no shader: Significantly better, clearly, but still not quite right. They're still a bit too pink. Internal/Custom Palette with CRT-Easymode-Halation-C64 shader (CRT-Easymode-Halation with customized saturation, contrast, and color values): You can of course change things to taste but they won't be "correct". The easiest way to make changes would actually be through the shader, rather than palette settings. The palette is specified in the core options, which are saved to retroarch-core-options.cfg if a game doesn't have its own .opt file, but there are 800+ opt files for specific games where it's specified as well. You could do a mass find and replace with something like Notepad++ though. The shader applies to everything across the board though so that's an easier place to start. There are saturation, contrast, and individual color settings that you can adjust there.