CriticalCid

Nice idea! I think that could be definitely useful for some users here.

@billyc999 I did some more tests because I'm really interested in your metadata collection. This time I did it with the Atari 2600 file you’ve provided and I ran in several issues with it but I got it to work in the end. Unfortunately I had to remove all ">" characters from the info tags because otherwise would the forum software interpret them as HTML code and won't show them. 1. You forgot to add the <Game line before every game entry. 2. Several syntax errors. </Launchbox has to be </LaunchBox and </game has to be </Game 3. Your current method to set empty values doesn’t work and cause problems. The easiest way would be to just completely delete all lines which aren't containing any values. 4. The year value is completely invalid. The date has to be set like this: <ReleaseDateYEAR-01-01T00:00:00-08:00</ReleaseDate 5. Don’t generate/add any DatabaseID’s. They won’t work if they haven’t the proper value and will only cause problems. 6. LaunchBox crashes if it hasn’t the additional data for platforms, emulators, etc in the Metadata.xml. You’ll have to add these at the end of the xml. I attached a file which contains everything you’ll have to add.

I thought that maybe the missing database ID would prevent LB from importing anything but I was wrong. I just deleted everything from the current metadata.xml except for 2 games and deleted the LB DB ID's from these games as well. What can I say, the game information's were imported properly anyway. The only issue I had was that the metadata.xml got updated and replaced my custom xml even when I clicked on cancel. So unfortunately you have to disconnect your internet connection while doing is. So if you follow the format of the Metadata.xml (which is almost identical to the LaunchBox.xml ) everything should work quite fine if you do it like I described it in my last post.

Not exactly. Lightspeed does directly import/write the new games into the LaunchBox.xml. But I’m talking about to use a custom Metadata.xml so that no additional tools for importing would be needed.

Assuming it would work that LaunchBox can easily import metadata from a custom Metadata.xml than I think a simple way to do this would be to add the platform regularly to get all the images and LB metadata. That’s especially important for the values which aren’t included in his CSV's like the LBDB ID. After that just replace the LB Metadata.xml with the custom one and import the data by either replacing all values or just fill in the gaps. When LB wants to download the current LB metadata.xml just cancel the download or disconnect your PC from the internet while importing. Done Or have I overlooked something?

I guess he means a Metadata.xml he wants to build with his csv files for using it to import his own metadata into LaunchBox. I don’t know if that will work but I could imagine that it would.

LaunchBox ignores all tags in the filename like region, languages, etc on import. So you should be fine. Also when you edit a field in LB it changes them only for you in your own LaunchBox.xml. If you want to change or add something so that the whole community can benefit from it you still have to do this directly in the online LB database. So no worries :)

I wanna thank you for this post as well! I didn’t even know that something like this exists and it sounds indeed a thousand times better. I will definitely give it a try when I have the time.

Circo (the owner of EmuMovies) just posted this in the HyperSpin forum: Just wanted to give everyone a heads up, EmuMovies has been down the last couple of days. This is being worked on and should have it fixed this weekend. Seems we were a bit hard on the server and working with the hosting company on beefing things up yet again. I will reply to this post as I have more news. Appreciate everyone's patience in this matter.

It’s nice to see that the LaunchBox team is growing :) I don’t have any specific questions so all I can say is welcome Kirsten! I hope you will like your new job :)

LaunchBox also downloads the newest copy of all the metadata from the LaunchBox database when you add new games. You can find it under “LaunchBox/Metadata/Metadata.xml”. Maybe @Jason could even use your metadata and batch add them to the online database to fill all the holes?

Here’s the link to the BitBucket ticket for the lazy ones. I just voted for it as well ;) https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/195/big-box-option-to-random-select-game

Rocketlauncher doesn’t create its own savestates. It still uses the normal savestate function of the emulator you are currently running. It’s just a comfortable way to load and create savestates with your controller instead of needing to use keyboard hotkeys.

I know that they mean BigBox. But “lose a feature” sounds like that it would just vanish in LaunchBox when you upgrade to premium. I just wanted to clarify that. :)

progets said Isn't that backwards? A feature in the free version that isn't in the paid version. I understand the voting and that there are priorities but it makes no sense to lose a feature when going to a "better" version. You don’t lose any features. You can still use the random game option in LaunchBox after upgrading to premium.

Here's a video which shows the EmuMovies platform video for the SNES in comparison (ignore the HyperSpin theme around of it). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HGpFzpwcBg Basically they use 5 seconds long snippets of various games and fade them together. Pretty simple and clean and completely different than the video what @IlhanK did. I personally think it would be better to be a little bit flashier and experimental like IlhanK's video because it's way more exciting to watch. Also there's no need to copy the pretty basic style of EmuMovies.

I agree. These sound effects are really great! It’s also nice to see that we have such talented and professional people in this community :)

Whoah that looks awesome! Good job! Both thumbs up, I really like it! :) @SentaiBrad will probably hate me for saying this but I think that’s definitely the way that his official LaunchBox platform videos should take as well :) It’s something completely different than the standard EmuMovies platform videos and much more exciting.

I agree with that. A nested filter option would be the ideal way to realize this. I also just posted a video on this ticket which shows how the RomCollectionBrowser for Kodi handles that. Here’s the link for the ticket: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/311/nested-filters But voting for my submenu ticket is still also a good idea ;)

I have to say that it was REALLY hard to pick my winner over the Final Fantasy and Pokémon series. I've never stopped loving Pokémon since I was a little kid and put thousands of hours in the whole series and even tried to play the last games competitive. On the other hand is Final Fantasy 9 my favorite game of all-time and many other entries of the series are as well one of the best games I’ve ever played. But in the end I decided to choose Mass Effect. I just love the trilogy with all of my heart and have completed every game multiple times to 100%. The whole universe and especially the characters are just so well and fondly designed. Tali and Garrus are one of the best written video game characters I’ve ever saw and overall it’s the best sci-fi universe I know. Yes, each part has it's own flaws and at first it was kinda frustrating to see that part 3 didn't use all the potential it had but overall it’s my favorite video game series of all time.

I know that feeling. I have 1200+ games in my library and still 500+ on my wishlist… Fortunately I’ve completed my Final Fantasy collection on Steam now. I only miss 5, 6, 11 and 14 but I don’t care about the MMORPG’s and don’t want the ugly iOS ports of 5 and 6 either. Unless they offer the original 16 bit version of those games I don’t bother to buy them and play those two through SNES emulation.

What I’ve picked up so far: A Game of Thrones - Genesis: 2,49€ Crimzon Clover: World Ignition: 1,99€ Final Fantasy III: 6,49€ Final Fantasy IV Bundle: 11,49€ Grandia II Anniversary Edition: 9,99€ Halo: Spartan Bundle: 2,49€ Pinball FX2 - Deadpool Table: 0,79€ Tales of Symphonia: 7,99€ Total: 43,72€ ~ 48,70$ The maximum I want to spend on each sale are 50€, so I’m doing pretty well so far :)

Unfortunately I’m currently not in the mood to deal with that topic any further right now… Maybe some day in the future, we will see.

I thought a lot about it and it was a really hard decision but I’m sorry to tell you all that I won't upload any of my themes. You heard Jason. I can’t share my videos in the way I would have wanted it without pissing some people off and that’s why I’ve decided to not share it at all. I don’t like it either but I’m not willing to unintentionally advertise a paid premium service of a competing FrontEnd from which I won't see any penny of it myself and something that should be free anyway. So please just accept my decision and don't argue with me about it.

SentaiBrad said Well if we can push the frames per second (during encoding not playback) to make it viable, that's once thing. If you can nail a sweet spot with bitrate too the time to completion will be faster. I mean Cid, you have an octa-core CPU. Your encoder should be utilizing the multi-threading very well. Not everyone will have this to encode with. Assuming 30fps for playback, at 15 to encode that's 1 second of playback for 2 seconds of encoding time. What is the average length? Multiply the average across the total amount of video's left. You have a rough estimate, give or take, the length in which you can encode. It's also worth noting that I generally attempt to encode at higher bitrates. What was the bitrate you chose Cid? I encode in 60fps with CRF 18. The average length is 35 seconds. And my CPU is a really cheap and old hexa-core. Every i5 CPU, no matter what generation, should be way better.