fromlostdays

I don't know about the second half of the question, but I have gotten that same error extracting archives more times than I can count. As long as the file comes out alright, it isn't a concern. It may have something to do with whatever program was used to zip it. If the file doesn't unzip properly (error or not) obviously you either got a bad archive or it didn't finish downloading completely.

This is an awesome plugin, but it's inadvertently making me go on a tangent haha. So I must play games SUPER slowly or something. Like I'm putting more than "Completionist" time in every game, and I am far from a Completionist. Took me over 100 hours to beat the Witcher 3, for instance, and I skipped a bunch of quests. Says 50. But that's a free roam game, so of course time will vary. But even more linear games like Bioshock, I'm at least doubling the reported time on like every game I play. This is true for me replaying old truly retro games like Super Mario World and ps1 titles too. Took me twice the time to beat the Resident Evil remake. For My Time at Portia, I already have more than triple the hours in that game and I'm not even finished the main quest. What's wrong with me? No wonder I barely ever beat games anymore. ?

I was noticing the same thing, I think. More than that, the hardware renderer for ps1 lets me ramp up to like 8x+, but it introduces some glitches to my favorite game. The software renderer, I can barely squeeze out 4x but it pretty much looks the same to me either way. It's a tad bit sharper at 8x, but at a certain point, that doesn't do much. Desktop resolution at 1080, but the TV is 4k. I'm just glad to confirm that I don't have to stress on pushing it passed 4x so much. Thanks!

Can you explain this a bit further, about diminishing returns? Is this true for all systems, ps1, ds etc?

You're always going to run into a game that hasn't had artwork done, yet. You will also run into entries for which the Art does exist but hasn't been uploaded to the Launchbox database yet. It's just a fact of life. Every stitch of this hobby from the emulators to the logos is community driven. But to answer your question, yes, you could google the missing art, or create your own, and further contribute to the community by uploading it to the LB database so the next person can download it on import.

Glad you got it sorted.

Also, in the same menu as the above screenshot, make sure you didn't set anything for "Enable Hotkey". If you set a controller button or keyboard key to this option, none of the other hotkeys will work unless that button is pressed. This would be my guess as to why you lost the functionality of the buttons. So for instance I set Enable Hotkey to left stick on my controller. The ESC button on the keyboard won't work unless I press the left stick on my controller.

Did you set up a controller hotkey button? Or just set the "enable hotkey" button to a key on the keyboard?

There is currently no way to compare your collection to what it in the Launchbox Database. However, you can compare you collection against official dats unrelated to launchbox using other software like Clrmamepro and I think romcenter.

I don't know how any of this stuff works and I appreciate you all tackling this! If I could make a suggestion, it would be awesome if this would call to a video folder named exactly like the rom first, nested in a directory named after the system. So for instance, if you launch Super Metroid: It looks in Startup Videos/Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Metroid/ In the absence of a game specific video, it would then look directly in the system folder: Startup Videos/Super Nintendo Entertainment System This would allow users to do both Game Specific Startup vids for particular games, while utilizing System Specific Vids for the rest. So you could have: Startup Videos/Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Metroid/gamevideo.mp4 Startup Videos/Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Systemvideo.mp4 Just a thought. Thanks!

Try Fatmatch, I think it will do exactly what you're looking for. Its the only program I know of that will let you name files based on a fuzzy match of the names of other files.

Currently, no, but it wouldn't be recommended. Launchbox keeps important information like region in xml files, but, for a lot of people, it's important to keep that information in the title of the rom. Also, rom naming reflects the people who dumped the rom, and not all of them are created equal. So the naming of a rom tells you a lot more about it than the title. There are, however, a host of other programs that will let you rename your roms any way you like. Clrmampro, Bulk Rename Utility, Don's Hyperspin Tools, and Fatmatch to name a few. One of the many great features in Launchbox though is that you don't have to go through the trouble of renaming, as Launchbox matches them to its database while leaving your rom title in tact. If you have a specific question about renaming a specific set, just ask here and we'll help you out.

Oh that's just the MAME nag screen. If you see that, the roms are working. You can download a "no nag" version of MAME right here on the launchbox website in the forums download section, if you don't want to see it. It has nothing to do with launchbox or how you launch the games. MAME devs are very meticulous and this box pops up all the time on a lot of games. Doesn't mean they are unplayable. Just click passed it. If you notice sound is missing in place where you know it was before, it might be the particular version of the rom you're launching. Starting over will not solve the nag screen. Again, the only thing you can do is download a version of mame that is compiled to suppress it. Look in the Third party Applications on the launchbox forums. There's a user there who makes versions of mame with this suppressed for every version of Mame that drops.

Let me give you some general advice about how to get the most flash in launchbox with the least amount of artwork downloaded. First, pick what you want your games to display per system. I say per system here, because not all art is created equal in this regard. Nintendo and Sega and popular systems typically have beautiful box art sets, even 3D box art sets, but the box art for MAME/Arcade is sized differently and generally doesn't look good (to me) displayed in Launchbox. So pick one per system. My experience is that the most consistent art is clear logos (which I use for mame instead of box art). Next, download Fan Art- Backgrounds. These will display as the background in launchbox when you select a game. Stuff like screenshots will display in the details panel if you select a game, but its something you can skip. Reconstructed anything you can basically skip. So we're talking one set of images to display per game, and the backgrounds. That would be maximum look with minimum download.

That's actually pretty nifty looking! To speak what I think is your general question, you could tell launchbox to only display box art for every system, or only clear logos or whatever you want. What's weird is that last screenshot looks identical to launchbox's options, only its called Image Group... In this way, if you just wanted to download box art, or 3D box art, you could set all your systems to just display that. However, there are hundreds of systems, and not all have boxart (some don't have any art). Things get a little more tricky if you ever want to use Bigbox though, as Art types are embedded in the themes there. Edit: Since I personally don't use launchbox (prefer bigbox) for anything but set up, I keep mine in "List View" and that's why you don't see any artwork displayed for the games.

It applies to free version. You can preview images here on the database itself: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com (but honestly, as said above, the descriptions are right there) I don't think that launchbox uses the same image for several categories, but honestly I don't understand this question. I can't think of an example of where it would, except that if you have a game in a system and put it into a playlist, the playlist entry will use the same images as the system entry. Lastly, if you originally meant to say that you shouldn't even get the option of the checkboxes on a per system basis, that wouldn't work because different systems use different type of artwork. Mame/Arcade uses fliers, Windows/Steam uses banners etc. Having the choice about what you download, every time, is optimal behavior.

I'm not sure about your last question, but I don't think this is intended behavior. I know I've played with multiple xbox one controllers in Mame, but I'll test this later to see if these results can be replicated. A lot of emulators don't do constant checks for connected controllers, some steam games don't either, so for instance if you wait until a controller shuts down, then try to turn it on and play again it's unresponsive. Mame is like this. In other words, it's good practice to always have you controller(s) connected before you launch something. Bigbox and Retroarch are exceptions to this rule, and they will see the controller the second it's connected. However, that takes us to the above territory about stable IDs. I'm not sure about Bigbox, but in Retroarch for instance, if you connect a second controller mid session, it notoriously messes up the bindings. It seems to want to put the new controller in the first player spot, so the one you're already using becomes unresponsive etc. Lastly, most of these problems stem from Windows itself, as Windows doesn't assign stable IDs to the controllers. I've been having these issues for years, to the point where I've basically given up on having 2 controllers connected. The only way I can see it working consistently is if both controllers are plugged in and on at all times and the computer never sleeps or shuts down. I know people who make actual cabinets often will have 2 joysticks, and I've tried to figure out how they do it, but from what I can gather it's only consistent in Mame.

Love this theme! I am having an issue, though. When I select a game... I can't see the options to play etc. So if I scroll through NES, and then select a game, say BattleToads and Double Dragon, this is what I see: I'm not sure what's relevant. 1920x1080 display, no dpi scaling.v 101 of the theme.

I did this a long time ago for a different front end, and wound up undoing it for launchbox, but there might be a way to do this by separating the roms. You'll need a .dat file, or .xml file that has the systems listed separately. You can find those around the internet, but for stuff like atomiswave, zinc, sega model 2 & 3 you can use a Hyperlist xml. I think Clrmamepro has the functionality. It's been a really long time, but what you can do is load the hyperlist xml, say for zinc, into clrmamepro, and then point that at your mame roms and tell the program to rebuild based on the xml at a different location (it should have to option to "copy" and maybe even to "move".) If you use copy, it'll copy just those roms to a different directory while leaving the original mame set in tact. If clrmamepro doesn't work, there are other programs that can do this too. However, I don't know how up to date the hyperlists are. The key elements here are a file that lists these systems individually in a usable format (.dat or .xml) And a program that can move/copy/ or rebuild sets of which there is no shortage. Hope it helps! Edit: it should be noted that if you physically separate them, I have no idea how you would us clrmamepro to keep them up to date with future versions. For that reason, I recommend keeping your original mame set in tact. Lastly, sorry I can't be more specific. I went through the "rom" phase of my retro journey too many years ago haha. But a quick google search is your friend.

Somewhat related question here. I've been using a split set since... I think 197. Rather keep updating the split set, a few weeks ago I deleted that set and just redownloaded a non-merged set .206 (I have two LB setsups, a full one with every game and a second one that I handpick so the non-merged seemed the best way to go). However, I had imported the split set completely on the first lb setup, and about 50 handpicked games on the second install. Perhaps luckily, all the games I handpicked launch fine, but I'm sure there's probably going to be some games in the entire set that don't. Is there a process to update/tell launchbox that I switched sets? Or do I even need to? Thanks!

Omg I'm such an idiot haha. Now I understand. To anyone else having this problem, If you're like me it's user error. I misunderstood the directions, and thought you only had to run the batch file once. Now I get what you meant by saying "you can't set up an additional app per system". Meaning, you can't have the batch file start up automatically with every game unless you set it up as an additional app for every game which could take a while. I was running the batch file and then closing it. Launchbox never did/does open with it for me but if I 1: run the batch file and just leave it running in the background 2: Open launchbox with the batch file still running in the background ALL of the games launch fine from launchbox! This was all just me misunderstanding the directions. Apologies and thanks for talking me through it @Retrofrogg Edit: "8. Run the batch file, start up Launchbox and enjoy the flash games!" This is what I misunderstood, I thought this meant run the batch file once, the first time, and it would do some magic to launchbox and it never had to be opened again. ?

I have not heard of this! I created m3u files for all my multidisk games, but this seems like a better solution altogether! No performance hit? What emulators support eboot?

I can't explain it except to say that maybe the place where the games are stored is failing to access sometimes? It would have made more sense for such a big download to have the swfs stored locally too. I'm not sure how the download is so big while still having the actual swfs on the net? However, I tested a lot more games, and more work than I previously thought. Testing from #-A I'd say about 5 to 10 percent work. All of the applications paths and (I'm assuming the command lines) are correct on all the games. The ones that don't work just bring up a blank Adobe Flash Player 29 window. The ones that do work, work instantly and consistently. So maybe with so many games trying to access various websites, it's the websites themselves that are the problem? How many of these have you tested? At any rate, I definitely appreciate you trying to help us sort this out. It's not a huge deal, since the games all work in the Flashpoint launcher. It's just perplexing. I don't remember if I opened launchbox the first time I ran that batch, but from my experience these two things could made clearer in the instructions: 1: Run the batch file from the flashpoint directory. (Not the launchbox directory) 2: The batch file reads like launchbox is supposed to open automatically, and then you close it and the file closes with it. I don't know if you can do this, but could be updated to say, leave this window open, then open launchbox, then close launchbox. I'm not sure exactly how I screwed up, but it was one of those two steps. Thanks!

Thanks so much! No, he was just a guy who used to be (maybe still is) in the scene, and his thing was getting really obscure systems up and running. I'm talking about stuff like ALF. Thanks again! Just when I think I'm finished (I have close to 100 individual systems) new stuff keeps popping up!