fromlostdays

Thanks for the module! I've been hoping RL would update it proper to add more / all the systems RA can actually emulate using the previous mess core and now the mame core, but... it's a lot haha.

Welcome back DrMaxwell. Two questions: One, could you share your RA module for the lazy? Two, you set it up in Rocketlauncher, but then you set up RetroArch as the emulator in Launchbox, which as far as I know means Launchbox isn't using Rocketlauncher. You have to set up Rocketlauncher as your emulator in Launchbox, correct?

It's not a perfect solution, but you can change themes on the fly in bigbox. Moreover, don't forget that launchbox is portable, and you can have multiple installs, which means you could make one for the kids, another with different themes and media etc. Again, not perfect, but doable. I have two separate installs on the same PC. One is my massive collection, and the other is handpicked games I play often. Use Grila's switch theme for the big one, and criticalzone for the handpicked.

Awesome work. This is something that the database could benefit from. Lists of regional exclusives.

So the good news is the steam version does have both exes, and you can import them into launchbox separately! Thanks for the tip, I don't know why I didn't think of checking that. There is some bad news though, mostly for bigbox/controller users. The first is that if you launch this way, the xbox button to steam overlay doesn't work properly. There are some games that support controllers but don't have a selectable "Exit game" option without actually hitting the "esc" key. Secondly, FFX and X2 are those kinds of games. You can't exit without hitting the esc key, and since the steam overlay doesn't work, you're going to have to use a keymapper. Lastly, when you do esc exit the game... for some reason it THEN brings up the launcher. So you'll launch the game from bigbox, exit it, bigbox will show back up, then the launcher will pop up. I have no idea why. I have this game modded so that the launcher supports controller inputs, so I can just exit it, but that's ugly. I still want to suppress the launcher somehow. Anyway, I'm a lot closer, so thanks! Since I'm not the only one interested, I'll make sure and post when and how I get it working properly.

I was going to try and tackle this myself, but I can't even figure out the first step via google. The ultimate goal would be to have this version of the game imported into launchbox, twice, in one instance loading right to final fantasy x, and the other loading right to final fantasy x-2. So I guess the first step would be to figure out how to skip the launcher screen. The second step would be importing it twice with different names (x and x2) The third would be to somehow have launchbox communicate that the first instance of the game launches x, the second x2. Is this even possible? To be clear, it's a really niche issue, and I basically just want to do it because I been working on a comprehensive Final Fantasy playlist and those are by far the best versions of those games. Thanks for any help!

I don't think the point is to dissuade people from doing there own thing and being creative. I think the point IS actually semantics. Not a value judgement, just a clearer definition. What is a platform, what is a playlist, what groups of things are best defined where etc.

Can confirm. Have a list of big fish games left over from hyperspin days. I can't speak to the quality of the games as I never played them, but had to have them when I saw them on hyperlist. I think this is an awesome endeavor and I like researching old stuff like this so I'll be following closely. I'm actually not too sure about this as I've never used Daphne ... but as I understand it.. that's just an emulator. Should it really be considered a platform? Might be more prudent to just make like a "laser disk" platform?

Not sure if this is the right topic, but I'm on 8.3 Beta 4. The thing is, I don't know when this might have happened as I mostly only use bigbox. I launched launchbox with windows scaled up to 175%. Mostly it's okay but some stuff like the edit menu doesn't fit the screen so I Closed launchbox Set the windows scaling down to normal - 100% Relaunched launchbox and the scaling hasn't changed. It's still jumbo (I spoke with DOS in Discord and he tested and launchbox scaled back down to 100% correctly for him.) I tried restarting launchbox a few times, no change. I switched to launchbox next and it scaled down appropriately, so its either something I'm doing or something only affecting the old launchbox. I can use Next, but I figured I'd just report the issue. Again, I rarely use launchbox anymore as I'm mostly set up and stay in bigbox, so I can't be certain when this behavior started. Thanks!

I think you we're spot on when you said "this is just how it evolved". It isn't always clear cut, especially in retrospect ... oh my god I just realized retro comes from that word, I'm having a moment... anyway, at this point you also have to consider things like who is dumping the roms and what are they calling it? How are other popular websites and affiliates like emumovies dealing with the naming etc. It's hundreds of thousands of video games, and the database is being built manually by volunteers. Ultimately though, I do agree consistency is paramount. There's a channel specifically for the LB database in Discord as well by the way. You can also make the case there. But... you should probably make the entire case first. Like here is a list, here is why.

Welcome to the fray.

Launchbox should automatically download all the platform media and info if it exists when you select "scrape as" (platform). To be clear, you don't have the name the platforms any specific names, but you do have to pick the right one to scrape as. There is no manual download for platform media, but you can check the forums and the net for clear logos. Here's one for Super Famicom: http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/File:Super_Famicom_Color_Logo.png Just put that in the right directory and you're good to go.

I assume we're talking about Bigbox? The artwork is chosen by the theme, I think. Remember that most themes have multiple views. You can choose which info is displayed. Under Bigbox, go to Options / Game Details. Similar options exist for platform and filter.

I would personally advise you to get your roms organized on PC before relocating them to the Pi. On PC there are various tools for dealing with roms and rom dumps and sorting. There is a program called Rom Manager (I've never used it). You can also use Clrmamepro to check your set against .dat files you can download from dat-o-matic (just google for the website). On the Hyperspin website there is also a set of tools called Don's Hyperspin Tools that you can use to check your set against hyperspin xmls (which are usually pretty good, but have nothing to do with the LB database*). Lastly, you could/should download no-intro sets where available and be confident that you're getting an easy to manage comprehensive set with good dumps. I don't think Launchbox is supported on the Pi, but even if it was, it only does half of those things. It will scrape for media, metadata and write xml files. You can most certainly use launchbox on the PC to do those things. So the question really becomes how much of that (media, xmls etc.) can you transfer over to emulationstation on the Pi? I'm actually not sure about that at all.

I've haven't gotten too deep into retropie, but what do you mean organize and scrape?

I'm not a huge sports game fan but digging back from my childhood my cousins and I went hard on: NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, NHL Hitz (Gamecube, deceptively fun game), Top Gear (SNES), Fzero, Smash TV, Army of Two, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Smash Bros. (64 is the best, IDC), Super Mario Kart, Secret of Mana, Uniracers (SNES, deceptively fun game), Bubble Bobble, Battletoads, Bomberman, TMNT Turtles in Time, Marble Madness, (Fusion Frenzy is available on xbox one for download via backwards compatibility for 10 bucks, think Mario Party meets Tron)

Firstly, don't apologize. This is what the forums are for! Secondly, this question is out of my depth, but lets see if we can't clear it up a bit for the next person who knows more about C64. Point 1: all zipped roms worked with CCS64 and WinVice when launched with Maximus? Point 2: Imported the same roms into launchbox, but only a random number of them seem to launch through launchbox? Switching between CCS64 and WinVice gets the same results, with the same random selection of roms working and the the same ones not working? Point 3: You're using the same exact emulator that you used in maximus in launchbox (to rule out some kind of emulator setting) Point 4: when a rom fails to load, are you making sure the emulator closes down completely? Sometimes a botched loading will keep the emulator running in the windows processes and that can stop roms from loading. Point 5: Have you tried unzipping the roms and turning off extract from archive? Point 6: please provide the command lines you're using.

1: Yes, you can use whatever core you want. Under your system, go to the modules tab, select the retroarch module and then the button above that's "global module settings". At the window that pops up navigate to the system tab (if you're using snes, the tab will be called Super Nintendo Entertain System) and define whichever core you want there. 2: I've never seen that myself... you could try setting rocketlauncher.exe to run as admin. It isn't necessary to use Rocketlauncher with Launcbox. There are a lot of benefits to using RL, but ease of use is not one of them.

Nooo. On the contrary, for games like that you just want to create entries in the proper RL media folder named the same as the rom. In the above example, go to rocketlauncher/media/(fade,bezel,backgrounds, *whichever type of art you're wanting to use) and in that folder create /Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Legend of Zelda, The (USA)/ and pop the artwork in there. Rocketlauncher is picky about some file names but not others. For instance, when you're doing fade art in particular you want to make sure the background picture is titled "layer 1.png". The naming conventions are on the RL wiki. So in the example if I wanted to add a fade background to the legend of zelda, it would look like: rocketlauncher/media/fade/super nintendo entertainment system/legend of zelda, the (usa)/layer 1.png (ignore capitalization I'm just lazy typing) And of course, if you use non standard system names, name the system folder accordingly, and match the rom name from whatever set you're using. I do want to point out that a lot of media does sync pretty well between the two, but not all of it. And I saw some people talking about fixes to the launchbox plugin on the RL forums, so the issue might be in the process of being resolved. Pro tip if you're wanting to work in bulk, you can use fat match media renamer to name any artwork set according to your rom set. Once that's done, you can use files2folders (a little program you can download that will put every item within a path into its own subdirectory named after the item. In other words, it will put all your artwork in folders named after the artwork, which you've already named after the rom. You can plop entire correctly named sets in the correct RL folder this way. You shouldn't ever have to rename your roms. Launchbox handles plenty of different rom names just fine, and RL doesn't discriminate at all as long as your folders are named like the rom.

Using the Launchbox plugin for Rocketlauncher also lets RL autopopulate systems based on what you import into launchbox. So, if you had an empty RL and an empty launchbox and imported some super nintendo games directly into launchbox, the next time you open RL it will display those games and let you choose the emulator and all the bells and whistles for that system. Unfortunately, the artwork sync isn't perfect yet between the two. Rocketlauncher wants to use rom names, while launchbox uses database names. So if your rom name is "Legend of Zelda, The (USA).sfc" and the launchbox name is "The Legend of Zelda" nothing will display in RL Pause. So for now your efforts weren't totally wasted.

Glad you got it sorted.

Wait a minute. You should not be extracting mame roms. Make sure "Extract" is NOT clicked in the above menu.

I'm not sure if there is an easier way, but one way would be to first delete what you have imported. Second, use the pc game importer t reimport everything under "windows". Go to tools, manage platforms, add platform, and add the "steam" platform manually this way. Open your windows platform, and click edit on all the games that belong in steam. Change the platform to steam in the popup box and save. This should give you both platforms in the platform view.

I'm not sure if you can sort by controller type, but you can certainly build your own playlist. I'm doing it right now for lightgun games.

Sounds like you need to see Jack and get your money back from him. I'm assuming you at least paid him. Pay the developer next time.