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fromlostdays

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Posts posted by fromlostdays

    Joystick issue!

    in Emulation

    Posted

    I honestly don't know if the above works or not, as I haven't implemented it yet, because I'm concerned it might screw with my xbox elite controllers native bindings in other programs for which xinput is supported. Use at your own risk, in other words. But I do know that editing the controller names in the registry is the only way to get windows to not assign them names on a "first plugged in" basis. 

    Joystick issue!

    in Emulation

    Posted · Edited by fromlostdays

    I was just talking about something similar on discord and @JRPGod posted this:

    is why I run even my xinput devices as directinput in retroarch
     
     
    that exact problem
     
     
    I rename the HID device name in regedit and then create the profile thingy in retroarch for it as a directinput device, voila. I haven't tested it enough with xinput-only games to confirm it doesn't create issues with the controller not being named "Xbox Controller (360) Wireless" or whatever the heck the default name usually is though.
     
     
    But if you're interested, press windows, type in "game con" click game controllers, find the device name there (I used my cheap-ass Fightstick that I'm pretty sure was previously called "Xinput Stick #1"), hit windows again, go type in regedit, open it, Edit -> Find -> Controllernamehere and it SHOULd give you a hit at System>CURRENTCONTROLSET(important, we don't want to be updating the name of ghost devices) > Control > MediaProperties>PrivateProperties>Joystick>OEM>VID_blahblah_blah in the right side (main section), right click OEMName > Modify > rename it to whatever you want... reboot, and you should see your updated name in game controllers(edited)
     
     
    this then allows you to map to it "permanently" in retroarch directinput without any of microsoft's bs switching xinput "players" around or conflicting with other xinput controllers with the same name

    RetroArch (Player 2) Xbox One Controller problem:

    in Emulation

    Posted

    On 2/10/2018 at 12:37 AM, Maximilium said:

    But when I went to Quick Menu / Controls and assigned (Controller - Retropad) + (Type - Left Analog) for each player and saved… the 2 player analog stick started to work after.

    Just a follow up, this is the solution. For older systems that only used a Dpad on the native controller, RA needs to know that you want to use a joystick to simulate the D pad, and thats what this option does. It sounds like you might have also had some configuration overrides messing with the setting, but this is the setting you needed.

    Glad you got it fixed.

    Import roms

    in Emulation

    Posted

    There is no way to do this in Launchbox. You'll have to find another program to move the roms you don't want out of the folder, then import what's left, then put the unused roms back in the folder manually. If you can find or create an xml with only the roms you want, you can use Don's HyperSpin Rom Renamer to move the roms to another folder. 
     

    Questions re: hiding games

    in Features

    Posted · Edited by fromlostdays

    I'm not an expert here, but I don't think hiding games will give a noticeable speed boost. My limited rationale on this is that launchbox still has to parse the same xmls and sort through the same list of art assets and videos. 

    You can hide and unhide games on a per game basis. Just right click the game, and click "edit". You can use the audit feature to have more control over games you want to bulk hide/unhide.

    If you're a licensed member, what I did was to have two launchbox installs (since launchbox is portable). One, filled with everything I could fill it with. The other install is strictly for the games I actually play and/or want to play. Sort of a Best Of install. I handpicked games for that one and it runs like a charm. I use the latter most frequently, and only fire up the big one to show off or if I'm in the mood to play a random game.

    Edit: I think I just understood your question, you mean can you show a list of only hidden games? I don't think so. 

    • Like 1

    RocketLauncher use..?

    in Emulation

    Posted · Edited by fromlostdays

    I think his problem is that he's using just the xml to filter, but has a full set. Just like Launchbox, Hyperspin is reading the xml and ignoring the rest of the games.

    So, step 1. Rename the directory you keep your mame rom sin. Example, if its C:\Games\MAME rename it to C:\Games\MAME1

    Create a new empty folder named the previous way. So now you have a MAME1 folder with your roms, and an empty MAME folder.

    Use Clrmamepro or Don's Hyperspin tools (rom renamer), have the program read the xml and then search your mame1 directory

    Neither should have trouble finding the roms since they are named correctly, but I think both have an option to "copy the renamed files" to a new directory. You'll want to copy the 300 roms to the empty MAME directory.

    Once they are there, import that directory into launchbox and confirm that all of them import correctly.

    Lastly, just drag the rest of the games in the MAME1 directory back into the MAME directory and viola, you've imported your 300 games from the correct directory and your set remains complete.

    Edit: I just tested this with Don's HyperSpin Tools (Rom Renamer). I used my old hyperspin AAE xml and used the program to move just AAE roms from my main mame into a different folder, so I know this one works. You can download it here: http://hyperspin-fe.com/files/file/11125-dons-hyperspin-tools-43-beta-significant-rom-renamer/ Just bear in mind that you're using the exe called "Rom Renamer" and that when you point it to your mame directory, and again when you scan, you may have to wait a few minutes. Took almost 10 minutes for me to scan, as MAME is so big.  

     

    RocketLauncher use..?

    in Emulation

    Posted

    Long time Rocketlauncher user. 

    If you're not running multiple front ends, the useful of Rocketlauncher is dwindling  specifically because of launchbox. Other front ends still rely on it heavily.

    It's list of exclusive features used to be pretty comprehensive, including things like unzipping roms , rom mapping, and keymapping program organization. Launchbox now does all of this (though handling keymappers is the one thing that I think is easier in RL than in Launchbox). Bezels are now better handled by RetroArch (for systems that it supports), so RL Bezel is only exclusive for systems that have emulators that don't support it natively. RA covers a lot of systems, and well, so for average use it is the better alternative for bezels.

    Rocketlauncher can also introduce more problems to your setup. If you don't have or want to have at least a working knowledge of AHK, you'll probably run into some road blocks along the way (ironically, mostly with RetroArch). The RL Module that handles RetroArch is, as one would expect for such a comprehensive emulator, complex. I've had to edit it myself a couple of times now. Not huge edits, but an example would be that the RL module for RetroArch doesn't recognize the system name "Arcade", only "MAME". So I had to go in and edit the module (which is an ahk script) to include Arcade. Not too difficult, but definitely not something you have to do if you just use launchbox.

    It still has some exclusive features:

    Extremely customizeable fade screens. You can basically do anything you want with fade. It supports animations, so you can set it to display a progress bar for unzipping roms., animated loading screens, spinning discs etc. You can also have custom sounds  during the fade in. (Not for fade out yet, but I read the other day they are trying to implement it). Example, I found a soundbyte of a bunch of people yelling "start the game already!" and it plays when the fade in screen disappears and the emulator launches. It's actually annoying and I'm getting rid of it. :D

    Suspend Front End. You can have rocketlauncher suspend launchbox or any other supported front end when a game is launched. It frees up computer resources, however, I find this feature can sometimes cause launchbox to lose focus when a game is closed. I basically only use it for new steam games which are resource intensive.

    Pause. I think people understate how cool this one is . The Pause menu is  also completely customizable, but some of the things it can do: Pause any emulator any time, load up artwork directly from launchbox directories (Thanks to both Jason and the RL Dev for making these two programs sync so well), look at and zoom in and out of manuals, guides etc (my favorite feature), save a state directly from the pause menu or load one (it populates a list of states for you).  You can have it play game specific music, or a single default song every time, same with all of the art etc. It's pretty nifty and if you enjoying the actual setup of this stuff, it's pretty fun to mess around with it. 

    Multidisc screen. If set up, RL will display an interactive screen for multi disc games on game launch, allowing you to choose which disc to load. 

    Instruction Cards. These operate along with Bezels, mostly for Arcade games. You can have an instruction card pop up with extra information (typically people will use this for arcade key binding information etc.) 

    Another overlooked feature is the log viewer. You can set RL to make extensive logs on launch. This doesn't interface directly with an emulators logs, but once you get used to using them, it can be a very useful tool for troubleshoot emulators regardless.

    Automatic mount/dismount isos. I never use this so I actually don't know how launchbox or Rocketlauncher handles it.

    There are a few really niche things RL can do on a per system basis, but you have to find these things yourself most of the time. For instance, I use RL to launch exodos games straight from the zip files, which launchbox can't do. It wasn't easy to set that up though.

    In summation, there are some really cool cosmetic stuff that is RL exclusive and fun to mess with. However, it is a time sink, and is an extra layer where something can go wrong. You do not need Rocketlauncher to get the full launchbox experience, and launchbox is natively much simpler to use.  If you're going to hardcore build a cabinet and you're wanting to get the bells and whistles and go the extra mile, I'd recommend  learning RL. If you're a casual or even serious retrogamer that wants to set up it up quick and streamlined and get started playing awesome games, skip RL.

    That said, I'm here if you have any questions.   

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

      

     

     

     

     

    Universally bad Star Ratings for Arcade Games

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted · Edited by fromlostdays

    Over time the ratings will level out, like Monkus said. Typically the first people who are like "OH I CAN VOICE MY OPINION AND MAKE EVERYONE LOOK AT IT" are the ones with strong opinions.

    EDIT: you could have a discord channel of people who police bad ratings. Get about 20 people on board to 5 star games that deserve better. :D

      

    Launchbox does not import all MAME ROMs

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    And yet another possible workaorund. :D I think setting mame as the emulator on import is actually what triggers launchbox to do it's magic. I noticed this because I have rocketlauncher as my main emulator, and even if the system is named MAME or Arcade, it doesn't trigger the mame options. I've been importing random games under the arcade system like this without problem. 

    Launchbox does not import all MAME ROMs

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    Well there's some backstory to that. Launchbox used to scrape an existing metadata website, I forget the name, but it was really unreliable. So instead of giving up on the idea of scraping, the community and dev was like, we'll just make our own database, and have be doing just that, but its a huge undertaking, especially for something like Mame that changes. But launchbox can import anything. Some things just shouldn't be synced to the database.

    I hope it works out. Let me know how it goes. I know for a fact the above methods would work for pretty much any other system, but I can't be totally sure with mame. I'm one of those people that imported a set years ago, told launchbox to ignore like MOST of the roms and had no idea any were missing haha. I'm only slightly concerned because launchbox doesn't ignore stuff that isn't in the database for other systems, so I'm wondering just how special mame actually is.  

    • Like 1

    Launchbox does not import all MAME ROMs

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    You can update the metadata for just one system, or just one game. Select a system - mame for example - and control A to select all the games. Go to tools, download media and metadata, which will give you three options: replace all metadata, fill in only fields with missing metadata, or skip games with existing metadata.

    I'm a little confused by what you're asking in terms of importing. The database isn't perfect, but if you select a mame rom or Group of mame roms that didn't import, and then drag them into launchbox, tell it to add them to mame and don't sync them to the database, then they should import just fine. You can then right click it and select "edit" and try and download any media from there.

    If its too many roms to go through individually, you can delete all your mame games and reimport them all without syncing to the database. This should get them all in, then just use the tools option above to download metadata etc. I'm pretty sure you don't lose your media by doing this.

    You might even be able to just select your whole mame collection drag into launchbox, and import it again over the existing one. This time choosing not to sync. When the box pops up listing what is imported, it shouldn't try to reimport any existing games... so it should only import any that are missing from your current xml. (In theory, and I'm pretty sure I've done this before, actually, for a different system).  

    • Like 1

    Android Emulation

    in Emulation

    Posted · Edited by fromlostdays

    Honestly, I have no idea. I don't know that any run through launchbox. I'm sure it's possible, but it probably requires some command line or AHK. Sounds like a fun thing to figure out though. 

    • Like 1
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