fromlostdays

You can have LaunchBox display whatever you want for the boxes. I appreciate wanting to being able to switch back and forth from within the Front End, but its as easy as putting the images in the right LB directory, and refreshing them within LaunchBox.

I don't know of anyone who tests them all besides the emu developers, people on certain ...sharing... sites, and maybe big rom camps like Tosec or No Intro. However, you can be reasonably confident about a set if it has all the correct CRCs. I use a program geared for another front end for CRC checking, but I also think Clrmamepro has a CRC checker? I mean for more than just MAME. I'm not actually sure, but IF you're so inclined, and IF CRC information is in Dat files, you should look up CRLMAMEPRO and the website Dat-O-Matic. Alternately you could get a bonefide Tosec or No-Intro set, as those dudes don't play around. Or you could just not test (most people don't) and just replace any roms you come across. The problem is... most emulators do not have 100% compatibility, and I'd be surprised if older ones like Nostalgia give you a compatibility list. So if you go to launch a rom and it doesn't work, you should try it in another emulator first before tossing the file. Nostalgia, MESS, newer MAME, and RetroArch MAME/MESS cores are the only emulators I know that'll emulate intellivision. Edit: In terms of control its been years since I used Nostalgia, but just open the emulator and look for the control options. I assume you're using a keyboard. I'm pretty sure if you want to use a controller with that emulator you're going to have use Xpadder to Joy2Key to map the keystrokes to the controller buttons.

I assume you're using RL to extract the iso/cue... so 7z is enabled. The first thing I would check is that your rom and cue are named correctly, the same as the archive. Then open up the .cue in notepad and make sure the iso is named correctly in there. (If RL finds the zip file in the audit, but can't find the game at launch, it usually means the contents are of the zip are named incorrectly). There is also a setting called "Match Extensions". You would navigate to PlayStation under the systems, then go to the "Settings" tab, scroll down until you see Match Extensions and set it false. This setting eases up restrictions on naming. I'm assuming you have PS games launching in the standalone emulator, correct?

I've tried a bunch of front ends, and: I use both HyperSpin and LaunchBox. For me they serve different functions. I like tinkering, and my HyperSpin setup is an ongoing hobby of mine. If I want to show off to friends, I'll run HyperSpin. Main Wheel with over 180 systems. However, I also like actually playing games, and here LaunchBox/BigBox shines. I'll use a new PC game as an example. I just got a new game and I'm excited and about to Launch it for the first time. On the one hand, I wouldn't even dream of trying to hurry up and integrate it with HyperSpin before my first time playing it. In fact, it usually won't get integrated until I'm pretty much done with it and tinkering again. With HyperSpin, I'd have to set up the game in PC Launcher in RocketLauncher, regenerate xml, and then go about hoping someone has done some artwork for it, or its just going to be plain text on the wheel. (That isn't to say people aren't doing the art. They are, but it is a toss up sometimes). With LaunchBox its like two clicks, couple seconds wait while it searches and downloads assets, and then I have the game, art, video, and ready to launch. I won't go about saying which one looks better, because for me thats a toss up. I think they both look awesome. HyperSpin certainly gives you a lot more flexibility in how it looks, but for MANY people that isn't necessarily a good thing. Other perks of LaunchBox: Dev is active on the forum Some really good users on the forum who are always quick to help you if they can VERY easy integration with KODI/Bigbox For me, integration with RocketLauncher was a must For others, RocketLauncher not being necessary is a must Video tutorials which probably helped eliminate a lot of forum clutter Beta testing / constant updates

Ah yes. Depending on how you download / update, the RL team does add (example) to the end of certain files so you don't accidentally overwrite your own custom files. Glad you got it figured out. Let me know if you need anything else.

RocketLauncher just got a pretty massive update. I haven't updated yet, as I'm in the habit of waiting for bugs to get worked out. However, if you can't find a list of emulators here, let me know.

Yeah I'm not sure about AMD either, but my computer is a hand me down with an I5 and the ancient GTX 660, and I can play Wii and PS2 as well. The only time I see it struggle is if I ever tried to use a resolution higher than 2x. Specifically on N64 or PS1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Interactive

Here's a guide, apparently you can compress/trim/all around reduce the size of PSX, DS, even GBA. https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/3g933n/guide_reduce_the_size_of_your_ps2_gc_wii_x360_ds/ I'll be testing some of this out in the near future as I filled up my 4tb external just recently.

I'm on 5.9, just went and launched a few games, scrolled through some systems, and launched an exe through BigBox. No crash here. This is with my Xbox One controller. Do you guys need me to test with a 360 controller?

I5, internal SATA seagate 2 terabytes, 16 gigs of ram.... Anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds. I've never actually counted to be honest. I have a fade screen that shows a loading screen and zip progress bar so its cool for me rather than annoying. I was reading somewhere that theres a way you can turn excess ram into a temp storage for decompressed roms, and this may speed it up, and might even speed up emulation, but I personally don't think I need that.

For someone who wants keyboard support as well, yes, that does suck. It shouldn't take away keyboard support completely, by the way. You should still be able to use ESC... IF you press in your thumbstuck on the controller to enable hotkeys. The other thing to note is that you should have restored keyboard functionality if the controller isn't connected. Small consolation, I know. I don't want to use the keyboard so it never bothered me, but I can see it being annoying.

The MESS 2015 core does work, but I'm no longer sure where to find it. (You just need a mess bios pack). For ZX Spectrum by the way, you should be using the Fuse core.

How did I miss this! That is really awesome, holy crap. They say desperation is the mother of invention haha. Also, its REAL easy to miss the "Input Hotkey Binds" assuming you even bother to open input at all since the controllers work natively. In all truth I was tinkering and did it once, and then the next day couldn't figure out how I'd done it because "Input Hotkey Binds" is not an adequate title for the awesomeness of the feature. And I agree, it's freaking fantastic. I've used the mapping for A LOT of cores and you will run into some problems. MAME for instance. It has like native mapping for a few functions. One of the buttons for sure resets the rom, another brings up the MAME menu, even if the enable hotkey button is pressed, but I can't remember which one and I couldn't figure out how to change that. If you guys can, that would be awesome. I use standard MAME anyway, but I am a completionist.

There is another option for exiting retroarch at least. Since, you're using the same controller I am, I'll tell you exactly how I do it. Left Thumbstick = Enable Hotkeys This feature is absolutely great, as it allows you to map emulator functions over any button you want. So if I depress my left thumbstick Start = Exit RetroArch Right Bumper = Fastforward Y = Screenshot Right stick up and down = Scroll through cheats X = Use cheat A = Savestate Select = Load state (you'll want to map loading state to a difficult combination of buttons so you don't accidentally load state in the middle of a game. When my left thumbstick is not depressed, all the buttons go back to normal. Just go from the second RA menu down to inputs, and instead of clicking "User 1 Hotkey Binds" go to "Input Hotkey Binds". Bind a button to the "Enable Hotkeys" option, and bind the rest however you want, including exiting the emulator.

If loading time isn't a concern, I bought a little flashdrive and just unzip to there. I'm not sure if that works with symbolic links or not, though. I wouldn't use an SSD for that either. Better to have the front end (Launchbox) on the SSD for faster asset loading.

I should amend that I've also never had any problems with one or multiple 360 controllers connected. I've only ever had problems with the xbox one controllers.

In terms of controls, first and foremost its much easier to use Xbox controllers (or programs that simulate Xbox controllers IE. DS4Windows, Playstation 4 controllers). Comes down to personal preference, PS4 has better D-pads, but more setup. Both of these options can be sort of a pain on windows 10 (From personal experience.) With native windows support, either of these options will be plug and play with LaunchBox/BigBox (Front End), and Kodi if you go that route. There are also some emulators that are plug and play with an xbox controller on windows. This is important to me because I found that emulators that aren't tend to lose the keymapping (if mapped to the emulator itself) after extended use (computer sleeping, powering on and off, connecting other controllers etc.) However, this is going to depend entirely on what systems you want to emulate. If you're not trying to emulate old computer games, like DOS, you can probably find everything you need with only RetroArch and MAME, both of which support xbox controllers out of the box. If you can get away with just using these two emulators, you won't have to depend on keymappers, and this is both easier and preferred where possible as keymappers MAY introduce some latency and its just more stuff running in the background. If you need to use keymappers, Xpadder is the way to go. There's a backend program called RocketLauncher that will actually control your keymapper profiles for you (Launching a specific keymapped profile for each emulator, or even game if you want). However the set up can be quite difficult. Recommend avoiding keymappers if you can. Lastly, Xpadder itself has some functionality that I've never investigated, but it may be possible to have xpadder launch profiles along with an exe (say an emulator exe, or PC game exe) but I'm not sure if it works, or if the profile will close accordingly. It may be a viable option though. You can access the functionality within Xpadder itself.

Dude that is gorgeous. By far the best looking DOS covers I've seen.

Emulation 101 Conceptually, there's like 4 possible elements that you need to consider when emulating. There may be a few more for more complicated systems, but once you're comfortable with these four, you'll be well on your way to troubleshooting yourself. Roms (Every time) Emulator (Everytime) Bios (Sometimes) Directory Structure (Sometimes) Roms: The thing to consider about roms: 1: Can/Should they be compressed. For the majority of emulators, compression to zip or 7zip is not necessary. It IS necessary with MAME however. Your roms should be zipped. 2: Does the Emulator support the extensions my roms have? For most popular systems, this is hardly a concern, but it does happen. You could get a set of roms with an extension that only works in a specific emulator. If games are not launching through the emulator, you should check to see if the emulator supports your rom extension. (Note that for a compressed roms, the emulator will have to support the extension of the rom AND the extension of the compression method, 7z or zip rar etc.) 3: Bad dumps. They exist, but are pretty rare. It could simply be the case that your rom is bonk and you should redownload it from somewhere else. 4: Naming Scheme. Very few emulators care what your roms are named. MAME however, cares plenty. It will only launch roms that are named correctly. The good news is, I've never seen a mame set of roms available that wasn't, so you probably don't have to worry about this too much. NOTE: MAME also has a lot of versions as you noticed. They come out with a new version like once a week or month or something. Its... awesome... but tedious if you want to stay current. So with MAME you have the extra concern of whether the version of your romset matches the emulator version. Personally, I dont bother, and I'm not alone. The good news is that for the most part, newer versions of MAME seem pretty backwards compatible with older sets of roms. However, if a rom won't launch, this could be the culprit. I have a v151 set of roms I use with MAME, and I use the v170 of the emulator with no problems. (Then again, I've never even come close to launching all the games, so just be aware of this) BIOS: Some emulators require BIOS files in order to operate. MAME does not require a bios to emulate many many arcade games, but now that MAME has integrated with MESS, it does need bios files to emulate other systems. Worry about that later. In most cases, this is as simple as putting the bios file into the folder the emulator expects it to be in. That's usually all there is to it. Directories: As you get more advanced, you'll understand that pretty much any emulator worth using will have some kind mechanism to alter the directory structure, be in the GUI or in a config (text) document. Usually, this is a simple matter of setting the path. Most emulators will require paths to (roms, savestates, save files, bios) these being the most important. Mostly you'll be able to do this from inside the emulator GUI. One last note about directories, every emulator will have default directories for all of these files. With MAME, you may notice it'll create some folder after you run it once. At any rate, using the default directories will save you from having to change your paths, but it limits you in terms of where you store your roms etc. Understanding these core concepts will help you when you're watching step by step videos or reading tutorials. Naturally this is a gross simplification, but knowing this going in will help you understand what the tutorial is trying to tell you.

Step one: (For ALL FRONTENDS). Make sure you have your games and emulators working OUTSIDE of the front end. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. If you do, you might wind up wasting a lot of time trying to fix a Front End that works fine. Step Two: Figure out how your front end wants to import and store your games. For most of them, they will have an import process with step by step documentation. Launchbox does, see above posts. And for many of them, they'll want to save your games in an XML list. This is just a fancy text document that keeps a list of all your games so the Front End knows what's there. Step Three: Figure out how your Front End wants to work with your emulator. In the case of LaunchBox, it wants to do everything associated with the emulator including inserting the rom and launching. This is very convenient. So all that remains is figure out what LaunchBox needs to know in order to launch the emu/game. Again, see above. There are step by step instructions. Once you have at least one imported game, and one working emulator in LaunchBox, proceed to step four. Step Four: Joy. Repeat as needed. :D

just draw the line at the obvious crap that I know is crap. Definitely personal preference. I have a shameful amount of stuff I'll never play, and never want to. I think of it more like a showcase of things worth preserving. I absolutely cannot break up a rom set, haha. That's actually what got me here. I'd filled my other front end to the point where its, frankly, undesirable to scroll through haha, unless a friend or someone wants a history lesson. I do make sure that every system is set up for at least passable emulation, or in some cases as good as humanly possible. LaunchBox on the other hand, with it's ease of adding and subtracting from game lists, I only put in games I want to play, and it stays open on my computer. I also really enjoy opening up games from ancient consoles and computers. The thrill of seeing something I'd never see/hear otherwise overrides the fundamental suck of the old games, at least for a while.

Not to brag, but in my HyperSpin install I have 125 gigs worth of media. (videos, artwork, and themes) In my Rocketlauncher install I have 192 systems (not all running mind you, but easily over 100 do) and that total does include some dupes like "Atari Classics" which is just an Atari Manufacturer XML separated from MAME, for a total of 44128 games, which is half of what's in my xmls which total 84038. I have about 25 gigs of RL media. (game guides and manuals, fade in, fade out, bezels, game music, etc) Ok, I am bragging. :D This has been my main hobby for half a decade. When I started, I barely knew how to change the display resolution on windows.

I honestly don't know. Is there a way I can pass it along?

Update: Success! Unable to get the new MAME core to work without changing the name of my roms, I set out to get the old MESS core working in the newest RA. It works. Caveat: I could only get it to work through Rocketlauncher. I don't know why. Maybe it's because RL allows you to set the path right to the bios files. Or something in the RA module. At any rate, it works, and for more than just Atari. So, with the newest RA stable version The Mess core titled "MESS 2015 GIT" *When opened in RA. The actual filename is just mess_libretro A copy of some old mess bios roms Launching through Rocketlauncher The Mess core will launch just fine and without having to change any game names. For the record, the bios pack I have is in RA/system/mess (But I also had to point RL there in the module options). I am NOT using any version of hash files in the system/mess folder or otherwise. Just an FYI. This become sort of an obsession for me this weekend. Its not very practical as the MESS core is no longer updated, but it does work.