[RocketLauncher]

Rocketlauncher is by no means necessary for Launchbox. The Launches are surprisingly clean, actually. But there are a ton of bells and whistles that, if you're into messing with emulation as much as emulating games, like me, it doesn't make sense not to use it. As a launcher its really incredible. And the devs mold it around each individual emulator. For instance, I have over 100 different configs in my RA folder. RL automatically launches whatever config I tell it to with RA on a per system basis. Though I use the same core for SNES and NES, they launch with different configs. All I had to do to make this happen was name them differently. It might not seem like much but I juggle a lot of systems, and before RA, used to juggle a lot of different emulators. RL also doesn't just decompress a game. For instance, when I launch a PS1 game, RL puts a fade in progress bar on my screen to track the percentage, unzips the bin/cue onto a flash drive, if it is a multi disk game generates an m3u file and launches that through RA so I can swap disks within the emulator. It could delete the bin/cue/m3u file afterwards if I told it to. (I'm not very computer savvy but I wanted to spare my hard drive the writes and rewrites.) And I mean, yeah, I already have it set up, so why wouldn't I want to utilize it through LaunchBox? Having said that, I'm writing up a little tutorial on how to set up RL easily and how to integrate it with launchbox. Should I not post it on the forums? Integration is surprisingly easy actually. Going from having neither program installed to having LaunchBox using RL to launch a game takes less than 15 minutes.

[Shot in the Dark: Renaming Windows Controllers]

I figured as much as google yielded nothing I could use. There was some stuff about being able to do it through the registry but I don't want to take stuff like that at face value and follow steps if I have absolutely no idea what they do. It really only becomes a problem in a specific scenario (Its never a problem if its just me playing). But if a friend and I are playing say NBA Jam, pause and leave long enough for the controllers to shut off, it can get confusing when we get back if we accidentally turn the wrong controller on first. Anyway, thanks for the reply!

[Shot in the Dark: Renaming Windows Controllers]

First off, Launchbox/Bigbox keeps getting better. Have tested controller integration to the front end, to the emulator, and back using AHK script and it mindbogglingly easy and seamless. It even works using a Wii Classic and an xbox 360 controller at the same time. I only have one problem, and it has nothing to do with Launchbox, but I figure a bunch of intelligent people may be able to help. So shot in the dark: Mayflash Dolphin Bar will recognize 4 different wii controllers. However, in Windows all of the controllers are named identically. "Mayflash Wiimote PC Adapter". Now they work, but it can be quite a pain to scroll through four identical names, say within an emulator, to try to set player 1 vs player 2 etc. So the question is, is there a way to rename controllers in windows so that I can assign player slots to them easily? Does it even work like that, or is player 1 always going to be the first one you turn on? I can't tell because again, the names are identical. At any rate, thanks for any help.

[Seagate introduces 8Tb HDD for Consumers]

Its... beautiful

[My RPG is called Invention Destruction, come play and test it please!]

Is this still going on? Just read about it at work, but will be playing it. If you're serious about making games, and you have any photoshop skills at all, you should get the Unity Engine or Unreal Engine (both free) and take the plunge. The world does not have enough RPGs, but RPGMakerAce has some limitations that disappear in the other engines. The learning curve isn't that bad either, especially for Unity. Make more RPGS PLZ, and release for android so I can stop playing wooden block puzzle games all the time on my phone. :D

[What controllers is everyone using?]

RetroArch has a very handy feature that lets you remap buttons on your gamepad by holding down another button. In this way, holding down a trigger can change the X,B etc. buttons on a microsoft xbox controller from emulating A & B etc. to the C buttons. So for N46, PS1 1 & 2, PC, and a few other systems I use a wireless Xbox 360 controller. I also aim to have this controller control the front end. (I have a N64 usb, but honestly with the above feature, and once you get used to it, the 360 controller feels just as good. Maybe even a little better, but that's hard to say, as anything starts to feel natural after a while.) The D-Pad is the most interesting conundrum, isn't it? No one makes them like Nintendo. I've got SNES NES etc. usb controllers out the wazoo. I certainly wouldn't use the xbox controller for a Super Metroid playthrough (Though I have tried, I guess some things actually don't start to feel natural). I've tried logitech, madcatz, etc. Eventually, I settled on using a Wii Classic controller hooked up through wiimote connected via Dolphinbar, and it is worth it if you're playing 16 or less bit anything. Just this week I considered ordering a bluetooth dongle for the Wii U Pro controller, but everything I read seems to suggest its a pain to set up. I have no doubt that once I get around to it, it will be my controller of choice, though. I think we're fortunate that we can buy cannon nintendo D pads at all, and as my last order of business I'm probably going to buy a dozen or so of them, because I fear Dpads will become extinct. At any rate, hope it helps. Edit: Wanted to add, I've also gone the ps3 controller route, and I would recommend it over any of the logitech madcatz stuff for the dpad. But that's just me. Edit Edit: When in doubt about the realness of a Dpad on a controller, use that controller to try and knock out Mike Tyson on NES. The limitations become clear quick haha.

[Greetings.]

Thanks! But just to put it in perspective no one uses HyperSpin to launch games. What it does well is look and sound awesome, rom decompression certainly isn't handled by HyperSpin. HyperSpin calls out to either hyperlaunch or rocketlauncher (both designed by the same people) and require a lot of time to setup. Last night I had Launchbox gently holding my hand through configuration and after 10 minutes of scrapping, had a handsome UI to play games from. Launchbox: "Would you like to use snes9x, a highly recommended emulator for snes. I'll even show you the download link." Me: "Nah, I use Retroarch." Launchbox: "I got you! Here's the link in case you need to download it, also, its pretty much ready to go once you tell me where it is." Me: "Uhhhhh.... okay... that frees up my evening....." Launchbox: "Can I make you some coffee or something?"

[RocketLauncher]

Jason Carr said I'd chime in but unfortunately I'm not an expert on Rocket Launcher. I wish I was, because then I'd do a video on the whole thing and make a ton of people happy. If anyone wants to tackle that, I'd be eternally grateful and link it all over the place.

I've never made a video tutorial, but I'll certainly do a write up as soon as I have it working. SimplyAustin has a better personality and voice than I do anyway.

[RocketLauncher]

I do think Rocketlauncher and Launchbox is a match made in heaven. Rocketlauncher offers fade, bezels, pause, and decompression. If you're experiencing trouble with screen flicker etc. at launch, you have a bunch of options. The easiest fixes are to set to the emulator to launch in windowed fullscreen, set the emulator to launch the same resolution as your native desktop background, and turn on the fade. There are other settings you can tweak inside rocketlauncher that might help. I can certainly offer advice on the rocketlauncher side of things. Having said that:

AladdinSane said Yep, that is exactly what you do. Just follow the above directions. If you have any issues, let me know. I have RL setup for most emulators through Launchbox.

I'm new to launchbox. Is there any way we could make a step by step for integration? I'd even write it myself if I could get it working. Starting on the rocketlauncher side, in the UI, do you have to create another default frontend? Plugin settings? If so, do you have to re-add all your systems? I read about the command line, which got me passed one error but led to another, namely can't find systemname.xml in /databases/systemname/systemname.xml. In my case SNES, I put an xml in the rocketlauncherui/database folder, and one in launchbox/database/snes folder (spelled out, I'm lazy.) I appreciate any advice, and will help with any RL questions I can. Thanks!

[Can't start a SNES Game with the Retroarch Emulator]

Luftritter said Hi, thanks for your answers. I unzip some games and import them new in the launchbox and than I start them again. Now the result is a little bit different. In the taskbar I can see the retroarch, but the screen is freezed. I even can move my mouse. With Alt-Tab I switch to retroarch (now the screen is white and Windows try to close the app, cause there is no response. Thats all. I use the core: snes9x_libretro.dll

I may be stating the obvious, but what extensions do your snes roms have? You should try backing up and then deleting your snes9x.libretro config file (if you're running config per core) and/or the retroarch.cfg in the main directory, and rerunning retroarch. I've never had the issue anything like your above in RA except when A: I tried to load too many shaders at once, bad idea B: I set the video driver as D3D instead of GL and C: I tried to load a rom with an unsupported extension. Let me know what you find.

[How can I play Minecraft with Xbox controller?]

Tatts4Life said So I've been showing my kids all the old games I would play on NES, SNES and Genesis. My youngest loved it because she can use one of our Xbox 360 wireless controllers. She asked me if Minecraft would would with the controller. Of course it doesn't right out of the box which made her sad. I've tried looking and have found several things online but I couldn't get them to work. So I'm wondering does anybody know of one that works good with the wireless controller and Minecraft?

I've been playing Minecraft for a long time on my wireless 360 controller using Xpadder. I don't find it clumsy or difficult at all, and would recommend it. If you have any questions about xpadder itself, I can probably help there too. I also have minecraft for the Xbox One, and fyi, they just came out with a huge update for it that makes it pretty much on par with the pc version in terms of content, with the exception of the aforementioned mods. For a non modded minecraft experience on a xbox controller, either way works fine. Xpadder also has a feature that will autolaunch your button map profile whenever you launch minecraft, but I personally never use it.

[Greetings.]

New to the forums, new to Launchbox. In fact, I haven't even installed it yet. I happened upon it at work about 30 minutes ago. Needless to say, I can't wait to get home. Just thought I'd introduce myself, since I'll probably be on the forums a lot looking for answers. I've been building/using Hyperspin for the last 4-5 years, and Rocketlauncher since it was still called HyperLaunch. Obviously I'm a huge retrogamer, and I absolutely cannot wait to get started with this. Just by looking at the site I can already say thank you to the developers and also the users who seem to be about as excited as I am. Cheers.