fromlostdays

February 11, 2020

Rocketlauncher allowed you to automatically launch a config that was named after the system and placed in the /config folder. At the time, it was really awesome.

Now, though, Retroarch supports custom configs on a per core, per game, and per directory level, so that RL system of managing configs is honestly obsolete. I loved Rocketlauncher, but you're wasting your time trying to keep those configs alive at this point. As stated above, you should learn to use the RA method of config saving.

It works like this where ">" equals "overrides"

Per Game > Per core > Retroarch.cfg

Step 1, open retroarch navigate to the options tab (second tab) go to "Configurations" and turn "Save on Exit" off, then before exiting Retroarch, navigate to the first tab, go to "Configuration File" and click "Save current config".

(What you just did was save a setting in the main Retroarch.cfg. You CAN override this setting on a per core, per game basis but this is a setting you want to apply to ALL systems, so you never should override that setting. Incidentally, this method of saving options to the Retroarch config is how you should save any settings that you want to apply to ALL games. There aren't that many settings like that, but Save on Exit (off) is definitely one of them.)

Step 2: launch a game for the system through launchbox. Go to quick menu, set your bezel, any other options you want to apply to ALL the games for that specific system. Once that's done, just go to overrides and select "Save per core override". From that point on, all of those settings will apply to all games that use that core. You don't have to use command lines or tell Launchbox anything. Retroarch will load the override automatically every time the core is launched.

Step 3: Optional: Repeat set 2 but instead of saving per core, save as a Per Game Override, and those settings will only apply to the game. And if you remember from earlier, per game settings override per core settings which override the Retroarch.cfg. In this way if you set a bezel and save it per core, but you want a different bezel for just one game, you would just launch the game, set the bezel and save a per game override. The per game override takes precedence over the per core override and thus the bezel you set will show on that game only while the rest of the games will still show the initial bezel.

It really is that simple. You might have to do the leg work again in terms of settings, but you can probably do it all in the time you've been trying to get those old configs to work.

One last thing, you may want to go ahead and move all of those existing configs out of the configs folder before you start. Clean slate. Don't have to delete them, but every time you save a change or override if the folder isn't cluttered you'll be able to see how RA is saving what and where.

February 11, 2020

This is the newest version of LB correct?

So the first thing I notice is that ALL of the cores have a status of missing. I'm not exactly sure how launchbox grabs that information, and that certainly doesn't explain why some systems seem to work and some do not, but try this:

If you do indeed have all the cores in your RA folder, move to the next step, if you don't, download them now. If you have multiple RA installs, make sure they are in the "cores" folder of the Retroarch install that is designed as the exe in the screen previous to Associated Platforms.
If you're using the newest version of LB, you should be able to click a drop down menu under "Core" for say gameboy, and renavigate to the VBA gameboy core. See if that missing message disappears. If it does not, stop here and report back.
Next, copy the command line for gameboy somewhere to a text document (so you don't lose it) and then delete it out of launchbox. This isn't the final solution, but I need to see if the games are launching with just the bare minimum correct setup.
Launch a gameboy game.
Report back.

February 10, 2020

Can you take a screenshot of your retroarch associated platforms tab for me?

February 10, 2020

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you're saying.

Basically, NES and Turbo16 launch with bezels and other stuff in place through launchbox, but gameboy color and gameboy.... do not launch at all? Or launch without the bezels?

You said you did this a long time ago now? Instead of using command lines to point to the cores and configs, you should use the Associated Platforms tab under the retroarch emulator to define your core, and once launching you should use the onboard retroarch overrides system to define system specific options. Check your associated platforms tab under tools, manage emulators, retroarch.

February 9, 2020

This is a tough question. The reason for keeping all of the cores is that one of the cores, even an older one, may have better compatibility with certain games. However, until you run into a specific game that doesn't work right and google search for that game, you won't really know, which makes this, in my mind, an easier question to answer.

Delete them, and if you run into a game that isn't running right, google it and see what other options are available. And at that point, you can always redownload a core. There's no real reason to keep things you don't need if you're low on space.

In terms of the Mupen cores though, I'm not actually sure which one has the best compatibility at this point.

February 6, 2020

Yeah, my own setup I keep every game (for every system) in their own folder, so when I posed the question I asked for the bat to take into account that directory structure. So you'll have to mimic that structure at least long enough to use the bat, but its easy enough to pull the m3us and games back into one directory if that's your jam. I'm glad you got it working!

February 6, 2020

I'm not sure what neatmouse is and I don't use an iPac, but if neatmouse is just a program you need to run at the start of a game, you would use additional apps.

Right click the game, click "Edit"
Go to the additional apps tab
Go to "Add Application"
Name it (Whatever you want)
Point to the neatmouse exe and check "run before main applacation".

That will launch the EXE before the game launches.

However, I don't think closing the game will close it. For that you will have to use an AHK (I think) and that's a little above my head.

February 6, 2020

On 12/8/2019 at 4:03 PM, mohanned85 said:

is it possible you can get it working with retroarch ha

Old topic, but just in case anyone comes behind, Amstrad GX4000 works in retroarch using the cap32 core. You just have to set the core option "model" to "6128+".

February 6, 2020

Do you have a full set, have you set the rom path in mame to the rom folder, and are you using the correct mame version for the romset version?

February 6, 2020

This is just a wild guess (I have no experience with this) but have you stored the emulator locally? If not, I'd try that, and try to launch the local copy of mame and point it to the cloud-roms and see if it launches, before I tried launching through cloud-launchbox.

February 6, 2020

The guy who wrote the code said something:

Quote

The batch file should be stored in Main Directory. Otherwise %~dp0 referencing the drive and path of the batch file ending always with \ must be replaced by full path of Main Directory ending also with a backslash.

I don't fully understand this, but I think I got you homie:

@echo off
for /R "[Insert Path to main folder here]\" %%I in (*.chd) do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

If you tell me the path I can insert it for you. Otherwise, insert the exact absolute path to the main folder with all your subdirectories, and of course remove the brackets. Remember this only works if the chds are each in their own folder, if you google "file2folder" there is a nifty little free program that puts every file in a given directory into a folder in seconds. You could then run the corrected bat and just remove the files from the folders and delete them if you like having all your games in a single folder.

I don't have CHDs but I was betting it didn't matter what extension the files were as long as it was expressed in the code, so I tested this by making a folder on my desktop and putting a random rom with a .tap extension inside it and changing the code to look for .tap. And yes, at this moment I do feel like a genius haha.

This is what the code looked like for me:

@echo off
for /R "C:\Users\Username\Desktop\New folder\Main directory\" %%I in (*.tap) do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

Inside that main directory folder I placed a single rom folder with a single rom in it and the modified bat created an m3u with that .tap rom inside it. So it does work. And you don't have to rename any folder to "main directory" or anything, just put the path to the directory that holds all the subdirectories of games. Just to be safe, put the actual bat file in that same directory before you run it. And that last slash after the directory is necessary in the code.

February 5, 2020

2 hours ago, The_Keeper86 said:

Can this also work with chds?

I gotta tell ya, I'm FAR from coding and/or programming savvy but I would venture a guess that it can.

@echo off
for /R "%~dp0" %%I in (*.cue) do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

I would try just changing the (*.cue) to (*.chd)

@echo off
for /R "%~dp0" %%I in (*.chd) do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

FAT:

@echo off
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir "%~dp0*.cue" /A-D-H /B /ON /S 2^>nul') do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

@echo off
for /F "eol=| delims=" %%I in ('dir "%~dp0*.chd" /A-D-H /B /ON /S 2^>nul') do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

I haven't tested this, can't as I don't have any of my roms in CHD format. To be safe, create a directory and then plop a single subdirectory with one or more chds in it to test and run the modified bat in the main directory.

In case you're not familiar with .bat files, you can just open the ones you can download here with notepad or wordpad, make the edit, and save it (good practice, save it with a different name).

Let me know if it works!

February 4, 2020

Batch file to Auto-Generate .m3us

View File

The new m3u auto generator for Launchbox is a great tool, but it also got me wondering if I couldn't create m3u files for every one of my Sony Playstation titles (including single disk games) and would that work in Retroarch? Something just appeals to me about the uniform file extension on import in Launchbox, and of course, if I wanted to launch games outside of the Launchbox environment I'd need some static m3us. I also wanted to have m3us with relative paths to the cue files, for simplicity sake.

So I asked on Stack Overflow and, not long after, some genuis had posted a working batch script. I figured I'd share it. I also tested whether or not single cue m3us would work in Retroarch, and it turns out they do.

Important:

Your games directory should look like this:

Main Directory/

[Game Name]/

[whatever name].cue

e.g Sony Playstation/Chrono Cross/disk 1.cue, disk 2.cue

The bat file should be run from the main directory
The bat file will name the m3u after the directory the cue files are in and place it in that same directory
The bat file will create m3us in every subdirectory which holds at least 1 cue file (it doesn't single out multidisk games as it is now, so be aware of that)
The bat file should work with any system provided it has the above directory set up and utilizes cue files
The m3us list relative paths to the cue files, not absolute paths.

So continuing the above example, I ran the file in my "Sony Playstation" directory, and within the "Chrono Cross" directory an m3u file was generated and listed relative paths to all the cue files in that directory and was automatically named "Chrono Cross.m3u" (after the folder name, not the cue file(s) names or anything else in the folder).

Lastly, the Stock Overflow user wrote a batch script for both NTFS and FAT hard drives. Apparently the code is different for each. I personally have not tested the FAT version as my drive is NTFS. If anyone wants to check the code, the user also left a thorough explanation that is absolutely unreadable to me. See here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60049048/need-a-batch-file-to-create-and-name-m3us-in-subdirectories

Hope it helps!

Edit Update:

Rednecked_crake provided this information below, and it might be helpful.

"

Late, but I thought adding this line before the for loop is helpful.

@echo off
del /S *.m3u
for /R "%~dp0" %%I in (*.cue) do for %%J in ("%%~dpI.") do echo %%~nxI>>"%%~dpI%%~nxJ.m3u"

It deletes any old m3u files beforehand. I found that if you ran it twice, it would just add the same lines again and confuse things.

"

Remember a batch file is just a text file so to edit it you can just right click it and edit it in text.

Submitter

fromlostdays
Submitted

02/04/2020
Category

Third-party Apps and Plugins

February 4, 2020

Oh wow. Yeah Launchbox should definitely not be changing the name of roms! Sorry, I was reading too quickly. That's definitely some kind of bug.

February 4, 2020

It adds the -1 because some media has more than one of the same type available. There might be 5 screenshots for a game so it will download:

Screenshot-1.png

Screenshot-2.png

Etc.

For use with Launchbox, there is no reason to delete this number, but the media will still work without it.

February 3, 2020

To answer your last question, not all games have media, or are even in the LB database. See below for explanation.

It should be stated that importing "Rom Hacks" probably means 2 things:

1: The Hacks are named weird. They just usually are, and Launchbox does a fuzzy naming match but it only works so well.

2: There aren't all that many rom hacks in the database. I know there are a few well known ones, but there certainly isn't media for every NES hack. You're better off using a default art (say a box) and just use paint to add the word "Hack" as it'll be a uniform look.

Lagniappe:

If you want official nintendo box art for the game the rom is a hack of, you need to name it right.

[Game Name] (Hack Name Region Etc.) all extra info should be in parenthesis.

Example:

Mario Bros. (Extra Levels) (Hack) (USA).nes

Scraping this as NES will make sure Launchbox recognizes this as Mario Bros. and scape accordingly.

Extra Extra info:

You can use Bulk Rename Utility to rename all the hacks very quickly, but from my experience some hack names are really convoluted and some don't even have the game name that's hacked, so this can become a chore. If you do however, rename as above, instead of importing as a different system "Hacks" you can import all the hacks into your standard NES system and they will all automatically be setup as additional apps if you check the option for that. Turn "Force Duplicates" off if you go this route.

I'd be willing to bet import is much slower when launchbox is struggling to make database matches because of the rom naming.

February 3, 2020

I've never used MAME for Sega Saturn either, and would also recommend switching, but I came across this in google:

It seems like you may have to specify the correct region bios in the command line? (I have no idea how to do this)

Because I don't use MAME, I'm not sure but I recall a few older Saturn Emulators required you to actually mount the disk (using something like daemon tools) before the emulator would run the game. I don't KNOW if Mame is like this, in fact I kinda doubt it, but it might be worth looking into.

February 2, 2020

Put everything where you intend to keep it and update the paths, etc. Then open launchbox, go to tools, manage emulators, double click Retroarch, and take a screenshot of both the "Details" and "Associated Platforms" tab, please.

We'll see what we see.

February 2, 2020

Bump.

There doesn't seem to be any documentation on how this is supposed to work or if any special steps beyond "Tick M3u Support in associated platforms".

I deleted a game entry from launchbox, Chrono Cross, and went to import roms / import files and scanned my Chrono Cross folder for "cue". It found both cues (for disk 1 and 2), and so I imported like normal. Imported disc 2 as additional app. No m3u either in the folder with the cues and bins, or in launchbox/games.
I tried again turning "combine matching games with a single title" off thinking that might have messed it up. It imported both discs (as expected), but generated no m3u.

This was all with my roms on an external so I:

Switched to my smaller build, and put the bins and cues in launchbox/games folder and repeated the above.

Still no joy.

Then I realized I was using the psx hardware core, thought maybe that one wasn't in the support list... changed to the regular beetle psx core. No change.

February 1, 2020

You're going to have to be a lot more specific. What games, what emulators etc.

January 30, 2020

I agree Retrolust's bezels look awesome. But yeah there's no magical shortcut (as far as I know, but thats not saying much). You'll have to apply per core at least, and then per game. I used The Bezel Project on my big build, which admittedly doesn't get as much testing so I haven't noticed. It would be interesting to try and reverse engineer how they accomplish having all the bezels automatically display, even with errors, as just putting the configs in a folder isn't enough. If you knew that, might be able to modify it to fit your purposes.

I'm just not that smart haha.

January 30, 2020

18 minutes ago, grim. said:

1. I downloaded this set of bezels and somehow got it working on a game. I understand if some bezels require manual adjustments to make them fit perfectly around the screen. My question is: is there an easy auto-fit method that I'm not aware of or does everyone just do it the old fashion way (adjusting height/wdth, corner rounding, etc.) until it looks like a perfect fit? If there's a shortcut for his, I'd love to know because I plan on installing hundreds of arcade bezels and it's gonna slowly kill me to micro-adjust all of them.

If you need to alter your screen, you only have to do it once (not necessarily an autofit but you can apply it to all your games at the same time), as you can make the changes and save them to the main retroarch.cfg (will affect all games), or a per core config (will affect all games that use that core), or a per game config. It looks like that bezel pack looks amazing, but will require you to manually edit the video screen and probably add a shader for the curve.

In terms of arcades, many bezel packs are 16:9 with 4:3 empty space in the middle so the screen will just naturally fit. I recommend looking for The Bezel Project as its the only resource I know of that will provide per game configs along with the bezels which makes them hands free, no setup on a per game level.

In terms of setting up the bezels you have, you can do this the same as noted above (per retroarch.cfg all games, per core, or per game). So if they are system bezels, you can just load up a game with the core (any game), manually select the bezel and do any adjustments as needed, and then under quick menu select "Save per core config" and those settings will apply to every game that uses that core.

January 25, 2020

I can't really help in MAME, but if windows recognizes each controller as a different controller, then in Retroarch you should only have to go into Input/Port 2 Binds/Device Index and change it to the second controller ID, and then Port 3 Binds Port 4 etc. That should cover joysticks, at least. In terms of track balls and lightguns, thats all over my head, but in RA it should work in a similar way. If they all have different IDs in Windows, it should be possible to map them all on per core, and then per game configs in Retroarch, but I don't know if its possible to map 2 different controllers to one Device Index (In other words, if a game uses a joystick AND a trackball for player 1) I'm not sure how to set that up.

January 25, 2020

Notice the same issue here, using Colorful. Funnily enough, it was AAE (and CAVE) for me, as I went and got some better logos. @viking Launchbox supplied the system logo for AAE initially (it was just a replication of the "Arcade" logo) but the png image wasn't in the AAE platform/ clear logo folder. I guess Launchbox was looking in the arcade folder and replicating the arcade logo from there... Any idea why placing a clear logo in AAE/Clear Logo (previously empty) wouldn't update on media refresh when using Colorful?

Thanks!

January 21, 2020

I'm not very savvy with networks, but just from my own general knowledge, I would certainly store launchbox locally, since the entire user experience centers around it, and because it's having to pull a massive amount of files; art, images, videos, xmls etc.

I would probably also store the emulators locally, as they are small in terms of space.

Roms I would think you could get away with over the network as all you're risking is a little load time.

But do take what I say with a grain of salt here. I think @DOS76 uses a network?

Profiles

Forums

Articles

Downloads

Gallery

Blogs

Posts posted by fromlostdays

Batch file to Auto-Generate .m3us