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fraganator

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Posts posted by fraganator

  1. On 9/10/2023 at 1:46 AM, W4rCh1ld said:

    Well ive gotta say that works an absolute treat!! :) Unzipping file after file back to back, no issues, once id added in the emulator and specified the file i wanted in the list, picking the correct file in zips that have 2 files in (which launchbox is sadly so bad at it simply mounts the wrong file 100% of the time, not even with 50/50 odds of getting it right. lol), skipping the launchbox link check and booting pre-cached games 4x quicker, filling a full 20gig cache and auto deleting the oldest automatically, keeping the one id check to be kept, and deleting the next oldest. Beautiful! I haven't been able to check if its completing RetroAchievement ID scans correctly (although i bet your right that it was this causing the issue) as the emulator im using doesnt have the ability to use them and Retro Achievements are undergoing all sorts of issues and changes on their end that Launchbox is a mess in that regard atm. So yeah thank you very much for what is possible the most useful plug in ive seen for lauchbox (my other favourite bring PCSX2 Configurator Next, which is also an amazing tool) that they should really consider adopting it as standard. Also what is even better is now with this fix even when replacing the standard 7zip file within the 3rd party 7zip folder with a full 64x 7zip install, (where lauchbox unzips work faster) is your cache manager DOES recognize this 7zip .exe / File too!! (Where im pretty sure it didn't seem to before, at all.) So the best of both worlds, (you may even want to mention doing this in your Install instructions as an optional performace boost. ;) ) .Now im super happy. Thank you so much for looking into it.

    Further to this i have now made the Archive Cache folder path to an SSD with a 200gig max size, making pre-cached boot times of large files extremely fast... i can only imagine what a NVME or even a Ram Cache could achieve. lol :D

    Thanks for testing and reporting back, and the supportive comments. Happy to hear it's working well now. I'll look at polishing the changes are putting out a new release soon-ish.

    @huh123 Sorry for not following up the M3U issue sooner. Is an M3U file being created but its contents are incorrect, or is the M3U not being created at all? Under the additional apps, does each disc have a disc number set?

    image.thumb.png.84ba9022083f5fd9e3782c9eac4e6960.png

    If you disable Archive Cache Manager (uncheck the Extract ROMs option under the emulator settings for RetroArch > Associated Platforms), does LaunchBox's own M3U playlist creation work with those games?

    In answer to your latest questions:

    1. Yes, that's the way to add multi-disc games. Archive Cache Manager creates M3U files based on the additional apps list, where one of the additional apps must also be the same as the ROM path for that game (usually disc 1). The M3U creation logic follows LaunchBox's own M3U creation logic as documented here. If the file is an M3U already, it gets treated as a normal ROM file - a future update to parse the M3U file and cache the files it references is something I've wanted to add, but haven't gotten around to yet.
    2. Games only appear in the Cache View if there's a game.ini file in the cached folder, which includes some metadata about the extracted / copied game. I'd guess that file doesn't exist, but it's unclear why it wasn't created.
    • Like 1
  2. On 9/8/2023 at 8:07 PM, W4rCh1ld said:

    No its not, just on an External USB HDD... so i cannot exclude that folder from being sync, but i did try replacing the folder with a fresh one from a new install, using your program in a completely fresh install, and even replacing the ThirdParty\7-Zip with a full current 64bit version of 7zip (which works fine with lunchbox as is and infact did make all the extraction work far faster, than the included base\standard version) but this doesn't link to your Cache manager... it would be great to be able to use a full 7zip install in you cache manager and add it in ourselves, like CHDman, DolphinTool and Extractxiso as it seems to be a better version then the one lauchbox uses anyway, and should help to avoid issues with linking to the default one? Maybe?

    Hi @W4rCh1ld - I believe I've found the issue. When a game is launched, Archive Cache Manager copies some files to the ThirdParty\7-Zip folder. Once the game has launched, the original 7-zip files are then restored. The issue in the logs showed those files were in use by another process. After a little debugging I think what is happening is LaunchBox is calculating RetroAchievement ID for the game in the background, which means the game is being extracted using 7-zip, and so the 7-zip files are in use.

    I've attached a beta version which doesn't replace the 7-zip files on each launch, but instead replaces them once when LaunchBox is first launched. Any calls to 7-zip be LaunchBox should continue to operate as normal (unzipping metadata, creating start-up and shutdown backups, and RetroAchievement ID scans). Please let me know how it goes.

    ArchiveCacheManager.v2.16.Beta1.zip

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  3. 55 minutes ago, W4rCh1ld said:

    Yes Mate, thanks for responding, its the lastest (non-beta) version of launchbox and the latest version of your Cache manager, from what i can tell is its failing to close 7zip? after its first use, as the logs say it is being used in another process. This tool sounds like its amazing for its use case btw. When the Cache manager is not installed, the unzipping function works fine, using the 3rd party 7zip built into launchbox, unzipping files back to back without ever giving a message, but what your application does of being able to choose the correct file in a zip and boot that is exactly what i was hoping to use it for which works very well. But then it gives me this glitch.

    events-2023-09-07.log 20.81 kB · 1 download events-2023-09-08.log 11.89 kB · 1 download

    Thanks for those log files, that gives me some info to go on.

    Out of interest, is your LaunchBox folder being sync'd somewhere, like Google drive or with SyncThing? If it is, can you exclude the LaunchBox\ThirdParty\7-Zip folder from being synced?

  4. 1 hour ago, W4rCh1ld said:

    So having spent way to much time trying to get this to work and to unzip more than one file before getting a a launch box 7zip failed message, from fresh launchbox builds, to replacing 7zip folders, unchecking and rechecking the extract file box... it seems there is nothing that makes it work for more than one extraction before braking and having to mess around to get it to work again. Is this still being maintained? as it looks like an update has broken something... can it be updated to fix this issue, or even better so that it can have its own full install of 7zip, much like CHDman etc and not reliant on the launchbox third party folder. Thanks. But for now i've simply deleted it as broken.

    Hi @W4rCh1ld Sorry to hear you've run into so many issues. Can you post the log files from the Plugins\ArchiveCacheManager\Logs folder? What version of LaunchBox are you using?

  5. Hi @huh123, thanks for the comments and good to hear the plugin is helping improve your LaunchBox experience 👍

    In answer to your questions:

    1. You're correct, if the emulator supports .chd files then there's no need to extract them first. The main use case would be if a new emulator popped up that didn't support .chd files, but your library contained chds. You might also use it to batch extract chds for transferring to a Raspberry Pi or similar, but even then I think most emulators on there have chd support now.
    2. If the emulator supports loading a game / rom directly from an archive then there's little reason to extract it first. The only real use cases are where an archive contains multiple roms (regions, hacks, etc) but you only want to play a certain version, or the emulator is picking up the wrong file in an archive (it has iso + md in the case of MSU1 patched games).

    Hope that clears things up!

    • Thanks 1
  6. 4 hours ago, Bobins said:

    Can launchbox read the *.gz files and if not, will it be a supported format in the future? Im asking as my PS2 games are compressed in this way.

    As neil9000 mentioned, LaunchBox doesn't care about the file type, it just passes the filename along to the emulator when launching. PCSX2 has support for *.gz files, so there shouldn't be a problem.

  7. On 1/24/2023 at 3:43 AM, faeran said:

    Yes, I can say that we are aware of the regional variants (for PAL and other regions) for the different platforms that use jewel cases. We do have plans to keep expanding out the 3D Model system to include them, so just stay tuned. No ETA on when we will get to it, but it's planned.

    Does that plan include variants, such as CD sleeves for demo discs, or double jewel cases (with dual spines)? An option to be able to select a custom case type per game would be awesome. My (physical) PSX EU cases are a mixed bag of wide jewel case, double jewel case, and regular jewel cases, where double jewel cases aren't always multi-disc games (Doom, Tomb Raider), and vice versa (Resident Evil 2).

    Is it possible for an end user to create a custom 3D case?

  8. 12 hours ago, C-Beats said:

    I don't have any plans on making those available to the interface as I'm not sure I see the point, but I could be convinced otherwise if you have a use case that makes sense.

    There was mention earlier in the thread of a plugin idea for checking hash results and missing titles, which might be expanded to a more general purpose RA auditing tool. For example being able to clear hashes and have LB rescan (due to updated ROM set, RA hashing fixes, etc).

    It might be a useful feature to add to my own caching plugin, so on extraction of 7z files it could calculate and populate the hash during the caching step if it hadn't already been hashed.

    Also the RetroAchievements Badge plugin would probably benefit from being able to access the hash / id, so could display a badge if those properties have been set.

    (Edit: I see the beta includes RA badges, so this might be kinda moot)

    I'll admit I haven't really used RetroAchievements until this beta release, but so far it's kinda cool. There's probably other cases where having plugin access to the RA properties might be useful. That said, I understand if those properties aren't something that should be exposed.

  9. On 2/14/2023 at 3:50 AM, faeran said:

    Beta 2 is out with the following:

    • Fixed: Platform Icons should now scale more elegantly for users with custom DPI settings

    Looks good here, thanks.

    Will there be plugin access to the RetroAchievementsHash and RetroAchievementsId properties in IGame?

    Is there an option to disable auto hashing of games when selected in LaunchBox, where they haven't previously been hashed? For platforms (especially disc based ones) where ROMs are in 7z format, every selection begins extracting it to the Metadata\Temp folder. If many different (or the same) games are selected in quick succession, multiple instances of 7z.exe are spawned, using up CPU and slowing LB down:

    image.thumb.png.266e1371f6846c50d886c898021e7a05.png

    Also if LaunchBox is closed / killed while these spawned 7z.exe instances are running, they aren't aborted when they probably should be.

  10. Regarding the RetroAchievements file hashing, is there an option to force rehashing of an individual game, platform, or all games? Or maybe an option to reset the hash so the next scan computes a new hash?

    Similarly is there a way to force a rehash of games which failed to hash correctly? (those tagged with <RetroAchievementsHash>COULDNTFILEHASH</RetroAchievementsHash>)

  11. v2.16 is now available (link). This release includes:

    • New M3U name option - "Disc 1 Filename"
      • Always use the filename of the first disc of a multi-disc game for the m3u file, regardless of which disc was launched
      • Allows better support for The Bezel Project config files, which use config files based on the ROM name
    • New batch caching option to pause on caching errors (default is to skip and continue)
    • Minor config window tweaks

    Thanks @MTyrealhanla and davis-junior for submitting the latest feature requests.

  12. 19 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

    I just tested myself and can confirm I am getting the CUE file correctly so there probably something else going on.

    Thanks for investigating. I'm at a bit of a loss here - I tried repacking the bin+cue files in 7z rather than zip, and that does hash correctly (after the temp extraction). I then tried recreating the zip file in case that was the problem, but no dice. For completeness I tried importing the bin file rather than the cue, and that hashes correctly too, so it's not a bin / cue issue. It seems to be a problem with zip files specifically, though zip files for other consoles (such as Sega Genesis) work fine :/

    For reference I'm testing with Doom (USA).zip for the Sony PlayStation, which contains cue + 8 bin files. Any idea if the app Is using the hashing functions in the rcheevos / rhash library? Maybe I'll find some clues in there.

  13. 32 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

    Typically this is caused because the app we use from RetroAchievements fails to read the file properly. This can either be caused by an error in the app, or the file not formatted in a way the app expects. It typically has more to do with the data in the ROM than the file extension from what I've seen.

    Thanks for the info. I found if the zip was extracted and the cue file imported to LB, the hash is calculated correctly. Similarly if the game is converted to chd and hashed, it works. Maybe the app is picking up a bin file instead of the cue file from the zip.

  14. The new sidebar platform icons are really nice - is it possible in the theme to enable pixel snapping for the icons? Depending on window size and the item row, some icons are sharp while others are blurry. For example here's the Sony PlayStation icon, with the original png on the left and how it appears in LaunchBox on the right. It'd be nice to keep them looking sharp and retain their detail.

    lb-platform-icon.thumb.png.07c8918756e7ddd242a1c7befe436e8b.png

    • Like 1
  15. There looks to be a bug with the on-the-fly hashing, where one game will begin extracting multiple times. In my case I have a PS2 game in 7z format. If it hasn't previously been hashed and I select it in the LB interface, a background process is started which extracts it to Metadata\Temp\{GUID}. If I quickly select a different game, and select the same PS2 game again (while the first extraction is still going), LB will begin another hashing process, extracting the game again to another GUID folder. If this is done quickly, there can be upwards of 5 or 6 extraction processes running for the same game, which uses up a chunk of CPU.

    I've found zip / 7-zip disc based games (PS1, PS2, etc) don't produce a valid hash and instead are listed as COULDNTFILEHASH in the platform xml file. Do they need to be a certain format?

    In instances where the hash fails, can LB fall back to the title matching method?

    • Like 1
  16. Version 2.15 has been released!

    This version includes a new on-the-fly redump iso to xiso conversion option for Microsoft Xbox games.

    The original rom file (zip or iso) won't be modified when converting to xiso. The rom is extracted or copied to the cache first, and that copy is then converted to xiso format. The resulting .iso.old copy from the cache will then be deleted. The xiso file in the cache will then be used when launching the game.

    After installing the v2.15 update, download extract-xiso and place the exe in the LaunchBox\Plugins\ArchiveCacheManager\Extractors folder. In the Archive Cache Manager config, add your Xbox emulator on the Extraction Settings page, and check the box in the extract-xiso column on the right. Also make sure the emulator has the Extract ROM archives before running option checked in the LaunchBox emulator settings.

    https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/7381808/207377488-a9e942f2-e1ee-42bf-870d-82827efa0d92.png

    (thanks to @ErAzOr and @MattSidney for the suggestion on github)

    • Like 2
  17. 5 hours ago, Kronos9294 said:

    Can someone tell me if there's a bug in which when you put launch path - Platform it makes two copies of the chd one in default path and one in platform path.

    Hi @Kronos9294

    When Launch Path is set to Platform, the archive is first extracted / copied to the cache. Once it's cached, the Platform path is created. A hard link is then created within the Platform folder to the cached game. In File Explorer this looks like there are two copies of the game, but in the file system itself there's only one copy of the game but with two links to it. The decision to use hard links means only one copy of the game needs to be in the cache, but can be accessed from different paths without the overhead of copying (large) files.

    When another game is launched on the same platform, the previous hard links in the Platform path will be removed (the original game will remain cached), and the new hard links created. If the original game is launched again, it is already cached so only the hard links need to be updated.

  18. Hi @MontyMole

    NTSC is probably the way to go. The 60Hz rate looks good on modern TVs, and doesn't require 50Hz to 60Hz resampling. Technically the NTSC format is lower resolution than PAL (480 lines vs 576 lines), but I don't think many PAL releases took advantage of the higher resolution, and instead opted for black bars. So though PAL is higher resolution, the end result looks smaller on screen because of the bars.

    The only real factor to consider is regional differences between games. I grew up with EU / PAL games too, and prefer playing the PAL versions of certain games because that's what I remember. Things like music or voice acting can differ between regional releases. If there are any favourite games you remember playing in PAL format, it might be worth keeping both versions around (unless the NTSC one is obviously better).

    What file format are the Saturn games in? If they're a zip or uncompressed cue+bin, you can reduce space by converting them to chd.

  19. Version 2.14 of the plugin is now available (download here). This version adds a Batch Cache Games feature, available in the right-click menu.

    The batch caching feature allows multiple ROMs to be extracted or copied to the archive cache at once, ready to be played later.

    batch-cache.thumb.png.8926c935500323778f1ca65f25d74ffb.png

    In my case I have LaunchBox setup on a laptop, with the game library stored on a NAS. This is great for playing at home on the couch, but sometimes I want to bring some games to a friend's place. Bringing the laptop isn't a problem, but all the ROMs are on the NAS and can't be (easily) accessed from elsewhere.

    With the batch cache feature, a selection of ROMs can be easily cached on the laptop. The same LaunchBox setup can still be used when disconnected from the NAS, and without needing to make any changes to ROM paths. Provided the plugin's Always Bypass LaunchBox Path Check is enabled, games will be launched directly from the cache.

    • Like 1
  20. 46 minutes ago, poodadoo said:

    Follow up question: Does this only work with multi disc games that are stored outside .zip files?  My auto m3u creation is creating the m3u with (Disc 1).zip, (Disc 2).zip, etc... It feels like I have to store them uncompressed to get it to work.

    It depends on the emulator (I think standalone mednafen supports m3u with zip) but in general yes, m3u works best with uncompressed zips, or with chd compressed ROMs.

    If the multi-disc ROM files are zipped, you can use the Archive Cache Manager plugin (full disclosure - I'm the author). It will auto extract all the zip files in a multi-disc game, and then generate an m3u file pointing to the extracted files.

    Another option is to extract the zips, then convert the resulting cue+bin to chd using chdman. You'd then need to update the game(s) in LaunchBox to point to the chd files. The LaunchBox generated m3u would then contain the chd files, which can be read by most emulators.

    Another option again is to extract the zip files, and manually create an m3u file which contains the filenames of the extracted cue files of each disc. The game in LaunchBox can then be updated to point to the m3u file. When the game is already configured with an m3u file, an m3u won't be automatically generated, and is instead passed directly to the emulator.

  21. I'm not sure if an existing Additional App can be converted to its own game entry, but you can import the Japanese version of the game again. When importing it a second time, check the Force importing duplicate games option and uncheck the Combine ROMs with matching titles into a single game option.

    image.thumb.png.2449217f0191e613cc87e68d60bc6ee2.png

    Once imported, it should appear as its own game entry. You can then remove the Japanese version from the additional apps of the original Super Mario Bros. 2 game.

     

    • Like 1
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