suspendedhatch

I wont have time to read through this thread for a couple days, so I apologize if this has been discussed already, but my dream for LB would be the ability to have one set of game media files for HyperSpin, RetroArch, and LaunchBox.

Easily shared game and art media. I shouldn't have to have a duplicate set of artwork for each frontend, especially since it all comes from the same source (emumovies). So some mainstream way of easily importing art in bulk would be great. Bulk entering roms with autodetection instead of having to go through the wizard for each and every system.

I'm in California, the download process has been extremely slow since day 1. Torrents I'm able to download at 2mbps (11Mbps connection) but leaving LB on overnight only got me 1/4 of the way there so I cancelled it (torrents were all shut down at the time).

I have MAME merged no chd, the popular consoles, PS1 USA, GameCube, NeoGeo, Saturn, Dreamcast, Commodore 64 etc. Only the basic systems everyone has. No Wii or PS2 yet (I'd need another HDD). HyperSpin, LB (currently missing most of the art), and all the art HyperSync downloads. My 3tb is nearly full. Sorry if I came off negative. LB/BB is great. I'm just stuck since I switched systems and had to reformat my hard drive. I copied LB over to a flash drive but the artwork wouldn't fit. On the new system, I let LB download metadata overnight and it was only 1/4 finished the next afternoon. Most of the art is in my HS folder already, but I can't use it the way LB is setup (and HS). I have to duplicate everything or else go game by game pointing all the paths. So for the time being, I'm back to HS.

If you expect to keep all your roms, emulators (including the MAME software list) and artwork inside the LaunchBox folder, you're going to need a 3tb or larger SSD. And if you want to try other front ends, you'll end up duplicating all your roms and support files onto additional drives or else struggling with setting tens of thousands of paths individually and by hand. That is the price of FE's prefering everything to be inside their own application folders (frustrated!).

What point is there in having the option to bulk edit paths if you can't set them to folders? I'm also looking to have media files all separate from any frontend. All the media comes from emumovies, why should I keep multiple copies of it? I thought about doing it manually or writing a script to do it for me, but after looking at how the xml's are laid out, it looks like it would be very difficult to get it working accurately.

No need to wait for the next version of RA. The last one was released only recently and everything within RA has settled down for the most part and is working perfectly. The updates this year have been mostly unnoticeable to the end user. When it comes to updating the exe, you just download the new version and drop it on your old version. I highly recommend backing up your current version as suggested but even if you don't, there's not much to worry about. Maybe just save your configs or choose not to overwrite them. It's honestly not hard to configure at all. All of the comments from Jason appear to me to be based on 2-3 year old experiences (in terms of what emulators he recommends and how difficult they are to set up). All that's needed to make RA work is to get all the required BIOS's (PS1, turbo graphics 16 and a couple others). Then download the cores you want from within RA. I'm not sure how LB chooses which cores to use but I use RLauncher where you can set the core if you don't like the default or because you don't know what the default is.

You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. Is there any way to import roms for each platform and hold off downloading the art/media until after I'm done with all platforms?

What option in LB let's you sync up your artwork to emumovies? Like HyperSync. Sync database to the cloud doesn't do it. Not sure what that even is. Do I have to delete my platforms and re-import my roms? Thanks

All Nintendo, Sony, and Sega obviously. Including Game Boy, PSP, GameGear but not Pokemon mini, watch etc. Mame, Neo Geo, at least one Atari system. Maybe the 7800. Commodore 64. Re-use the NES version for Famicom, SNES for Super Famicom.

I don't see the option to change the image in there. Also, I would not want to change each and every game this way. That would be tedious and could be undone by a program update. I've noticed that LB prioritizes images in the Japan and European folders, but I don't see an option to undo that. For instance, NES 10 yard fight. Is the only option to delete those folders? I'd like to be able to view those images from within BB.

Mine just stopped working 1-2 days ago.

Like.

I wasn't being critical at all about the subscriptions. I already have the EmuMovies lifetime subscription since I'm coming from HyperSpin. I'm actually quite grateful that LB is leveraging the assets and artwork inspired by HS. The price for BigBox is similar to what I'd spend on liquor this month. So for the price of one dry month I get this evolved frontend that looks to be taking over where HS left off. Only bad thing is that a lot of the artwork/logos that work for me in HS don't seem to be working in LB. Famicom and Super Famicom especially, but also a lot of PS1 and even Nintendo boxes. I'm guessing that it's because the databases are still being sorted out. Now to figure out MAME and SSF...

Thanks! That's what I was looking for. Did you point all your folders to your HyperSpin folders or do you have two sets of videos and artwork?

I'm very new too, but it's easy compared to other frontends. There are video tutorials but here it is from the perspective of a new user. First you'll need rom files (games) that you've A) legally ripped from cartridges and discs that you own or B) downloaded illegally from the internet. It's taboo to talk about the B option so you're on your own as to how to do that. Next you need emulators. These are the programs that are game system specific to play games. Some emulators play lots of systems, ie RetroArch, MESS, Mednafen. I highly recommend RetroArch because it covers almost every system, they update/develop every emulator contained within RA, and it handles controllers for you consistently across every system. They're more or less plug n play. Then after you get most of the systems set up, go download emulators to run additional systems or for the features they offer. You'll need an EmuMovies membership which ranges from free for limited downloads to paid lifetime membership for all the artwork, game manuals and video previews. Then you'll need to pay for BigBox. Difference between LaunchBox (free) and BigBox is that LaunchBox is navigated by keyboard and mouse like an application and BigBox is navigated with a controller like a frontend. You use LaunchBox to set up games and emulators for BigBox, but then confusingly LB and BB each has their own individual option settings for how each program looks and behaves. (Makes sense but it seems like the programs should be merged.) Open LB and go to Tools, then down to Import > Rom Files. That opens a wizard that holds your hand through the process. You import one systems rom set, finish out the wizard and then wait about 8 hours for all the artwork to be downloaded. Then you wake up the next morning and do the next system. Open BB and hit escape and go to options. Play with the settings in there to get it looking and behaving how you'd like it. Then go play the games.

What about on the HS side of things? Anyone know? I think it will be problematic because of the different file structures. Or are they similar? I'm not trying to be lazy but I'm sure that most people here are coming from HS and I don't want to recreate the work if I don't have to. I can use that time working on setting up more systems in BB. Thanks

I have a nearly full 3TB HD on an old Core Duo. 3TB works out fine because it fits all the roms for the systems this machine can handle. I've been running HyperSpin for the past couple years with the lifetime memberships and have all the art that's available. I'm not to keen on deleting HS, but as I've been setting up LB I've noticed that it's duplicating all the media from EmuMovies into it's own program folder. Each system is taking half a day to download and it's eating up precious HD space. Is there a way for both frontends to use the same artwork files? Thanks

I agree with keeping them separate. I started with HyperSpin, and now that I'm trying LaunchBox out, I'm having to move all my roms and emulators out of HS. HS made this possible some time ago, but I never changed anything for fear of breaking it (HS is very temperamental). I could set up LB to refer to the folders inside the HS folder, but then LB would be entangled with HS. At some point I may separate HS and LB onto separate computers and put them into separate cabs. Ideally the roms and emulators would be on a separate drive networked to both cabs.