SpaceMidget75

Just to let you guys know that I'm pretty sure the Platform Sidebar issue is related to the play count caching bug I documented here.

Unfortunately those tickboxes only affect how the rom path format, not where is should be placed. I could fall back to using MAME directly if I have to but I'm surprised LB hasn't gone the "attribute" route yet as it will give it all the future flexibility it needs and can replace those check boxes at the same time: %fullpath% %romname% %foldername% That way all you need is to specify either in the default command line section or the platform specific one, something like the following: -fullscreen -rompath="%fullpath%" -someother=setting It could be toggled on or off with a "Use ROM attribute" checkbox which would then disable the other rom formatting checkboxes.

Hi, So, here's the thing. I like to use RetroArch wherever possible, as I'm sure many do as it keeps the interface common. The MAME Retroarch Core replaces the old Mess core for home systems which is fine and it works well outside of LB. The problem is that to use either the MAME (or old MESS) cores, the MAME/MESS parameters need to be put in their own set of quotes - so they are essentially passed to the Core as a single parameter - and this also includes the ROM path unfortunately. Take this example: retroarch.exe -L "D:\Games\Emulators\RetroArch\cores\mame_libretro.dll" "a5200 -cart \"[PATH TO ROM]\" " That extra quote at the end is causing the problem. Retroarch.exe has its personal parameters: -L "[CORE TO USE]" and the core has ITS parameters (that have to be in quotes): "a5200 -cart \"[PATH TO ROM\"" Launchbox always adds the ROM PATH to the end so I can't see how to get it to fit within here: \"[PATH TO ROM\"" Note: The forward slashes are required so that RA knows you have quotes within quotes. Is there a way around this or does LB support %RomPath% or something along those lines? I'm surprised this has been an issue yet? Maybe a feature request?

Awesome. Thanks buddy.

Hi, For some reason my Neo Geo Pocket Color platform has the database fields populated (CPU, Manufacturer etc) but is missing the two default images - Platform & Clearlogo - as well as the Notes. Where can I get this information from?

CopyMAMEExtras - Copy only Launchbox filtered Roms, Parents & Extras View File This utility will take the full sets of MAME Extras (snaps, titles etc) & ROMS and copy only the ones that exist in your Launch Box database (Arcade.xml) to the folders you've specified. It essentially allows you to keep your complete MAME sets elsewhere and create a smaller subset for use with Launchbox. LaunchBox Although using the Copy ROMS option in the Launchbox importer will physically copy the ROMS based on the filters you've selected it won't currently copy the required parent ROMS too, so some games won't run. It also can't bring over the "official" MAME Extras into Launchbox. CopyMAMEExtras has options to handle both of these. Lightspeed Currently Lightspeed does not provide the option to copy only the files needed for the filtered ROM set to a new location. CopyMAMEExtras will also handle this. To Use for Extras Browse to Arcade.xml Browse to the sources for the Extras you want to transfer. Browse to the target location which will usually be your Launchbox Images and Videos folders for your Arcade Platform. Tick the types you want to transfer e.g Snaps and Titles. Tick TEST MODE if you want to just test a transfer without copying. Click Copy To Transfer ROMS or required parent ROMS Browse to the source of your MAME ROMS. Browse to the target for your MAME ROMS which will be your chosen LaunchBox location for the ROMS. Browse to the "listxml" MAME xml file (This can be extracted from MAME64.exe but I've included one for .181 in the download) Tick TEST MODE if you want to just test a transfer without copying. Click either Copy ROMS or Copy Only Parents "Copy ROMS" will copy ALL the ROMS listed in Arcade.xml including the required parents. "Copy Parent ROMS" will only copy the required parent ROMS. NOTES!! This was knocked up very quick so forgive any bugs. It works fine for me and there are no delete or move functions in the code so it shouldn't be a problem, but it's best I put the caveat in place. If you use this with Lightspeed AND use the "Copy ROMS" option of CopyMAMEExtras, you will need to edit the Arcade.xml afterwards and do a find|replace to change to the new folder location. It's not multi-threaded yet so it will appear unresponsive whilst it works (Sorry!) When it's finished, a log will appear in the large box. Submitter SpaceMidget75 Submitted 01/20/2017 Category Third-party Apps and Plugins

Hi. I've finished the Copy tool and created a post for it here: http://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/35254-copymameextras-extras-roms-parents-transfer-utility/ This should allow people to create a subset of their full MAME set by copying the ROMS and Extras to the folders of your choice. (Until @Antropus adds it to Lightspeed )

I've written a utility to do this if you're interested? It will scan the arcade.xml and copy the relevant snaps, titles, cabinets, marquees and videosnaps to the folders of your choice. It also scans the imported roms folder, checks if it needs a parent rom and copies that to the folder with your filtered roms. This part was designed to be used with the standard LB importer when you've used the "Copy Roms" option as it doesn't copy any relevant parent roms with the clones. It wouldn't take much for me to change this to a) use arcade.xml instead and b) get it to copy the listed rom as well as the parent. That would make it fully compatible with Lightspeed. Obviously I need to tidy it up a bit as I wrote it for myself one evening - hardcoded paths etc!

Update: It's almost definitely a bug of some sort. I can remove the brackets by simply going into the edit screen of a game and clicking OK*. I've checked/compared the XML, and the ONLY thing that changes is the ModifiedDate field. I'm guessing this is some sort of caching issue then. * Likewise, I've been fixing them by selecting all in a Platform, doing the bulk edit and re-setting the Platform (just so that something is set). EDIT: YEP! Deleting the cache folder, fixes the problem!

One last image as it may help Jason (if it is a bug). This one shows just Atari 2600, ordered by Title, with the consistent brackets stopping midway in the D's - BUT, I just played Cosmic Ark to test, and even after a restart of LB, the bracket hasn't incremented to (1) despite Play Count field now showing 1. Despite this, the brackets do seem to symbolize Play Count (at least from a certain point in time!) because if I order it by Play Count it's obvious it's the ones I have in fact played the most. There's also a screenshot of the sporadic ones from further down the games list.

Hey @SentaiBrad, I have to support software I write too - no such thing as a dumb question when users are concerned! Yes, I've restarted many times and changed to a number of different sort orders. Interestingly, it's shows brackets consistently (mostly 0s apart from the one's I have played) until half-way through the D's and then becomes more sporadic as shown here! Very odd.

Running version 7 although not sure which build it started on, but I get this in the image attached. The brackets are not in the xml and the roms aren't duplicated. EDIT: It's appears to be play count, from when I ordered it by play count. The problem is, I've changed the view order and the brackets have remained. Any fix?

Hey. Thanks. Not to worry. I've just knocked up a quick app that scans the mame dat for any of my filtered roms that require a clone and then copies it over. It added about 300 more roms for a total of 3000 self contained games which won't be affected by my huge mame set being kept updated once a month and saves a bunch of disk space. It's also copies only the required snaps, titles, videos etc

I have all my complete sets for MAME and other collections on a removable drive and just have my selected/filtered ROMs for all systems on my actual gaming PC, and thus LB. Therefore, adding them to the ini isn't an option, so I either move the whole set onto my PC (I'm OCD ), write an app to find the parents and copy them, or submit a ticket.

Hey @DOS76 That's what I'm trying to avoid - having the entire MAME set on my active hard disk. I thought the point of having LB filter and copy the ROMS was to create a subset. If I still need to point to the complete set, I'm not sure what the point is? I thought Brad mentioned in the MAME import thread that the importer knows to import the additional required zips. So for 1941u.zip, it should also copy 1941.zip.

Hi, I've run the MAME import wizard from fresh using a complete 180 split set and MAME version 180. I selected the defaults, skip clones and prioritize North America. It's copied over 2766 rom zips to my LP Games folder. The problem is that a bunch of them, 1941u.zip for example, require a parent ROM that hasn't been copied over? I thought it was supposed to also copy the required ROMs in a split set but only add the filtered choices to the database? Thanks

I've noticed that if you redo the Download Images/Media feature it re-downloads the ones you already have, creating duplicates. Is this correct? Surely it would be better to only download the missing ones and/or any new media that has been added to the online services?

I was looking at writing a little util that will copy the roms, extras and videos, that make up the exported list, from their original locations to a new location and then modify the paths to the new location (I'd like my full MAME downloads completely untied from LB or various reasons). However, I'm a bit confused about the XML schema. This is not necessarily Lightspeed related but I was wondering if @Antropus or @SentaiBrad or someone else could explain it to me: Each platform has a bunch of folders elements like so: <VideosFolder>D:\Data\Games\MAME\VideoSnaps\videosnaps</VideosFolder> <FrontImagesFolder>D:\#TEMP\MAMETEMP\ExtrasExtracted\titles</FrontImagesFolder> <BackImagesFolder>D:\#TEMP\MAMETEMP\ExtrasExtracted\cabinets</BackImagesFolder> <ClearLogoImagesFolder>.</ClearLogoImagesFolder> <FanartImagesFolder>.</FanartImagesFolder> <ScreenshotImagesFolder>D:\#TEMP\MAMETEMP\ExtrasExtracted\snap</ScreenshotImagesFolder> <BannerImagesFolder>D:\#TEMP\MAMETEMP\ExtrasExtracted\marquees</BannerImagesFolder> Only the MAME one, via Lightspeed, is filled out - all the other platforms are blank. There is also a set of <PlatformFolder> elements which seem to contain the same sort of info: <PlatformFolder> <MediaType>Box - Front</MediaType> <FolderPath>D:\#TEMP\MAMETEMP\ExtrasExtracted\titles</FolderPath> <Platform>Arcade</Platform> </PlatformFolder> <PlatformFolder> <MediaType>Box - Front - Reconstructed</MediaType> <FolderPath>Images\Arcade\Box - Front - Reconstructed</FolderPath> <Platform>Arcade</Platform> </PlatformFolder> <PlatformFolder> <MediaType>Box - Back</MediaType> <FolderPath>Images\Arcade\Box - Back</FolderPath> <Platform>Arcade</Platform> </PlatformFolder> So my questions are: Why are only the Arcade folders filled in, yet all the other platforms are also showing images fine? Why have these folders at all when there's an entire section dedicated to the same info? Isn't this duplicating? Thanks

Just thought I'd chime in so that others are aware, but this happens to me all the time too and has done across multiple versions of RA. As with @DOS76, it doesn't appear to effect my gameplay (I wonder if this is down to how powerful the PC is), but it's interesting that it doesn't happen to everyone. I thought it was normal RA behaviour! EDIT: Using an XBOX One controller - wired direct to the PC.

Wow! What was your job on the movie if you don't mind me asking? I was a HUGE Godzilla and Kong fan as a kid, but so far none since the 80s have really hit the spot for me. Godzilla (1998) - I actually really enjoyed this one (I know, I know). Great cast, nice and over the top with plenty of Godzilla, BUT he should never have been portrayed as the bad guy for the USA to kill and cheer about. King Kong (2004) - Not bad, but FAR to long and drawn out. Rapport between lead characters (and Kong himself) wasn't great, but those T-Rex fights were brilliant! Godzilla (2014) - Was he even in it? Apologies for going OT.

Thanks @SentaiBradBrad, I'll switch over. Cheers, @lordmonkus, I can run it fine so I'll give bsnes a go. I had downloaded the snes9x_libretro core and switched to that because snes9x_next_libretro doesn't exist anymore it seems.

Hi, I've updated every core in RA, downloaded the latest version of RA and updated all cores again but I can't find snes9x_next_libretro.dll. It's not in my cores folder and as that's the default core LB sets up, SNES games aren't loading. I've Googled it and can't see any reference to RA having renamed or removed this core. Any ideas?

Good job! Quick question, when it's time to give this a try, what do we have to do regarding the existing mame data we have in LB? With the last version, as we discussed, when I tried to update it and change Flyers to Titles it didn't work and I had to clear image data from LB (which then deleted my mame artwork). Also, Do you happen to know what systems aren't emulated by MAME (MESS) very well and should still use dedicated emus or RetroArch? I'd like to move almost fully over to Mame at some point (although possibly without Software lists as they aren't very complete yet). Probably too much of an open ended question so apologies, unless you have a link that gives a reasonably good playable status of each system within MESS. Thanks for the hard work.

List seems perfect dude and thanks for working on this again! I know what it's like working on evening projects and finding the motivation to continue work on them once the spark has been lost, so well done. (As we discussed at length, my 'lil feature request would be if you could have an option to specify a folder which will then copy the filtered images to that folder and point LB's XML to them instead of the source MAME image folders.)