cammelspit

February 24, 2017

@Jason Carr Auto Playlisting for the win! Now you can get rid of that custom filter nonsense. This is MUCH better and it's FASt to populate the lists too!

I did come across a few small things I think you might want to think about. I just made, on a whim, a playlist with all the batman games for every system. I had to revert my combined roms because of issues before and I haven't gotten around to recombining them because I can only do one platform at a time. So what I thought would be cool is to combine all versions of batman returns into one entry, pick my favorite version for all platforms as the main rom and have one entry. I didn't expect it to work that way but here is what I found when I tried to do it. All roms were combined but I ended up with one entry for each platform, not a bad fail safe and probably what most people would want. I think it would be cool to be able to allow it to combine those into one entry if I prefer it for my playlist if I desired. I know this would require you to separate combinations into playlists and platforms separately but it's something to think about at least.

As always GREAT work Jason!

February 16, 2017

I couldn't agree more Brad, couldn't agree more.

February 16, 2017

I get that. I mostly didn't want to go and derail the whole thread bashing on RA for personal reasons, I only wanted to have a little fun with it. Either way, yeah. I mean, as a general rule, I have had contact with a BUNCH of DEVs over my years of working with emulation. I think Jason is clearly one of if not the most awesome of the whole bunch. The Dolphin DEVs are also super cool. They try to be as helpful as they can be and if they find they can fix something, they usually do and are happy to help. The only other time I have had a hard time with any kind of DEV is the PPSSPP guys. Made my interaction with that RA DEV look like an exchange of the kindest pleasantries. They actually told me to just get bent and not use their emulator because I was apparently not the kind of person they wanted using their emulator. Funny, because all I did was make a simple bug report but apparently that was offensive to their code in my implication it wasn't perfect. At least someone like Jason actually pays attention to his users and doesn't take bug reports personally.

And this, my friend, is why I love this community right here so darn much. EVERYONE from the new user to Jason himself and everyone in between has been just great people. The whole team really are awesome folks. I have found no community on the internet as inviting and genuinely great as I have here. Maybe I am spoiled? I almost expect, as a rule, that most people are as kind and helpful as they are here but it seems that is clearly not the case. Really, I am not the kind of person to really get involved with forums or communities at all really. I basically have this and the Steam Controller discussions and that's about it. I am what one would call an internet hermit i guess.

February 16, 2017

Honestly, i can't actually remember which one off the top of my head since it was a while ago nor would I name drop because I am not in the business of complaining like a little girl about someone who hurt my feelings. I mean, if I were I would take up being an SJW or some such nonsense. Sorry i even brought it up, I was just trying to make light of it and clearly it backfired some.

February 16, 2017

I was poking fun at the BS Jason had to deal with about the whole including RA and how he was refused just because LB was not open source. It takes a special kind of person to think that everything can be open sourced and the world still keeps turning. I know it was only one of them that caused any real problems but I was more or less making light of that. As for myself, you all know I am generally a nice guy and am kind and thoughtful with my questions as well. They treated me like scum and I even had one of the devs flat out tell me I was essentially too stupid to use RA so I shouldn't even try. This is one of MANY reasons I don't use RA unless I absolutely have to. I felt I should at least qualify my statements for those of you I have not told the story to before. More to the point, those who aren't on the streams regularly.

February 15, 2017

My vote is for changing the name to 'USemuNEVER' or 'iPOOPemu'

February 15, 2017

1 hour ago, Charco said:

RetroArch as in starch. Even though I guess it is supposed to be short for architecture. Actually, it really is an awful name.

This is exactly why I would say 'Ark' since that is how architecture is said. In reality, the name is terrible and a full rebrand wouldn't be a bad idea anyways. Especially considering the toxic nature of their community and how poorly their devs treat users, namely myself. Heck, they even were being a pain to Jason and we all know he is such a nice guy, how can you not love him? Oh well...

February 15, 2017

ARK and AARCHitect are the same sounding arch.... It would be Arch like the structure or Ark... I say it Ark like any reasonable person would.

February 13, 2017

@Jason Carr Here is the UUIDs I use to import the games. There is NO ROMS here, just the UUIDs.

WHDLoad Export.zip

February 12, 2017

I am also having a similar problem to what @Pacman56 is having. Though, I expect what I am doing here is a bit of a fringe case. I am using my Commodore Amiga games via UUID. This means that the games file name is something like "d2152856-6923-5caa-a051-a7dec3ad6ade". The games name is taken during import from the folder name and not the rom name which has the format "1869 [AGA] [WHDLoad, v1.2, AGA]" as an example. So, it seems that when a game is imported using the folder name, the detection of what the games name is breaks down. Just thought I should point it out.

February 10, 2017

@Jason Carr Alright, after testing 7.6 and 7.5 stable I observed the exact same behavior. I have however tracked down what the setting it is that is causing this slow startup. Voice Recognition. See, I have recently purchased an entry level condenser mic and audio interface and I had enabled voice recognition in LB. Strangely, it didn't work at all but I had forgotten to disable it thinking that I would troubleshoot why it wasn't working. Now on the latest 7.7-12 with voice off and it starts in exactly the same amount of time I expected it to. Sorry for raising the alarm here, this is not a regression. This will be something to look into for later versions but it works properly now. Next time anyone has any major performance issues we should try and remember that voice recognition might be a possible cause. Now I feel better.... Whew...

February 10, 2017

@Jason Carr Was just thinking, maybe it's the late hour but I think I may have a suggestion for tracking things down. If you have ever used it, Dolphin actually has a bisecting tool. What it does is it has a database of all the versions of Dolphin and will download and install a separate copy of Dolphin into a folder. From here, a user would test this version to see if their issue exists and if it does, it will download an older version. If the issue does not exist it will split the difference between the version known to have the issue and those known not to have it and try again. So, essentially, the user does the testing but the tool does all of the tedious work of downloading and setting up each version till the exact revision the issue started to happen is found. This is then reported to the DEVs so they can inspect the changes made to find the bug or regression. This kind of tool could be invaluable in the right hands. Heck, maybe even make a small team of dedicated users and make them official testers for the new features before they roll out to the stable release. I, for one, would wholeheartedly volunteer for such a task. Just another one of my random thoughts... And now, I sleep!

February 10, 2017

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

@cammelspit Sigh, odd. Haven't really touched Big Box at all for this release, since the remember views feature at least. The only thing I can think of would be having more additional applications and less games. Did you do any merging?

1

As I mentioned, it seems that LaunchBox itself is also having problems too but they are less apparent AFAIK. I attempted to use my data from before I merged anything and the same behavior was observed so I can safely assume the merging itself is not the cause. Though, it could have something to do with checking them while loading the database. It's rather late right now, nearly 1AM so I am not going to be doing a huge amount of testing right now but if you like, I can try and bisect where the issue occurs. All of the installers as far back as November are there so I will see if I can backtrack it, version by version and see exactly where the problem first happened. Just wish they had the actual version numbers on them instead of random strings of letters and number.

I likely would have been able to point it out earlier but I have had some silly stuff going on around the house to the point where my last few weekends have been taken up installing security cameras around the property and I have had very little time to mess around with LB/BB since before then.

Never fear Jason, I think you know me well enough by now to know how determined I can be in tracking down this sort of thing and beta testing the snot out of it... I love breaking things.

February 10, 2017

@Jason Carr Hey buddy just wanted to let you know now before you do a release. I am silly and haven't opened BB for a few betas. I thought LB was seeming a bit sluggish in startup speed but now that I have done a few launches of BB, it's MUCH worse now. I have uploaded a video to show you what I mean.

See, normally, BB was launching just barely after the first playthrough of the startup video. As you can see in the video, this is no longer the case. It plays all the way through quite a few times before launching and the city zone background video starts frozen. This time I was actually able to get control of the cursor but three launches before this, I was not able to get control and BB had effectively frozen up, so this is actually the fastest and most usable of over 5 launches. I had made a backup of my data folder before combining roms and restoring this made zero difference. If there is anything else I can do to help you troubleshoot this further, let me know!

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the menus and such are MUCH less peppy and some of the time while recording this video I lost control for a few seconds before it would move to the next platform. Also, same drive, same drivers even, literally nothing has changed in my configuration since it was working fine.

February 7, 2017

@Jason Carr I did not see any, no. Then again, I hadn't actually done much testing either.

February 7, 2017

Well, that simplifies the process some.

February 7, 2017

try doing a consolidation on sega model 2 and it happens every time like clockwork. The other times were just random and worked fine after a restart. I assume there is something special about the Model 2 platform that is just triggering it more. Also, the beta 9 still does it just to let you know.

Data.zip

February 7, 2017

@Jason Carr Sure, you know me, I will be there. I did find a way to replicate it 100% of the time with my setup so I will zip up another copy of my DATA folder for you. Take care and see you tomorrow!

February 7, 2017

Firstly, I would just like to say that this new feature is working exceptionally well. I have already cleaned out more than ten thousand superfluous entries in my launch box. Thank you very much for including this as it makes me very happy. The Amiga WHD Loeb collection alone has gone from twenty-eight hundred-ish ROMs down to seventeen eighty-eight, pretty impressive if you ask me!

I have however encountered, twice now, where launch box crashed. There was no error thrown there was just a simple not responding box that came up. This seems to not be an issue if I just restart launch box again but I thought I would let you know.

I am also curious about the MS-DOS platform. Now, I remember on the stream yesterday when you mentioned that ROMs platforms would not be able to take advantage of this feature. The thing is, my MS-DOS platform is imported as batch files from the EXODOS collection and DOSbox is being used as an emulator. Is MS-DOS hard coded to be considered not a ROMs based platform? Because there are some games that are multiple versions in that collection that I would like to consolidate.

Thanks again!

February 3, 2017

Hey, Jason, I noticed that there isn't a specific way to set a default version of the game when you launch the game by simply double clicking it. So for me, every time I double-click a ROM it opens up the European version or Japanese version on some games rather than the USA version, which would be my preference generally speaking.

Also, super cool that this feature has been added. I have been waiting for this for so long, you have absolutely no idea how happy this makes me.

January 31, 2017

Alright, so I just went on ahead and recorded a short demonstration of how exactly to do it. I hope this helps!

January 31, 2017

My Cammel sense is tingling! There's no need to fear Cammelspit is here!

So, There are a few considerations with the steam controller you have to take into account here. Firstly, since the steam controller, at a hardware level is not a controller at all and is, in fact, a HID compliant KB and mouse device, technically 3 mice. Anytime you want the steam controller to work as a gamepad, you will HAVE to launch the game via steam itself as a non-steam game. So, if you want the steam controller to be a gamepad in LB/BB you will have to add it and launch it via steam. When you do this, LB/BB will open the emulators under itself in the hierarchy of processes and then you emulator will also work. The only exception I know of is FS-UAE because of some shenanigans it pulls while launching itself that messes that up. The other issue is steam will actually see LB/BB as a launcher and will actually use the desktop config instead. You actually have several ways to deal with this and get gamepad controls in LB/BB and the method you choose is entirely up to you and how much fiddling you are willing to do.

Once you have added LB/BB to steam as a non-steam game, go to the shortcut in BPM and select controller options, not configure the controller. There is a checkbox in there named something like 'allow desktop config in launcher', uncheck this. Then you should set a basic gamepad config for the LB/BB shortcut and all should work.
Instead, you can just use a KB/M config. This works equally well, besides, all you are doing is viewing roms, there isn't really a big need to use gamepad controls in BB, only the emulators.
You can use a few third party pieces of software that actually add a virtual gamepad device and make the SC show up as a standard gamepad device but there are some MAJOR drawbacks tho those. For completeness sake, they are Xoutput and GloSC. I would recommend staying away from these unless you ABSOLUTELY must use them, like with UWP games.
The final option is using a program called proxy. Technically, this won't actually give you gamepad in LB/BB but it does allow per emulator and even per game configs for the SC. Personally, I use this but it is a tad cumbersome right now. A new version is being made by the author right now but will likely be some time till it is finished. I did write a guide on how to use it if you are interested. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753876809

The main drawback I see with using option 1 is the fact steam will always say you are playing LaunchBox/BigBox and not the emulator so you may have to swap configs out for each emulator you use if they are different or if you need a special config for a specific game. I used to do it this way and I used touch menus and over 30 action sets to handle this. With touch menus, you can even use your own PNG images and such so it was super cool but got a little silly with having so man sets, nested touch menus, shifts... At this point, as I mentioned above, I use method 4 but its setup can be a bit fiddly. The payoff, however, is much cleaner and smoother IMO so it MIGHT be worth it to you.

Bottom line, the steam controller is strange and will always be strange in the way you use it so you do have to work around it if you want to use if a certain way. As a point of fact, I am perfectly fine with you sending me a friend request on steam if you like or if you need a hand getting anything set up and you should feel free to do so. My name on steam is just cammelspit so hit me up sometime if you like. Otherwise, those are the options you have available to you so you will just have to decide which one best suits you personally.

Good Luck and Happy Gaming!

January 23, 2017

Also, I agree, the Steam Controller is amazeballs. Since OCT2015 I have literally not used anything else to play anything and that includes KB/M games. As a point of fact, the steam controller actually doesn't emulate anything at all. What the steam controller does is it talk directly to the API and does not load a GamePad driver. OFC, there are downsides to this, like not being able to use UWP games out of the box because of how M$ locked UWP into ONLY working with XBOX controllers, thanks, M$. You can use Xoutput or GloSC to do some actual emulation, though. Those two pieces of software actually add a virtual gamepad driver but they have their own downsides too.

As far as RA is concerned, I had a conversation with one of the DEVs on their forums. See, RA MAME is less performant and less compatible than MAME actual so that's what they had recommended to myself and another user having issues getting it to load some of the software list games. The multi-threaded thing? It's not actually multi-threaded emulation. Emulation, more specifically the way MAME does it, is not something you can actually thread properly. Nearly all emulators use only one single thread and RA is no exception to this. What that check actually does is it breaks off the video processing so you simply have a bit more of the main thread left for emulation. This WILL add input lag to the whole process, though. If you were a big Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat fan then you would likely see that lag and that will certainly hinder your gaming. MAME also supports doing the exact same thing and, if I recall, it's the default.

As long as you are happy with how it's working then that is fine. Still baffling that you get an outright crash with MAME, though. Either way, if you ever want to do some more troubleshooting or just want to chat, hit me up on steam. I am a stay at home Dad so I am on steam about 90% of the time. My name there is just cammelspit so throw me a friend request if you like. I especially like talking to people who have a passion for the steam controller like I do.

Have a great day Manuel!

January 23, 2017

Not to worry Manuel, I get it. I am still of the opinion standalone, especially for MAME, is the best way to go for MAME but if you are happy then I am happy. You are not the first person to randomly have issues with MAME crashing on launch when launched via steam. I wonder if that has something to do with a change in MAME or a change in Steam, maybe even a driver update? Anyways, glad you can at least play your arcade games ATM.

Have fun and Happy Gaming!

January 22, 2017

Sure @DOS76 I can certainly chime in here and I know exactly what is happening here so I will try and break it down if I can.

First things first, Don't use RA for MAME stuff at all, it's not very good. This is not a sentiment I alone espouse and in fact is the recommendation of at least one RA dev. The problem is they just don't develop RA cores super often and MAME updates too quickly to keep up beyond only periodic updates. So, our goal here is to use MAME actual with the Steam Controller using Launchbox or BigBox to launch those games with the whole thing working properly.

First question I ask you is, how EXACTLY are you launching MAME? If you add MAME.exe to steam and launch it does the steam overlay show? It should be. When you add LB from steam and then launch the MAME game via LB does the steam overlay show? It also, should be. If both of these situations you get the overlay then you are perfectly fine here and it IS working but MAME has a few issues that are easily fixed. The symptoms of the issue would be that the SC when using a GamePad config will simply not be recognized but you SHOULD still be able to use KB/M bindings. If that is enough for you then go right on ahead and do that. You will lose analog inputs for games that use it so generally, this is undesirable. The problem is MAME uses RAW input and not the normal Windows Dinput or even SDL for its inputs. The reason the SC does not work is because this requires only inputs from a driver in Windows and cannot get anything from keycodes or keypress injection, which is precisely how the SC works. The thing is, you can change this! Thankfully, the MAME devs have a few different backends build into MAME itself, you just have to change them for whatever input device you are using. I found this out by a LOT of googling and I found a post from a while ago from a disabled gamer who uses handicap accessible controllers that rely on software injection of the key presses, just like the SC does.

GO to your MAME install directory
Open MAME.ini in you favorite text editor
You need to search for two lines <keyboardprovider> and <mouseprovider>
You will notice that each of these has a value of <auto> you need to change this to <dinput>
Save the file
Enjoy!

Now, if you are still having issues, or if your overlay is not working then the SC will default to using the desktop config as a general rule. If this is the case then we will have to take a step back and figure out why that is the case because it works for me and pretty much anyone else I know that uses and SC, the number of which is actually quite excessive.

Another thing of note here, make sure you are using the official builds of MAME directly from http://mamedev.org/ because some of the third party builds have patches or changes that can either change or outright destroy compatibility with the SC and other kinds of controller software. This is the version I use and it works a treat so I would highly recommend you do the same. Besides, you have LaunchBox so you don't actually need things like MAMUI or any of the other variants.

I hope this helps somewhat. I can't comment on why your changes arent being read by MAME from the ini so if you have some issues, you should paste what those entries say from your ini here and I will compare them to my own, confirmed, working ini. Here is also a link directly to the original post I made on the steam controller discussions about this exact topic. http://steamcommunity.com/app/353370/discussions/0/350541595120301147/

Never fear, when it comes to the steam controller, if anyone can help you get it going it would be me. I am somewhat obsessed with this silly little hunk of plastic and wires so I will promise I will at least do my best.

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