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i don't really think this issue is any different on windows or mac. you have to have controller driver support on both OSs for the controllers to work. if you have that, who cares what the OS is as it shouldn't matter. LB can support the same controllers just as easy as OpenEmu. for the filters/shaders, i'm not 100% sure if varied hardware matters either, but i really doubt it in general. for what we are talking about in this thread, i really don't buy that the broadly supported hardware on windows is the problem to making things easier on windows. we're just talking about using controllers that need driver support on either system, a cpu to do work (they both use intel CPUs), and sometimes a video card, which is handled by the video drivers anyway. we're talking mostly about the application level in this thread. i don't think LB runs at the kernel level or includes drivers for devices. yeah, you can have mixed results from emulation itself between Mac and Windows and Linux, but so what. you get what you get there regardless of what we're talking about here, which is just making application level setup easier.

My thoughts would be to at least shoot for something minimal that already works in an existing product and hopefully isn't so much work that it would be impossible to add to LB. OpenEmu is very popular for Mac users because it is pretty easy to use. I use both Mac and Windows. All OpenEmu has that LB doesn't have, is the following, and this is why it's so easy: - a list of cores in the ui that you can simply click Install buttons for (i believe it keeps these updated automatically because I have the latest mednafen with Saturn support in mine now and i didn't before) - a simple ui that shows if any bios related files are needed for any of the installed cores and tells you the specific file names you need to "acquire" and drop into the OpenEmu gui - global option to play all games fullscreen or not plus a toggle any time you want - a default display filter (i think this is a shader in RA terms). and in each game you can easily choose between 14 popular "shader" filters for the game simply by clicking on the one you want to try. boy does this make things easy for people like me who are never going to try out 550,000 possible shaders and just want one that looks fine without having to download or know anything at all about a shader! - last but not least, a Controls ui. by default it automatically detects out of many supported controllers and autoconfigs them for you across all cores/games. it also lets you EASILY change these mappings per emulator in a super simple ui. it also lets you EASILY set keyboard keys instead of using controller. and the ui for this is outstanding. it shows the actual controller pic in the mappings config part of the ui and highlights each control you want to map, which is super awesome for people who have no dam clue what an analog stick, dpad, or other is, like i didn't at first. That's about it. It's overall configurability and customization doesn't even hold a candle to LB. That's probably because OpenEmu isn't a cabinet front end. It's just a super easy emulation system to run on your computer with easy setup and without frills. Nirvana would be Launchbox plus this minimal set of easiness. The OpenEmu ui I speak of is ridiculously minimal and easy to use, nothing like RA. For those who want RA level of configuration, they will use RA. But for a huge population of people who just want to play their games and have them look pretty good without investing their life into setup, this easy minimal ui approach satisfies this. Jason obviously will do what he feels is best for his software. I am not trying to force anything on him or the rest of you guys. I am just giving my feedback as others are, so he can read it and do with it what he will.

Hi Guys, from my point of view, I think the point of this entire thread is just aimed at making an easy thing even easier to use, without crippling anything else. That's OK. People don't have to agree on any specifics of anything here. In my opinion, it's just good conversation that may or may not go anywhere.

@jason, i think that the preconfigured bartop is AWESOME. i'm only concerned that the cost will be too prohibitive for a lot of people for personal use. it should be sweet for those company rec rooms, businesses, vacation rentals, dental offices, etc. i looked at Monsterarcade for my future cabinet vision and I think they have the premium bartop out there. i would love a bartop from them myself that already has the controls, graphic stickers applied, monitor installed, etc (but not with computer because i'm way too picky on that part! and maybe even the monitor too). however, i know 100% my wife will never let me spend that kind of money on games!! hahahaha! and sadly, i just do NOT have the time to buy their DIY bartop (good price!) where you do the t-molding, stickers, controls, monitor, computer mounting, etc. yourself. i would love to get a DIY bartop and complete it myself, and I also love to work out the finer aspects of how I want LB and emulators working for me, BUT my wife is just killing me when she walks by and finds me working on LB, emulators, and games so much (i've spent a lot of time guys)! i have to sneak in time. you can easily bury yourself for a very long time in this stuff. i just started all of this emulation stuff fairly recently and it's been so fun. i remember when i still had no idea what to do with a Mame (my first one) emulator and a "rom" file! i have wife, kids, kids sports, dog, job, etc, so i like anything that helps me move along faster, so i can play some games! .

Thought I'd add my two cents as well... I couldn't agree with @robwired more. I feel the same way. I want to keep the tinkering and open aspect of current LB, but also have the simplicity of OpenEmu. Everyone is making good points, but I still agree with just about everything @robwired has said.

i surely enjoy it also!

@DOS76 @Charco, yes sure LB is easy compared to others, but it too can be much easier. @Charco, RA is definitely not easy. Sure it's easy to navigate after you get used to navigation, but there are tons of options in there that are complicated and take time to understand how they could affect things and why you might want to make changes. much more than an hour... @DOS76 when i say "normal" users i mean not very technical users. a lot of people get blocked right away and do not try to figure it out. you could say that's on them, but that doesn't put more money into jason's pocket and it also stops a lot of people from getting to play with cool stuff. i think most emulation users are probably at least fairly technical with a computer, because i think a lot of non technical users that try simply fall off and go away, never to be heard from again. boy you guys are hard to push an enhancement request to. haha , no worries. it's all my opinion and you are entitled to yours as well.

yeah i here you on time @lordmonkus, but I don't like to suggest enhancements based on whether or not I think there is time. one day, there may be time . if you wanna be big, you gotta think big plus, if you look at Openemu, you will see that the "ui" can start off extremely minimal to do the basics, certainly not looking for a RA ui, ever. this would be a big differentiator for LB as well. Openemu is the clear emulation tool of choice in the Mac world. A LOT of people just want to get in and play some games quickly and easily without investing their life in emulation research, and Openemu is pretty darn close to letting most "normal" people do that.

Very nice @DivinityCycle!! I don't tab into MAME with my controller but it's very useful to know what is needed for MAME to listen to the ahk script!! The secret sauce you found was keyboardprovider . Thanks! Now I will assign something to my xbox guide button for mame. The command line looks like this if going that route: "-keyboardprovider dinput"

I think it would be AWESOME if Launchbox included as many emulators as possible, kind of like OpenEmu and Retroarch, but with an easy to use configuration interface (unlike Retroarch!). How great would that be to install LB (greatest front end ever), have it pull in your chosen emulators/cores AND let you configure some global things (like controls and video) or emulator specific things. I think the fundamental things everyone does setting up is get emulators and configure controls and video settings. And of course add games (we already have that in LB). The more specific tweaks come later as you try to optimize things per emulator and/or specific games. If Retroarch and OpenEmu can do this, why not LB? OpenEmu is more of what I would call the super easy front end that includes cores and controls and video. But OpenEmu is for Mac and is no where near as good as all the other stuff in LB. I REALLY do like the idea of OpenEmu. Launchbox should take note of that program for the inclusion of cores/video/controls. But keep stand alone emulator support too as that is a major limitation of both OpenEmu and Retroarch. I don't think there is really any Windows front end that has all this and I really don't know why not. LB would be a no-brainer for everyone. Long live LaunchBox!

Ok, so Mupen64Plus on Win 10 is probably not the problem. The mupen64plus core in Openemu on my Mac laptop has the same exact issue where Gauntlet Legends will freeze at the same exact starting point as on my Win 10 box. Too bad because it looks way better in mupen64plus than the others.

I love the x-arcade unit. The only place I've ever had a problem is RA. It is so easy to use everywhere else because it just acts as a keyboard. I don't know what the deal is with RA. I seem to get better emulator results with stand alone also. I'm beginning to become and anti RA person But yes, if the x-arcade appeared to apps as a gamepad like xbox 360, my world would be a whole lot happier!! Is your zero delay thing a stand alone unit like x-arcade or just pieces that have to be installed into a cabinet's control holes?

Yeah i've been on that forum. Looks like a lot of people struggling here. Not fun

Seems to be caused by the video plugin.

Mario Kart seems to work. In Gauntlet I just walk to the first teleport thing where you shrink down and it crashes there every time.

I'll have to check another game.

Bummer, that didn't help. Crashes in same exact place in the beginning. Time to dig I suppose...

Well, I tried it thanks to your tutorial! Gauntlet Legends looked much better than in the other emulators, but shortly after starting, the emulator crashed on my Win10 x64 box. Do you set yours to run in Win 7 compatibility mode or anything like that?

That's what I did at first. But finding the duplicate keys was hard that way. Anyway, it's apparently no easy task to do what I'm trying to do, although it sure should be. Even after I had it set without duplicates, the x-arcade wasn't able drive the games.

ah ok. i tried PJ64 already and had the same issue, except was still full screen unlike RA. but it looked a lot worse in PJ64 than RA. Ugh. I'll try setting up stand alone Mupen64 I suppose to see how that game goes. thanks!

i think it's not worth it. wasn't behaving as i expected. RA is too complicated for a simple dual controller setup restored my cfg file. guess i won't be playing any games from RA with my x-arcade. thanks for trying to help.

Using RA with mupen64plus_libretro core. Gauntlet Legends seem to have random screen flashing going on. Any idea how to resolve that? Other N64 games I tried (not many) seem ok so far. The window size is funky to instead of full screen. Thanks.

set "nul" on the duplicates. still no go. give up! hahaha

i'm thinking about trying to find if other keys are already in use and assigned that are already assigned to my x-arcade mappings. i opened the retroarch.cfg and searched for "r" which is my right joystick UP and found input_rewind = "r" as well. also "f" which is my DOWN is already assigned to fullscreen toggle (that explains that weird one!!). what a mess! hahaha

set it all up. didn't work. what a nightmare =/ might have to stop using RA and go back to individual emulators again. sheesh.