neil9000

I think you are hugely overrating the popularity of the steamdeck. Is it a good machine? Absolutely. Do more than a few people even have one yet? No. And of that small amount of people that do have one, how many bought it purely for Steam games and haven't given a thought to a niche thing like emulation? I'd say a large percentage of that. I understand the want from people like ourselves who frequent a frontend forum to have a good emulation experience on the shiny new thing, but it really is in reality very small numbers currently, and Launchbox is currently Windows and Android only. Is there the possibility of a native Linux version in the future? Who knows, but it would certainly need a much bigger userbase than the niche one currently to be a financially viable product.

The paid service? You also need a Launchbox premium license to show videos.

Retroarch is not embedded inside of Launchbox, Launchbox simply downloads it for you. You still need to set your controls, graphic settings, shaders, overlays etc directly in Retroarch itself.

Launchbox has nothing to do with controls in games, that is 100% handled by the actual emulator you are launching, so you need to set them up there.

Because as already stated the Android version is essentially Bigbox and not Launchbox. It's also worth noting that the Android version costs money as well, just like Bigbox, so its the same case on Windows or Android, both need payment to get what you want. No, it is not just as difficult. Those programs use Retroarch for most systems, and you cant choose other emulators a lot of the time. They are very locked down, and you use what they tell you to use. Launchbox is completely user configurable, meaning you have access to tons of emulators that distros like emuelec and batocera don't allow you to use. also those distros are Linux based, meaning you miss out on some of the great emulators that are available on Windows, that are not available on Linux, again because these distros are so locked down and lack customization. I should also mention that i am not just fanboying for Launchbox, i also have a Batocera setup, and i like it, but it does not compare in the slightest to Launchbox/Bigbox, it is way too restrictive and locked down, it's their way or the highway for those distros, which it is not for Launchbox, where you can use any emulator, any image types, any folder name and location, all things you cannot change on the other distros.

Paid software is perfectly normal, windows, Office, Adobe, VPN's, Antivirus, all paid software. If you dont like it, or want to pay for it, go and use one of the free programs which have less features, less functionality, less customization, fewer updates. Your argument here doesnt seem to be that Launchbox has two versions, one free, one paid, it's more that you don't want to pay, period, and that is your choice, but if that is the case then you will be limited to Launchbox only, which is NOT the same as the other programs you mention.

You use the standard rom importer and not the MAME fullset one, and when choosing MAME as your emulator you will get a extra page with options, similar to what you have in the MAME fullset importer.

Options/view/startup view.

Not a emulator i have ever used (who cares about Jaguar ) but if i recall Pheonix doesn't support command line arguments, which is essential for a frontend to launch a game into a emulator, hence the trouble you are seeing with it, id personally recommend the Retroarch core instead personally.

This is because we do not support MAME software list roms, which is what these are from, hence them not working with the MAME importer which is strictly for arcade games.

There are several threads here on the forums with the same issue. Its caused by a third party service called "Nahimic" you can find it in the services tab of task manager. Disable or uninstall it.

They should already be there, right click street fighter 2 for example and it should list all the versions that were imported, you can click any one to start it.

That is the entire list of working games, the other 7000 do not work in MAME. You can import them (though not sure why you would want 7000 broken games) by unchecking the "skip non working games" option in the wizard.

I'm gonna guess you have extracted everything wrong. look in one of your extracted themes, there should be a bunch of folders and files in there, if you see another single folder with the themes name you extracted the theme wrong by extracting to a folder with the same name, rather than extracting the folder within.

Then Bigbox doesnt have focus, especially if mouse clicking on it then works.

Bad idea, that will get you instantly banned from these forums, with a very high chance that your license you paid for will be blacklisted and would no longer work also. What you are proposing here is highly illegal and we dont want launchbox associated anywhere near such an endeavour.

I don't think taking away user choice/customization is a particularly good idea to be honest, users should be able to display what art they choose for the most part.

Again, this is nothing to do with Launchbox, no matter if you have premium or the free version, you will still need to setup all of your emulator settings yourself. Launchbox just launches the emulators with a game loaded in it, all actual emulator settings like controls, resolution etc you will have to manually set yourself on a per emulator basis, in said emulator, there are no settings for this in Launchbox itself.

No release group officially release CHD files other than MAME as far as i know, so this is why you cannot find DAT's for them, they do not exist. Any systems you have CHD's for other than MAME were either converted by someone else and re-uploaded, or converted by yourself.

You have to do that in the actual emulator, not through Launchbox. Launchbox is just a launcher, it has no control over actual emulator settings.

Then you must of missed something, as it works just fine.

Its fine, the license is yours, and you can use it anywhere, and on any PC.

Thats way to vague a statement, can you provide some actual details of what happens, as well as any errors you may get.

Then unfortunately there is no other option other than credit/debit card or Amazon Pay, PayPal is simply a no go, so if that is the only method you have, then i'm afraid you are out of luck unless you get someone else to put it on their card for you.