Clutz450

I'm having the same problem with trying to customize my playlists and my searches led me to this thread. How does LaunchBox fill in the Version field? Does it get it from the Games DB or does it fill it on based on whatever is in parentheses in the file name? Either way, since it sounds like the only way we can easily filter out one type of version from our playlist is if the version field separates each one with a semicolon, it's there any way to automatically do that? Like I have so many games in LaunchBox that it would be impractical for me to manually add semicolon to every game's entry. Or maybe can I suggest an improvement where when importing your ROMs, it will recognize the multiple versions and automatically separate them with semicolon? Thank you.

Is it possible to use zstd zips with this? RomVault just added support for zstd and I converted a bunch of my ROMs before testing them. It turns out that RetroArch will not play the zstd ROMs and 7zip doesn't support uncompressed zstd. MAME already supports zstd and it sounds like this could be the new standard going forward. What are you thoughts? Thanks.

I had posted this in the discord but didn't get a response back so I'm gonna try here. I am importing a full Non-Merged MAME set into LaunchBox. The process seemed to go fine and downloading media from the LaunchBox Database seemed to go smoothly. However, when I get to the part where it downloads from EmuMovies (I am a lifetime member over there) the downloads practically stall. Like I don't see it downloading anything and it appears it is stuck. But it isn't stuck because I let it run overnight and when I come back it is waiting on a different media file. So progress is being made. However, when I go into Task Manager, my CPU, Memory, and Hard Drive usage seems unusually high (I have 2 hard drives in my laptop so a 50% usage on my hard drive means that my D drive, where my Launchbox folder is, is at 100%). I try to just let it do it's thing but sometimes when I start using my computer for other things while LaunchBox is doing its thing my Computer crashes with a blue screen. I've never gotten that screen with anything else that I use on my computer. I have also had LaunchBox Hard Crash on me a few times where I got a pop up asking if I want to report it so I did. Not sure how to find those reports though but let me know if you think that will help. I understand that you guys have no control over EmuMovies and if there is an issue with EmuMovies downloading slow then I will have to take that up with them. But it just seems very unusual to me that if all LaunchBox is doing is waiting for a response back from EmuMovies in order to continue with the downloads that my usage is so high. I feel like there is something wrong going on here and I was wondering if there was anything I could be looking at in LaunchBox that would help me point to what exactly is going on that is using up all those resources. I've attached screenshots of Task Manager showing the usage. I tried taking another screenshot just recently where it showed even higher CPU usage and Hard Drive usage but my computer blue screened again. Let me know if there is any additional information you need and I will gladly supply it. Thank you.

Sorry to revive such an old thread but I am having the same issue and this was the only post I saw that had this issue mentioned. I keep getting an error box that says "ImageDupeGrouper has stopped working". This is while I am importing a MAME Full Set. It opens about 4 or 5 of those error boxes and then stops. But as soon as I click "Close the program" they come right back. Also, not sure if it's related to anything, but I've gotten 2 errors so far sying that a file can't be downloaded because it "Cannot create a file when that file already exists". Please refer to my attached screenshot and let me know if there is any additional information you need. Thank you.

Where can I find more information on that, and will it work similar to the way I am currently using it in RetroArch? Thanks.

Ideally, I want to be able to have the entire No-Intro set available to me but not necessarily display the whole set in Bigbox. Mainly because it's annoying to have to scroll through thousands of games just to get to the one you want. But I want the other games available in case I want to play them and add them to the list later. I've accomplished this through RetroArch by selecting the option in retroarch to scan and add to playlist any rom that I launch through Load Content. This way, the only games that show up in my playlist are those games that I have played at least once before. And then, if I have friends come over, they can browse a short list to get to the game they want, but if they want to play a game that isn't listed, they can just find and load it through load content and it will load and be added to the playlist. Is there something similar I can do for Launchbox and Bigbox? Like I want to have all games listed in launchbox so I know what I have but only the games I have played to show up in Bigbox. I hope that makes sense and that the us a way to currently do that now or have that added as a feature later. Thanks.

I had a question about the $20 Hangouts level and the once a month video chat session with Jason. Right now I can't realistically justify donating $20 a month. But the ability to sit down with the creator of Launch-Box and be able to pick his brain seems really cool. So I was wondering if I could just do a 1 time $20 donation for the purposes of the video chat? Also, would it be a group session with everyone who donated that level or would it be one on one? Thanks.

That's the one I bought after I returned the Dell XPS. And it does seem like a great laptop. But that diagonal screen tearing I'm seeing in RetroArch just bothers me too much. But I really do like the laptop which is why I'm going to trade it in for another Asus Rog. Just a better one.

Thanks for finally believing me. Lol. But yeah, I had already read through that post and I think I had even linked to it in one of my earlier posts. Bottom line for me though is there is a known fault on those graphics cards that has been around for years and it doesn't look like it will be fixed any time soon. So tomorrow I am going to return this laptop and get this Asus laptop instead. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-1tb-hard-drive-128gb-solid-state-drive-black-anodized-aluminum/5580042.p?skuId=5580042 It'd got a better graphics card and after a quick search of that model I haven't seen any mention of diagonal tearing or any other issues. Plus this laptop has g-sync and I've been seeing that name around in some of the posts I've read and how amazing it is. So hopefully this will be the last laptop I buy and I can finally start setting up and personalizing my retroarch/launchbox setup.

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, it's not that big of a deal and I'm sure most people would just import their roms and just leave them where they were. At least that's what I was doing on my old laptop. But since I got the new one I needed to transfer them all over to the new one anyways. Plus this time around I'm trying to put everything into the LaunchBox folder so that when I finally do have my "perfect" setup I can just easily move the LaunchBox folder to another computer and just have everything work if I need to.

The vertical sync option originally said "Use the 3d application settings". Not sure what that means but I think it means it's on because I saw the same diagonal screen tearing with that and when I switched it to just on. Like I said, I only notice it for a little bit and then it looks like it works itself out and I don't see it anymore. When I turn that option off, I don't see the diagonal screen tearing anymore but the screen stutters a lot when running to the right in Super Mario Brothers to the point where it is unplayable for me. Now I did see in one of the forum posts I read where it said to just disable the Nvidia card and go with the internal one. So I tried that by in that same menu choosing Integrated Graphics from the drop down under "Select preferred graphics processor". That gave me no screen tearing at all and Super Mario Brother ran smoothly the entire time I ran to the right and saw no issue. I also noticed in that same menu that I could go to the Program Settings tab and select just the RetroArch exe and tell it to use the Integrated Graphics for just that program. So I now have the default settings back under the global settings and under program settings have it so only the Integrated Graphics option is selected for only RetroArch. So that seems to be my fix for right now. Not sure if it's a good one though. Because I mean I paid so much money for a laptop with an Nvidia Graphics card only to turn it off and not use it. lol. I was kind of busy today so I didn't get a chance to download and try out Half Life 2 or Portal 2 on this laptop like I did the last one. Maybe the Nvidia graphics will work well in those more modern games and I won't notice the diagonal screen tearing but I will try it out tomorrow. Either way I think I fixed (or more worked around) my issue. But from your opinion based on what I experienced and from what others have experienced by reading through those forum posts I linked to, do you think I should just still return this laptop and go for one that doesn't have a graphics card that has that weird diagonal screen tearing issue in it? I mean a part of me says yes because why pay for something if it's not working correctly. Plus it seems like this issues has been around a quite some time now without any kind of fix so I wonder if it ever will get fixed. Let me know what you think about all this. Thanks.

So I just bought myself a new laptop and was starting over fresh with LaunchBox. I created a connection between my old laptop and new laptop, went to Tools->Import->Rom Files, navigated to the folder on my old laptop and told LaunchBox to copy the roms into the LaunchBox Games folder. While that was going on my laptop restarted due to a Windows Update. I wasn't sure how far it had gotten so I just decided to start over from the beginning assuming that LaunchBox would copy over only the roms it was missing. But when everything was done I noticed that I had duplicates of roms in my games folder. The duplicate roms had the same rom name but ended with -1 at the end of the file name. So it seems like if you have any roms in the LaunchBox games directory and try to scan a different directory with the intent of adding just the new roms to the LaunchBox Games folder that it will actually copy all of the roms and not just the new ones. At least that is what I am assuming is going on. Let me know what you think and if this is something that needs to be fixed or if I was just using the import and copy roms feature in an incorrect way. Thank you.

Here is a post explaining exactly what I was seeing (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/903422/geforce-mobile-gpus/diagonal-screen-tearing-issues-on-gtx-860m-870m-960m-965m-970m-980m-/). And another one here (http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1232123). And finally Microsoft chiming in on the problem (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3158621/hybrid-graphics-and-vsync-results-in-graphic-tearing-in-some-games-and-apps-on-windows-10). And yes, I did have all my drivers up to date. So I wound up going back to Best Buy and returned the Dell. I was kind of torn between the Asus Rog and the Alienware. Asus was cheaper but it had that graphics card and was worried I would still have the same problem. The Alienware did not have a card that I could find that issue with and it also had g-sync on it which I had read in a few posts would fix everything. But that Alienware was almost $2,000 and I just couldn't justify it for the purposes of playing Nintendo. Lol. So I went with the cheaper Asus Rog here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905). So I took it home and the first thing I did was try and play Super Mario Bros. through RetroArch. It played really well and I didn't see any diagonal tearing. So I then went and updated everything. When I went back into SMB I noticed the diagonal tearing again. But the weird thing was that it kind of worked itself out. Like after running right for a little but and seeing the tearing it just kind of went away on its own and didn't come back again until I closed out of RetroArch and opened it back up again. I can live with this as long as it goes away and doesn't get worse. I didn't have time to try out any Steam games or try tweaking some of the settings as mentioned in those posts I linked to but I'll try and do that tomorrow. But for right now I think I'm happy. Maybe you guys can read some of those posts I linked to and maybe help me better understand why it's happening or be able to help me eliminate it all together. Thanks.

Yeah I get that you can't possibly cover every type of controller someone may use. But if you show the pictures I linked to and explain that whatever controller they are mapping they are mapping to a retropad I think that would help people to understand how to set up their controller. I know those pictures helped me out tremendously and everything just kind of clicked once I understood what the retropad was. I was just thinking that maybe they would do the same for other people who saw them.

So yeah, I like the ROG here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905) because it is cheaper but it's has that same 970M graphics card as the one I just bought and I see other people having the same diagonal tearing issue. The Alienware here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-1tb-hard-drive-128gb-solid-state-drive-silver/5623233.p?skuId=5623233) while more expensive and probably like you say overpriced, has a GTX 1070 card and I have seen any reports of diagonal screen tearing with them. I found posts about regular screen tearing but it seemed fixable. Maybe I'll just go into Best buy today and talk to the Geek Squad people a little more before buying. Because as far as all the other specs go, I don't really care which one looks better on paper. I just want to be able to turn on my laptop, install my games and be able to play them without having to do any tweaking.

Yeah I did. I'm sorry for not listening to you. It's just I'm always crazy busy with work and I don't have much free time to myself at home. So I have off from work until Tuesday next week and wanted to spend this free time finally setting up LaunchBox to my liking. Plus the salesperson basically said buy it now and if you don't like it return it. So this one here looks like a good one to you (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905)? It looks like it's in stock too so I get swap it out tomorrow. The only thing I worry about is that it's the same graphics card as the one I have now so I hope I don't have the same diagonal screen tearing video problems. Or in your opinion is there a better one that I can get if I just order it and wait? I will totally listen to you this time around if you say yes. Lol.

So do you really think this Asus laptop is really better than the Dell? Because as of right now I'm not really happy with the Dell. Everything just seems off to me. Like text everywhere is so small. Also text in pop up dialog boxes look blurry or just plain off. I'm sure this is due to the 4k resolution setting and probably something I can fix by tinkering around some. But that diagonal screen tearing is really irking me right now and I don't know how to fix it. As of right now I only see it in retroarch on the menu and any game that I try and play. Plus I feel like I have a slightly bit more input lag now that I didn't notice on my old laptop. I did get half Life 2 downloaded and tried playing that and while I didn't notice any screen tearing in that game the screen just didn't seem right there either. Like whenever I would move my mouse around quickly I felt like the screen had a slight stutter. My wife couldn't see it and she thinks I'm crazy but I didn't spend $1,500 on a laptop that I'm not happy with. I've never owned a laptop that was this "powerful" before so maybe this is all normal or maybe I just don't understand all the settings that I have and how to fine tune it to be perfect. Maybe I'm just not ready for a "gaming" laptop if this is how it is. I mean like my 6 year old Sony Vaio played NES, SNES, and N64 pretty well in RetroArch. So I just don't get how having a better computer is causing me such a headache. So unless there is anyone here that can help me tweak my laptop to where I think it should be I'm might just be taking this thing back. I would probably buy that Asus laptop you recommended but I worry I am going to have the same problems since it also has Nvidia GeForce graphics card. So does anyone here have a laptop that has in their opinion the perfect setup for LaunchBox and BigBox and have no complaints? And if so can you tell me what laptop you have. Because I really just need a new laptop for that and other small daily tasks. The only reason why I wanted something more powerful was so that I could maybe try and get back into PC gaming again but it's not really a necessity if I'm only going to keep running into these kinds of issues I'm having now. Thanks again for everyone's help.

So I went out and bought a new laptop today. I ultimately went with that Dell XPS one (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-xps-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-solid-state-drive-silver/4550500.p?skuId=4550500). It was already in stock and they had an open box one and was able to get it for under $1,500. I have 15 days to return it so if it just doesn't do what I want it to do then I'll just order one of the other ones you guys recommended and take thus one back. So anyway, now that I have this beast maybe you can help me out on how to use it. Lol. Like I have an Nvidia GeForce control panel that has all kinds of settings in it and I'm not sure if I should touch any of them. I already had to touch one because I noticed when I installed and ran retroarch the frames weren't going any higher than 30 fps. Then I noticed that in that control panel there was an option that said optimal and next to it said limit to 30 fps. Why would anyone want to do that? But anyway I changed it to 60 fps and retroarch was giving me 60 fps. Now another thing I'm noticing just from browsing the menus in retroarch is that I have some diagonal screen tearing going on. I did some searching and it seems like it's a known issue going back like 2 or 3 years from what I saw but no way to fix it. Hopefully I was overlooking something and one of you guys can help me fix it. I havent tried any real PC games yet but I have Steam downloading Portal 2 and Half Life 2 now. When it's done I'll see if I get the same screen tearing. But if this is a known issue with those graphics cards and there is no fix then I might just return this thing tomorrow. In the end I'm hoping it's just some settings I need to tweak on my computer or in retroarch. Maybe you guys can take a look at my specs and recommend what settings would be best for my setup. Then if everything looks good I can finally enjoy Launch Box and Big box in all its glory. :-)

Thanks for all the informatiom. I'll check it out.

Thank you for your reply. I know that I could get cheaper by shopping online but I kinda don't want to wait and I want one now. Lol. The only thing I searched for on best buy as far as specs go was processor speed 3 ghz and only because I read that the bsnes accuracy core for retroarch needs it. There were only 2 laptops in Stock at best buy that have that and I think I am going to go with this one. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-xps-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-solid-state-drive-silver/4550500.p?skuId=4550500. So I'm probably going to go out and buy that one. Hopefully it's a good buy.

I have looked everywhere for a good guide for RetroArch and so far yours is the best one that I've found. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. The only other thing I would like to see you add is controller setup. Mainly because it was so confusing to me until it finally clicked and now I understand it and want to share it for others. Specifically I want to explain that RetroArch uses a controller that they call the RetroPad. (I don't know how to put pictures in my posts but click here for a picture.) As you can see it looks identical to an XBOX 360 controller which is why those controllers will work right out of the box. But what always confused me was figuring out and remembering what button did what for each different system. That was until I came across this site here (scroll to the bottom) which shows examples of other system controllers and what buttons on the RetroPad related to what buttons on the controller you are emulating. The other thing this site helped me with was when trying to map other controllers to RetroArch. For example, I have an N64 controller to USB Adapter and it was always a guessing nightmare trying to map the buttons. Mainly because when you set your inputs in RetroArch it told you to hit buttons like X, Y, or right analog stick which the N64 controller obviously doesn't have. But I was able to use the controller images on that site to help me figure out (for example) that when it wanted me to press the right analog stick it really wanted me to press the C buttons on my N64 controller. Anyway, I hope you find this helpful and understand what I was trying to say. I'm a horrible writer and speaker when trying to get my points across which is why I don't write guides. lol. But your guide was a very big help in understanding RetroArch and the only thing I felt it was lacking was the explanation of the controllers. Even if you don't feel you need to add it then hopefully at the very least someone else would see what I wrote and it would help them. Thanks again.

I currently have a Sony Vaio Laptop that is probably about 8 years old. I remember it being an excellent laptop when I bought it but now it just seems to be running super slow no matter what I do to it. Plus there are other things going wrong with it too so after 8 years I think I'm due for a new one anyways. I don't really know much about computers when it comes to hardware specs so I was hoping that someone here could help me out. I just don't want to spend too little and get a laptop that is no better than what I already have or spend too much and have a laptop that is overpowered for what I am looking to do with it. Basically I'm looking for something that will be able to push LaunchBox to it's limits in BigBox mode. As far as emulating goes the latest console I would probably emulate is PS2 but would most likely be spending most of my time playing N64 and below using retroarch. I used to play Steam games too like the Half Life and Portal series but again haven't played them in a long time because of my laptop's performance. My store of choice to buy from is BestBuy. So if someone could take a look on their web site at what they have to offer and give me a recommendation as to what laptop I should get to get the most out of BigBox I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.