sundogak

I originally wanted to stick with PBP for the PS1 since ePSX is not compatible with CHD and likely will not be anytime soon based on some comments made by the developer in their forums. Size wise they are fairly close but CHD being more efficient. However, the deal breaker for me was that the only tool I could find a few years back was the PSX2PSP tool. PSX2PSP is not a batch tool so you have to do each game individually (at least I couldn't figure out how to do in mass). see For the 30 or so multi disc games I had that was okay but it gets tedious real quick doing one by one. Maybe there is a batch PBP tool out there but I didn't find. So that pushed me to CHD where could easily batch convert and/or use my MAME Software CHD set which I already had with no conversion. If there was a batch tool, I likely would have stuck with PBP. So really just up to how much time you want to burn and/or how many games have. ReDream supports CHD via Retroarch core and via the main ReDream emulator. My understanding based on the Retroarch News is that ReDream core is still work in progress relative to the Reicast. In Retroarch, if you ever want to see what file types a core supports, go to "Information" and then "Core Information" within Retroarch and will note. On GameCube, not sure on that. Mine were ISOs >>>GCZ. I never saw (but wasn't really looking at time either) a GC WBFS container. Only my Wii files are in WBFS. To some degree, I was less worried about the "best" compression as long as they were close. Convenience to convert and emulator compatibility became key considerations. I didn't mess too much with worrying about compression for Wii U since I only have a few games (mostly as a curiosity just to see if could get running). Once start getting closer to current generation of consoles things get complicated beyond the compression aspect. CEMU is a cool piece of software but my experience was it took lots of fiddling around to get most to run in good state and it takes a fast computer. My Switch has most of the games I would want on Wii U anyway. ? So not much help there but the CEMU site and Reddit may be best bets for info.

If you unchecked all the boxes including "hacked" then more than likely Space Invaders is lumped in under "Cosmic Monsters". Scroll down and find that game name and right click (or edit and look at the Additional Apps listing) and should see the rest of the "clones" where you will see Space Invaders. I did the same thing . To fix, simply rerun the importer and do not "uncheck" all of the option boxes related to hacks/clones. I saw some reference in an earlier beta thread that Jason was likely to alter that import behavior with hacks being listed as "primary" but isn't the case yet. Also you will notice this grouping and what is picked as the "primary" one listed as far as the cover art is concerned when you pick North America or World for the region. You will see Pac-Man come in as Puck-Man if picking World Region. Since all the clones are always imported, you can still play Pac-Man but you have right click and select from the clones.

CHD format is typically supported on most of the Retroarch cores. I have slowly moved most of mine from iso/bin formats over to CHD. It does save quite a bit of space plus it can be uncompressed back to original format/CUE/ISO etc if needed. There have been version changes to CHD over years (up to 5 now) which have improved the archiving and compression process so best to use current CHD.EXE if compressing files. Here is a listing for the larger game files: PS2 - use GZip format. see more info in LB Forum thread here. PS1 - use CHD format if using Retroarch Mednafen HW cores it supports CHDs. Note that standalone emulator PSXe does not support CHD format. For multi-discs I use the PBP format that was compression tool designed by Sony for the PSP. Use a tool called PSX2PSP. The advantage is it allows you to merge Disc 1, Disc 2 type multi-disc games into one compressed file (cannot do that in CHD, must retain each Disc # separately). You can also do that with M3U playlists for CHDs but the PBP format is much simpler. In theory could compress all to PBP but the PSX2PSP tool isn't well suited to mass conversion and isn't quite as a efficient as CHD (typically over half size of original disc) See below for batch conversion (and limitations) for PBP using PSX2PSP: PSP - Use CSO compression format on most games. Tool called PSP ISO Compressor works well (again, not easy for mass number of files). Saturn - can use CHD with Retroarch Mednafen cores. Sega CD - can use CHD with Genesis Plus GX Retroarch core. Note for the Sega 32X CD games I had to leave those in native bin/cue format since the Retroarch core for Sega 32X didn't accep CHDs (but was only a few games for me so didn't worry about it). NEC Turbografx-CD - can use CHD with Mednefen PCE Retroarch core Sega Dreamcast - can use CHD with reicast Retroarch core. Also works with Demul standalone emulator. Gamecube - can use the GCZ compression format with Dolphin standalone or Retroarch core. There is a command line tool called GCIT that will compress from ISO or can use the compress option within Dolphin (full standalone emulator). Wii - Use the WBFS format in Dolphin. Phillips CDi (I use MAME here) and Panasonic 3DO (Retroarch 4DO core) also can use CHD format Most other games ZIP will work fine. All the compression can take time and some of the non-command line tools are "one by one" conversions which can suck a lot of time. For the CHD format, the MAME monthly package has the CHD EXE. There are variety of scripts to convert in mass. Search the forum here for several examples since that is where I got mine (attached). For the batch file just change the extension and path. CHD.EXE must be in same directory and would start with a test file or two first. Any errors it will just stop waiting for input. The advantage when all done is that have smaller size files, less "stuff" since don't have CUE, ISO, BINs all floating around, and if you already have the MAME Software List files for Saturn, PSX, and Dreamcast, you don't have to bother with conversion since they already converted to CHD format. The RetroPie wiki site also had good information on various compression formats. chdbatch.bat

Sounds to me like a mame.ini path problem or it is picking up another ini file and pulling settings from there. When you imported (I assume using the Full Set Wizard) you should double check the mame.ini and/or the mame executable file is in the directory just above the ROMs folder you selected in the importer. Also check your MAME.ini has the correct paths since you said you moved it in the other thread. Particularly the rompath, homepath, and the inipath directories. I would try putting in full paths so sure it is pulling from where want particularly if using MAMEUI which adds another layer to mix. So for example, I have my mame.exe file in G:\Emulators\MAME and ROMS are just below that which is where pointed LB. If still not working then only suggestion is to either use the mame64.exe rather than MAMEUi or not use the Full Set Wizard but the original ROM importer since I assume that worked before.

Didi you import with the "Mame Arcade Full Set" option and if so do you have a full set of ROMs at version that is recent version set? Are they split or un-merged? My set is version 201 and Split and imported/works fine (~35,488 rom files in directory with another ~718 CHD directories) . If you don't have a full set of roms stick with the ROM Files import option like prior. Other item to check is if you using something like MameUI that you have the MAME.INI in the MAME root directory.

I notice after importing via the Mame full set feature that the Audit Current Platform and Scan Removed/Added roms menu options within the Tools menu are all dimmed out and not selectable. Is that by design? I could maybe see the add/removed roms in that the new concept is to pull from official set each time but the audit feature is still a very useful feature (particularly for seeing add/corrects relative to the LB database). Thanks, Chris operator error (sigh). For others: Looks like I was in Platform Category "Arcade" and had the header listed and not selected on the "Arcade" Playlist. Could of swore had selected but was late and there were a ton of new playlists that I was fiddling with. Cheers.

Like erebus44 and Chris Kant, I have a similar issue with mystery release dates being input when the script runs. I have recently had the issue with two submissions (Dark Castle, Beyond the Dark Castle, for Apple Mac OS) where the release date was not input with what was in LB but instead inserted "2018". Both games were already in the system so just doing updates (mostly images). I saw it momentarily pop up when it was running the script but thought it was just my imagination. I then went back and looked at the moderation list and it had sent a change to update what was the correct date of 1986 to 2018. At first I thought I had a typo on my part but I went back and looked in LB it was correct year of 1986. It also did it on another game I submitted the the next night and I made sure the date was correct before starting the script. The only date I have in LB for those two games that is "2018" was the "last played" date so not sure if it is getting mixed up. The moderation's got approved so it wound up changing a correct release date with an incorrect one. I manually submitted a change to fix. I would test more but don't want to pollute the DB with bogus dates. I wish there was a way to stop/reject own submissions in the DB (not just for the plugin but for manual as well). Note: I have the most recent plugin version installed.

I just recently set this up and here are a couple items I found as well as will summarize previous comments: cdimono1 is the only MAME machine that works currently and is listed as "imperfect" on sound and graphics. Basically this means some games will not work. The cdi490a, cdi910, cdimono2 machines are non-working. They will get stuck at the "aqua" boot up screen. Also found sound on some games was "crackly" and mouse sensitivity was very high/controls erratic. Per MAME/MESS setup for the machine these are the only extensions that will work with the cdimono1 machine (via -listmedia) : .chd .cue .toc .nrg .gdi .iso .cdr I have converted all my ISO/CUE and BIN/CUE files to CHD format for easier use but ISO/CUE will work as well. You can use the chdman.exe file to convert bin/cue and iso/cue files to CHD. There are a couple Batch file CHDMAN examples here on LB site that I used and example BAT file is at end of this post. I have found that some of the CUE files from web locations are INCORRECT and reference the wrong bin file. That may result in a black screen depending on which BIN file is wrong (or just stops immediately). If you are getting this open up the CUE and verify the name of the BIN/ISO is exactly the same as your files. If not, change and save and try again. If you use CHDMAN to convert files, then an incorrect CUE file will cause CHDMAD to gag and stop conversion. Unfortunately, sometimes a black screen means it just doesn't work even though you have it all setup correctly. Test your MAME setup using command line in DOS CMD window. This will help if something is amiss with your setup or command is incorrect since you can see the error. Once you get working then setup in LB. An example command I used to test by going to the MAME directory and running is at end of post. Adjust your path accordingly. The command below is identical for CUE files . Again, handy to test and see what is going on if getting black screens. Note you will see in the CMD window that CDIC.BIN and SLAVE.BIN have "NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN" errors. You will get those even with games that work. These files are associated with the cdimono1 machine. When booting a game it will stay at an "aqua" colored screen for about 20 to 30 seconds. Clicking will not speed it up. Remember it is emulating the 1.0x DVD player speeds so everything takes awhile. It then should go to the "Philips" screen. You will see a "Play" button in the middle right of the screen next to the "Play CD-i" text. Use your mouse to move the cursor over to the triangle/play button and click on it to run. Don't move your mouse too fast at first or it can zoom across off screen and appear to be "hidden". Move slow and should see black cursor on screen. I have looked and haven't found anything that skips this step. If the aqua boot screen stays up for longer than 45 seconds to 60 seconds, then the game is broken and will not work in MAME. Some games you will get an error splash screen that says something along lines of "you need a Digital Video Cartridge to play this game". MAME does not emulate this currently. 7th Guest, Space Ace and Mad Dog Mcree are good examples of games that will boot but cannot run without the DVC since they need the MPEG1 decoder in the DVC to run. Edit: see link on MAME Developer site on this issue. Unless you do substantial remapping in MAME, this emulator is setup for keyboard and mouse input with mouse doing most of work. Clicking button mouse on many games is like "Start" on controller. Once booted into a game, you will notice a digital/LCD looking "CD-I" at top screen. You can remove that by going into the setup menu in MAME. So TAB, Video Options and then select MAIN SCREEN only and not Main + LCD. Basically, MAME is also emulating the LCD screen on the front of the CD-i player which is basically useless for our purposes. It should save the setting in your CFG file so you won't have to do on subsequent games. Once you know things are working then you can go back into LB and under the MAME emulator and enter into Philips CD-i associated platform command-line parameters: cdimono1 - cdrom On side note, I was just out of college when CD-i released at an obscenely high price and also at same time as SNES came out. After playing some of the games, I am glad I bought a SNES! Example MAME Command (launch in MAME directory): mame64.exe cdimono1 -cdrom "G:\Emulators\Philips CD-i\roms\Alien Gate (CD-i).chd" Example CHDMAN batch file contents. Make sure to copy your CHDMAN.exe and batch file to same folder. Set your paths to your locations as well as change "ISO" to "CUE" if you are doing BIN/ISOs. @echo off @cls set rompath=G:\Emulators\Panasonic 3DO\roms\ set destpath=G:\Emulators\Panasonic 3DO\chd\ for /R "%rompath%" %%G in (*.iso) do ( echo. echo === Converting %%~nG to CHD === chdman createcd -i "%%G" -o "%destpath%\%%~nG.chd" -f echo. echo. )

Kondorito: You might double check that you have MAME keyboardprovider in the MAME.INI set to dinput as described in the script in another thread. The above should work then. That was what I had incorrect and was driving me crazy. Thus, MAME was not receiving any input even if script was correct. I elected to not modify my MAME.INI settings and instead placed a command line as suggested in the thread notes: "Open Launchbox, go to the Default Command-Line parameters for MAME and add: -keyboardprovider dinput" I modified some of the scripts in the Forum and the code below worked for me (along with using the DLL attached above since I use Steam). With one click of the XBOX Guide button it brings up the config screen and with a doubletap of the button exits out of MAME. I use double tap of Guide for other emulators as well. Retroarch I have same script but instead of {tab} I use {F1} so brings up the Retroarch menus. I am just using this for setting up now but will delete the tab/F1 portion of the script later since don't want others fiddling. ; ================================================================================= ; FOR MAME keyboardprovider IN mame.ini MUST BE SET TO dinput ; OR for Launchbox, go to the Default Command-Line parameters for MAME and add: -keyboardprovider dinput ; ================================================================================= vk07sc000:: ; XBOX ONE Guide Button if (A_PriorHotkey <> "vk07sc000" or A_TimeSincePriorHotkey > 400) { SetKeyDelay, -1, 110 send {tab} ; one press brings up MAME Configuration Menu return } Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}} ; Double-tap Exits MAME return

For Future Pinball it appears to me there is a missing "%romfile% after the "open" command in the custom emulator window. At least it will not work for me if don't include since it doesn't know what rom path to open otherwise. The command that I have is: /open %romfile% /play /exit Thanks.

Lordbond, You will need to go into the platform videos section and make sure it is selected to download a Daphne specific video. Not all are by default. See screen snap below (Tools Menu, Download Platform Videos/Playlists). In my case I had selected the Nostalgia theme which has a Daphne specific video (see 1st screen shot). You will then also need to edit the Daphne Platform and make sure your Clear Logo is set to a Daphne specific one. As I recall, I had to do that manually via the second screen shot (delete the Arcade logo, upload a Daphne clear logo). You can also just dump logo into the :\LaunchBox\Images\Platforms folder and refresh. The thing to remember is that it is an Arcade platform ultimately which is why it is grouped as such. Like you, I preferred it to be separate plus I was using a non-Mame emulator for Daphne. The logo I found/use is at the bottom if need it.