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greengeek

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Everything posted by greengeek

  1. ETA Prime put out a video a few days ago, $40 PrePaid Android Phone For Emulation - Better than The BittBoy & LDK Game at It got me really excited about the possibility to make a cheap handheld game system. I ended up going out and buying the same phone. I found there are a handful of front ends available for android, but only one seemed to be comparable to an android equivalent of bigbox which was the retrox that ETA reviewed here: Again this looked like a great option, until reading through the notes and finding that the developer of that particular software decided to drop support of lifetime licenses shortly after the video came out. Tons of angry comments in that video along with the devs forums. ETA Prime also mentioned after the changes that he wasn't sure if that product was any longer a viable solution for him with the cost changes. It would be great to have a launchbox / bigbox android version as a better alternative. A lot of users like myself are very happy to pay a larger amount up front for a lifetime license and not have to pay a yearly and an always online connection for it to work. I chose not to use retrox because of that. I am looking at Arc browser as a one time payment commercial option to have a decent front end until something comes along that is better, but it is definitely no Bigbox!
  2. greengeek

    GCFE

    I really like this theme! One suggestion though. Arcades use Advertisement Flyer - Front instead of Box - Front. Launchbox will automatically default over to flyers on the Arcade if one chooses Boxes and there is no artwork. I noticed on this theme, that on the game selection page, that the video for the game plays, and instead of the box cover coming in from the side, its a gameplay screenshot (which is a little redundant with the video showing something similar). Is there a way to change this so that it will show the flyer instead of the screenshot for the item that slides in from the side? Thanks!
  3. Sorry if this has been asked before. Is there anyway to run reports on which games are missing metadata and media? Like a report on which games in ones collection are missing screenshots, or videos, or clear logos, etc? Thanks!
  4. @Jason Carr Does LaunchBox have any type of logic similar to this?
  5. I would like to organize my media in launchbox. I notice we can do this to a certain degree in the Edit Platforms. Here we can change the folder path. It would be nice if launchbox could allow us to use variables or file and folder masks for the file names and folder names where it saves the information to. Similar to how mediamonkey or launchbox and some other media managers work. For example, I might want to be able to save my videos all in the same folder for my arcade games. Then I could choose in the folder path something like: Arcade\<title> - video<ext> This would put all the videos in the arcade platform in the Arcade folder with the name of the game appended with " - video" followed by the game extension. So if I was browsing my files, i would see something like this in my arcade folder: sf2 - video.mp4 I would then choose to put the box front in the same folder. For that, I could do something like: Arcade\<title> - BoxFront<ext> Once again going into the Arcade form I would see sf2 - BoxFront.png Most of these type of programs have multiple masks, so if we had something like <platform>, <title>, <media>,<ext> etc, one could get really creative on how they save their files allowing for the greatest compatibility with other systems and emulators. For example, I could then do <platform>\<title>\<title> - <media><ext> and I would get a lovely arcade\sf2\sf2 - video.mp4 which would allow me to group all my media by platform then game title and keep it all together. Does launchbox have any type of filtering or masks like this or is this something might be added if it doesnt? NOTE: One of the reasons I am asking, is I am currently designing a media manager that works along with launchbox to help people quickly see which media items they are missing and easily add them into launchbox. Similar to how Media Browser, Elk, and Tiny Media Manager work for movies and tv shows for Kodi. I am trying to stream line the output of the manager so the file/folder structure loads the quickest and is the easiest to handle within itself and within launchbox as well as the meta files. I will post some screenshots soon.
  6. Thanks for the updates. I think I will try it with windows 7. Maybe with any luck @Jason Carr will have migrated over to .net core and we can run it on alternate operating systems before windows 7 goes eol.
  7. Dang, that means one cant use any current LTSB versions of Win10, or even Win 10 enterprise with differed upgrades turned on. Which means increase performance of LB but unfortunately decreased performance of Windows with all the extra junk that gets installed with the feature upgrades. I guess on a related note, how does LB/BB perform on Windows 7 or 8.1 compared to the latest version of 10? Are there any downsides on using 7 or 8.1? I am really wanting to give LB its own hardware and OS and try to minimize anything that is not related to it or entertainment in general.
  8. Yep only way to upgrade a Windows 10 LTSB is to do a full Windows install from media, ie LTSB 2015 to LTSB 2016. They dont allow for traditional upgrades. I am curious though if LB itself has any hard coded requirements for the very latest version of .net, or if that is only hard coded into the installer. Are there libraries it calls in 4.7 that are not in 4.6? Is there a command line argument that lets me bypass the additional requirements check? Would installing it on my main box, and then just copy over the installed folder to the arcade box work?
  9. Can LaunchBox be installed without having all the latest Windows 10 feature upgrades? I am running Windows 10 and it is fully up to date on security updates. It does not have any of the feature updates though. So none of the creators upgrades. Without adding the feature upgrades to get an updated windows version number, I can only install up to .net 4.6.1. When I try to install the latest version of launchbox, it tries to install .net 4.7. Since that version is not compatible with my system, it fails and the only option it gives me is to cancel the installation of launchbox. Can LaunchBox run with .net 4.6.1 or can LaunchBox run using the Windows 10 2015 LTSB version of the OS? Is there a way to by pass the of the 4.7 .net or to at least allow one to continue installation if it fails? I really dont want to have to install this on a version of the OS that installs all the extra 3rd party apps from MS if I don't have to as this is a dedicated machine only for LaunchBox. Thanks.
  10. Ok, thanks. Would be a great feature, specially for using BigBox as a front end for all media. Would really compliment Music Box Alpha to have a quick launch for it as well within BigBox for those that have both products. Currently I have Kodi acting as my front end launcher that has the menu items for BigBox, Music Box Alpha, and Plex (which is way over kill but looks really nice). I would love to be able to remove it and just use the other 3 apps in a similar manner having BigBox be both my game launcher and media programs launcher.
  11. Ran into one question while trying to create the Platform Categories menu. Can one create a top level menu item, say Plex, that can be clicked on and starts up Plex instantly? Or can it only function menu header, where one creates a menu item called Plex, that one then clicks on, that then goes to another screen to click on the program icon Plex to launch the program?
  12. Thank you! That did it. Now I just need to customize and go over the above posted tutorial.
  13. Thank you @Lordmonkus & @neil9000 Is there a trick though or setting to get the extra top level menu? He has a top menu for Arcade, Consoles, and Computers, then he has sub menus for the corresponding Platforms then games. I am using Cityhunter as well with the premium version, but I only get 2 levels of menus instead of 3. All my platforms show up, and under them the corresponding games. I don't have a top menu that groups them into Arcade, Consoles, and Computers. Thanks
  14. How would one go about using Big Box as a front end, similar to how Jason has it in his dev video? Could Plex, kodi, chrome, firefox, etc, be put along side the Consoles, Computers, and Arcade icons he has there? Is there a tutorial or instructions anywhere? Also on a side note, does anyone know which videos and themes he is using in that demo? I really like how it is setup. Thanks!
  15. That is what I was trying to do originally, but then I had to run the setup to get the .net stuff and I think it must of made changes to stuff within the LaunchBox folders. But yeah, I guess now that the pre-reqs are there, I could delete that folder and start a new copy without having to run the setup this time. I am just dreading copying all those files over again. Guess I will start the copying and find out in 8 hours.
  16. I havent even tested the emulators on the htpc yet. On my main pc, everything is stored as d:\LaunchBox with the default folder structure. The emulators run there just fine. The emulators are all in d:\LaunchBox\Emulators, games are in the d:\LaunchBox\Games folder, etc. Everything is running locally. On my htpc they are all on the main local drive as well. Only difference is they are in the folder c:\test\LaunchBox Nothing is being ran off the network.
  17. I take that back, it looks like it is not working half the time even with internet. Could the files copied from the other computer's install be causing conflicts on it not being able to find the license.xml file on the other? The files are the same on both computers, other my pc its on the d: drive for testing, while on the htpc I have it on the c: drive.
  18. I have been setting up launchbox / bigbox on my main PC. Everything seems to be working well. I now want to migrate it off my pc and over to my htpc box that is hooked up to the tv. I copied all the files over. Launchbox ran, but bigbox wouldnt as it was saying it was missing some directx stuff and to run the setup. I ran the setup and it ended up wiping out all my settings. I then copied the Data folder back over as well as the License.xml file. Now when I try to start up bigbox when the computer first starts up, it tells me that it is only available as a premium option and asks me if i want to learn more. If I click no, plug in an internet connection, wait for the pc to get a connection, and then start bigbox back up, it will run just fine. My questions is, does Big Box need an internet connection to run? Once I have everything migrated over, I will be keeping my gaming box off the network. This way I can run it bare bones with all the windows updates, antivirus, and everything else turned off. It will be stand alone, not even on my local network.
  19. Awesome, that worked! Thanks! Now I just need to find the perfect backgrounds that give it pop but without being distracting.
  20. Sorry for replying to an older topic, but could anyone tell me if this has been implemented yet? I noticed I can go into launchbox and go into the options. Then under Images -> Background Properties, I can uncheck everything and then under Default Background I can choose Use Custom Background. This seems to work in Launchbox game view, however in the BigBox game view, the background is just black. Is there anyway I can add a custom background to show up in the game list view? Maybe something in the themes xml files I can modify? Thanks!
  21. I noticed a small bug when using the web search. If the title has an ampersand (&) in it, the search only shows the text before the ampersand and does not include the console name.
  22. I have been doing the manual updates with this tool and it is working great! Just a few suggestions. 1. I can resize the main window, but the content with the scroll bar does not grow to match the window size. Would be nice to be able to resize the window and have the game selection area grow to the window size. 2. The app shows the bios rom files that I have marked hidden. Could the app honor the hide rule and not display the hidden files? 3. This is more of a question. After I have matched some games to the database, does the database matcher update all the missing fields to match what it found besides the database ID? Can it also download the additional images that the database has that might be missing?
  23. Just a quick tip: Here is how you can keep the CMD window from popping up when you run a game. I am not a big fan of having the window show up, even for a split second, as it takes me out of the experience. This will make Daphne function like all the other emulators. First follow the wonderful instructions at the start of this topic and verify your games are working. Then do the following: 1. Download SilentCMD found at https://github.com/stbrenner/SilentCMD 2. Unzip it and move the two files into your Daphne emulator folder. ie. LaunchBox\Emulators\Daphne\SilentCMD.exe and LaunchBox\Emulators\Daphne\SilentCMD.exe.config 3. Then edit your Daphne emulator in LaunchBox: Change the Emulator Application Path to: Emulators\Daphne\SilentCMD.exe Change the Default Command-Line Parameters to: DAPHNE.bat Click on OK If it was working before, it should work now as well, but without displaying any additional windows.
  24. Just a request. Would you please consider adding an auto scraper that could query 3rd party gaming sites and auto download and rename the media to match LaunchBox standards? With a paid subscription for both LaunchBox and EmuMovies, I get about 80% of the media. However there is still a lot missing. One suggestion would to be use another site as a filler to grab the missing information. For example, https://www.screenscraper.fr/ I wrote a small program a while back for my retropie that used their API in python (very ugly code, no gui, etc), but it was really easy. They provide a nice API (it is all in french but was easy to figure out with google translate). I found by getting a CRC hash of the rom files, then sending that as a request, one could match about 90% of the games. I then sent a second request with the rom title name on the ones that the CRC hash did not match and was able to get nearly all of the remainder. They have a very large selection of box art, 3d box art, scrapes, clear logos, logos, videos, etc. They are a service similar to emumovies, where they have both a free and paid version. The free version allows you access to everything, but just one connection at a time, which was enough for me to grab everything i needed. Would it be possible to implement something like this for your program? It would be great if it automatically query from multiple sources and download the media. A good example of similar programs are the movie and tv managers for kodi.tv Such as media manager. However they do not do game roms.
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