Bodine Grunch

Sorry I guess I rambled. I was used to seeing that field empty. Thought it might be causing a problem I was trying to fix. It wasn't so there's nothing to worry about. Thanks

Running 12-15-beta 4. I'm a little short on specifics because I can't tell exactly when this happened. Have been going through stacks of old Windows CD games and installing them, then adding them to Launch Box. As you would expect a lot of problems along the way just getting them to run so I make sure they're running first before I add them to launchbox. Somewhere my launchbox games began failing. At first I only noticed it in one game so I thought it was and isolated problem. Turns out it's more strange than that. ALL of my MS-Windows games have added the directory in theit application path to the Root Folder field. They were all blank and now they're all populated by the corresponding root path (minus the game name and extension). I can't tell you how it happened. The only thing out of the ordinary I noticed was that one of the games ran VBrun60.exe and there were problems. I don't know why that would cause launchbox to populate the root directory field but I figured it was something I ought to pass along. I have no idea whether there are other problems waiting to pop up that might be related to this.

116 of 120 exported just fine. I'm sure I'll be able to sort out the remaining 4. Thank you again for taking the time to set me in the right direction.

That sounds perfectly reasonable. I will begin editing each game's root folder description to its actual folder name. It never occurred to me that the all the other games are ROMs collected in one folder while the DOS games are actually collected in subfolders. Thank you for your help!

Part of the long story that I left out was that I initially tried exporting all of the Dos games. After 12 to 14 hours I canceled and looked to see what was going on. All of the files that processed had the same result as I described for Elvira Mistress of the Dark. That is, each zip file that was created contained 22.7 GB. (zip files for all of the DOSGAMES folders.

All of the LaunchBox and DOSBox folders are on the Arcade1 hard drive ( U: ). U:\Programs\LaunchBox and U:\Programs\DosBox U:\DOSGAMES holds the game folders each with required .bin, .cue or.iso files respectively U:\DOSGAMES\ holds the .conf files Edit Game: Launching, Application path: ..\..\DOSGAMES Edit Game: Launching, DOSBox, custom config files; ..\..\DOSGAMES Edit Game: Launching, Root Folder: ..\..\DOSGAMES My DosBox preceded the installation of LaunchBox. When I first tried it, I didn't know if I would keep it so I was hesitant to move any files inside the LaunchBox folder. As the years passed I just continued to use the external folders for DOSBox and all of the other emulation programs that are now distributed over four hard drives; U:, V:, W: & X:. My mess but it makes sense to me and I'm used to it. Thanks for your help.

If I edit a working XML file for each of the zipped packages, it seems like I could blank out or leave alone most of the entries in the <Game> section and change <ApplicationPath>, <ConfigurationPath> and <Title> but I'm not sure what to do about <ID>; blank it or search for each one. Would that be enough information to successfully import the package?

I love using LaunchBox/BigBox so I don't want this to be perceived as criticism. It's more venting, a request for perspective and maybe a little help. I've been using LaunchBox for years now and have everything running fine [even the NOX Android emu]. There's been some unusual hiccups along the way because my choices in hardware. I play on a 32 inch CRT with S-Video because the softer graphics look more like the arcades I remember in the'70s. I decided today to export my MS-DOS files to Android. I had done this with all the others emulators and just decided to give it a try because it's usually painless. I have to do maintenance on LaunchBox so seldom that it's almost like learning from scratch when I make changes. To make a very long story short, I eventually selected one small innocuous DOS program (Elvira Mistress of the Dark) and exported it. A few hours later I had the Elvira zip file but it was 22.7 GB. All of my ROMs, emulators, media, games and ISO folders are on four hard disks outside of the primary Launchbox folder. Evidently this fooled the exporter because I got a zip file for the one game that included each of the DOS folders for the other 120 MS-DOS games. I like the thought of running retroarch dosbox-pure with zipped files on the Android tablet. My computer runs standard DOSBox v0.74.0.0. I don't want to mess up my LaunchBox because everything's running so well. Is there a way for me to export something the Android is going to be able to use without making huge changes to my Launchbox? The Android has a 1 TB SD card with a couple of hundred gigabytes left on it so I could just leave everything alone because I already have DOSBox on the tablet. It just seemed like an elegant solution to be able to zip each game and it's CDs into a single file. Thank you for sharing any thoughts you might have.

I read on the forum that you will soon support DosBox in LaunchBox for Android. I enjoy playing my MS-DOS games from BigBox. Mostly it was just fun to unpack all of those 5.25, 3.5 inch floppies and CD-ROMs I had boxed up years ago. But, controller issues made it difficult on my Android tablet until I started using Magic DosBox by bruenor. It is a feature-rich version of DosBox that is extremely flexible and customizable. It allows you to create your own touchscreen control layouts that make convoluted and cumbersome games playable. For the first time since I bought it I am able to play through Crusader No Remorse! :-) I said all that just to make a request. Magic DosBox allows each of the DOS Games to save a shortcut/badge to the home screen. I just tap on the shortcut and the DOS game starts with the custom controls that I've set up. Is there any way that I can import these shortcuts into LaunchBox for Android? If not as DOS games then possibly as native Android games when LaunchBox for Android starts? Since I already have over 80 MS-DOS games running on my Android tablet, I can't get very excited about importing the same games from my computer and then having to resolve the controller issues. But it would be really nice to be able to start ALL of my games from inside LaunchBox for Android.

The answer was sure enough "staring me in the face". I'm embarrassed to say that I caused the problem. I inadvertently extracted the gen files from zip files for several ROMs and they wound up in the games folder. LaunchBox knew it had exported zip files but it was finding gen files. It tried to tell me. It just took me a while to piece together what happened. Sorry for the bother and thanks again for all your hard work!

That makes perfect sense. I appreciate your taking the time to explain and as always I truly appreciate and respect all of the time and hard work that you put into making your products so intuitive. Thank you

I highlight any number of games in LaunchBox, let's say 5, and then choose the Export To Android tool . I use the wizard and when asked, I choose "Export the 5 Selected Game(s) Only." I work through to the final page where it says "The wizard is ready to create the export package with 5 selected game(s)." I click next and it completes successfully. This works with every platform I've tried except Arcade. After it says it will create a package with the 5 files it always creates a package with all 4095 ROMs.

I have what I hope is a very simple problem and apologize if the answer is staring me in the face and I've just missed it. I imported the Sega Genesis package from my LaunchBox without a problem. I changed the default emulator to custom emulator and installed the package name and activity name for GenPlusDroid. I tested with the verify configuration and it came back successful. I open the custom emulator and everything runs just fine for all of the game ROMs installed. But when I try to start any ROM from the platform view I get an error saying it cannot find the zip file. There are no zip files. All of the ROMs are gen files. How do I tell LaunchBox to stop looking a zip file and use the gen file?

I appreciate your response The "select" is set to "enter". I was able to clear it but it will not accept mb0 as an entry (probably because it's not a keyboard stroke). I dug around and found an old backup of BigBoxSettings.XML from 2017. It also had "select" set to "enter" so that's not the problem. "Back" is set to "escape" but mb1 still executes "back". It dawned on me as I was working back and forth through the menus that mb0 still mirrors "enter" everywhere except the main screen and mb1 still mirrors "back" everywhere. The problem only exists with mb0 on the front page of Big Box.

Sorry, what I called mouse button1 is more often referred to as mb0.

I have always used the tank stick joystick and two mouse buttons to navigate Big Box. Using the default theme I have "View Platforms" selected. I will scroll through the platforms and press mouse button1 to proceed to the games selection screen. Today, I allowed the arcade machine network access and was notified of a new update so I installed v11.11. Now mouse button1 no longer functions on the platform screen. Everywhere else it seems to work as it always has. I discovered by connecting a keyboard that hitting the enter key will select a platform but I don't keep a keyboard attached to the arcade computer (Win10). Can anybody please tell me how I get the platform selection screen to acccept mouse button1 instead of the enter key? Once again, the problem I am trying to fix is only on the initial Big Box screen where I have to select a platform. Thanks

Fixed NeoPop. Both emulators running and appear to be stable.

Fixed Oswan. Will start troubleshooting NeoPop

I have two problems that are driving me buggy, both with emulators that used to work well. There wasn't time to use LaunchBox for a couple of months or more. When I sat down to play I found the notification about the new 9.10 version and a shoebox full of Windows 10 updates, applied them all and everything seemed fine until I started using NeoPop and Oswan. NeoPop crashes with two DirectX complaints (NeoPop generated errors "only 16 or 32 bit colour modes are supported" & "an error has occurred initialising direct draw"). I've poked at it but haven't done much to solve it yet. The one that's driving me crazy is Oswan. It starts and reacts to command line settings, the music plays but the emulator screen is completely black. When I mouse over the emulator toolbar the drop-down menus appear normal but when I mouse over the drop downs they invert to white boxes containing the menu choices on a black screen. When I mouse over the choices they go completly black but they remain active and respond to mouse clicks. Nothing I've tried has made any change. First and most important, both emulators perform perfectly outside of LaunchBox and they are the only two that have broken out of 25 emulators. That should eliminate any doubt about hardware or drivers. I have unticked "enable game startup screen" in both the emulator and the general settings, I have unticked "enable game pause screen" in the emulator settings. I have ticked & unticked each of the various emulator settings regarding quotes, spaces before ROMs, extensions, etc I have deleted and recreated the emulator and platform information I have re-imported the ROMs, I have reinstalled LaunchBox, I have reinstalled an older version of LaunchBox, I have deleted-rebooted-reinstalled the newest 9.10 version of LaunchBox, I have checked all the settings I can find to be sure they are default values, I have uninstalled all the Windows 10 updates the Wizards of Redmond will allow me access to. This one, to me, was very strange: From inside Big Box I selected a game, clicked "Play" and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Closed the emulator, clicked "Open Oswan" chose the same game from the recents and the emulator failed with the usual black screen. Paused the emulator but left it running. Exited Big Box. Went back to the paused emulator on the desktop, reloaded the same game from recents and it ran just fine! I installed a second LaunchBox 9.10 on the same computer and only used it to import the Wonderswan ROM files. They all ran correctly in LaunchBox and Big Box. Evidently I could delete everything and start from scratch but just the thought of all that work again is horrific and without some kind of guarantee the same thing won't happen in the future I'm not exactly hot to try it. If there is a simple answer and I've missed it, so be it. I'm not too proud to feel stupid. I could sure use some fresh ideas because I'm running dry.

Not everybody will need to know this but as I spent a great deal of time making it work for me, I thought I'd share. Two annoying problems are solved leaving one to go. I run LB on a legacy system with an S-Video connection to a CRT TV. Everything works very well until the Wizards at Redmond butt in without asking. Problem 1 - "Your system is running out of memory (RAM)" & screen freezing error. Installing the correct video drivers (even if they claim to be Win10) will not keep Microsoft from replacing them (without notice) to the intentionally sub-standard Microsoft Basic Video driver. You will think that the new driver is faulty until you notice the MS change to the "best driver for your system". This occurred repeatedly until I was able to find a driver that "stuck". When Microsoft left me alone, my error messages and subsequent crashes stopped. Problem 2 - I didn't realize what a problem I had until I changed the monitor settings. After fooling with the Microsoft Basic Video driver for too long, I decided to check the Monitor drivers. Since I'm using a CRT TV I thought I was locked into using the MS chosen default Generic Non-PnP Monitor setting. I remembered that older versions of windows included a Generic Television monitor driver. I doubted that it would still be available in Win10 but it is. All I had to do was start the Device Manager, rt-click "Monitors", rt-click the "Generic Non-PnP", choose "Update Driver", click "Browse my computer...Let me pick from a list...", uncheck "Show compatible hardware" and scroll down the list to "Generic Television". There was improvement on the desktop but I didn't notice a dramatic the change until I started LB. All of the text is MUCH more clear and easy to read. I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw how good it could be. Problem 3 - remains unsolved but I suspect it may turn out to be a driver problem as well. I can change themes in LB & BB and though the they say the theme is changed, results on the screen show at the default settings. I can reassign colors but that's about all. This is not a problem that I can't live with but it sure would be nice to find a solution using the existing hardware setup. The thing to keep in mind when working on any legacy system is that Microsoft will not tell you when they decide to "fix" your Win10. When trouble arises, it will save time and headaches to start troubleshooting by looking (repeatedly) for unannounced changes to your hardware drivers. After all, as far as Microsoft is concerned, it's their machine not yours and it no long uses an operating system. It's just a gateway to the "operating service" they provide and change at will. You can bet the farm that there will eventually be a recurring bill charged for their service.

I have a different out look on tech. When one of my machines can't keep up I rework it for a single purpose that it can handle very well. I use the large Sharp Aquos with no "smarts" as a monitor on an old Dell Inspiron with a broken screen and the combination is smarter the the new LG upstairs. I keep an old Averatec N1000 netbook in the kitchen cabinet as a terminal to run the cooking software from the LAN. Many older notebooks were able to download at speeds that were unheard of when they were sold (I was told it was cheaper to go with what they had rather than design slower stuff). The Dell Latitude in the loft upstairs downloads at over 800mbps with Google fiber. So that's all I ask it to do. It runs TinyXP and with no overhead; it's blinding. I put FreeNAS on an older machine with a large power supply and installed 8Tb of drives. I can serve the same movie to five different computers starting at five different times with absolutely no lag at all. I have the original HP Photosmart scanner that scans 35mm slides at 1200 dpi but the software requires Windows95 so it's installed on an old 486 that does nothing but scan photos, slides and negatives. I could go on... machines for recording cassettes and vinyl albums, machines for converting video, machines to control and record from the midi sythns & keyboards. My first hard drive for my Apple ][ plus was 5 MEGABYTES and cost over $4000! I learned a long time ago that I don't need to chase after the newest and shiniest. I bought a pair of Klipsch speakers in the 70s and wasn't sure I could afford them but they still work and sound as good as the day I bought them. That was smart, buying the 5 megabyte hard drive, not so much. Sometimes you need new stuff to get where you want to go but generally most people buy new to keep up with others not because they need it. I'll get off my soapbox now but encourage you to remember the sage wisdom of Seamus Zelazny Harper; "Never throw away tech!"

Thanks for the ideas, The windows task manager doesn't show memory being a problem. I do have a couple of tons of ROMS but Big Box runs smooth as silk. I don't bog everything down with graphics and glitzy animations. It's old gear but it runs all the software really well. The new front-end is the problem. I still have the install files back to 7.x. I guess nobody has a magic bullet I can just back up a bit. I'd still like to know why the theme stays on default, though. That really bugs me.

You were right. I still run AGP cards in a few of my computers and I knew this one was not using a white PCI slot. But, I had to open it up to check. Sure enough it's a PCI-Ex16. I'm a little mind numb still from trying to sort out this problem. I had just about convinced myself it would be a video card problem but that doesn't make sense as it works for everything else and has worked up until this new version of LB (and even it still works, it just craps out after each game). The theme problem happened and I threw up my hands and decided to ask for help hoping somebody had been down this road before. *in case anybody was wondering why... I really wanted my arcade to have the analog warmth I remembered from the arcades of my youth. So, I'm using a 36" Sanyo CRT and to get the warmth I was looking for I needed a card with S-Video ( The Sanyo only has RCA and S-Video inputs). This was the newest old card I could find with drivers for Windows7 (which are equivalent to 8 & 10). The screen has been a real attention grabber for everybody who sees it and I've really been pleased with the set-up. Of course, it all still works but maybe I just won't be able to use LB anymore. Surely somebody has an idea. It's going to wind up being something simple that I just can't see right now.

I'm sorry, the carriage return got dropped.... the NVIDIA is an AGP card and the 6GB is the system RAM system

I apologize if I'm in the wrong forum but I certainly could use some help please. LB Has worked fine and BB continues to work fine. LB-Next simply will not run and I cannot deduce why. It did not run when started from within LB as an option to try. At the time I did a clean install and rebuilt the entire system only to find that the problem continued so I gave up on it. Now it is my only choice. 1 - When I scroll through the platforms in the left pane, all is fine. When I click in the right pane to change focus all is fine. (If I start a game it plays and exits normally) When I mouse over the left pane the highlights change and all appears normal. But, as soon as I click anything in the left pane the screen freezes. Eventually (sometimes immediately) LB crashes with the obviously spurious "Your system is running out of memory (RAM) and LaunchBox cannot continue" error. 2 - Once the screen freezes, I can hear the program chirping as I use the keyboard to scroll up and down. If I check the task manager there is only occasional CPU activity and 400-700Mb memory being used by LB (nothing else running including virus stuff, etc.). Nothing else on the computer stops functioning and I can alt-tab to the desktop where everything else runs. Clicking OK closes LB. 3 - I have increased memory from 4GB to 6 without any effect. 4 - I have rechecked all bios & windows settings for anything exotic. 5 - I have updated my video drivers to the newest available. 6 - I have reinstalled the update several times and gotten the exact same results with 8.5, 8.6 & 8.7 7 - Everything on the computer including all the emulators and BB are working fine, LB-Next is the only exception. 8 - I read in the forum that somebody installed the LBPlex theme and it stopped their memory error problem. I tried that and discovered that regardless of what theme I choose, LB uses the default. I deleted the default folder, selected a different theme and LB recreated and then used the default. I hope that something in this list will rings a bell because after three days of this, I am brain dead. Help would be greatly appreciated. Hardware: Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 (Kentsfield)@2.4 GHz Win10 Pro 32-bit NVIDIA GeForce series 6GB Dual Channel DDR2 @ 800MHZ (identical results with 4GB and then again using 6GB)