MacGuyver

Hi there, recently I found a super easy way to set up any Vic-20 game to work easily on Launchbox by using Retroarch. The trick is to make sure that every game you set up has the proper memory settings. So many of the best Vic-20 games ran from cartridges that require specific RAM setup to run. Running many of the popular Vic games on Launchbox has been frustrating many people, because lots of them don't work with Retroarch unless you update the RAM settings for every single game. It's a little bit of work the first time you do it, but once you understand the steps, it's very easy to do for all your games. Here is a step by step instruction. For this example, I'm using the game called "Cheese and Onion" which needs 35Kb RAM to run properly. Because it needs extra ram, this game won't run with the default Retroarch settings. Download the game here if you'd like to use it as an example: https://misfit.itch.io/cheese-and-onion The ROM file in this case is named "vic20_cheese_and_onion_32k.d64". Save it where you'd like it to live on your computer. On the Tools menu of Launchbox, select "Import ROM files", then single platform. Choose the game file you downloaded, and select the Commodore Vic-20 Platform when prompted. Choose "RetroArch" as the emulator you'd like to use to run this ROM Copy/Move or Leave the ROM file where it is, per your preference Click the checkmark to download Metadata for your game Decide which media you'd like downloaded from Emumovies (there may not be any) Skip "Download Bezels" because there won't be any for a Vic-20 game Select custom options, if desired Now the game has been installed in Launchbox. Next we need to adjust the per-game memory settings in the Launchbox menus. This is the most important step that many people miss, mainly because the Retroarch menu system is not entirely intuitive. Go ahead and double click on the game in Launchbox so that it starts running. You will see the standard Vic-20 Loading screen displayed (load *, 8), and then the following screen: (You can see that it's an unexpanded Vic currently, due to the 3583 bytes free. We need to change that. Very quickly the game will show you the below loading screen. The loading takes quite a while, which is the perfect opportunity to change the RAM settings. What is important to do next is to change the memory settings for this particular game IN RETROARCH (not Launchbox). You only have to do this once, and it will remember the setting! While you see the screen above, press F1 to enable the Retroarch menu (or press the X-Box guide button, if you are using an X-Box 360 controller) You will see the Retroarch menu appear over the game screen. The game is paused. Navigate to Core options->System->Memory Expansion Set the memory expansion to 32K (the default is off (no extra memory), which won't allow the game to load correctly) Back up one menu (using backspace key or controller) and go to Manage Core Options-> Save Game Options. It has now saved a memory expansion profile for this game only. The setup is complete, you can now run the game again and it will work correctly each time. For a graphical walkthrough of the Retroarch screens and settings, see :https://ibb.co/3yKyY9qd If you have done it correctly, the game will load and you will see the game menu running perfectly: If however you did not adjust the Retroarch game memory setting correctly, then the game will fail to load and you will see the following instead. If this happens, run the game again, and bring up the Retroarch menu while loading the game, and make sure you follow the above steps exactly to set the memory setting correctly for that game. A quick tip for speeding up loading time, since this game takes quite a while to load: You can press the spacebar in Retroarch to speed up the load time tremendously. Just make sure to press space again to turn off the speed loading once the game loads, or it will continue to play at high speed. I hope this helps folks on how to manage the memory settings per game on the Vic-20. It allowed me to easily build the ultimate easy setup and play every single Vic game I ever wanted to play, easily, alongside all the other systems I have setup on Launchbox. For other Vic20 games, the same steps will apply, although some games will need different memory settings. Often times the correct RAM needs are part of the file name. A special thank you to the readme file on the Cheese and Onion Game page, which showed me finally how to properly navigate the Vic20 memory settings page PER GAME in Retroarch, and to save the setting permanently! Let me know if anyone needs help with any specific ROM, and I'll do my best to help!

Which game did you download? What was the file?

I sorted it out! I didn't realize that for my game there were multiple versions of patches for slightly different ROMs of the same title, and I was selecting the wrong ones. Once I selected "only show owned games" in the RPCS3 patch manager, I quickly realized that none of the correct patches were enabled for the exact ROM that I had. When I selected those, they were enabled for the game correctly from Launchbox too.

Any tips on how to enable specific patches for the individual games? When I launch games from the RPCS3 interface directly, it remembers what patches I have enabled for the specific game. But when I launch the game through Launchbox, it does launch (hooray), but none of the patches are enabled, so there might be issues with bloom for example. But launching the game direct from RPC3, it remembers the individual patch settings.

Thanks again Zombeaver for the INSANE amount of careful work you continue to put into these updates. All the new features, the new shader, the updated core with improved SID emulation, new bezels, better zoom settings, all the game version updates, the new overlays, and especially the next set of curated games, it's a dream come true for the fans of this platform. We're not worthy! Truly awesome.

Guys after playing around with PRG Starter and running into some snags, I'm moving onto a different solution. Even though it's useful for many situations, from what I can tell it still does not provide an easy command line method of running multipart files, which means excluding some of the best Vic20 cartridges. I feel like the best option is to follow in Zombeaver's footsteps on the C64 Dreams project, and use RetroArch with the latest VICE xvic core. There is a lot of great features being added right now on the VICE cores, and the ability to to use shaders etc from Retroarch is just too powerful to ignore. I'll update when I'm further along.

Zombeaver, the quality and breadth of the work you are doing with these releases is insane. New games, new features, updated versions, custom notes, new bezels, the list goes on. And now with possible savestates and an improved VICE core around the corner, there is more to come, apparently! Thank you so much!

The game specific instructions presented as a sticky note is awesome! Smart idea with the database so you can consider upgrading game versions, too. And more games coming? How do you find the time for all this?! Thank you!

Wow, what a lot of work and detail you are putting into these updates! BIG thanks!!!!

Sweet! Can't wait.

Holy smokes, what a treat! THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is the ultimate way to play C64 M.U.L.E. Wow, 4 player simultaneous gameplay on a Commodore 64 game, how incredible! It was really nice of you to take the time to figure this out. Now that you've got this 3 & 4 multiplayer sorted out, you might want to consider setting up Bruce Lee Return of Fury the same way! It just got released as freeware a few months ago and looks incredibly slick, plus it allows 3 player simultaneous play! https://megastyle.itch.io/bruce-lee-return-of-fury

Thanks for the super detailed explanation, which made me realize the complexity of this idea. I thought about this and I think that ultimately it would be too easy to mess up the other person's game. So I don't think it's worth pursuing but I do appreciate the inventiveness of the solution! I do think that this is the best way to do this, if you're able to make it work. And yes, if it works with 3 controllers it should also work with 4 I'm happy to do any testing and very appreciative! ?

Hi Zombeaver, a BIG thanks for adding M.U.L.E into your super slick C64 Dreams setup, and also the work you put into customizing the keyboard. It works fantastic! I even tested the 4 player setup and it's definitely a better keyboard layout. I can't wait to play this with my kids, I've been talking about this game for years. BUT, I've been thinking a little more about the 4 controller setup, because I'm not going to give up on this! I know that my copy of retroarch sees my xbox 360 controllers # 3 and 4 when I turn them on because I see a status update from Retroarch when it detects them. However I realize that the VICE core in retroarch normally allows only 2 controllers for input as far as I know. So I have 2 theories of ways this could be bypassed to finally allow full 4 player controller support on MULE. I have yet to test either of these, but open to your feedback. Method #1 - Don't use VICE to interpret the 3rd and 4th joysticks. Instead use something like Joy2Key to read controller 3 and 4 and convert them into the W, S, D and up arrow, down arrow, and right arrow keys. Method #2 - Use a specially modified version of C64 M.U.L.E which was re-coded to read signals from a 4 player joystick adapter. Of course, the actual hardware adapter is for a physical C64 made by Protovision, but I understand that VICE has a special user port mode that can emulate this adapter called CGA mode. Details here https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39013&sid=02011793d92a367b12679b878453b371 And here is the link for the specially modified 4 player version of M.U.L.E.: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=101455 Interested in your thoughts!

Thanks very much for adjusting the keys on M.U.L.E. Zombeaver! Really looking forward to testing this.

M.U.L.E. is actually my favorite C64 game of all time, and you have to play with a group to truly get a feel for how great the competition aspect of the game really is. Having said that, it's nearly impossible to have players 3 and 4 use the keyboard at the same time comfortably so I would love to find a way to map those keys onto controllers 3 and 4. The part I wasn't sure about was the fire button being two keys together. And thanks so much for the shift tip on the forum replies ?