launcherbox

I've just added a few games there & the Emumovies scrape/download went quickly enough, so hopefully my post above was just Emumovies having an off-day!

Aye Emumovies has been painfully slow for me for quite a while now. I was hoping the recent update would sort it. To answer your question, no these were newly added games post-update I'm afraid. Interestingly the slow part was always the video-snap file for games, the rest of the emumovies content wasn't too bad in terms of speed.

Still painfully slow unfortunately, fully updated LB as of writing. I'm looking at minutes per game😔

Hi all, I'm running the StageBox theme for Game Startup and Shutdowns....works wonderfully well, mostly. Today I discovered an issue between the CXBX-Reloaded emulator and the startup theme feature. Basically, when I launch an Xbox game through LaunchBox, the startup theme will display as it should, and the game then boots (emulator's secondary screen)...for a few seconds, at which time, the game window is minimised and I'm thrown into the emulator's own primary screen (where it shows the file menu, options bar, etc). The game is still running in the secondary window, but it's just minimised. If I turn the Startup/Shutown theme feature OFF, this unwanted behaviour is gone, and the games launch and play perfectly. Can anyone confirm/verify? Fully updated LaunchBox, Windows 10 fully updated, Nvidia GPU drivers, and the StageBox theme for game startup/shutdowns...

I thought the same, by using the default command line parameters it's pushing the config before the game....and by using extra command line parameters, it's pushing the game and then the config (I think!), which weirdly seems to make a difference. Anyway, as you say, it works....I've ctrl-v'd the command into all the platforms under my 2nd instance of RA, and it seems to be working perfectly! Thanks again

Ok interesting. Having seen your screenshot, I tried my custom command in the Associated Platform section, under Extra command Line Parameters...and it worked perfectly (--config "megabezel.cfg"). This means I'll need to add it to all of the systems I want to use this shader on, under the second instance of RetroArch. I was trying in as a global command, under Manage Emulators, Emulator, Default Command Line Parameters thinking it would apply globally to whenever the emulator was called. Thanks again

Hi all, I've created a second, custom, RetroArch.cfg file called megabezel.cfg - this allows me to have a main RetroArch install with a standard shader, and then a variation that uses a global Megabezel shader....all from the one RetroArch install. I'm able to boot straight into either one using either the main RetroArch/exe file for the standard shader, and a shortcut called "RetroArch-megabezel.exe" for the megabezel content (shortcut path is D:\Emulators\RetroArch\retroarch.exe --config megabezel.cfg --menu). All works perfectly. However, I'm now at the stage where I want to be able to use LaunchBox to switch between versions. I obviously have my default RetroArch install set up in LaunchBox, and I've added a second RetroArch instance in LaunchBox for the megabezel config. I've pointed this second instance of RetroArch in LaunchBox to the main Retroarch.exe file, and in the default command line parameters, I've echoed the windows shortcut content by putting in "--config megabezel.cfg --menu", giving me the sample command of "retroarch.exe --config megabezel.cfg --menu "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE" ^^ this all looks correct to me, and should work....but instead, any content loaded though LaunchBox using this second instance of RetroArch is NOT pulling the info from the megabzel.cfg file, and is instead, just launching vanilla retroarch. Is there a way I can correctly specify a custom global config file when launching retroarch under Launchbox?

@kurzih & @sundogak - you're both hero's among us. Through both of your posts, I've got Out of this World up and running and without pain! I can't thank you both enough for your help and overall contributions to the community

@sundogak one last thing if I may pick your brain on this system....there are some games which are NOT mentioned in the MAME softlist xml file. In particular, Out of this World is a game I'd like to get running for the Apple IIgs. I've tried to manually start this game by using the above commands, and MAME boots and tries to start the game, but throws up an error about "UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS". I'm assuming such games are NOT self booting, and need an OS booted first. Is there any way to throw an OS disc at MAME, and ultimately be able to play these games through MAME?

@sundogak - never mind, I'm dumb! The command hadn't got the file path in it. Once I entered the full path, the game booted up perfectly as a non zipped *.2mg file. I can now continue on with your original guide. Again, thank you so much

@sundogak, you're a serious asset to the community here - thank you so much for your detailed and informative posts, you're so helpful. I tried your info above here, and yes, I CAN now get a game to import successfully by changing the emulator to anything other than MAME, and then changing it back to MAME again once the game has successfully imported. However, MAME just will NOT boot anything for me that isn't a *.zip file. I don't even get the MAME screen to flash up, nothing. All my zipped games launch perfectly, but once I tried boot an unzipped image, nothing will start. I'm using Mame .232 just for reference, that latest as of writing this. If I try to do this manually, outside of Launchbox, and use the command prompt - this is what I get: Fatal error: Device Apple/Sony 3.5 DD (400/800K GCR) load (-floppydisk3 three stooges, the (1990)(cinemaware)(disk 1 of 2)[cr][b].2mg) failed: File not found ^^ that's by using the following command: mame.exe apple2gs -gameio joy -ui_active -flop3 "three stooges, the (1990)(cinemaware)(disk 1 of 2)[cr][b].2mg"

Fantastic write up, very very helpful - thank you! I'm having a problem when it comes to multi-disc games in that Launchbox will NOT import them unless they're zipped and named as per software list xml....AND/OR MAME will not see the unzipped *.2mg files in any directory (tried in MAME\roms with the apple2gs bios, and unzipped roms of Bards Tale for the gs (standalone mame will not see the game). Also, if I import the same game as a zip into LaunchBox, it'll import and play fine....but if I change the path to the unzipped *.2mg file, then it will no longer even start. Has MAME been updated since the writing of this guide that it will no longer play unzipped disc images?

Indeed, once I was using the latest version of your tool, I'd zero issues. It's a fantastic piece of work, thank you very much and ignore my sillyness!

Resolved! The debug log shone the light on it for me. It turns out that if you DON'T keep your emulators in the standard/expected location, this tool won't know where to find the xml's. So I created an Emulators folder in the Launchbox folder, created a MAME folder in there, and copied the hash folder from my actual MAME location into the new folder, and voila....job done. Many thanks EDIT - I was also stupidly using the FIRST entry on the download page, which is the OLDEST version!

Is this tool working on version 11.12? I can't seem to start the advanced import wizard (dll's weren't showing as blocked for me, latest LB 11.12, and trying to start the tool nothing happens?