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?

That worked a charm, thank you so much! I was scratching my head for ages with that one, but just couldn't get the syntax correct for the check if not running then unmount part. Thank you again for your help. The final script for the game Civ II Gold Multiplayer (with corrected exe name, and command for Daemon tools to unmount) for Windows is: Sleep, 7000 ;give time (7 seconds?) for CivIIG to load [if it's not already] Loop { if !WinExist("ahk_exe civ2.exe") ;if the exe file is not running anymore { Run "C:\Program Files\DAEMON Tools Lite\DTCommandLine.exe" --unmount_all ;ummount the disc Return ;and exit the script } }

Hi all Is it possible to write a script I can import into LaunchBox that does the following: 1) Mounts a cd image 2) Runs an *.exe from a different directory 3) Monitors to check if a process is running, and if it is, then ignore, if not, then issue a command (to unmount the cd image) & exit AHS. I've had various degrees of success, but nothing works completely. I can point LaunchBox to the *.nrg image which mounts it in Daemon tools, I can then add an additional app to launch the game's exe from another directory (autoplay on disc doesn't work, so exe needs to be launched separately)....what I cannot get to happen though, is unmounting the cd image from Daemon tools if I exit the game. I've tried various methods of scripts, but nothing works. The game is Civilization II Gold....so the disc needs to be mounted for the music to work, and then the exe needs to be launched from the installation directory. Game plays fine, but because in LB the "main program" is the disc image being mounted, the additional app feature "automatically launch after..." isn't hugely helpful. I'd appreciate any help at all

Fantastic guide, extremely help, so thank you very much! I've a few additions/corrections if I may, which I've had to change as of setting up today: 1) I've altered the UnzSelect.ahk very slightly so that when you exit a game, the virtual drive is automatically unmounted. This is more or a personal preference thing, as it annoys me a little seeing the image remaining mounted after I've finished with the game & system. I'll attach the slightly revised script to this post. 2) When setting up the VirtualDrive emulator for LaunchBox, it's important to note that within the arguments '-M -I "E" -p' as shown above, the "E" refers to the virtual drive. For me I already had a hdd labelled as E:, so I lost quite a bit of time before I realised I needed to change the "E" here to reflect the letter of my virtual drive. Once done, all was good. 3) When pointing the VirtualDrive emulator to run the UnzSelect.ahk file, the command in the tutorial didn't work for me. I had to change it to "Run, D:\Emulators\Unz\UnzSelect.ahk" (without the quotations). The difference here is the addition of a coma, and the removal of quotations from the file path. 4) When setting the file path in LaunchBox to the blank disk file, the -f0 actually has to be a capital F for it to work (in my case anyway), so therefore -F0 5) Finally, the unmount command for use with single disk images needs to be a capital u, so therefore -U should be added to the emulation custom command line parameter section. That's me over & out, thanks again! UnzSelect.ahk

Hmm, possibly...I hadn't thought of that. I am using scaling because I'm using this display as my daily driver & need to be able to read text etc...is there a way to turn scaling off on BigBox only perhaps? Thanks for the help!

Cheers, but I'm using a 1080p 42" TV, pc is outputting 1920x1080@60....

Bit of a bump as this themse/thread doesn't seem to have been updated recently. Basically I've a slight issue, when viewing each console/system, the text/descriptions of these systems seems overly wide on my setup compared to how it is in the images of the first post of the thread. The text isn't readable where it overlaps on pictures of systems that are dark in colour. Is there any way to adjust this?

Ok a simple enough workaround of sorts for those with a non-standard config like myself: Place eXoDOS parent folder in my main games folder, ie, G:\Games\eXoDOS I've stripped out as much as possible from said eXoDOS folder, leaving it essentially as a container for the games themselves, no LaunchBox content etc I then install the games as needed, into this eXoDOS folder by running the required .bat file (as you would normally) Once installed, I simply drag the associated .bat file into my existing LaunchBox, and import it as normal. This way, the eXoDOS content does NOT have to live in my LaunchBox installation folder, and I don't need to alter any settings or configs as no paths etc get broken this way.

Hi folks, I've a question re eXodos & an existing LB installation. I've downloaded the base eXodos files, and only three or four games (I don't want the full set of games). I've ran setup, and it appears to be working as it all should. However, I've an existing LaunchBox installation, with the big difference that it is configured to NOT use the default directories for games content. My existing setup structure looks like this: G:\ Emulators (this is for standalone emulators, including RetroArch) G:\Games (in here are subfolders for all the systems/platforms I have set up in LB) G:\Launchbox (the base LB installation, with art, videos, etc) So as far as I can see, simply moving an eXodos game over to my existing setup will not work because I'd like to have my eXodos games in their own folder in my "G:\Games" folder as shown above, and the .bat files are all written to use the default directories as far as I can make out. Is there any way around this?

Great sundogak....keep us posted. I'd really, really, REALLY like to avoid a re-installation....I've put a LOT of effort into my setup/config, and am not sure I could bare doing it all again. Unless you can re-install over an existing installation and keep your settings (which you prob can considering that how updating works duh!)

Cheers sundogak - I've not opted for beta build updates but it's nice to hear 10.11b4 doesn't exhibit this behaviour...