Retro_Rage

You can add select zips from you MAME set and just import as normal roms however make sure you have a non-merged Mame set before splitting off any zips. The reason is because on merged sets the child roms depend on the parent roms. so if you split up the set you will probably break quite a few. Also, you would still need the bios and supporting files. Just as an FYI, in the full MAME importer, there is options to skip importing certain game types that you wouldn't want. I probably wouldn't try splitting up the full set though unless it's a non-merged set.

When you add the games, you can add multiple folders to Launchbox and it will import them as one platform. Then if you manually add a playlist, under auto populate there is a source option. If you select that and enter the (custom) name of the folder that the games are in, it will automatically populate with only games from that folder.

My Opinion is that there is never really a "safe" way to download anything online, however I have never had any issue with archive.org. I could be wrong, but I believe that they pre scan any file that is uploaded. It's probably against the rules to provide any other links or elaborate where to get roms from so I'm not getting into that, but Google is your friend. I know it mentioned elsewhere on here so I'm just going to mention to google MAME Pleasuredome for the MAME arcade set, same for HBMAME. Neo Geo roms are in the full MAME set.

It is In the menu on the top, sorry its actually the tools menu (its between menu and view on the top of Luanchbox) then click manage and then click emulators. That will open a list of the installed emulators that you set up. Just click on duckstation. Then you just need to put -batch in the default command line parameter box (it's the 3rd box down). Then you should be good to go.

He means that in the emulator settings in launchbox (tools/emulators) there is a box that says default command line parameters. In that box type -batch. Done mean to jump on bundangdon but I hope that clarifies a bit.

What I've done before is import the full MAME set including e everything and then use Genres. Basically, use the auto create playlist's function and then go to Genres. It automatically separates games into computers, consoles, slots etc. From there you can just select all (alt a), right click and use bulk edit to change the platform for all the games under that genre. Thats how I know have an entire full MAME set but nicely separated into different platforms. On a side note, nobody really talks about it, but MAME has a TON of goodies in it that are not arcade. Most people only care about arcade but some things in MAME are fascinating and really fun to explore and play with.

If you download the non-merged set, then the bios files are mostly included in the same rom zip (really depends on the set you download). I don't think there is a non-merged set for software lists, at least I haven't found one yet. Meaning each system needs a bios. These are usually just the same short name as the system and are usually in the full mame rom set. So in other words, if you have the full mame set and mame is pointing to that then you shouldnt need a bios with the software lists. If you also download the devices mame set, that's just basically other devices for the system (ie cd drives, peripherals etc.) Most of them don't really require them but it's really useful to have. Ok, that response got longer then intended lol but i think i answered your question if I didn't confuse the hell out of everyone first.

I know you solved this already, but just wanted to point out that all the updates are stored in the updates folder. If you install an update and want to revert, just go to the update folder and install the previous update before this one. Just make sure you don't update to the newer one when it prompts you again. Done that many times.

Thanks for all the info in this thread! Just wanted to mention a small correction though, the VHS tapes and a few other things listed in the op weren't actually distributed with any of the magazines. The Game Player ones were sold in stores and most of the Nintendo ones were given away or mailed in specific instances. There are a few other ones to that you mentioned that are the same. i Just wanted to mention that as I am in the process of adding a ton of supplements as additional apps and trying to get it as close to possible as how they came in stores. Especially the ones I remember from my childhood.

And I just updated my set here... Like I said, I'm not exactly a graphic artist or anything, just filling wholes in my pretty massive collection. Some of them came out pretty good, others are just kind of place holders until I find a better source logo or someone with more talent than I have can create something better. These should cover now most, if not all, of the working MAME software lists. Thanks to Viking for the template and everyone else in this thread for inspiration and their contributions. I tried not to duplicate anything, if it is duplicated in this thread, chances are that I created it before someone made a better one on here. I tried to use the ones in the archive and in this thread first before I made any. Anyway, here are the new total icons in the archive: Arcade: 328 (Includes boards with a new style) Arcade Categories: 4 (tried to beautify my setup by splitting playlists) Categories: 11 Comics:12 (More to come in the future, same template from magazines) Computers: 98 Consoles: 49 Mini Systems: 6 Developers: 16 Handhelds: 41 Magazines: 21 (Plus Template) Operating Systems: 4 Other: 7 PC Games: 15 Pinball: 5 Playlists: 15 (includes a few genres that I couldn't find, rest of the set is on the forums) Subcategories: 134 (Search Ever Drive packs, if ya know ya know. Haven't seen any logos for these at all anywhere) Please let me know if there is any issue with the archive. Will probably be adding more in the future as I still continue to grow my collection.

So, I just got done creating an absolute ton of knew logos to fill in the gap in my collection, Ill upload those in a bit... but here is a few more of the arcade boards that I couldn't find using sundogak's style and template that he provided a while back. Keep in mind I'm not exactly a graphic designer or anything, just trying to fill in gaps in my collection...

If you mean to start Retro Arch standalone without a game loaded, then just right click any game that has Retro arch as the default emulator, right click and click Launch Retro arch.

The main launchbox version is currently only available for Windows. There is an Android version which you can try to install threw the play store on your Chromebook, it is really seems to be designed for smaller screens so not to sure how it will look on a Chromebook. Really the main emulator that you will need is Retroarch which is also available for android, and you should also be able to install it through the play Store. I have no clue about the onexplayer or really what it is, can't really help with that.

If it is working find under MAME by itself, then its probably your command line. Under Associated Platforms, Bally Astrocade should be astrocde -cart or astrocde -cart1 Also the default command line parimeters on the first page should be -keyboardprovider dinput

I don't believe there is a dragon core for Rertroarch yet, if you have the MAME software list set then you can use MAME, otherwise there is the xroar emulator. If you were using Hyperspin, it uses RocketLauncher which can also be setup to use in Launchbox, it will give a cleaner launch for 3rd party emulators like xroar. I wouldn't use it for Retroarch or MAME though because it is really not needed. Rocketlauncher does have a presetup script for Xroar.

Launchbox downloads the bezels from the the bezels project. From what I understand if you are using the mame emulator it will download the full MAME bezel set from the bezel project. Most of the games for Neo Geo MVS are included in the full MAME rom set and do have individual game bezels if the roms are MAME roms and you are using MAME. As for Retroarch, there is no indivudual Neo Geo Bezel set but I believe there is for Final Burn Neo if you are using that core. At any rate, it is really easy to add you own bezel for any system. Just download the bezel png and cfg file into your overlay folder, open up a game from that platform, click tab and the overlays, select the cfg file. You can then hit tab again to close the menu and make sure it works, To save it just to go to config and then save for either the core or the rom location. I can probably right that in more detail if you need but its really easy to add whatever bezel you want to Retroarch. Even if you only have the png (which you posted above), just copy the cfg from any other bezel, open with notpad and change the paths and point Retoarch to use that cfg.

The easiest way to do this is probably just to use symlink the images folder to another point to the new location. The only other way would be to rename the images path manually for all your systems. The easiest non command line way that I use is by using Link Shell Extension (schinagl.priv.at). Just Move your image folder to wherever you want, install that tool, right click the images folder in the new location, click Pick link source, go to the old image location (Launchbox root folder by default), right click and click create symlink. Easy peasy! Now Launchbox will think your image folder is in the same location bull we redirect it to the new location. Disclaimer, I use this method for my games folder and emulators. Never tried it on the images folder but don't see a reason why it wouldn't work.

You can of course just import the games again and have LB rescrape everything again. If He already has it fully scraped you can just copy it directly over to your setup although slightly more complex but not that hard... First copy the roms from his setup to yours in the same location. Usually Launchbox/Games. Then copy over all the media into the same locations. This includes images, images/platforms, videos, videos/platforms, manuals, music etc. Then the most important thing is the xml. These are in data/platforms. Just copy over the xml with the name of the platform you want. Just make sure LB is closed when you do. Once you start it up it should be there and ready to go. You may need to fix a few things though such as the platform metadata. Also make sure you have an emulator setup for whatever emulator it uses, if not you will get no emulator found message when starting the games. It is actually pretty easy and makes sense once you do it. Hope that helps!

I just figured I would tack on some useful information I recently learned about soft lists in Lunchbox. First of I highly recommend the above plugin, makes life so much easter but it doesn't automatically scrape the media, you would need to do that yourself. Under platform options make sure you check that the scrape as setting is correct for the system you want to scrape. If you don't check it first it would be the wrong media for the games. Also, if it isn't one of the stock systems supported in Lunchbox, I would NOT recommend scraping the media. You would get a whole bunch of garbage for everything else. Also, in the plugin there is a page on the wizard where it asks for two paths, I set them both to the same directory where your soft list roms are installed. For example, I have them in /Emulators/MAME/software and then they are in the short name for the system that MAME reads ie. Nintendo is nes etc. If you do that than it's not necessary to copy the files. Just hit import only. Saves space on your drive. If you set the second field to (for example) your launchbox/games/nes directory and the games aren't there, then it may cause problems when you do things like scan for removed roms (LB will remove them because it doesn't see them). Also, a simple third one is that if you try to use soft lists and have them in a different folder than your roms, make sure a rom path is set to that folder in MAME. I also learned that if a few occasions the parameter aren't correct and don't seem to load the game. For most of them if I just removed the parameter completely like Joe said above they worked. Thats just strange but whatever. I hope that helps... and makes sense and isn't to confusing lol.