Chadmando

Thanks, am currently working on the next upgrade. It will have a separate settings program and will allow you to enter your hotkeys much easier for the emulator of choice. The pause menu will know what emulator you have open and will change to the correct hotkeys on its own. I will have 7 days off starting tomorrow and hope to finish the next release. If I have time I will package it with pre-made settings for retroarch, but it should also be easy enough for the users to make their own settings file for it.

UPDATE Super Pause menu V1.0 with dll plugin now released in released section! Added timestamps and screenshots of your savestates, a manual viewer, and many more customizable options using launchbox images. UPDATE Super Pause Menu 0.85 DOWNLOAD>>> Super Pause Menu V0.85.zip Completely reworked the saving/loading method of my settings program to use .ini files instead of .txt. The way I had previously set it up really painted me into a corner and limited what I could do with future upgrades. This will pave the way for future upgrades such as... Added the ability to use up to 100 save/load slots (not that I imagine anyone will use that many). This new ability will be sort of be my template for user created custom menus (to be added in the future). Added the option to display however many save/load slot you want per page. I needed some new options to accommodate the growing Save/Load Menu list. So I added a new page in the "Customize Menu" page in the settings program. This includes a font size option for the Save/Load screen title, and a separate one for the Save/Load screen menu items. I added the ability to change the horizontal alignment of the menu title, this way you can use the whole screen height for your menu items and place your menu title to the side. Added some better scaling options for the text size. This way your pause screen should look nearly identical if you are using the same screen ratio as your background image. If your background ratio is of 16:9 and your resolution changed to a 4:3, the text size will look almost the same, though the background image will obviously be a little skewed. Likewise with your screen DPI, I prefer to use 150% zoom in on windows (144 DPI) if I change it to 100% the pause menu should be able to accommodate that no problem. Here are a couple screenshots I took while changing my resolution. If anyone wants it I may add the option in the future to fit the background image to screen with the same ratio and use black bars, but for now if the user is using a different resolution the easier option is to just use a background image with the same ratio as their monitor. Below is a screenshot of my new Mame menu at 1920 X 1080 using 144 DPI (16:9 ratio 150% Zoom in) (Background image is 1920 X 1080) Here is is at 1633x768 96DPI (100% Zoom in) And just for the heck of it 800 X 600: New Settings Page: I have removed the 10 line limit to the Autohotkey script entry boxes (no limit whatsoever), enlarged the input boxes and added scrollbars. Fixed some flickering issues when pressing the user defined up down keys on the pause menu Changed the icon image to a custom one instead of the AHK one Changes to emulator settings files - Note: I have made some changes to the look of some of the menus for a few emulators. I wanted to include examples of what the user has the ability to do. If you don't like some of them you can change them, I may revert to a default look and include a theme manager in future releases. Added Demul to the list of pre-configured emulator settings. I didn't include save/load slots for it, as demul doesn't have any default hotkeys set up for saving and loading. You can add these in yourself however. Dolphin -Upped to 8 save/load slots EPSXE - Upped to 5 save/load Slots, increased key delay to 450 milliseconds, changed menu background and font pscsx2 - Upped to 9 save/load slots, changed menu background and font Mame - Upped to 10 save/load slots, changed font and backround Project64 - Upped to 10 save/load slots SNES9x - Upped to 10 save/load slots, changed background Mednafen - Up to 10 Save/load slots Visualboy advance- Changed font and background Screenshots of new menus: UPDATE Super Pause Menu 0.80 DOWNLOAD>>> Super Pause Menu V 0.80.zip Added the option to allow the user to use their own custom AHK code instead of simply sending hotkeys, this new option adds a whole lot more functionality than before. Added full Xinput functionality! I have included an older version of Xinput1_3.dll into this release, you may have to unblock the dll after download. No more Need for external software like Joytokey! Changed the menu "Emulator Hotfixes" to "Emulator Settings. I have added the option to have a delayed start to coincide with Launchbox's Start up screens. This will help prevent any possible interruptions during your loading process. I added a 5 second delay to all my default settings files. I also added a new option to optionally force maximize the running emulator after the pause menu is closed. This way you can use the pause menu with Windowed mode AND full screen mode. -I have added a new Notes section to the main menu Added working settings for PCSX2 and ePSXe, as well adjusted some settings to all the others so most of the default settings will work with either Full Screen or Windowed mode. My preference is full screen mode, so if an emulators default setting doesn't work with windowed mode you may have to play around with the settings. Fixed a lot of annoying bugs. Next on my list is to add options for the user to create their own custom menus/sub menus, maybe I'll try my hand at some nice layouts, (I'm not so much of an artist) but if anyone wants to share their own backgrounds and layouts let me know, I'll include it into the next update! UPDATE Super Pause Menu 0.75 I have been working pretty hard on this pause menu and implemented a lot of changes. I have a few more additions I want to add before putting this into the released section. My major changes: -Optional Fade in when pause button is pressed -Auto finds your emulator and applies the correct hotkeys if a setting file for it exists - Auto adjusting resolution. Your emulator changed your resolution to 800X600? No problem, this menu will adjust for that. -Works with the new launchbox start and gameover screens. - Works with fullscreen mode on emulators - New settings program makes it extremely easy to create and customize the pause menu on a per emulator basis. -Comes with pre-configured emulator settings for Dolphin, Mame, mednafen, Project64, retroarch, SNES 9x, visualboyadvance-m, visualboyadvance-M-WX (with their default hotkeys). Working on epsxe and pcsx2 for the next release. -Limited joystick support for Dpad, and all buttons. Passive mode will require the use of a third party program such as joytokey or controller companion to use a controller. (Thus far it appears the only emulator that absolutely needs passive mode is Project 64). -Works well with the Xbox guide button as a pause key. (Only activated if quick pressed in case the user needs to hold down the button to turn off the controller.) -Simplistic hotkey entry that auto detects the key you hold down (no going through complicated settings files). -Added easy string support in case a a simple key combination doesn't cut it, and you need a sequential key command. Example: To load save state in slot one for Mame you would enter "F7 1" into the hotkey entry) , which would simulate Pressing F7, followed by a pause, and then a press of 1. -Support for 0-4 Save/load slots and an optional reset - The files are now compiled into .exe format rather than autohotkey .ahk for better compatibility. Quick installation and setup (if simply wanting to use a preconfigured emulator): 1. Unzip the folder and all of it's contents wherever you like, I would suggest the launchbox folder. 2. Go into that folder and open up "Settings.exe" 3. Double click the emulator you want to configure for. It will show the emulator information at the top when it loads the settings file.4. Click the "Menu Keys" button on the left. If you are happy with the current menu keys configuration you can move on to the next step. If you would like to change a key, double the form and a hotkey entry will pop up. Hold down the key you would like to use and then click submit. Once you are happy with all your Menu hotkeys press save at the bottom: 5. Click on the "File" button on the left hand and repeat steps 3 - 4 for all the emulators you would like to configure for. 6. Click on the "Installation Notes" button on the left hand side, then click on "Copy to Clipboard" on the bottom. 7. Close the settings program. Open up Launchbox, click on the settings buttons -> Tools -> Manage Emulators 8. Double click you emulator of choice, and then click on the "AutoHotkey Script" tab. Paste the contents of your clipboard (ctrl+V or right click-> Paste) on the first line, then press OK. Repeat this step for all the emulators you would like to use the pause menu with. 9. Launch a game with launchbox or Bigbox. The pause menu will start hidden in your toolbar. Upon launch it will look at all the running executable and match it to it's corresponding settings file. If it does not find a config file it will time out and give you an error message after 30 seconds. After your game loads, press the hotkey button you have configured as your pause button in the previous steps to launch the pause menu. Use your configured navigation keys to navigate the menu. Pressing your pause key again will exit the pause screen and unpause your game. If your emulator closes expected or unexpectedly, the pause menu will detect that and close itself. 10. If you want to change your background, font, font colors, etc etc for any specific emulator, or create a whole new settings file for a different emulator altogether just use the settings program. DOWNLOAD: Super Pause Menu V0.75.zip --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I started doing this as a personal project for my holidays days off. I find myself keep wanting to add more and more, and now I have to go back to work soon, so I thought I'd release this before it never sees the light of day. I hope to continue working on this in my spare time. And if I don't someone can very easily modify and customize to what I have done thus far. I present to you, Chadmando's Super Pause Menu v0.5. (AUTO HOTKEY SCRIPT). Features: Pause, Four Save and Load States, and a Reset. The menu is customizable within the provided settings.ini folder (I tried to make it as straight forward as possible). Customizable settings include custom controls, Background image, Font color, alignment of title text and menu list. By default I am using a resolution of 1920X1080, if you're resolution is any different I have no idea if it will still work, (I hope to fix that in the future). Outside of this, it's just a script, you can modify it all you want. I have only done a configuration for Dolphin, and it works just fine so far with their default hotkey set (Be sure to add SHIFT+ F9 for the Reset hotkey in dolphin settings). I plan on adding separate settings files per emulator in the future and have this one script handle everything. In the mean time if you want to use it for other emulator's you'll probably have to copy this script and rename it to a new one. I was using this in Windows 10, no guarantees it'll work with other versions of Windows. I don't really have any installation notes. As long as everything in the provided zip folder is extracted into the same folder, with the same file structure there should be no issues, simply run Super Pause Menu.ahk , it's up to you to set up to your liking. Upon launch the program hides itself into the notification bar and won't show the pause screen until you press the user defined pause button. By default I set the pause button to the XBOX One guide button. Default buttons are: UP and Down controlled by Arrow keys Select is ENTER DELETE is back Credit for the background image to Rincewind Super Pause Menu V0.5.zip

I went back and tried this again, I actually had controller companion disabled when MAME was in use, after I enabled (START + SELECT) to toggle it, it worked completely fine... (for hotkeys).

Here's a solution that I tested and works. Open up Launchbox, go to emulator settings for mame> Autohotkey script Enter this code: vk07sc000:: { SetKeyDelay , , 300 send {TAB} } This way you're not running new programs. The "setkeydelay" makes the button push a little longer otherwise it seems to ignore the press. I don't think controller companion will work, and I'm not sure if mame works with XInput, hopefully I am wrong though. If you plan on mapping more controls to the same controller you might have issues.

Yes I beleieve there is an option in there that blocks digital inputs, I am looking for it right now. EDIT: Looking at my set up I am using joytokey for mame, I must have had the similar issues as you. I played around with my settings and I can confirm it works within joytokey. All my joysticks are configured to keyboard buttons in mame, and I use Joytokey to send the inputs. I am using mame 0.173

Sounds good

PM me your email I'll buy you a copy if you want, it's only $3 =P. The program is awesome it saved me a lot of trouble.

Thanks for the reply. I understand, I made my post before I investigated things properly, I've adjusted my autohotkey script that I have running in the background and fixed most of my issues. I'm not sure if someone raised this issue, perhaps maybe it's worth making a warning pop up in the settings for project 64. If the setting in project 64 "PAUSE EMULATION WHEN THE WINDOWS IS NOT ACTIVE" is checked then project64 won't work properly with the startup screen, and will only start when the startup screen is timed out. Unchecking this setting fixes the problem. You have steam games working properly with startup screens? If I don't have steam open prior then the chat menu, and update screen, etc mess up the starting screen. I then have to manually change the setting in each and every steam game if I want to disable the startup screen. Is there a way to change this setting for all Steam games (without changing the settings for each and every individual game), just like how the option is available for emulators?

I love the idea of the startup screens, but this doesn't work at all for me. Project 64 always starts up after the start up screen is shown, no matter how long the startup screen is, it doesn't hide the console window no matter what setting I do. Every time close pretty well any emulator or windows game Bigbox "hangs" (as in does not accept any controller input until I alt-tab back into bigbox). Steam games console launches before the the startup is finished (using the default startup time) and then if the game loads faster, big box brings BIGBOX into view until the game loads. If I adjust the time to longer, the startup screen and game loads ok, when I close the game the startup screen is still on and hangs at the "startup windows" until I manually close it. I cannot seem to find a setting to change the startup times for all steam games, it looks like I have to do it manually to every one. I think Dolphin is the only emulator working correctly. EDIT: Some of my hanging issues after closing a game seem to be from my autohotkey script that I had used to alleviate opening mutliple instances of one game, as well as hanging after closing a game lol. It seems like the very same items that have been patched here are breaking with what I was trying to fix manually in previous versions.

I find they both work very well, I thought I had bad lag on the NES one at first but it's just the filters I had over the emulator were lagging things a bit. So far I haven't had cut outs unless the controller is dying. I find myself more often than not just using the Xbox one controller for the older 2d gen games, nothing else quite feels right besides oem with N64, ps1, PS2 + gamecube to me. My fav PS2 game required the use of pressure sensitive buttons which no other controller aside from the PS3 seems to have. That being said I have been contemplating buying 1 nice multipurpose controller.

I thought most motherboards would come with bluetooth installed nowadays, my motherboard is a rampage V extreme it has a built in wifi with bluetooth 4.0 module. I imagine any good bluetooth adapter, either if it's a dongle or a pci-e plugin to the motherboard should suffice. I would recommenced one that plugs into a pci-e slot that comes with a good antenna out the back. That being said, I didn't want to confuse you too much, but I do actually have 3 bluetooth modules in total. 1 for Xinput controllers, one dedicated to ps3 controllers (using pcsx toolkit), and one dedicated for the wii. They all work independent of eachother as to not conflict with eachother. You will need a dedicated adapter for proper ps3 controller input if you wanted to use a ps3 controller as well.

No problem lol, I'm not the best at explaining things. I am using my built in bluetooth chip for the wireless Xbox one NES, SNES, Genesis controllers, not any dongles. If you're using a bunch dongles for each xinput controller that has a dedicated controller spot 24/7, that will definitely mess up your controller orders. With the one dedicated bluetooth adapter, the controller only shows up on the "windows game controllers" list when you connect, and when you disconnect it disappears, you should only ever have to sync them once as windows will remember all your pairings. It is actually very intuitive and I prefer this set up much more than the old dinput. If you are using an emulator with xinput support it should completely ignore any other plugged dinput devices. This chip supports up to 8 Xbox controllers I believe. The emulator itself is only mapped to a single Xbox one controller per player. With xinput, the emulator doesn't "know" which type of controller it is using, as each controller is simply simulating a Xbox one controller, it only knows what controller player one is, who player two is, etc. Windows does all this work before the emulator is loaded. Outside of the emulator the 8 bitdo controllers button layout match closely to what an Xbox one controller layout is (and if they're slightly different you can swap them around via a combination of button presses via the manuals). This way I don't have to map every single controller in the emulator, and all the buttons lined up pretty much the same way. Long story short: The emulator thinks every controller is an xbox one controller, the mapping remains the same. The emulator only knows what player to assign to what controller because windows has assigned it before hand.

Messing around with the bluetooth adapters can be very difficult for the initial setup, I agree, especially with a custom installed bluetooth chip. The end result is very nice though, the controllers are always synced up like a real wii every time I load a wii game, and to sync another I simply press the sync button once on the controller and once on the front of my pc. Though you cannot really use that same bluetooth module outside of dolphin for other programs like you can with the mayflash adapter. Most people install them into some sort of small case and run a usb cable to plug into a usb port outside of the computer. If you're good at soldering the wiring is extremely simple, and only requires a few parts. At the very bare minimum you need a case of some sort, a usb cable, a wii bluetooth module, and a voltage regulator (a sync button is optional, as you can sync the controllers with a hotkey within dolphin if you wanted. You can buy these items for very cheap on ebay or amazon, usually from chinese sellers (shipping can take a while). I personally got all the parts, secured them together in a way I like and then paid a local on kijiji to do the soldering for $40 'cause I suck at it lol. Here is the thread about it on the dolphin forums: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-how-to-wire-a-wii-s-bluetooth-module-to-a-pc-usb-port I used this schematic exclusively https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/attachment.php?aid=17630 Like I said though, once configured in your pc , it's really only supported in the dolphin emulator.

No, if the emulator has proper support for xinput this shouldn't be an issue. The only times I had this issue was using dinput, and with improper plugins. I only map for one device for every player on every emulator using a xbox one controller, with 8bitdo bluetooth mod kits I can swap buttons at the hardware level before syncing them up for the first time, so my controllers all have the same button layout as the Xbox one controller (like A button on xbox one is = B on SNES, B= A, X= Y, Y=X). Before opening up the emulator you have to make sure you have the controllers ON in sequence to the order you want the players (same for when you initially map your buttons). I should clarify I am using windows 10 enterprise edition, this might not work with other OS's. For example, say I open up bigbox with an xbox one controller and decide I want to play two players on the NES, with two NES controllers. I first hold down the guide button to turn off the xbox controller so it will disengage that controller as player one (the annoying Xbox game bar has to be disabled/uninstalled so it doesn't pop up), I then grab my two NES controllers, the first one I turn on windows assigns that as player one, and then turn on the second, it assigns that as player two. Using that same controller I select an NES game and it loads up the game with the correct player order. If I want to change controllers I have to close the game, turn off the controllers and do the same sequence with whichever controller I choose. For a rare emulator that doesn't support xinput you can use a program called joytokey in conjunction with bigbox, and then you can assign your controller to a specific slot using its mac address or (hardware id or something like that) and then map keyboard keys to that specific controller.

Thanks! I got them from rose colored gaming They don't have genesis ones I bought that one off of a UK ebay seller, luckily it looked very similar to the others.

I have eyed the magic ns adapter before, the issue I would have with such a setup is that you have to remember which controller is which. The good thing with the 8bitdo is it supports xinput. Using my computers built in bluetooth; no matter what controller I use the computer will assign the corresponding controller to a player in whatever order I turned the controller on. Meaning I can use the xbox one controller, SNES, NES, genesis with whatever emulator I want without pressing physical buttons or resyncing (they all act like a wireless Xbox one controller). I can be using an xbox one controller for an SNES game, while a friend could use the oem snes controller as player 2 if they choose. For the PS3 I have installed SCP3Toolkit, and bought another bluetooth adapter exclusively for PS3 controllers. It also acts just like any xinput controller, except in PCSX2, where it will function exactly like a PS2 controller ( for those games you need pressure sensitive buttons). That's interesting about the mayflash, the other issue I had with it is the LEDs inside burned out really fast (less than 6 months) even with the update that turns them off when no controller is being used. I figured at the very least with a built in bluetooth I can just use one of those cheap usb sensor bars and not feel bad about chucking it and getting a new one if the same thing happens.

Just wanted to give an update to my original post: My original setup was a little cumbersome, it relied on a wii remote, and extensions to plug the controllers in. I have now gone completely wireless, thanks to 8bitdo's modkits. For those unfamiliar, 8bitdo have released pcbs that replace the ones inside your oem controllers. I now have bluetooth modified OEM controllers (NES, SNES and Genesis), as well as I invested in four retro-bit 8bitdo N64 controllers (as there isn't a mod for the oem n64 yet). To finish it off, I installed an actual OEM Wii bluetooth adapter into my PC, and added a nice blue button on the front of my tower to sync wii remotes. I did this because the mayflash bar wasn't quite cutting it (Wii remote sounds sounded like garbage, kept having problems with Wii motion plus controllers, also through my research it is supposed to be the most accurate adapter.

I'd like to put a request out there if someone can do a start up video deo based on the theme of the old canadian video game show Video & arcade top 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxXmMgwtaU it's pretty cheesy but it brings back so much nostalgia lol.

Ok, I didn't think so, thank you. I will write up an AHK script.

Is there a way to set a combination of keyboard keys to close bigbox? Currently I have X set to close bigbox but I'd much rather a combination to close it instead. It only seems to accept one key in the settings. Thanks!

Hello, I am currently refining my PC autohotkey scripts to try and eliminate any issues to be more of a foolproof setup, for guests and my young son. I have an autohotkey script running in the background 24/7 on my PC. I used the Xbox one center button to open and close emulators, and also to launch bigbox itself. There is one issue that presents itself sometimes where a emulator/game gets stuck open after closing Bigbox, is there a script I can use to detect all the windows/ games opened by BB, and if they exist force them to end task when BB is closed? If tried using the Close, process, {{{StartupEXE}}}, and tried to use variations of that, but I have no idea what "startupEXE" ? is this a windows title? Executable name? I have troubles using it in any other scripts. Thanks for the help!

I'm not sure if this is because of the latest update with windows, or an issue with the latest launchbox, but I have noticed that upon launch of a game Bigbox wil frequently not "let go" of the controller causing me to accidentally open up multiple instances of one game. This has not been an issue before. I am updated to 8.4 beta 7. Using windows version Windows 10 pro build 17134.112

Alright thank you, umm one more question, do you know where the settings are for messen to load fullscreen automatically when opening a game>

Just playing around with Messen and it seems pretty damned good already, do yo have any recommendations for an SNES emulator? I am currently using SNES9x