Aesthetic

I am in the process of migrating over from using RetroPie pre-builds others have made to LaunchBox and making some decent progress getting the new setup how I want it. One thing I'm struggling with is "Attract Mode". On my previous RetroPie build when it went in to attract, it simply began playing ~30sec video clips from all of my games, one after the other. No "scrolling" through the wheels -- just the video. At BEST, I'd like to know how I could do the video approach in LaunchBox. ALTERNATELY, I don't necessarily mind the scrolling wheels -- but how do I get the video playing inside at least SOME of the game screen that's displayed to the right (or above) the wheel? I've tried toying with different themes, but perhaps I'm just hitting the wrong ones. Thank you in advance!

Super coincidentally I figured it out yesterday thanks to a response on my Reddit post (from a month ago!). Tools > Manage > Emulators > RetroArch Uncheck the “Extract ROM archives before running”. Apprently LaunchBox automatically unchecks this when adding MAME as an emulator but NOT RetroArch.

No an issue of which core or missing BIOS files. I’ve attempting setting “Arcade” to every one of the MAME cores to test with no success. I can launch a test game directly from RetroArch using the MAME_Current one but not from LaunchBox calling upon the same one.

So just adding yet another bit of data to the thread, although I'm still stuck in limbo @Jason Carr. Fresh install of LaunchBox 12.5. Premium License. Windows 10. Copied over my game collection from a former install. The only emulator installed is RetroArch. If I manually launch RetroArch and load up my MAME core, I can launch a game without any issue. If I attempt to get Launchbox to use RetroArch as the emulator, specifying that same core (mame_librertro) as the associated platform for 'Arcade', it launches RetroArch but then only shows a black screen. Nothing else. I have to ALT+TAB to exit and hard close RetroArch (running in the background) as my usual Exit button doesn't work. I've read in some threads about changing the display driver (which I've attempted) though not sure why that'd be relevant as it works when manually launching from RetroArch. I've also disabled "Enable Game Startup Screen" to see if that helped but no luck. No Android data cache to clear (Windows) and no hidden mac files I could find. I'm really growing discouraged after 3+ evenings of troubleshooting.

I noticed that RetroArch 1.7.1 has been released. I was wondering what the proper procedure was (if there is any) for updating RetroArch in LaunchBox since they’re somewhat coupled together. Are they really just two stand alone apps (with a menu pointer in LaunchBox) so I can update RetroArch without concern for LaunchBox?

Well that's confusing... The tutorial I came across showed me how to switch 'views' until I get to the horizontal scrolling with the video playing in the rad background - however whenever the video is playing, it slows to a severe crawl that's almost unusable. I say confusing because this is running on a quad-core desktop with a more than decent dedicated video card, 16GB RAM -- i.e. there shouldn't be any resource constraints to cause it to be running so badly. (I should also note that I can play the mp4 of the video flawlessly without any issue outside of Big Box.) Swapping the video with the smaller 66Mb CityHunter video doesn't act choppy.

Also just found this. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!!!

Can anyone help me identify which theme is being used at the very beginning of the Big Box Multi-Theme Demo video on YouTube? It's so awesome looking. I've searched through so many of the Theme downloads but can't seem to find it.

I’d love this function. Was just trying to figure out how to do it myself while in Attract Mode so the arcade was still visually “inviting” but not disturbing other things going on in the room while not in use.

Hey there!!! I was wondering if you ever figured this setting out? I'm setting up my first arcade cabinet myself (complete with spinner) and while I've gotten the spinner working in Tempest, the mouse pointer is also showing. I'd like to hide it (preferably without using an external emulator since thus far I've been happily getting by with only RetroArch for dozens of other games). Thanks either way!!!

***SOLUTION*** As a follow-up, wanted to thank everyone in this thread for pointing me in the right direction. I finally got it all figured out and wanted to share a few things for anyone else that might come across this thread in the future, especially those with Xtension Emulator Edition control joysticks. I realized I ended up needing to remap things in two separate places... 1) Configuring what I'd call the 'global' configuration that's used by default (Configuration > Input > Input User 1 / 2 Binds). Below are screen shots of my configuration in RetroArch as it applies to this control stick. This configuration was initially a little confusing because I didn't initially realize it's (predominantly) mapped after an SNES controller with buttons listed in the inverted order of YX / BA (as opposed to YX / AB). 2) For people with the Xtension controller, you need to change the default Input Hotkey Binds (Configuration > Input > Input Hotkey Binds) because many of the default settings overlap with existing controller mappings. (There's overlap with functions like Fast Forward Toggle by default.) 3) After those were configured and I had a core loaded (in my example, Genesis Plus GX), I then needed to go to QUICK MENU and then CONTROLS. (To my understanding, Quick Menu acts as a sub-menu specific to individual cores.) Under Controls, I THEN can custom map any of the previously assigned buttons (from the global settings) to map up with individual system controllers. You'll do this on a per-system basis (except perhaps SNES, since that automapped pretty cleanly as the global setting is based off SNES.) Hope this might help someone in the future!!! ~AE

3) ...and in Controls under "User 1 Device Type" I'm assuming I scroll over to "MD Joypad 6 Button" for Sega. Is that correct, or does it matter? Changing that field doesn't seem to change anything relative to the buttons I have to program so I'm not sure I understand what this field is for.

PROGRESS!!! I figured out that if I go to the QUICK MENU settings and go to Control instead of Input, I see the controls closer to the Sega system (or whatever respective emulator I'm running). Now to just: 1) Understand the relationship between the Main Menu Input "Input User 1 Binds" and the per-system controls. I'm ASSUMING I'll have to map my controller buttons to arbitrary buttons in Input (i.e. map L2 to a random button in Input and then map L2 in Controls for it to use that button). It's a little more confusing than if I were using a game controller, but I think I might understand it. 2) If I'm only able to see this control menu while a game is launched, does that mean that these control mapping settings are not for the ENTIRE emulator? Is there no way to set it so EVERY game uses this mapping? Thank you once more for your help!!!

Same thing, unfortunately. As you can see, the Genesis Plus GX core has been loaded and MK3 is actively running in the background when I toggled the menu -- yet same options, not Sega ones.

Yeah, to reaffirm - I just opened up the Input > Input User 1 Binds and tried repeatedly loading new cores. Even exiting / going back in, the button options never change. It's always just these same options no matter which core I have loaded in (and it saying the core at the lower left corner).