CliveBarker Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 Hi Jason. Is there a way to implement a game time tracking feature in LaunchBox? I am currently riding a nostalgia train and I am playing a lot of old games. I would like to be able to see how many hours it takes me to complete the games. I don't know how can this be done, since ROMs aren't executable files and they don't show up at the task manager as process when I launch them. But if its possible, it would be awesome. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cejpe Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 I really like this idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 We've discussed this before a while back actually. It would be very hard. Our current theory on how to make it work would be to start tracking when you launch a game and base it off of the name you have set for the game. However, how do you tell LB to stop? There would need to be a system to autodetect what emulator you are launching with that entry, then monitor your processes on windows to make sure it is accurate. However, if you change games while still in the emulator it will still think you are tracking the other game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveBarker Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 SentaiBrad said We've discussed this before a while back actually. It would be very hard. Our current theory on how to make it work would be to start tracking when you launch a game and base it off of the name you have set for the game. However, how do you tell LB to stop? There would need to be a system to autodetect what emulator you are launching with that entry, then monitor your processes on windows to make sure it is accurate. However, if you change games while still in the emulator it will still think you are tracking the other game. When I realized that ROMs doesn't show as processes, I came to the conclusion that this could be imposible, of course I have a very limited knowledge in programming so you and Jason could come up with something. I think this feature would work better if it was implemented by the emulator itself. I don't think Jason can convince every emulator developer to implement such thing tho. Is it possible for launchbox to "read" what the emulator is doing? Thanks for the reply, and can I ask you something? I am playing a lot of rpgs lately and I am actually finishing them to completion. So can you link me to the thread where you showed your RPG? I want to play it but I can't find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 CliveBarker said SentaiBrad said We've discussed this before a while back actually. It would be very hard. Our current theory on how to make it work would be to start tracking when you launch a game and base it off of the name you have set for the game. However, how do you tell LB to stop? There would need to be a system to autodetect what emulator you are launching with that entry, then monitor your processes on windows to make sure it is accurate. However, if you change games while still in the emulator it will still think you are tracking the other game. When I realized that ROMs doesn't show as processes, I came to the conclusion that this could be imposible, of course I have a very limited knowledge in programming so you and Jason could come up with something. I think this feature would work better if it was implemented by the emulator itself. I don't think Jason can convince every emulator developer to implement such thing tho. Is it possible for launchbox to "read" what the emulator is doing? Thanks for the reply, and can I ask you something? I am playing a lot of rpgs lately and I am actually finishing them to completion. So can you link me to the thread where you showed your RPG? I want to play it but I can't find it. Just shy of developing an interpreter for each emulator (which in some cases can be illegal based on their license), making a fork of each emulator (again, can be illegal) or convincing developers to potentially come back to 5+ year old projects... no. Our best bet would be RetroArch. Working with them to get some sort of time tracking implemented... but that would probably not happen. I am sure they know we exist, I am sure they want nothing to do with us. xD Also yea! My RPG.... I haven't worked on it in a few weeks actually... I feel really bad about it. Between making videos, working for a Client and working for Jason + my Wife and Life... dear god. http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/51120-invention-destruction/ That is the master thread now and my thread here on the forums just points to there. If you want to talk about the game you can add me on Steam if you've got it or I can find the link to the thread here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveBarker Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 Making an interpreter/fork sounds like a tremendous task and Jason is the only coder for LaunchBox as far I am aware. Sometimes I am reluctant to post suggestions or feature request because I know Jason has already a ton of to do´s in his list. I wish I could help him as a volunteer. I didn't know that RetroArch and LaunchBox were competitors, sad they wouldn't cooperate with LaunchBox I will add you to Steam once I have completed the game to give you my insight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 They're not competitors per se, but the features they've been adding recently seems to suggest they donlt want any Front End's help. They've been bolstering their UI and adding front end like features, like a game library. Granted, that is LaunchBox's only job to do is be a front end so I kind of think LB does it better. Who knows in time they may be more full featured. I don't have any evidence to back up and say for sure they don't like LB, it would just be my guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spycat Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 Before I discovered LB I used two separate frontends: EmuLoader and EmuCon (same author). One was for arcade emulation and the other was for console, computer and handheld systems. Both of these were able to display times played, last played and total playtime for the games. The arcades frontend stored this data in an INI and the other used a TXT file. So it can be done. The source code for both is opensource, developed with Delphi and is free to download. You can also adapt and reuse as you see fit with certain conditions - best check beforehand with the author. I've browsed the code, but as I'm no programmer (I struggle with batch files) I soon got lost. One point though is that these frontends are dedicated; they specify which emulators or systems they will work with. LB is more open in it's approach. Might this be an issue in calculating gametimes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 Yes, that would definitely be an issue in calculating game times accurately and consistently. Even Steam struggles with that sometimes, though, so it wouldn't need to be 100% perfect. It's still a challenge, though, of course. In rudimentary form, it's really not that difficult to detect when a game opens and closes, but there are some bad caveats, and we'd have to make some assumptions that would likely be broken here and there. For example, if you loaded up Retroarch to play Super Mario Bros., but then loaded a different ROM from inside of Retroarch instead of exiting back out to LaunchBox, the time would be reported incorrectly. There's lots of other potential related issues as well, such as some games using a launcher EXE; that would pretty much break the feature for that game. That said, it may be time to implement this soon, regardless, at least in rudimentary form. I honestly don't think it would be worth the time and effort to integrate with every single game, emulator, etc. in order to do it properly, but it wouldn't be that difficult to do it generically, even though it would probably be fairly inaccurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveBarker Posted December 12, 2015 Author Share Posted December 12, 2015 Jason Carr said Yes, that would definitely be an issue in calculating game times accurately and consistently. Even Steam struggles with that sometimes, though, so it wouldn't need to be 100% perfect. It's still a challenge, though, of course. In rudimentary form, it's really not that difficult to detect when a game opens and closes, but there are some bad caveats, and we'd have to make some assumptions that would likely be broken here and there. For example, if you loaded up Retroarch to play Super Mario Bros., but then loaded a different ROM from inside of Retroarch instead of exiting back out to LaunchBox, the time would be reported incorrectly. There's lots of other potential related issues as well, such as some games using a launcher EXE; that would pretty much break the feature for that game. That said, it may be time to implement this soon, regardless, at least in rudimentary form. I honestly don't think it would be worth the time and effort to integrate with every single game, emulator, etc. in order to do it properly, but it wouldn't be that difficult to do it generically, even though it would probably be fairly inaccurate. And I will be more than happy to test it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveBarker Posted December 12, 2015 Author Share Posted December 12, 2015 scree said Before I discovered LB I used two separate frontends: EmuLoader and EmuCon (same author). One was for arcade emulation and the other was for console, computer and handheld systems. Both of these were able to display times played, last played and total playtime for the games. The arcades frontend stored this data in an INI and the other used a TXT file. So it can be done. The source code for both is opensource, developed with Delphi and is free to download. You can also adapt and reuse as you see fit with certain conditions - best check beforehand with the author. I've browsed the code, but as I'm no programmer (I struggle with batch files) I soon got lost. One point though is that these frontends are dedicated; they specify which emulators or systems they will work with. LB is more open in it's approach. Might this be an issue in calculating gametimes? Wow, that even makes sense for me and I know little about this. Storing the data in a txt file sounds good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proghodet Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 Boy, am I late to the party (Forum-digger). I haven't seen this implemented yet, so i guess it's still relevant? For starters, how about an icon on either toolbar, with a start / stop tracking time functionality? So you would do it manually, but that's better than nothing, maybe? I know i'd do it.. hehe 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 21 hours ago, proghodet said: Boy, am I late to the party (Forum-digger). I haven't seen this implemented yet, so i guess it's still relevant? For starters, how about an icon on either toolbar, with a start / stop tracking time functionality? So you would do it manually, but that's better than nothing, maybe? I know i'd do it.. hehe Manually is an idea I hadn't actually considered, but it certainly wouldn't be the ideal set up. It's a really good idea though. Automatic has it's issues as you've read. No ones really talked about it recently, and im sure the ticket hasn't gotten any more votes on it either, so the focus has been other things, especially with the issues we've talked about, there'd need to be some time to figure it out too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proghodet Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 (edited) I, personally always start and stop games from within either LaunchBox or BigBox - I never start an emulator and start switching roms and such, or start a game, and switch games within the emulator. So for my need it would work just fine with something that listens to when the window opens and closes, and records the time for that period of time. It could maybe use the launchbox-ID, to assign the recorded time? Of course, that would leave the feature useless if the game hasn't got an ID, but I don't know if that is a problem. I'll go vote for that ticket asap, and so will my gf - but I understand that there are bigger fish to fry.Excuse any bad English - it's not my first language Edited January 6, 2017 by proghodet 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngeLast Posted February 12, 2017 Share Posted February 12, 2017 On 05/01/2017 at 6:17 PM, SentaiBrad said: Manually is an idea I hadn't actually considered, but it certainly wouldn't be the ideal set up. It's a really good idea though. Automatic has it's issues as you've read. No ones really talked about it recently, and im sure the ticket hasn't gotten any more votes on it either, so the focus has been other things, especially with the issues we've talked about, there'd need to be some time to figure it out too. so many years i look for a Auto or Manually Tracking, but never find something great, my solution it's a app android called timesheet, manually and out of PC... but sometimes it's very good cus im tracking my gametime console games, when i play on Xbox 360 or PS2 and native PS1 inside PS2, and PSP to... The suggestion manually it's great, and who know soon... sometime in the future something automatic. For me Tracking manually help me so much, cus when a record the time, i feel me more confortable to play and finish various games, and proud to looking back in the past and see my time, good distribuct for various diferent games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demeth Posted May 16, 2017 Share Posted May 16, 2017 A timetracker option would be agreat addition but i guess some things need attention before that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 22 hours ago, demeth said: A timetracker option would be agreat addition but i guess some things need attention before that. That, and there's the issue of it being accurate. If it's not accurate, it's not really worth putting in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Yep just look at steam!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demeth Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Steam can't track a single rom can it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Steam cant track it own balls!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.