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latin625

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Here is how to get Zinc up and running in LaunchBox. Download these two files.
Zinc 1.1 emulator (zinc11-win32.zip).
OpenGL and D3D renderers 1.2 plugin (d3d-ogl12.zip).
Unzip the emulator.
Unzip the renderers plugin. Inside this are 2 folders with D3D and OpenGL versions of the Zinc renderer. They have the same filename but are different. Decide which version of the renderer.znc file you want to use and copy it into the root of your Zinc emulator folder. Copy the renderer.cfg file into the root of your Zinc emulator folder. Overwrite the existing file when asked.
Now get your games. Remember that some will need a bios file, and clones will need their parent rom. Game and bios roms all go in the emulator's roms folder - leave them zipped.

Zinc is command line based (no GUI), and unlike other emulators which use the game's rom name in the command line, Zinc uses a game number to specify a game to load. As you can see Zinc can't be used directly with the Use Emulator box ticked, since the ROM file (Emulation is enabled) box cannot point to a number. Instead with the Use Emulator box left empty, the Launcher tab entries can now be set as follows
For the Application Path box just browse to the zinc executable. And for the Application Command-Line Parameters box just type in the game's number.
If you really want to use Zinc in LaunchBox Emulator mode then you will need to write a batch file that will take the rom name and convert it to a number and then call zinc with the number as a parameter.
Apart from the game number, the command line can handle other parameters if needed (see the text file that comes with Zinc).

And here are two images showing a sample game setup and what my Zinc folder looks like.

 

Sample-Zinc-Game-Setup.PNG

Zinc-Folder.PNG

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  • 3 years later...
On 9/9/2016 at 5:22 AM, Maddoc1007 said:

Why not just use mame as it plays the games no problem

Hi, what version and which bios's do I need. I can only get some to work with mame. Also I need a good launchbox/Zinc tutorial aswell, the ones I've found are very old and not relevent. Cheers

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Zinc (latest ver 1.1) hasn't been updated for 15 years and setting it up and adding games to LaunchBox hasn't changed since I used it.
Before dabbling with Zinc, why not try the latest game roms in the latest MAME and see if that's good enough for you. If not then give Zinc a go.
Modern versions of the 71 games and 7 bios roms may not be compatible with Zinc. Source a game and bios set suitable for Zinc 1.1 which is what I did when I played around with Zinc.

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On 9/9/2016 at 5:18 AM, spycat said:

Here is how to get Zinc up and running in LaunchBox. Download these two files.
Zinc 1.1 emulator (zinc11-win32.zip).
OpenGL and D3D renderers 1.2 plugin (d3d-ogl12.zip).
Unzip the emulator.
Unzip the renderers plugin. Inside this are 2 folders with D3D and OpenGL versions of the Zinc renderer. They have the same filename but are different. Decide which version of the renderer.znc file you want to use and copy it into the root of your Zinc emulator folder. Copy the renderer.cfg file into the root of your Zinc emulator folder. Overwrite the existing file when asked.
Now get your games. Remember that some will need a bios file, and clones will need their parent rom. Game and bios roms all go in the emulator's roms folder - leave them zipped.

Zinc is command line based (no GUI), and unlike other emulators which use the game's rom name in the command line, Zinc uses a game number to specify a game to load. As you can see Zinc can't be used directly with the Use Emulator box ticked, since the ROM file (Emulation is enabled) box cannot point to a number. Instead with the Use Emulator box left empty, the Launcher tab entries can now be set as follows
For the Application Path box just browse to the zinc executable. And for the Application Command-Line Parameters box just type in the game's number.
If you really want to use Zinc in LaunchBox Emulator mode then you will need to write a batch file that will take the rom name and convert it to a number and then call zinc with the number as a parameter.
Apart from the game number, the command line can handle other parameters if needed (see the text file that comes with Zinc).

And here are two images showing a sample game setup and what my Zinc folder looks like.

 

Sample-Zinc-Game-Setup.PNG

Zinc-Folder.PNG

G'day

This isn't working for me I'm afraid. I've run the command in dos and I get "Cannot open renderer plugin"

C:\Users\my name\Desktop\Zinc\ZINCGUI 1.9.5>zinc.exe 63
ZiNc 1.1 (C)1997-2005 Drunken Muppets (www.emuhype.com)
Opening game:    Aqua Rush (JP) Ver. A [aquarush]
ERROR: cannot open renderer plugin.

Any help would be appreciated

 

LB.thumb.JPG.0fb64267ca35143fe9e5174b902a03ee.JPG

 

 

 

LB.JPG

Edited by meecob
I sent the wrong picture
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1 hour ago, meecob said:

Thanks for the feedback, as requested I've attached my folder contents. The version I am using is V1.1contents.thumb.JPG.40cc182ed6fd64d3ac1f1e8ced84262f.JPG

News just in: I've found a way to do it by creating a shortcut with ZincGUI. Here's is what the shortcut is doing. Bearing in mind this is not where I will be storing the Exe and Roms.

"C:\Users\my_name\Desktop\Zinc\ZINCGUI 1.9.5\ZiNc.exe" 63 --use-config-file=C:\Users\my_name\Desktop\Zinc\ZINCGU~1.5\zcfg\defaultzinc.cfg --renderer=C:\Users\my_name\Desktop\Zinc\ZINCGU~1.5\d3d_renderer.znc --use-renderer-cfg-file=C:\Users\my_name\Desktop\Zinc\ZI.

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Your "Cannot open renderer plugin" is due to the absence of the file renderer.znc from your Zinc folder.

You seem to have three renderers named
d3d_renderer.znc
ogl_renderer.znc
glide_renderer.znc

You need to decide on which renderer you want to use and rename it to renderer.znc

The glide one was intended for computers with a voodoo card, so your choice will probably be between the other two.

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Thanks for the reply. I've already tried this.

contents.thumb.JPG.d3eb7f7c90bf7de655534c091be2c7bd.JPGI've even copied the gpuPeopsSoft.dll files into system32 and syswow64. The thing thats really doing my head is the version I have on my desktop works perfectly.

Its the direct copy on my L: drive thats causing all these problems.

Thanks

I've decided on the D3D renderer.

1914737240_Zinccontents.thumb.JPG.fd672cc4af58909a2052475c03574221.JPG

 

Edited by meecob
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Well, after much stress and anxiety I managed to get them to boot in LB. I found that I had the launch folder was incorrectly set.

Yippeeeee! NOT!

Now I don't have any controller config files so no games are setup with the controller. Do you know the command I can copy into LB so it will read my controller configs ?

Thanks in advance.

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I use the Winterblast Input Controller plugin.

Extract winterblast_inp_controller.zip to a location outside of your Zinc main folder and copy and paste the two files
controller.cfg
controller.znc
into your main Zinc folder, overwriting if asked.
I use an old PS2 controller which works fine.
Note that Zinc doesn't support the analogue sticks.
 

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You my friend are a Gentleman and a Scholar. Thenkyou so much for your help. I now have controller support with LB.

But, can I individually configure each game ? I would gladly accept all games being forced to use the same controller.config file except for one game.

Aquarush, as you may know is a living hell to play with the current controller.config file because of button positioning.

As I said on the first line. Thankyou so much again Spycat.

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Make a copy of your controller.cfg and rename it to, say, controllerAqua.cfg
You can then edit controllerAqua.cfg to suit your needs for that game.

And in the LaunchBox Application command Line Parameters box for the Aqua Rush game use

63 --use-controller-cfg-file=put_your_path_to_your_zinc_folder_here\controllerAqua.cfg

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Hello, yeah wasn't sure where to put the field and unsure of the syntax. That will be a massive help.

I got around it another way, I ended up duplicating the Zinc folder, removing the roms I already had running,

editing the controller.cfg for S11 specific games and then I imported it as a new emulator in LB.

Strange thing is. Dunk Mania works great now but leaves the team logo in the centre of the screen as where in the original emulator package it was fine but with no sound. Now the sound works but with the Logo in the way. Weird AF.

Thanks once again Sir. Greatly appreciated

P.s Just tried it and no luck. is the command line correct ? maybe just a typo ? sorry

Edited by meecob
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