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Naming multi-disc games


guardianali

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I see that Launchbox now supports multi-disc games properly but I cant seem to find how to actually do it. 

What is the naming convention for launch box to recogize the files as more than one disc?

Example:

I have two discs for Crono Cross for PSX. Right now they are labled CronoCross1.bin and CronoCross2.bin. 
What should the names be for LB to only input one game image in the games list. 

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I don't know if there is a specific naming that makes a difference but for me the naming that has worked without any issues is something like:

Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 1).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 2).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 3).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 4).bin

I also prefer the use of m3u playlist files or for the Playstation compressing multi disk games into a single .pbp file.

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14 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

I don't know if there is a specific naming that makes a difference but for me the naming that has worked without any issues is something like:

Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 1).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 2).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 3).bin
Final Fantasy VIII (USA) (Disc 4).bin

I also prefer the use of m3u playlist files or for the Playstation compressing multi disk games into a single .pbp file.

Thank you....that worked great! 

Im going to keep the (Disc 1) naming method vice m3u as not all the emulators support it (like PS2).

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For PSX you should definitely use either .m3u or .pbp. The additional app method isn't really an answer to multi-disc games to be honest. It doesn't facilitate actual disc swapping at all - you have to exit the emulator and restart it with the next disc. In the best of cases this is an inconvenience, in the worst (games that don't actually prompt you to save your game as part of the disc swap) it breaks the entire process (short of some clumsy save state trickery). .m3u or .pbp allow you to actually change to the next disc in-emulator when prompted in-game.

PS2 is a mostly non-issue - there are very few multi-disc PS2 games. Saturn via Mednafen supports .m3u as well.

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I use .m3us myself but that's really only because I already converted everything over before I discovered .pbps. .pbps have the benefit of saving a little bit of hard drive space (not a huge amount but every bit counts) with the only downside that there's some amount of processing time to do the conversion in PSX2PSP. They're both functionally identical in terms of usage within Retroarch. You assign a button to "open tray", one to "next disc" and one to "previous disc". When prompted go change, you press open -> next disc -> open (which closes) and then keep on truckin.

.m3us actually work with standalone Mednafen as well (I'm not sure about .pbps).

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I'm fairly certain pbps work in Mednafen but I won't swear to it, I know they work in ePSXe.

Also not every game is compatible with the pbp format, some games either don't work correctly or just flatout won't compress, Final Fantasy VIII for example did not like the compressing process and just crapped out.

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3 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

Also not every game is compatible with the pbp format, some games either don't work correctly or just flatout won't compress, Final Fantasy VIII for example did not like the compressing process and just crapped out.

Oh? I hadn't ever encountered that (though my experience with it is admittedly limited). That kinda changes things... I've never had any problems using .m3us though of course there's no compression involved with those.

I tested a couple games with .pbp and they worked. I assumed if it worked with Riven (a 5-disc game; the most of any game on the system) it'd work with anything. That was actually the first thing I tested. If some games don't work that's kindof alarming...

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So how do these M3Us work with ePSXe (is it even compatible?)? I get adding the CUE sheet names to a text file, saving it as an M3U and then pointing LB to that as the game, but how would I bring up an option to switch to the next disc? Or do you have to use Mednafen and will something pop up to get you to change discs? I'm just confused by that part. OpenEMU has a UI control box you can bring up to change discs from if using M3Us, but I'm on Windows, so...

Edited by CTRL-ALT-DEFEAT
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I am not sure if ePSXe will load m3u files. I just did a quick test of it and it did not work, no idea if it was something I am doing wrong or not. I don't use ePSXe extensively, I only use it on my other, lower end PC that isn't fast enough to run the Retroarch core for Playstation.

For disk management in Rteroarch though if you go into the quick menu with the PS core running you will see near the bottom an entry for Disk Control. In there you can open the tray, change disks and close the tray when the game prompts for the next game disk.

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15 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

I am not sure if ePSXe will load m3u files. I just did a quick test of it and it did not work, no idea if it was something I am doing wrong or not. I don't use ePSXe extensively, I only use it on my other, lower end PC that isn't fast enough to run the Retroarch core for Playstation.

For disk management in Rteroarch though if you go into the quick menu with the PS core running you will see near the bottom an entry for Disk Control. In there you can open the tray, change disks and close the tray when the game prompts for the next game disk.

Ah, thanks for that. I haven't tried Retroarch's PS core, so I'll have to check it out; been using ePSXe because it's what I've always used. I definitely like the idea of having an easier way to handle the disc swapping.

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I've only recently started using Retroarch myself, but I am slowly migrating away from the standalones for most systems since it's nice having everything in one "house". Just switched from the standalone PPSSPP to the libretro core, but keeping it around in case any issues pop-up; seems to be fine though. I must admit I am a bit leery about the cores vs. standalones still, but I'm slowly moving to the Retroarch camp for most things.

 

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