Markhughes88 Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Hi Guys, New here. Im currently building an arcade machine which as it stands is using retropie as the front end GUI. Ive upgraded the hardware from a raspberry pi to a desktop though and am looking at installing launchbox as my new front end. ive heard you can run steam games through it as well as roms/emus, but is it also possible to launch games such as WoW or Heroes through launchbox? Thanks, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 In my experience its possible to launch anything imaginable from LaunchBox so I don't think it will be an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fromlostdays Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 (edited) Its not an issue. I launch guild wars 2, wow, swtor, starcraft 2, diablo etc. Recommend looking for "steam grid art" or "steam banners" for the artwork, it exists for all of the above. I also have a "Steam" platform that launches me directly from bigbox to steam big picture mode, and a visa versa. As DOS said, you can literally launch anything with an exe, and its not difficult at all. Edited January 25, 2017 by fromlostdays Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaeree Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 (edited) What I did for Windows games was create a fake emulator, associate it with the 'Windows' platform, and then "import" the games' .exe files as if they were ROMs. Any game--Steam, Blizzard, technically any .exe file will work. The scraper even works in this configuration. If you're interested: Create a text file, and name it "WindowsGame.vbs". Make sure its extension isn't actually .txt; Windows' default is to hide known file extensions. Its icon should change to a white sheet with a blue-ish scroll on it. Paste this into it, and save it: Set sh = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") sh.Run """" & WScript.Arguments(0) & """",3,0 In LaunchBox, add a new emulator, and call it something like "Windows Game". Its Application Path will be C:\Windows\System32\wscript.exe, and its Command-Line Parameters will be the full path to the .vbs file you just created. Associate the "Windows" platform with your new fake emulator. Now you can import your games' .exe files as if they were ROMs. Don't forget to select 'Use the files in their current location'! During import, don't bother with searching for box art, because it won't find anything relevant. After the game's imported, right-click -> Edit, and change the game's Title to something you think a scraper can actually find (e.g. World of Warcraft instead of 'wow'), and click the Search for Metadata button. You should end up with something similar to what I ended up with in the attached picture. Edited January 30, 2017 by Shaeree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 There are several ways to do this and none seem to be best but all function just as good as the other. The VBS method @Shaereeposted is certainly an interesting one. The 2 methods I came up for this is to first make shortcuts for all my games in a folder and that becomes my roms folder. Then import the shortcut files as roms, pick Windows as the platform and for emulator pick any emulator you want in your list. If your shortcut files are named something resembling the actual game name scraping should be good. Once all the games are imported select all and bulk edit to change to emulator to none. The 2 second method also involves shortcuts like the first method but this time you create a short file to your cmd.exe which is found in C:\Windows\System32\. Right click the shortcut file and then choose properties and in the shortcut tab set it to Run: Minimized. This shortcut file now becomes your emulator in Launchbox, import your shortcut files, choose Windows platform and select the emulator you have set to use the shortcut file. Like I said before neither way is better than any other method, just different ways to achieve the same goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaeree Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 All ^ that ^ script does is launch the .exe in a maximized window, but that's definitely not the limit to what VBScript can do! It's also an easy way to (just for example): launch multiple programs at once (like your game and your gamepad/joystick mapper with a specific profile); and/or control whether programs/games launch maximized/minimized/etc (e.g. hide Dolphin's or Xpadder's main program windows). The advantage to VBScript over Batch or Powershell is that it doesn't pop up any ugly console windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 With the shortcut to cmd.exe set to Run: Minimized there is no ugly console window either. Again though there are several ways of having your Windows games launch in LB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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