Acorn Archimedes not working in Launchbox for me

[Dave S Cramer]

So I'm using Arculator. I am able to play games using the emulator directly. I am able to play games through Rocketlauncher. But when I try to play via Launchbox (running through Arculator or Rocketlauncher) , it won't mount the games to the emulator drive 0 like it's supposed to. I've searched and can't find any command line parameters for Arculator. Are there any or is there something else I need to do? Thanks in advance.

[heelsinc]

On 9/2/2017 at 3:30 PM, Dave S Cramer said:

So I'm using Arculator. I am able to play games using the emulator directly. I am able to play games through Rocketlauncher. But when I try to play via Launchbox (running through Arculator or Rocketlauncher) , it won't mount the games to the emulator drive 0 like it's supposed to. I've searched and can't find any command line parameters for Arculator. Are there any or is there something else I need to do? Thanks in advance.

I'm having the same issue as well.  I can load the games manually through the emulator but when I try to do it in launchbox it just opens the emulator but not the game.  Did you ever figure this out?

[Dave S Cramer]

No, I didn't. I just gave up for now. But in the near future I'll give it a try again and I will definitely post here if I figure it out.

[ghettoandroid]

I don't believe that Arculator has a command line interface. You would have to use a macro program like AutoHotKey or AutoIt to attempt to automatically mount a disk image in Arculator, or find another emulator with a command line interface.  

[Dave S Cramer]

5 hours ago, ghettoandroid said:

I don't believe that Arculator has a command line interface. You would have to use a macro program like AutoHotKey or AutoIt to attempt to automatically mount a disk image in Arculator, or find another emulator with a command line interface.  

That makes complete sense why it's not working. Thanks for letting me know.

[ghettoandroid]

There is a file called "arc.cfg" in the Arculator folder that automatically mounts a disk image based on the last session. Mine looks like this:

disc_name_0 = Z:\games\1_Archimedes\disks\Bug Hunter And Moon Dash (1990)(Minerva)[h].adf
no_borders = 0
stereo = 1
rom_set = 2
fdc_type = 0
fast_disc = 1
hardware_blit = 1
double_scan = 1
first_fullscreen = 0
full_borders = 0
hires = 0
fpa = 0
cpu_type = 0
mem_size = 4096
sound_enable = 1
limit_speed = 1
 

The "disc_name_0" variable is the location of the disk image that will mount on boot-up.

I'll try to make a .bat or autioit script that will write to the arc.cfg file the disk image location before running the emulator based on user selection in Launch Box and post it up here if anyone is interested. 

 

I also believe that Mame has support for Archimedes emulation but I've not taken a look at that yet.

Edited May 14, 2018 by ghettoandroid

[Dave S Cramer]

2 hours ago, ghettoandroid said:

There is a file called "arc.cfg" in the Arculator folder that automatically mounts a disk image based on the last session. Mine looks like this:

disc_name_0 = Z:\games\1_Archimedes\disks\Bug Hunter And Moon Dash (1990)(Minerva)[h].adf
no_borders = 0
stereo = 1
rom_set = 2
fdc_type = 0
fast_disc = 1
hardware_blit = 1
double_scan = 1
first_fullscreen = 0
full_borders = 0
hires = 0
fpa = 0
cpu_type = 0
mem_size = 4096
sound_enable = 1
limit_speed = 1
 

The "disc_name_0" variable is the location of the disk image that will mount on boot-up.

I'll try to make a .bat or autioit script that will write to the arc.cfg file the disk image location before running the emulator based on user selection in Launch Box and post it up here if anyone is interested. 

 

I also believe that Mame has support for Archimedes emulation but I've not taken a look at that yet.

Yes, please. I am VERY much interested. Thank you so much in advance. 

[ghettoandroid]

20 hours ago, Dave S Cramer said:

Yes, please. I am VERY much interested. Thank you so much in advance. 

Download the script and place it in the same directory as the Arculator.exe is in.

Under Emulator Application Path in LaunchBox just, switch out "Arculator.exe" with the "arculator.bat". This should automount the game to disk 0. It can't get any simpler than this. 

 

Let me know if you're having any problems

arculator.bat

 

code:

::### set paths ###
set DiskName0Path=%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7

::### delete arc.cfg ###
del arc.cfg

::### write arc.cfg ###
echo disc_name_0 = %DiskName0Path% > arc.cfg
(
echo no_borders = 0
echo stereo = 1
echo rom_set = 2
echo fdc_type = 0
echo fast_disc = 1
echo hardware_blit = 1
echo double_scan = 1
echo first_fullscreen = 1
echo full_borders = 0
echo hires = 0
echo fpa = 0
echo cpu_type = 0
echo mem_size = 4096
echo sound_enable = 1
echo limit_speed = 1
) >> arc.cfg

::### run emulator ###
start Arculator.exe

Edited May 14, 2018 by ghettoandroid

[Dave S Cramer]

2 hours ago, ghettoandroid said:

Download the script and place it in the same directory as the Arculator.exe is in.

Under Emulator Application Path in LaunchBox just, switch out "Arculator.exe" with the "arculator.bat". This should automount the game to disk 0. It can't get any simpler than this. 

 

Let me know if you're having any problems

arculator.bat

 

code:

::### set paths ###
set DiskName0Path=%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7

::### delete arc.cfg ###
del arc.cfg

::### write arc.cfg ###
echo disc_name_0 = %DiskName0Path% > arc.cfg
(
echo no_borders = 0
echo stereo = 1
echo rom_set = 2
echo fdc_type = 0
echo fast_disc = 1
echo hardware_blit = 1
echo double_scan = 1
echo first_fullscreen = 1
echo full_borders = 0
echo hires = 0
echo fpa = 0
echo cpu_type = 0
echo mem_size = 4096
echo sound_enable = 1
echo limit_speed = 1
) >> arc.cfg

::### run emulator ###
start Arculator.exe

Thank you so much I really appreciate it. I'm going to give it a try tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes.

[Dave S Cramer]

15 hours ago, Dave S Cramer said:

Thank you so much I really appreciate it. I'm going to give it a try tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes.

Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Drive 0 is still empty when I use the bat. I even deleted my roms and emulator from Launchbox and started from scratch. So I downloaded the bat, placed it in my Arculator folder (which has Arculator.exe), imported my Archimedes roms in Launchbox (they aren't zipped or in folders, they are all in their .adf format). I chose the Arculator.bat as the emulator. Just like before when I run a game, it doesn't mount to the drive. And I double checked and it still works for me in Rocketlauncher separately. I must be doing something wrong or maybe I'm missing NET Framework file or something. Have you tried it yourself and does it work for you?

[Dave S Cramer]

And I've tried it on about a dozen random games just to make sure it wasn't a problem with just one or two games.

[ghettoandroid]

Sorry, I just realized that the "Don't use quotes" option is not checked by default in the Emulator Details tab. This should be checked. I should have mentioned that beforehand. Hopefully, that was the problem.

 

Edited May 17, 2018 by ghettoandroid

[Dave S Cramer]

That was it! I just had to check "Don't use quotes"! Thank you so much for all your help. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate this. I'm kind of a completionist and want to be able to run as many platforms as I can via Launchbox. I can't believe it finally works.

[ghettoandroid]

1 hour ago, Dave S Cramer said:

That was it! I just had to check "Don't use quotes"! Thank you so much for all your help. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate this. I'm kind of a completionist and want to be able to run as many platforms as I can via Launchbox. I can't believe it finally works.

np! Same, I'm trying to run as many 70's and 80's platforms as I can too. But getting old computer games to run via LB can be a headache and very time-consuming, and I often find that I have to resort to macros, batch scripts, and other helper programs to make it work.  The goal for me is to have all the games launch automatically in fullscreen mode if possible and to have all shortcut keys for common operations to be consistent between all emulators.  

[Dave S Cramer]

I have the same goal, although, at the end of the day if I can get it to launch, that's usually enough for me. Good luck to you and thank again for your help!

[flatuswalrus]

On 5/16/2018 at 12:30 PM, ghettoandroid said:

The goal for me is to have all the games launch automatically in fullscreen mode if possible and to have all shortcut keys for common operations to be consistent between all emulators.  

Did you manage to have Arculator launch fullscreen? I know it has a fullscreen option in the menu settings but when I selected this manually the emulator had a spaz-attack switching between fullscreen and not every few seconds with no way to exit except to close via task-manager. Also, thank you very much for the batch file, it worked a treat.

[ghettoandroid]

Yes. But as far as I know, there is no option in Arculator to launch in fullscreen. Arculator has an option to enter fullscreen mode through its GUI menu. Luckily it can be accessed by a few keystrokes.  So there are a couple of things I had to do to make this work. 

1. I know from experience that when an old emulator glitches in fullscreen mode that the "Override high DPI scaling behavior" may need to be checked from the Compatibility tab. You can access this tab by right-clicking on the Arculator.exe program and choosing the Properties option.

2. Since we can use keystrokes to enter fullscreen mode, we can use AutoHotKeys scripts to launch Arculator in fullscreen. Luckily for us, AutoHotKeys is integrated with LaunchBox. So all you have to do in LaunchBox is edit emulator and choose the AutoHotkey Script tab and enter the following in the tab's field. 

Sleep, 1000
;### enter full screen mode ###
SendInput !v
SendInput f

The above script may not be the most effective but it has worked for me so far.

Also, I've updated the arculator.bat script to be more friendly when launching in fullscreen. I've attached it to this post.

These steps are what worked for me. Your Windows environment may be different than mine. 

arculator.bat

Edited May 17, 2018 by ghettoandroid

[flatuswalrus]

Thank you, the new .bat along with the script worked for me. I did check "Override high DPI scaling behavior" but it did not work. It was only after I changed the compatibility to run in Windows Vista mode did it work along with having "Override high DPI scaling behavior" checked. So thanks very much for the suggestions. Is it okay to put the close script just under yours like the following:?

Sleep, 1000
;### enter full screen mode ###
SendInput !v
SendInput f

$Esc::
{
    Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

[ghettoandroid]

Awesome! If the script works for you, sure!

[flatuswalrus]

2 minutes ago, ghettoandroid said:

Awesome! If the script works for you, sure!

It does not work unfortunately, haha. I guess I was looking for your scripty-expertise as I am a Numpty-McNooberson. There is nothing wrong with having to close with with a few keyboard and mouse clicks but I like to be a lazy twat and make everything as easy as humanly possible.