Vectrex Launchbox setup

[paulwillingham]

Hello there i'm trying to setup Vectrex on launchbox, i have all the games running using the ParaJVE emulator my problem is when i launch a game there is no overlay shown just the screen bezel but i want it to show the background art. have been trying all sorts of thing to get i t to work any help wound be greatly appreciated.

[dragon57]

The roms and overlays are included with that emulator and the overlays are loaded automatically when you call the included roms. How are you calling the roms from Launchbox?

[paulwillingham]

Turns out you have to use a custom command line for each game. you have to use the game id found on the xml file

-game="BEDLAM"

 

Edited October 16, 2017 by paulwillingham

[Zombeaver]

If you used -game= as a default command line parameter in the emulator entry in LB, and checked the box for "use filename only without extension or folder path" (and probably the "no spaces before ROM" box too) you wouldn't need to do that so long as the rom is named appropriately - Bedlam.zip or whatever.

[mothergoose729]

Just FYI, retroarch has a vectrex emulator that works great. Overlays and shaders are something RA is really good at. 

[Zombeaver]

6 minutes ago, mothergoose729 said:

Just FYI, retroarch has a vectrex emulator that works great. Overlays and shaders are something RA is really good at. 

It does but you can't quite do the same thing with it as what ParaJVE, which does both overlays (bezels) and background art behind the game. You can kindof fake it by adding the background to the overlay image itself with a reduced opacity (something like 40%) but again it's kindof faking it (see this an example). You'd also have to make them (and specify them) for each game one at a time. ParaJVE does all of this automatically.

[BluSonik]

Has anyone been able to get this emulator to boot with the background art as I seem to be getting the same issue as the 1st post, I've used the above suggestions but get the same results...when you set up as an emulator what do you put in the rom file in the launcher.

Thanks 

Edited October 16, 2017 by BlueArrowUK

[Zombeaver]

37 minutes ago, BlueArrowUK said:

Has anyone been able to get this emulator to boot with the background art as I seem to be getting the same issue as the 1st post, I've used the above suggestions but get the same results...when you set up as an emulator what do you put in the rom file in the launcher.

Thanks 

Yes. What I suggested works. I just tested it out.

The file has to be named correctly (and it's case-specific).

I extracted the names for the games from the xml (attached below), so now I just need to make some files to match. All it's doing is indicating to the emulator which game to start, they're not actually roms at all. The way to make this easiest for importing will be to use folders with each game title, and placing the "rom" (just a blank file) with the appropriate game-id name, and indicating to "use folder names" on import.

Game Names.txt

[BluSonik]

That's perfect, thanks for the in depth explanation @Zombeaver...that's just the info I needed 

[Zombeaver]

No problem! I'll upload the folder/file set to make it easier for people once I'm done.

[Zombeaver]

Okay, so here they are (attached below). These can be imported like normal roms, just be sure to check the "Use folder names instead of ROM file names for game titles" on this screen of the importer to ensure that it uses the correct title. I split them up into categories like they're listed in the drop-down list in ParaJVE (I put "Test Cartridge" in an additional folder named "Other") since I'm sure most people won't want everything here like the tech demos.

Make sure your emulator entry for ParaJVE looks like this and you'll be good to go:

Game IDs.zip