C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 (edited) Sorry originally posted this in noobs forum until I realized it would be better suited here, and I don't see a way to delete that original post... Which Commodore 64 emulator is considered best/easiest to use/most compatible with Launchbox/Bigbox? Also, I have a bunch of 0.37b5 ROMs for Mame 2000 that I had on my retropie that I want to use on Launchbox. Are there issues with compatibility or ease of use I'll run into by not using the mame emulator Launchbox recommends? I haven't tried it yet since I have to figure out how to setup my f310 Logitech controller with Windows 10 and launchbox first, but I have imported my ROMs and scrapped art. Launchbox/Bigbox made it super easy! Edited November 25, 2017 by C64Crazy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 Update: At least I think I've found the answer to one question so far... After searching thru threads it appears CCS64 is a really good emulator for the C64, and that automatic fast loading feature sounds way better than Vice's in many ways, both in compatibility and auto turning it's self on and off by auto detecting game loading. Really slick. Now I just need to pin down the rest of my questions and searching hasn't produced any real answers yet, so I could use any advice. Thanks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I have deleted the other thread for you. I'm not too familiar with C64 emulation, but I have also heard that CCS64 is the best choice there. If you have a really old MAME set like that then your best bet for compatibility is to use the matching version of MAME. There may however be features missing in that version that are in the newer versions due to it's age. You can get that version here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 Thanks. My main concern with using Mame 2000 to run my 0.37b5 rooms that were meant for it is will I lose certain "ease of use" features Launchbox may do better in providing by using the version of mame they recommend? Meaning, am I going to lack controller pass thru configurations or some other potential features? Not even sure of what I'm asking exactly yet, as I have yet to delve that deep into just what LB offers in handshaking with emulators. I'm at the very superficial surface just starting now. Only thing I've done is import some ROMs and game art. Have to sort out the f310 controller setup before proceeding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 Launchbox has nothing to do with controls in emulators, that is down to the individual emulators, launchbox does not "passthrough" anything control wise. All launchbox does is open the emulator and tell it what game to load, nothing more. As for the version Launchbox suggests, it just that a suggestion, and its simply suggesting that version because it is newer. The thing you have to remember with mame is it is update constantly, as are the game zips themselves. You may find that as your games are so old that a lot of them simply will not work with the current version of MAME. That's why I suggest using the matching version, or simply getting more recent roms and then the matching version of MAME to go with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 (edited) Yeah, makes sense. I'm mainly into old arcade games from early 1990s and older so this romset suits me to narrow down to that era more or less. A question I have about the lb rom path setup for anybody out there...I hand made two folders in windows for some Commodore 64 games, one for all ROMs and one for hand picked ROMs that mainly are new better versions of games recently made of older C64 originals. I have yet to import either folder into Launchbox. What I'm wondering is how do I setup launch box to see both folders and yet keep them separate entities on the lb interface? I don't want to dump them both into one folder to direct CCS64 to. Edited November 25, 2017 by C64Crazy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 5 minutes ago, C64Crazy said: Yeah, makes sense. I'm mainly into old arcade games from early 1990s and older so this romset suits me to narrow down to that era more or less. A question I have about the lb rom path setup for anybody out there...I hand made two folders in windows for some Commodore 64 games, one for all ROMs and one for hand picked ROMs that mainly are new better versions of games recently made of older C64 originals. I have yet to import either folder into Launchbox. What I'm wondering is how do I setup launch box to see both folders and yet keep them separate entities on the lb interface? I don't want to dump them both into one folder to direct lb to. You can simply name the systems slightly differently when importing and point them both to the same emulator. The default in the dropdown is "Commodore 64" so use that for your full set, then for the other instead of using the dropdown you can actually type into the box. So for example you could call it "Commodore 64 New Games" and as that is not a default system name you will be asked what to scrape it as, just say Commodore 64 again. So you would then have two C64 systems imported, one called "Commodore 64" and another called "Commodore 64 New Games" (or whatever you want to call it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 Your the man! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 Just figured out Mame 2000 won't run on my 64 bit windows 10 even in compatibility mode. That means my rom collection is useless. Might as well use latest Mame then and put together the appropriate ROMs for it. Now to figure out how to limit those ROMs to 1980s and 1990s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryoke Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 1 hour ago, C64Crazy said: Just figured out Mame 2000 won't run on my 64 bit windows 10 even in compatibility mode. That means my rom collection is useless. Might as well use latest Mame then and put together the appropriate ROMs for it. Now to figure out how to limit those ROMs to 1980s and 1990s. in mameUI on left hand side you can select the year of the roms that you want to be displayed , but for multiple years (all of 1980's 90's) im not sure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 yeah the stand alone version of MAME has year sorting in its built in UI also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 26, 2017 Author Share Posted November 26, 2017 But how to delete Roms from say 1995 and newer so it's not taking up storage? Can mame ui do that? Also ran into another snag for Commodore 64 setup. For some reason import on launchbox isn't offering me the little dark blue link that I can click on to search elsewhere on the web for the emulator I want. I'm guessing I can just manually use chrome to go get ccs64 and stick it in the right folder, and then go thru the import steps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryoke Posted November 26, 2017 Share Posted November 26, 2017 just google the emu you want, download it , install it , point launchbox at the .exe location and bobs your uncle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 26, 2017 Author Share Posted November 26, 2017 Sounds like the plan. Thanks. Haven't owned a Windows computer in years. All my experience has been Android as of late, and far as retro gaming setup it's only been on the pi 3 using Retropie, so relearning windows and also sorting thru lb setup is going to be a project. I thank all of you for the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryoke Posted November 26, 2017 Share Posted November 26, 2017 2 minutes ago, C64Crazy said: Sounds like the plan. Thanks. Haven't owned a Windows computer in years. All my experience has been Android as of late, and far as retro gaming setup it's only been on the pi 3 using Retropie, so relearning windows and also sorting thru lb setup is going to be a project. I thank all of you for the help. no problem mate. As a c64 fanboy myself i am glad to help Last Ninja FTW!!! here are the command line for ccs64 incase you want to add any. filename.{prg/ p00/ p01/ t64/ d64/ g41/ tap/ crt}[,index] A filename that describes a disk/tape/cartridge image to be loaded at the start of CCS64. The optional index tells which individual file inside of a disk/tape images that should be loaded (default is the first one). Example: mygame.d64,3 -cfg filename Change the filename of the config file to be used (default is c64.cfg). -fastload Turns on the fastload feature when loading from disk or tape file images. Can be less accurate. -normalload Turns on the most accurate emulation of the disk drive when loading from disk or tape file images. -autorun Automatically starts the program that are loaded at the start of CCS64. -manualrun Do not start the program that are loaded at the start of CCS64. -window Force the emulator to use the windowed mode of the DirectX graphics display. -hardsid id Select the correct id for the HardSID sound card. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 26, 2017 Author Share Posted November 26, 2017 Thanks. Just copied that for future reference. And far as lb launch commands go, I believe when importing emulator setup you enter the command line -fullscreen so it launches the emulator that way? Wondering if ccs64 defaults to a good aspect ratio or if there's a prefered one for a large screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryoke Posted November 26, 2017 Share Posted November 26, 2017 personally i like to keep a 4:3 ratio , i hate the stretch. i havnt used ccs64 in years, if it hasnt got a fullscreen Commandline just go to options in GUI and tick the box to launch in fullscreen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted November 26, 2017 Author Share Posted November 26, 2017 (edited) Just a small update: I switched to Vice for Commodore 64 Emulation. The CCS64 Emulator was giving me a few issues, such as a glitch causing it to try to load bad file names when I'd launch games via LB, etc. This was only after successfully LB launching a few games that it began to happen. Even games I had just loaded ten minutes prior with no problem would now cause the dreaded Commodore 64 "bad syntax" or no such file found error. I wasn't particularly impressed with it's interface either, and found that it was causing certain games to input ghost responses as well (such as making Mario walk left when I wasn't touching the joystick). So I erased the emulator and installed Vice in LB, and every single issue above has been fixed. I'm sure CCS64 is a great emulator, and the auto fast loading/auto deactivation really is great, but I didn't feel like digging into why I was experiencing such problems. Vice has been smooth sailing thus far. I much prefer the interface, and I guess I'll just put up with having to press Alt W to fast load and then pressing it again to deactivate it. I'm guessing I can assign that to a button on my F310 joystick, just not sure yet if I can do that through Vice or need to use some 3rd party key mapping app. I'll look into that later. Time to play a few games. Any other assigned keys to joystick buttons that people seem to like would be of interest too, such as spacebar, F1, Y, N, etc. Edited November 26, 2017 by C64Crazy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombeaver Posted December 1, 2017 Share Posted December 1, 2017 The file name thing isn't CCS64's fault - it's LB's. Certain characters in a filename cause issues for CCS64 when they're launched via LB (while the same file will work just fine when started within CCS64 itself). Certain things like brackets, double parenthesis, commas, and plus or minus signs in the filenames seem to cause issues. Any time you encounter that you can just rename it to something simpler and it'll work fine. The control thing just sounds like you need to calibrate your joystick in the Input section. I've never had any issues with erroneous inputs unless you have the same input device (like a controller) connected to both port 1 and port 2 at the same time (which you should never do). You want to associate it with one port, and switch between them as needed (and I have an AHK script to add that, among other things, to a controller). You use whateeeeever you want, but CCS64 is still the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C64Crazy Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 Ahhh...I did have the joystick active on both ports, so that was probably the issue. So far Winvice has been flawless, but wondering if same deal of activating joystick for both ports can cause issues with certain games. Also wondering in Winvice, how do I set it for full screen to block out background screens, yet have the It retain the proper non HD aspect ratio of a Commodore 64? Meaning, not have it stretch the game to HD proportions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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