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  • 1 month later...

Hey, thanks so much for making this plugin! It's incredibly useful, and I really appreciate that you keep it working. I just noticed an obscure thing, not really an issue, since most people probably wont encounter it, but I noticed that this plugin doesn't play well with the pcsx2 configurator plugin (which allows for per-game configuration of pcsx2 games). When I launch a game using your plugin, it launches with whatever settings I last used for any game launched in that way, rather than my predetermined configs via pcsx2 configurator. Just thought you might be interested in knowing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/18/2018 at 12:18 PM, SagaXIV said:

Hi, thank you so much for this plugin! I am wondering if a "Launch eveything" via steam would be a possible addition. I' d like to launch all games via this plugin, and skip the optional screen in Bigbox. Thanks in advance.

Man.. I need to figure out a better way to monitor this thread... somehow I always miss the emails notifying me of a new post. Sorry it taken me so long to respond man. Due to limitations with the LaunchBox plugin API, this has not been possible to implement. However, I just saw that @Jason Carr updated the plugin API with some new features, so this MAY be possible to do now, but I won't know for sure until I further investigate the new features. Over the next few days, I'm going to try to update the plugin with some of the new API functionality, and if it is possible to implement this feature, you can be certain that I will implement it. Some of these new features are things I've been requesting for Jason to implement for quite awhile, so I'm excited to update the plugin with some new functionality. Thanks for your support and kind words!

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On 12/15/2018 at 8:11 PM, jmsulli said:

Hey, thanks so much for making this plugin! It's incredibly useful, and I really appreciate that you keep it working. I just noticed an obscure thing, not really an issue, since most people probably wont encounter it, but I noticed that this plugin doesn't play well with the pcsx2 configurator plugin (which allows for per-game configuration of pcsx2 games). When I launch a game using your plugin, it launches with whatever settings I last used for any game launched in that way, rather than my predetermined configs via pcsx2 configurator. Just thought you might be interested in knowing.

Hi @jmsulli, let me first repeat my apology that I just gave to the other person who posted a reply in this topic: sorry it took me so long to respond. I missed the emails notifying me of new responses here. Now, moving on... I've never used pcsx2 configurator, so I don't have any idea how it works. This is a LaunchBox plugin? Can you provide me with some additional info on how it works? Like how does pcsx2 configurator change pcsx2 settings on a per-game basis? Does pcsx2 itself support per-game configs or is the plugin actually swapping out the pcsx2 config file every time a game is launched through LaunchBox? Or does pcsx2 configurator modify the game's launch settings/arguments inside the LaunchBox game properties? If you can provide me with some more info in this regard, I can probably more easily determine if this is something that can be fixed or not.

If I had to guess, I would say pcsx2 configurator is probably changing something outside of LaunchBox that my plugin won't be able to get access to due to limitations in the way the plugin API works. When launchign a game with SteamLauncher, it uses the path of the default emulator assigned to that game and any other custom arguments assigned to it in order to launch the game through Steam. Again, due to limitations with the plugin API, there is no way to assign a dynamic number of context menu items based on multiple supported "Launch with" configs being available, so my only option is to use the default "Launch with" setup when launching a game by clicking "Launch via Steam". I will check back on this thread frequently so I don't miss your reply. Hopefully we can get your issue sorted out. Thanks!

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  • 1 month later...

SteamLauncher update to be uploaded shortly which will fix the problem introduced by the most recent Steam client update:

Just wanted to let any users of the plugin know that it appears that the new Steam update that was pushed out a few days ago (oddly, my client only just updated yesterday) may have broken compatibility with the plugin. It appears that they probably changed some of the vftable offsets to such a degree that SteamLauncher is no longer able to calculate the updated offset properly. I should be able to provide a plugin update which fixes this issue very quickly, and I will make another post here when that "hotfix" update is uploaded.

(Turns out, I was totally wrong about this... the plugin is still working just fine with the latest Steam client update.)

Major SteamLauncher update coming soon which will add many new features (many of which users have been requesting for awhile):

I'm actually in the middle of implementing some pretty fundamental changes to the plugin, mostly revolving around the ability to use the plugin to launch all games through Steam, by default, without having to select "Launch via Steam" in the game context menus. While this may seem like a minor change that would require a relatively small amount of work to implement, the reality is actually quite the opposite. 

I've been wanting to implement such a feature since basically the first release of the plugin, but due to limitations in the LaunchBox plugin API, it was not possible. With the latest LaunchBox update, some new features were added to the plugin API which I was hoping were going to allow me to implement such a feature, as well as some other nifty stuff. Unfortunately, it turns out that the API changes did not implement the features I was hoping for.

When I created this plugin, the whole idea behind it was to eliminate the need for any type of intermediary/proxy executable to launch games through Steam, so when I say that the plugin API does not allow certain functionality to be implemented, what I really mean is that such a feature cannot be added without resorting to the use of such a proxy executable. So... I've now stated that the new API changes still don't allow for the implementation of a "launch all games through Steam by default" feature, and I've also stated that the plugin was created for the expressed purpose of eliminating the need for any complicated proxy executable. So, how am I adding such a feature then, you might ask? Well, it turns out that the new API changes add a couple of features that if used in a mangled/unintended way, combined with an EXTREMELY simple proxy executable (literally does nothing except create a hidden, zero size window that runs for the duration of the game), I can indeed implement such a feature in a less-than-ideal way.

While it requires some hackish workarounds and trickery to implement, I have fully tested the concept in a new alpha branch of the plugin, and it does indeed work, and the feature can be easily toggled on/off with a simple click of a menu item in LB/BB. Surprisingly, this new method also comes with a few benefits in other areas, which depending on the user, may make a huge difference in regards to the usefulness of the plugin in their use-case. Here are just a few examples of some of the benefits the new plugin may provide:

  • Support for LB/BB game startup/shutdown screens (when using SteamLauncher's new "launch all games via Steam by default" mode).
  • Support for LB/BB's on-the-fly rom decompression functionality. When using the plugin previously, compressed roms were not supported unless the emulator itself handled rom decompression. This was due to the way the plugin completely bypassed LB's normal game launching procedure. Since this new feature is, in a sense, "hijacking" LB's game launching procedure (instead of bypassing it altogether), features such as on-the-fly rom decompression and cleanup should now work fine. 
  • Support for launching games via Steam using non-default emulators. This applies when you have multiple supported emulators or emulator launch configurations (such as multiple supported platform cores in Retroarch) for any given rom. Previously, only the default emulator/config was supported by the plugin due to the limitations of the LaunchBox plugin API's context menu, which did not allow you to create a variable number of context menu items (dynamically) at run-time.

With all that being said, I can't provide any definitive release date for the new features, but I think something like 2-3 weeks is probably realistic. If I run into any problems which might push the release back further than that, I will be sure to post an update. Being that I have very little information concerning how many people are actually using my plugin, any input, suggestions, or feedback would be greatly appreciated (such as, will any of these major feature changes be of any interest to anyone?).

Edited by Lahma
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Turns out I was totally wrong about a Steam update having broken compatibility with the plugin... It was just a really, really strange quirk on my machine related to some terribly coded app making some stray registry modifications. So ya... just ignore that part of my previous post.

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8 hours ago, HTPCei said:

Thank you for all your work on this plugin, I'm sure a lot of Launchbox users are very glad for your selfless contribution, myself included. Thanks :)

I really appreciate the kind words. It is surprising how motivating a simple "thank you" can be. ?

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42 minutes ago, The_Keeper86 said:

Thanks for continuing to work on this! I still use this plugin a lot even though I use an Nvidia Shield TV now I stream BB to it :)

Oh nice... How do you like it (Nvidia Shield TV)? Do you use GeForce Experience to stream BB to it? When you stream BB and then you launch a game through Steam using the plugin, does everything still work ok (and can you still set custom controller profiles and stuff using the Steam overlay)?

Edited by Lahma
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I love it and it has a pretty good controller even though I miss using my PS4 controller (it works on the Shield TV but of course vibration doesn't) and yeah I use Game Stream to launch BB and a game through Steam and it seems to work just fine. I haven't tried custom controller profiles yet but I'd say they'll work. If you want me to try I can :)

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3 hours ago, The_Keeper86 said:

I love it and it has a pretty good controller even though I miss using my PS4 controller (it works on the Shield TV but of course vibration doesn't) and yeah I use Game Stream to launch BB and a game through Steam and it seems to work just fine. I haven't tried custom controller profiles yet but I'd say they'll work. If you want me to try I can :)

That is really cool. No worries on trying the custom controller profiles... I'm sure they work as long as the Steam overlay is working (which it should be if you're launching the games through Steam with the plugin). I sometimes use a somewhat similar setup to play my desktop games remotely whenever I'm out of town (using either my phone or much more preferably my laptop).. except I usually use the open-source Moonlight client. As long as I'm on a good internet connection and somewhere regionally close by (like not traveling out-of-state), the experience is usually pretty decent (although I'm obviously not using it to play multiplayer fps games or anything). 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a quick update for those interested. I have finally gotten universal Steam launching working in the plugin (all games/roms launched via Steam by default, including non-default emulators and such), and I'm now working on cleaning up and documenting the code. It will still probably be a little while before I release a public update containing this functionality, but I just wanted to let y'all know I'm making solid progress. Oh, and this new functionality is working with game startup/shutdown screens intact (this is actually what has taken so long to get working). I'll continue to update this thread as a public release gets closer.

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18 hours ago, Lahma said:

Just a quick update for those interested. I have finally gotten universal Steam launching working in the plugin (all games/roms launched via Steam by default, including non-default emulators and such), and I'm now working on cleaning up and documenting the code. It will still probably be a little while before I release a public update containing this functionality, but I just wanted to let y'all know I'm making solid progress. Oh, and this new functionality is working with game startup/shutdown screens intact (this is actually what has taken so long to get working). I'll continue to update this thread as a public release gets closer.

Awesome news! I was gonna ask if it was possible to get it working with startup screens! Also it does work when streaming BB to Shield TV like I mentioned eariler I tested it the other day :) can't wait for the new update!

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3 hours ago, The_Keeper86 said:

Awesome news! I was gonna ask if it was possible to get it working with startup screens! Also it does work when streaming BB to Shield TV like I mentioned eariler I tested it the other day :) can't wait for the new update!

Nice! That is great to hear. The update is coming along even better than I anticipated yesterday, so it shouldn't be too much longer till I have something to share.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick Update: Getting very close to a release. @cammelspit is helping me test a pre-release version, and as soon as I've resolved a majority of the bugs, I'll release a beta here. The good news is, the new 'Universal Steam Launching' feature is working better than I ever could have hoped for. With a toggle of a single menu item (to turn Universal Steam Launching on), any game/rom/emulator launched in LaunchBox/BigBox will be automatically launched via Steam without any prior configuration or setup required (there may be a couple of extreme outliers requiring a single line added to the config file, but its looking like I may be able to work around even those 0.5% of cases). I hope to have something to share with y'all very soon.

Edited by Lahma
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