[Prototype] Lazy Ini Tweaker

[alec100_94]

Hey there, many of you guys probably know me as the guy who made the PCSX2 Configurator plugin, which is still very much in development, but currently has a very usable version available. Tonight I decided to try and play with something a little bit different, that I have been thinking about for a while now, and the results were quite good. 

Lazy Ini Tweaker is my name for this new project, the basic concept is that it allows the user to make custom ini tweaks to their emulators config file while starting any game from LaunchBox, and then restoring the original settings again when the game closes. In some ways it's conceptually similar to my PCSX2 Configuartor plugin, but much more generic. But that short description isn't really doing it justice so let me quickly go through one of many scenario's that this plugin enables.

So I have a 3DS game, let's say Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3, and the emulator is Citra. Now Joker 3 is quite a demanding 3DS game, and may run better at a lower internal resolution than some other games on the platform, but Citra has no built in way of allowing us to do that easily. So that's where my plugin comes in, the user creates a tweak file that looks something like this (I plan to make UI with custom ini editor).

[Renderer]
resolution_factor = 5 ;Sets Resolution Factor to 5 (2000x1200)
[UI]
fullscreen\default = false ;Forces Fullscreen
fullscreen = true

And then the plugin does the rest, by writing those values to the config file when the game starts, and restoring the original config file when the game is closed. The possibilities of what could potentially be done are endless, and this almost acts as a magical workaround for basically all config inconveniences, almost allowing LaunchBox to be on par with something like RocketLauncher in terms of per-game configs.

Now this is very early days, I have currently been working on it one night (though have conceptualised the idea for several months). But I am already confident this is something I want to make into a fully fleshed out plugin. so I decided to make a git repository for it with what I currently have. I have also attached the current build (which does actually work), with the example mentioned above, If you are confused (either by what is written here, or the contents of the archive) then DO NOT Download and try this extremely early build.

Feel free to vote in the attached poll, so I can get an idea of how much interest there would be in this kind of thing. I also want to stress this does not mean PCSX2 Configurator will be getting any less love, I still have an update schedule for that and that is still my primary focus right now. If anyone wants to talk about this plugin or LaunchBox Plugin Development in general please feel free to hit me up on a PM, or make a post on the forums.

Lazy Ini Tweaker Day0 Prototype.zip

Edited October 1, 2018 by alec100_94

[Zombeaver]

Sounds interesting enough. This is something I've done via additional apps + .bats in the past.

As an example, Redream doesn't allow for per-game configuration, but different games need different things to function ideally. The most common thing is different pixel-sorting - there are several options and different settings work better or worse depending on the game. So what I've done is made configs for a couple different scenarios, copy them into separate folders to be pulled from as needed, then create a .bat to copy them out and replace the one in use, set as an additional application "prior to main application" and then another one to restore the normal config "after main application". It's functional, but kindof time consuming to do that. Anything that could streamline that is welcome in my book.

[alec100_94]

@Zombeaver That's essentially the kind of thing I was thinking. I am already aware that it'd be possible with AutoHotkey Scripts or Bat File using LB's Additional Applications feature. But this is ultimately so much easier and cleaner, all it currently requires from the user (in bare-bones form) is some text editing and folder structure, and I plan to make an interface to streamline some of that stuff where the folders will be created automatically and the files can be located with browse dialog's. It also stops LB's Context menu having extra additional application's in it, that the user would never manually start. There wasn't even that much code on my part to make this work (in it's current form). I could probably also expand it in the future to do similar things with XML files or even the registry.

Edited October 1, 2018 by alec100_94