9.9-beta-1 Released

[Retro808]

5 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Can you turn on and off game startup screens per platform?  I only really need to use it for dolphin at this point.

Yes. When you edit an individual emulator you can turn on/off Pause themes as well as Startup themes. You can also bulk edit games and do this. Helpful in the case of windows games or any that do not use an emulator. 

[RULLUR]

I hope we can get a way to change which Emulator a title can be set to within BigBox instead of having to go back to LaunchBox to do it. Maybe even be able to change the Status within BigBox too would be nice. As we know not always the same Emulator is gonna work with every title on a Platform, especially if it's something of a Mod, Homebrew, or Hack. So being able to switch and keep it that way instead of "Launch with..." each time would seem better. I think "Launch with..." is still a good choice for times some wanna do 3DNES and then switch back to a normal NES look within the same title though

Edited June 10, 2019 by RULLUR

[Jason Carr]

On 6/8/2019 at 3:47 PM, Thornback said:

Could be just me but since upgrading to 9.9 when I start LB sometimes it unchecks the game details or platform views on its own, meaning I have to manually enable them again. It typically happens after a PC restart but cannot accurately be reproduced. Seems random. 

Did that happen to anyone else before?

Can you explain this? What settings is it unchecking exactly? In LaunchBox or Big Box?

On 6/9/2019 at 9:06 PM, damageinc86 said:

Wait a second, you mean to tell me launchbox doesn't show you whether or not there is a save game in the save slot you have selected under the pause screen?

Once  you create a save state, you'll never run into a situation where a save state doesn't exist again, so it's not much of an issue. Regardless, there's no good way to tap into all emulators to retrieve this information generically, and with some emulators, it would be impossible. It's not nearly as crucial of a feature as you're implying here.

On 6/9/2019 at 9:07 PM, damageinc86 said:

Can you turn on and off game startup screens per platform?  I only really need to use it for dolphin at this point.

You can turn them off on a per-emulator basis. Just edit the emulators. For PC and non-emulator platforms, you can batch edit the games.

[Jason Carr]

23 hours ago, RULLUR said:

I hope we can get a way to change which Emulator a title can be set to within BigBox instead of having to go back to LaunchBox to do it. Maybe even be able to change the Status within BigBox too would be nice. As we know not always the same Emulator is gonna work with every title on a Platform, especially if it's something of a Mod, Homebrew, or Hack. So being able to switch and keep it that way instead of "Launch with..." each time would seem better. I think "Launch with..." is still a good choice for times some wanna do 3DNES and then switch back to a normal NES look within the same title though

Makes sense. I can see that being useful; I'll add it to the list.

[damageinc86]

17 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Once  you create a save state, you'll never run into a situation where a save state doesn't exist again, so it's not much of an issue. Regardless, there's no good way to tap into all emulators to retrieve this information generically, and with some emulators, it would be impossible. It's not nearly as crucial of a feature as you're implying here.

I guess I'm confused by what was said.  They made it sound like there was no graphical representation to note that a save state has been filled.  Such as save state 1 now being bold and bright instead of dim when it's empty.  Is there a tutorial video yet, or is it too recent?  I dont ever really go dive in until I've seen it in action so I have no idea what it even looks like yet.

[deliyuerek85]

@Jason Carr

Would it not be possible that LB/BB takes a screenshot of the game after choosing "save state"and put it in a separate folder? I don't think that it is really nessessary for LB/BB to check if there is already a save file or not.

[neil9000]

13 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

They made it sound like there was no graphical representation to note that a save state has been filled. 

There isnt in the Launchbox/Bigbox UI, but the emulator itself may. Retroarch for example pops a message when you save/load states.

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

There isnt in the Launchbox/Bigbox UI, but the emulator itself may. Retroarch for example pops a message when you save/load states.

No I dont mean the status messages that emulators pop up I mean like this:

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

No I dont mean the status messages that emulators pop up I mean like this:

Yeah, as i said there is no indication of that in the UI. Surely you would know if you have saved in a game or not anyway? It will either load your state or wont when you try, depending on if you have one or not.

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

I guess I'm confused by what was said.  They made it sound like there was no graphical representation to note that a save state has been filled.  Such as save state 1 now being bold and bright instead of dim when it's empty.  Is there a tutorial video yet, or is it too recent?  I dont ever really go dive in until I've seen it in action so I have no idea what it even looks like yet.

It's a very simple solution currenty, which should work well for most users. Currently there's only one save state accessible and it always saves and loads that state. We may come back to it at some point in the future to add extra functionality, but it's not an immediate priority. Unfortunately more extensive solutions will be a major challenge due to all the differences between the emulators.

2 hours ago, deliyuerek85 said:

@Jason Carr

Would it not be possible that LB/BB takes a screenshot of the game after choosing "save state"and put it in a separate folder? I don't think that it is really nessessary for LB/BB to check if there is already a save file or not.

Yes, this is certainly possible, but it is still a challenge, so it's not something I plan to tackle immediately. I'll take note that you guys want this feature expanded though. It may end up on the next community poll.

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

Yeah, as i said there is no indication of that in the UI. Surely you would know if you have saved in a game or not anyway? It will either load your state or wont when you try, depending on if you have one or not.

Unless you forgot that 6 months ago you saved in that slot and then hit save again and only remembered after the fact that damn, I just saved over my first one.  This happened all the time to me when I was only using emulators and no front end.  I'd constantly forget that I used slot 6 last time and then saved into slot 6, then load slot 6 and it would be where I currently was instead of my other save that was in a different spot.

Seems like a good first effort for this, but basically the feature needs to be a replica of the save and load states in RL with the slot data and screenshot of where you were at the time of saving. 

[neil9000]

12 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Seems like a good first effort for this, but basically the feature needs to be a replica of the save and load states in RL with the slot data and screenshot of where you were at the time of saving. 

I sort of understand that mentality as you are coming from RocketLauncher yourself, but i feel fo a lot of people its a bit of a non issue. Im not dismissing it outright, but you are comparing it to another program rather than what it is on its own terms, which is a way for users to save/load states into slot 0 that havent had a way to do that without using a keyboard previously.

[jayjay]

I'd like to say something (essay) on save states because Iv recently started to get save states into BB. 

I have 6 emulator's on my pc at the moment... The challenge being... match the rom to the save state.

Retroarch save states are easy enough to deal with. I guess the only issue is where the save states are stored. 3 options...

In one folder...all save states are saved to 1 folder, the save state folder. This isnt a great idea because if any rom is named the same, then they overwrite each other. I checked, I had a mario game that was named the same for different platforms... The other thing is the amount of files to search through to get to the save state. Could be thousands. I guess you wouldnt iterate through all save states, just search for matching rom name.

Separate core folders. Better and LB knows what core is being used. 

Content folder, which is the one I'll use to put save states in BB. Retroarch saves the states to the same directory as the rom. Means all roms will need to be individual directories.I wont be doing that by hand lol. LB knows where the rom is. I personally think its the better option. 

Anyway LB would need to take these options into account. Also how could launchbox know if you were to launch another game using retroarch xmb/dashboard/menu thingy? <This is a genuine question?

 

Project 64... this I cant work out. It saves to individual directories per rom. The directories are named like "Title-MD5 checksum". The "title" does not match your rom. Project 64 has database files, in the database your find rom names. None of the rom names in the database match my mario world 64 rom. You could regex it I guess. Or maybe use the checksum, except my mario 64 checksum doesnt match the checksum of the save state directory? Also getting the checksum from the rom isnt a quick process.

 

Dolphin... iv found a way to match gamecube iso's to their save states but iv only tested iso's. I dont think this method would work if the game is in zip etc and im not sure if there is any other format. If wii save states are named the same way as gamecube then this method will work for wbfs as well. Im not sure if this method will work for iso's but I imagine it would. 

 

PPSSPP... Same method as dolphin but only in iso format. The issue with this... my 250ish collection of .cso psp minis goes from 7gb to 40gb. You could also use this method to find save data but I havent looked to see if there is a way to differentiate between game data and save data, they both save to the same directory nut named slightly different. 

 

Cemu... in the same directory as the executable is an xml file which you can use to determine in what directory the save is in cemu. But its only a directory, not a file. This is for save data not save states. Does cemu have save states?

 

rpcs3... I havent looked to much into it. I thought I could use the same method as my trophy plugin but some games dont have trophies. There might be a different way im not sure.

 

Anyway the moral of the story is... shit... show.

I just wanted to get that out there.

 

 

 

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

I sort of understand that mentality as you are coming from RocketLauncher yourself, but i feel fo a lot of people its a bit of a non issue. Im not dismissing it outright, but you are comparing it to another program rather than what it is on its own terms, which is a way for users to save/load states into slot 0 that havent had a way to do that without using a keyboard previously.

Sure I get that.  Baby steps I suppose.  People who have never been able to do anything regarding save states will surely be excited, but then again might also just be satisfied with one single option out of ignorance. 

[damageinc86]

7 minutes ago, jayjay said:

I'd like to say something (essay) on save states because Iv recently started to get save states into BB.

I didn't really understand most of your essay.  All the pause savestate menu really has to do is send key presses to the emulator to save or load the state.  The rest is up to the emulator to catalog for itself.  For example, send 1, then f5, and that will save. Send 1 and then f7, and that will load (slot 1 that is).  am I missing something?

[neil9000]

6 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

but then again might also just be satisfied with one single option out of ignorance. 

Please do not confuse your personal preference with ignorance. I myself have been using these emulators for years now, and i always just use the default save state slot. I save when i want to, to the same slot, i do not save if i am in a difficult spot/encounter. I also tell the emulators to save these states to my onedrive folder, so i never lose them.

[jayjay]

oh yeah eh... sorry i meant... to be able to have the pause menu show that there is a save state available for the game that is currently playing... would mean matching save state to the rom... that essay above is what iv found so far... sorry Im trying to code but nothing is going right. Getting frustrated. Rushed the comment, made no sense. lol. just breath...

[bbweiners]

5 hours ago, jayjay said:

oh yeah eh... sorry i meant... to be able to have the pause menu show that there is a save state available for the game that is currently playing... would mean matching save state to the rom... that essay above is what iv found so far... sorry Im trying to code but nothing is going right. Getting frustrated. Rushed the comment, made no sense. lol. just breath...

Haha, you're the best @jayjay

[Jason Carr]

19 hours ago, jayjay said:

I'd like to say something (essay) on save states because Iv recently started to get save states into BB. 

I have 6 emulator's on my pc at the moment... The challenge being... match the rom to the save state.

Retroarch save states are easy enough to deal with. I guess the only issue is where the save states are stored. 3 options...

In one folder...all save states are saved to 1 folder, the save state folder. This isnt a great idea because if any rom is named the same, then they overwrite each other. I checked, I had a mario game that was named the same for different platforms... The other thing is the amount of files to search through to get to the save state. Could be thousands. I guess you wouldnt iterate through all save states, just search for matching rom name.

Separate core folders. Better and LB knows what core is being used. 

Content folder, which is the one I'll use to put save states in BB. Retroarch saves the states to the same directory as the rom. Means all roms will need to be individual directories.I wont be doing that by hand lol. LB knows where the rom is. I personally think its the better option. 

Anyway LB would need to take these options into account. Also how could launchbox know if you were to launch another game using retroarch xmb/dashboard/menu thingy? <This is a genuine question?

 

Project 64... this I cant work out. It saves to individual directories per rom. The directories are named like "Title-MD5 checksum". The "title" does not match your rom. Project 64 has database files, in the database your find rom names. None of the rom names in the database match my mario world 64 rom. You could regex it I guess. Or maybe use the checksum, except my mario 64 checksum doesnt match the checksum of the save state directory? Also getting the checksum from the rom isnt a quick process.

 

Dolphin... iv found a way to match gamecube iso's to their save states but iv only tested iso's. I dont think this method would work if the game is in zip etc and im not sure if there is any other format. If wii save states are named the same way as gamecube then this method will work for wbfs as well. Im not sure if this method will work for iso's but I imagine it would. 

 

PPSSPP... Same method as dolphin but only in iso format. The issue with this... my 250ish collection of .cso psp minis goes from 7gb to 40gb. You could also use this method to find save data but I havent looked to see if there is a way to differentiate between game data and save data, they both save to the same directory nut named slightly different. 

 

Cemu... in the same directory as the executable is an xml file which you can use to determine in what directory the save is in cemu. But its only a directory, not a file. This is for save data not save states. Does cemu have save states?

 

rpcs3... I havent looked to much into it. I thought I could use the same method as my trophy plugin but some games dont have trophies. There might be a different way im not sure.

 

Anyway the moral of the story is... shit... show.

I just wanted to get that out there.

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing all that research. I figured it would likely be annoying, to say the least. I believe the best idea currently is to just take a screenshot of the screen before taking the save state, which would be a rough way to determine if a save state exists, and could be done (mostly) generically across emulators. There are several problems though, one being that the screenshot wouldn't match the timing of the save state perfectly, and another being that if the save state failed for some reason, it would still report it as successful with the screenshot. So it really is a mess.

Even still, I probably will come back to this to tackle it at a later date, but it will be a while yet.

[Jason Carr]

19 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

I didn't really understand most of your essay.  All the pause savestate menu really has to do is send key presses to the emulator to save or load the state.  The rest is up to the emulator to catalog for itself.  For example, send 1, then f5, and that will save. Send 1 and then f7, and that will load (slot 1 that is).  am I missing something?

If all you're looking for is to be able to save to multiple slots, then some emulators would make that easy, but some wouldn't. Not every emulator is that easy to change slots. On top of that, multiple slots would get immensely confusing without being able to tell where slots are saved...which is the problem that @jayjay is trying to figure out how to solve. This isn't all just obvious and easy.