Is there any way to get Atari 7800 to work through LaunchBox?

[Madhead]

Hiya, I'm in the middle of adding various 8-bit systems to my LaunchBox collection including the Atari 5200 and MSX1-2 (which I got working). Now I'm trying to add Atari 7800 games and have used 3 emulators and they all have their own problems. ProSystem works without a command line but will not go full screen on my Windows 10 laptop for some reason. It just glitches out and if you click the window it ceases to respond.

EMU7800 is another one, and I just can't get games to launch through LaunchBox. It works fine even in fullscreen through it's own interface, but I figured it needed a command line to work through a launcher. However, all sources say it should just boot games through any launcher without a command line, but mine doesn't. Then I used A7800, which is a fork of the MAME/MESS Atari 7800 implementation. It is said to be very accurate and compatible, and it is, but again it won't boot through launchBox without a command line.

What confuses me most is that when looking through forums on the internet, people have had success with all three of these emulators through launchers, including LaunchBox. But I can't seem to get anything working.

I'd use retroarch but it's a pig to set up for me and crashes all the time. And I have a pretty good seperate emulator set up going. Thanks in advance.

[JoeViking245]

5 hours ago, Madhead said:

won't boot through launchBox without a command line.

I'm confused by this.  Most all emulators require a command line of sorts.  For example to load/run Atari 7800 in MAME via LaunchBox, under Edit Emulators in the Associated Platforms tab, you set the Default Command-Line Parameter to "a7800 -cart".And then in the Details tab, check the boxes for "Don't use quotes..." and "Use file name only...".Of course you need to have everything setup and working in MAME itself before attempting to run it from LaunchBox.  

[Madhead]

No way, that was it! "a7800 -cart" did it for me and I was able to launch them in fullscreen. Yeah a lot of emulators need a command line to launch but there's a lot (like SNES9X for example) that just work. It turns out I needed that command to launch a7800 games through this mame fork. It's sorted now, thanks a lot!

One more thing tho, I have my launchbox set so that when I press 'Select' and 'Triangle' together on my DS4, it force exits the emulator/game. And this works for most emulators, but on A7800 it doesn't. You have to press 'escape' to exit the game. Which is technically fine, but for a media TV box I want to keep the use of a keyboard to a minimum. Do you have any idea of a workaround?

Thanks again!

[JoeViking245]

You're welcome.  Glad it worked for you.

1 hour ago, Madhead said:

You have to press 'escape' to exit the game.

That's probably the most common means of exiting a game and closing its emulator.  And usually the hotkeys you setup in LB/BB to exit a game are tied to it.  Look at your other emulators and how they're exiting (beyond 'Select' + 'Triangle').  Do they have a Running AutoHotkey script?  What do they look like?  Can you copy or transpose them into your MAME emulator?

[Madhead]

On 8/7/2020 at 12:17 AM, JoeViking245 said:

You're welcome.  Glad it worked for you.

That's probably the most common means of exiting a game and closing its emulator.  And usually the hotkeys you setup in LB/BB to exit a game are tied to it.  Look at your other emulators and how they're exiting (beyond 'Select' + 'Triangle').  Do they have a Running AutoHotkey script?  What do they look like?  Can you copy or transpose them into your MAME emulator?

Sorry for the late reply. There are other emulators that quit with escape including my MAME setup, but they work with my controller hotkey. A7800 is actually a MAME fork and uses the same interface, and quits with escape just the same, but my hotkey doesn't close it for some reason. The hotkey also closes emulators that don't exit with escape or even Alt-F4. So far only 2 of my emulators don't exit with the hotkey, A7800 and BlueMSX.

This isn't a massive issue as I could just press escape, or I could even map it on xpadder, but i'd rather avoid third party software which could clash with other emulators.

[Retro808]

You likely just need to add an AHK script to the Running AutoHotKey tab in the emulator set-up inside Launchbox. Launchbox's controller automation does send "Escape" as one of the commands it tries when closing a game so normally it would not need anything additional, but some emulators can be stubborn. Usually ones that are just need the user to add a script as mentioned.

[DOS76]

If its based on MAME why not just make the UI cancel in the emulator the same as your controller hotkey and close it directly from the emulator?