(11.2) Launchbox launching wrong version of game

[mcfilmmakers]

I'm working on getting APF Imagination machine working in Launchbox with Mame. I've come across an odd situation.

As far as I know, my Mame settings are correct:

But this alone doesn't work.

I have to go into each individual game in my platform and add custom command line parameters:

Doing that makes the games launch as expected. Not doing this, Launchbox launches MAME and MAME will play the arcade version of popular arcade titles such as Asteroids, Centipede, Choplifter, etc). WHY?

So here are my issues and I'm hoping someone can offer a better fix to them:

1) You can't bulk edit custom command line parameters making this task VERY inconvenient (100 games).

2) The settings in the emulator itself should do the job. Why do I have to add the same parameters as custom command line?

3) Not adding the custom command line parameters causes either:
a) MAME immediately closes on launch or
b) if the game has an arcade equivalent, MAME will play the arcade version (the software list zip file name matches the arcade version zip file name but the contents differ).
c) these same games also display MAME leaderboards... they shouldn't because they're not the same platform and therefore not the same games. The scoring systems are different. Not sure if scoring in these games affects the leaderboards, but if they do... that's an even bigger problem.

I am using MAME 221 and the games are from the 221 software list.

Edited August 10, 2020 by mcfilmmakers

[JoeViking245]

13 hours ago, mcfilmmakers said:

You can't bulk edit custom command line parameters

1) Sure you can.

However I just ran some tests and it seemed to work just using the Associated Platform arguments.  At least on a select few games I tried. 

2) Any chance your Platform isn't named exactly the same as your Associated Platform? 

3a)  This usually means the rom is not located within in MAME's rompath (mame.ini).  Another cause is there's something wrong in the command line.  Though it does look right. See item #2.

3b)  It sounds like it's executing something like "mame64.exe centiped".  Which would launch the Arcade version.  I still think it has something to do with item #2.

3c)  If you got a kick-arse score on APF Centipede, would it upload the score?  No.  That would be pretty dang funny though. lol  If APF were able to save high scores, it would not be in the same format as it's Arcade Machine counterparts' hi/nvram file.  So hi2txt wouldn't be able to read it. The MAME leader boards don't look at the Platform name, but rather it looks for the MAME emulator.  (I'm sure there are several good logistical reasons for this).  And then from there, looks for games (by rom_name.zip) that are supported in hi2txt.

[mcfilmmakers]

1 hour ago, JoeViking245 said:

1) Sure you can.

However I just ran some tests and it seemed to work just using the Associated Platform arguments.  At least on a select few games I tried. 

2) Any chance your Platform isn't named exactly the same as your Associated Platform? 

3a)  This usually means the rom is not located within in MAME's rompath (mame.ini).  Another cause is there's something wrong in the command line.  Though it does look right. See item #2.

3b)  It sounds like it's executing something like "mame64.exe centiped".  Which would launch the Arcade version.  I still think it has something to do with item #2.

3c)  If you got a kick-arse score on APF Centipede, would it upload the score?  No.  That would be pretty dang funny though. lol  If APF were able to save high scores, it would not be in the same format as it's Arcade Machine counterparts' hi/nvram file.  So hi2txt wouldn't be able to read it. The MAME leader boards don't look at the Platform name, but rather it looks for the MAME emulator.  (I'm sure there are several good logistical reasons for this).  And then from there, looks for games (by rom_name.zip) that are supported in hi2txt.

Thank you for pointing me to the plugin! This is going to save me a lot of time in the future!

2) You're right! I hadn't noticed it before, fixed that and that resolved the issue 

3a) #2 fixed the issue

3b) yup, #2 fixed the issue.

3c) good to know! I didn't think there would be a problem, glad to know that it in fact, isn't one.

[JoeViking245]

Glad it's working now!

Any chance you figured out an autoboot command for APF?  I created (edited actually)  "apfimage.ini" and put it in ../Mame/ini/

#
# SCRIPTING OPTIONS
#
autoboot_command          cload\n
autoboot_delay            5

#
# CORE INPUT OPTIONS
#
ui_active                 1

You need to press Enter when it first loads (within 5 seconds per the 'delay' setting), then it automatically sends "cload]" (the  ]   (bracket thingy) being APF for Enter which translates to  \n  ).  After that press F2 (don't need to hit Scroll Lock because ui_active = 1) to start the tape/cass.  Then when it's done loading enter in run] (I think that's what it was) to start the game.

I tried  \n  just before cload, but no joy.   Apparently Enter and  ]  are 2 completely different inputs.  I never figured out how to send F2, which would be really nice for this and a lot of other soflists!