New games not found when added.

[pecosdave]

First - a little about my setup.

I had a desktop that was working fine hooked up as the "Infotainment system".  When I built the new one I built it with an SSD and multiple HDD's.  I migrated my Steam install to a dedicated HDD and most everything else is on the "users" HDD - I did the XML hack during my Windows setup to make that hard-drive mount as the users path, and the SSD has the OS and the default non-game program install path.

I used FreeFileSync to migrate from the old system to the new one, and for the most part everything worked fine, except I'm finding that when I add Amazon, Epic, and even some GOG games they tend not to be detected, Steam and ROMs seem to work/detect fine.

To confuse matters, sometimes games from the ones I mentioned ARE detected.

I'm more of a Linux guy, I'm used to looking for a config file with path data to fix this sort of thing.  Is there a config file somewhere for me to go over and verify my paths, or is there a registry entry I need to check for something like this?

[C-Beats]

When we say games "aren't detected" what do we mean? They aren't showing up in the import wizards, or are their installation state not being detected correctly?

[pecosdave]

Right, they are not being detected so they are not imported.  If I exit out of LaunchBox I can launch them just fine the "Windows way".  I'm sure I could go manually add every game I wanted to, but that's beside the point.

[C-Beats]

Ok, so sounds like they aren't showing up via the import wizard. That data we get from the storefronts directly via their APIs. I know 12.6 we have an issue with Amazon games not reporting correctly, but that is corrected in the 12.7 - beta 1 release. What storefronts aren't you seeing your entire library in?

[pecosdave]

Amazon, Epic, GOG - I'm at work right now so I can't confirm the entire list, but those were the ones I mentioned.  They all worked before.  I updated versions last week sometime.  I have auto-update turned off so my kids doesn't get a surprise while I'm at work, I just manually do it occasionally.

I did poke around the directory structure a little last night looking for a config file, but I didn't get too extensive and nothing stood out, so I'm guessing it's mostly database-based, which makes sense considering all of the cataloging this setup does.

Edited January 7, 2022 by pecosdave
Add last line

[C-Beats]

Yeah Amazon is confirmed broken on the version you're on unfortunately. I've not heard any one having issues with the other two so I'd be curious to know how many items aren't showing for you with those libraries.

[pecosdave]

18 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

"Yeah Amazon is confirmed broken on the version you're on"

You told me nearly everything I need to know.

I'll just make sure I update again and hopefully that will fix at minimum Amazon.  Gog I only paid attention to one or two games, I know Victor Vran should have shown up from there and did not, and I just got the three freebie Tomb Raider games from Epic installed and they didn't show up.  With Amazon I know there was a lot of them, but Anna comes to mind as one I troubleshot a bit.  I think there was actually more from some of the others, but I can't cite any off the top of my head.


That's the end of the important relevant stuff, since I'm talking to an admin and I'm new around here, I guess I'll self introduce.

I'm probably a little older than most of the participants around here.  I've been playing with emulation at least since ZSNES was new, probably longer but I don't remember the names of those ancient things.  I wrote some of the early Mednafen documentation - which has since been Wiki edited away, but know they at least worked off of the base of what I wrote for years.  In my case it was just how to setup controllers that I wrote about - a big deal for Mednafen.  I have from time to time been very active on another front-ends forums and even did how-to videos for that one (that I need to put back out there), AttractMode.  I don't consider AttractMode your competitor despite being a different front-end since you have different target audiences, they focus on cabinets and you focus on the PC.

I had time off of work last week and the wife and kids were out of town so I did some updating and I installed games that I had accumulated since the last time I got to play with the system.  I probably just updated at a bad time because I know the old version worked fine.  That being said I was able to fix all but one of the emulators that didn't work well after migrating to the new setup.  I was using a 1080 Ti on the old system but now I'm using the integrated Radeon on my Ryzen (I moved the 1080 TI to my office  )  I'll update again and see if I can't get it going.  I don't know what your release cycle looks like, but if I'm on a good release I don't mind not updating but once every six months or so.

My big outstanding "how do I fix it?" is I can't seem to get the original Play Station emulators working right, and I've tried several.

I am NOT a fan of RetroArch/LibRetro though I see their appeal.  I decided to use it for my LaunchBox setup and it actually worked fine with my BullDozer Core AMD and Nvidia, but when I moved to my Ryzen setup it sucked.  The other emulators I got working I simply installed the full versions of what LibRetro had as a core, or I just had Mess launch it with the right command line parameters.  I found that between Mednafen and Mess I can usually get anything going smooth.

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

You told me nearly everything I need to know.

I'll just make sure I update again and hopefully that will fix at minimum Amazon.  Gog I only paid attention to one or two games, I know Victor Vran should have shown up from there and did not, and I just got the three freebie Tomb Raider games from Epic installed and they didn't show up.  With Amazon I know there was a lot of them, but Anna comes to mind as one I troubleshot a bit.  I think there was actually more from some of the others, but I can't cite any off the top of my head.


That's the end of the important relevant stuff, since I'm talking to an admin and I'm new around here, I guess I'll self introduce.

I'm probably a little older than most of the participants around here.  I've been playing with emulation at least since ZSNES was new, probably longer but I don't remember the names of those ancient things.  I wrote some of the early Mednafen documentation - which has since been Wiki edited away, but know they at least worked off of the base of what I wrote for years.  In my case it was just how to setup controllers that I wrote about - a big deal for Mednafen.  I have from time to time been very active on another front-ends forums and even did how-to videos for that one (that I need to put back out there), AttractMode.  I don't consider AttractMode your competitor despite being a different front-end since you have different target audiences, they focus on cabinets and you focus on the PC.

I had time off of work last week and the wife and kids were out of town so I did some updating and I installed games that I had accumulated since the last time I got to play with the system.  I probably just updated at a bad time because I know the old version worked fine.  That being said I was able to fix all but one of the emulators that didn't work well after migrating to the new setup.  I was using a 1080 Ti on the old system but now I'm using the integrated Radeon on my Ryzen (I moved the 1080 TI to my office  )  I'll update again and see if I can't get it going.  I don't know what your release cycle looks like, but if I'm on a good release I don't mind not updating but once every six months or so.

My big outstanding "how do I fix it?" is I can't seem to get the original Play Station emulators working right, and I've tried several.

I am NOT a fan of RetroArch/LibRetro though I see their appeal.  I decided to use it for my LaunchBox setup and it actually worked fine with my BullDozer Core AMD and Nvidia, but when I moved to my Ryzen setup it sucked.  The other emulators I got working I simply installed the full versions of what LibRetro had as a core, or I just had Mess launch it with the right command line parameters.  I found that between Mednafen and Mess I can usually get anything going smooth.

I havent updated my epic in a few weeks, so none of those free games are added yet, so running the importer and they all show up fine for me including the three Tomb Raiders, so not sure what is up with it on your end.

[C-Beats]

8 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

I'm probably a little older than most of the participants around here.

Not sure that's a bet I'd take round these parts. I know we have quite a few seasoned vets that could you give you a run for your money on that claim ;D
 

9 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

My big outstanding "how do I fix it?" is I can't seem to get the original Play Station emulators working right, and I've tried several.

We have PSCX-Reloaded and DuckStation stand alone emulators pre-configured for you in app (or how the command line arguments need to be for LB to launch them, emulator config changes still need to be done by you), both should get you going with PS1 fairly easily. Fairly certain that system requires BIOS files that you need to make sure match what the emulator expects, but I don't remember either being overly difficult to set up.

[pecosdave]

5 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

We have PSCX-Reloaded and DuckStation stand alone emulators pre-configured for you in app

PSCX-Reloaded and a couple of other forks are most of what I played with.  I did get some reasonable results, but they just bombed out after a few minutes most of the time.  Duckstation is what I was using with Libretro that hardly worked at all, but I admit I have not tried DuckStation as a stand-alone.  I may make that my next try.  If GPU's ever come back down from astronomical I think raw horsepower would fix a lot of the issues I had with choppy sound and what have you.  Still, I would rather fix the efficiency issues first, THEN ramp up the horsepower.

Edited January 7, 2022 by pecosdave
Stray "I"

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, pecosdave said:

PSCX-Reloaded and a couple of other forks are most of what I played with.  I did get some reasonable results, but they just bombed out after a few minutes most of the time.  Duckstation is what I was using with Libretro that hardly worked at all, but I admit I have not tried DuckStation as a stand-alone.  I may make that my next try.  If GPU's ever come back down from astronomical I think raw horsepower would fix a lot of the issues I had with choppy sound and what I have you.  Still, I would rather fix the efficiency issues first, THEN ramp up the horsepower.

Duckstation in Retroarch works great, did you mess with settings or run it stock, also what are your PC specs, maybe you tried pushing it too far? Personally i use the Duckstation core and un it at 8X resolution scaling, and its great.

[C-Beats]

11 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

issues I had with choppy sound

Most of the time choppy sound in RetroArch isn't actually a sound problem per se but a video one. It means you're running far lower FPS than the target and Libretro is slowing or stopping the audio to keep it in sync with the video.

[pecosdave]

Just now, neil9000 said:

Duckstation in Retroarch works great, did you mess with settings or run it stock, also what are your PC specs, maybe you tried pushing it too far? Personally i use the Duckstation core and un it at 8X resolution scaling, and its great.

32GB DDR 4, Ryzen 5 5600G and i am using the integrated graphics.

My OS and "core programs" are on a 256GB NVME Patriot gaming drive with a heatsink and everything.  My Steam games are on a dedicated 2TB WD Black desktop drive.  All of my non-Steam games are on a 2TB WD Laptop drive - the laptop drive is mapped as "U:" and \users is on U: - I did that during setup with an XML hack.

I figure a lot of my problems stem from one of two places:

1.  That integrated Radeon core really isn't all that powerful.  It's not bad, but it's no powerhouse.

2.  My installation was migrated from the previous system.  I tested everything to make sure it's fine, but I'm guessing there could be some residual config somewhere.

I may look into uninstall LibRetro in general then running C-Cleaner to make sure all the configs are gone.  I've found open source projects tend to be easier to get rid off in general.  That being said, I have little need for LibRetro anymore since I'm using all stand-alone emulators anyways, or as I've mentioned Mess/Mednafen.

I started playing with LibRetro years ago and I found it frustrating to navigate and configure in general.  I always found it easier to just configure my emulators myself without the help of an external framework.  To put it in perspective I also drive a stick-shift, make my coffee with a percolator, and build UPS's on a bring your own batteries modular level so it goes with the mindset.

[pecosdave]

Just now, C-Beats said:

Most of the time choppy sound in RetroArch isn't actually a sound problem per se but a video one. It means you're running far lower FPS than the target and Libretro is slowing or stopping the audio to keep it in sync with the video.

See previous reply - I figured that, which is why I had my #1 response above.  If GPUs ever come down from astronomical I'm going to get new Radeon to put in there.  I pretty much gave up on ATI when the Rage 2 was still the thing - too many problems, then I gave them another shot with a first-release original Radeon - which burned out and let me down.  I decided Nvidia should replace my VooDoo after that and have been an Nvidia guy every since.  Someone gave me an APU based pre-Ryzen AMD system that I thought did an alright job so I'm giving them another try with this Ryzen.

[C-Beats]

Yeah. Just confirming the concern since you said you aren't as experienced with that emulator compared to the others.

[neil9000]

9 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

I figure a lot of my problems stem from one of two places:

1.  That integrated Radeon core really isn't all that powerful.  It's not bad, but it's no powerhouse.

I concur, while great as a integrated solution, even a £100 GT1030 would out perform that. I have a somewhat similar setup to you, Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB of 3000Mhz RAM, OS on a Samsung 970 NVME SSD, however i also have a RTX 2080 Super dedicated GPU.

7 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

See previous reply - I figured that, which is why I had my #1 response above.  If GPUs ever come down from astronomical I'm going to get new Radeon to put in there.  I pretty much gave up on ATI when the Rage 2 was still the thing - too many problems, then I gave them another shot with a first-release original Radeon - which burned out and let me down.  I decided Nvidia should replace my VooDoo after that and have been an Nvidia guy every since.  Someone gave me an APU based pre-Ryzen AMD system that I thought did an alright job so I'm giving them another try with this Ryzen.

Check that your windows refresh is set to 60Hz and not say 30Hz or something, i have seen that be the problem a lot.

[pecosdave]

2 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Check that your windows refresh is set to 60Hz and not say 30Hz or something, i have seen that be the problem a lot.

You know, I should totally do that.

Only one port on my aged TV supports 60Hz at 4K (I usually set the games themselves to 1080, but Windows to 4K for movie purposes).

I did set everything to 60Hz on multiple occasions, but Windows does tend to frustrate me on occasion by changing things back when I'm not paying attention, ESPECIALLY if a game rescaled in the mean time.

I'm tempted to put my 750 Ti into the system because despite being old, it has proven itself as capable, but I think the TV being 4K is just a bit more than the 750 can handle smoothly.

Most of the games we play are on the easier end of the equation.  I tend to play 2D/2.5D platformers and my son tends to play the Lego games, which despite being 3D have such simple textures they tend to render pretty easily.  The only reason I'm running the built in GPU is a $120 video card currently costs $400.

[pecosdave]

2 minutes ago, pecosdave said:

I did set everything to 60Hz on multiple occasions, but Windows does tend to frustrate me on occasion by changing things back when I'm not paying attention, ESPECIALLY if a game rescaled in the mean time.

This is also at least part of the reason why every computer I own for my own use except for this one, with the network name "Wintendo" runs Linux.  My wife's computer runs Windows and so does my daughters, but that's their choice and not "my computer".

[pecosdave]

12.6 is what I have, which is the one that is currently available for download.  Guess I can wait, it wasn't anything I needed desperately anyways.  I'm not going to go beta, my family uses that system and I don't have time to support them from work...

[pecosdave]

So, I made sure it was at 60Hz, sure enough it was at 30.  I don't know how it keeps moving, but that's always been a frustration with Windows when you're messing with other software that will rescale things - like video games, especially old ones.  I've found that in time and I keep setting it back and adjusting other software it usually quits changing eventually.  The N64 emulator straightened right up and the PlayStation emulator is mostly better.  I played Nectaris Military Madness for a couple of hours just fine, but it didn't like Tony Hawk Pro Skater as much.  Nectaris finally gave it up when the power went out.  Gotta love Houston's crappy power.