DosBoxPure with Retroarch and Launchbox

[fotiosmark]

Hey guys

trying to build slowly a good lib with arcade, msdos etc. I have a question which as many times as I google it or tryied, can't figure out what is happening.

 

1. isntalled Retroarch with doxbox pure, done and working

2. Intstalled MS dos (extracted games) as folder in launchbox done and working

Now the issue is this. As many times as I change the controls in Retroarch > Input it doesn't reflect the changes when I run the game from within Launchbox. The settings are saved in Retroarch so I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

Any suggestions?

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

1 hour ago, fotiosmark said:

2. Intstalled MS dos (extracted games) as folder in launchbox done and working

You do not need to extract your games from zip to folders. In fact, if you use the Dosbox Pure core it's better if you import your dos games as zips and have "Extract ROMs" unchecked. If your zips contain disc images Dosbox pure will auto-mount the disc images this way. (And you will save some disk space in the process. 😉)

1 hour ago, fotiosmark said:

Now the issue is this. As many times as I change the controls in Retroarch > Input it doesn't reflect the changes when I run the game from within Launchbox. The settings are saved in Retroarch so I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

Start your game and press F1. > Scroll down to Controls > Port 1 Controls. > Edit your controls. > Go back one level in the menu and go to Manage Remap files. > choose one of the Save options.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Your Friendly A.I Overlord

[fotiosmark]

1. I extracted them because I found that games like Ecstatica and Alone in the dark wouldn't play as zip files. I don't know why. So there is a mixture of zip files and extracted ones.

 

For the info you gave me, I found those steps before but when for example I start Doom and press F1 it gets me to the details of the game. I went to HotKeys in Retroarch and changed the button to Home and when I press it does nothing (in game opened from Retroarch).

Then I changed the HotKey Enable to PageDown, I though that maybe I need to press that first before I press Home and again it does nothing.
All the other buttons such as Save State F2 or F4 are working fine. It won't get me to the Menu of Retroarch within the game though. Attached 2 screenshots.
Not sure what I am doing wrong and I m not really Comp illiterate

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

43 minutes ago, fotiosmark said:

For the info you gave me, I found those steps before but when for example I start Doom and press F1 it gets me to the details of the game.

I don't fully know what you mean with "the details of the game". But if you press F1 (or Home in your case) it will take you to the RetroArch "Quick Menu". Scroll down to "Controls".

43 minutes ago, fotiosmark said:

1. I extracted them because I found that games like Ecstatica and Alone in the dark wouldn't play as zip files. I don't know why

Maybe because you have to tell Dosbox Pure which file inside the zip is the games' executable. I made a post describing how to do that here:

More information about Dosbox Pure on it's Github page. (Including running games from zip files.)

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Your Friendly A.I Overlord

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

38 minutes ago, fotiosmark said:

Then I changed the HotKey Enable to PageDown, I though that maybe I need to press that first before I press Home and again it does nothing.

BTW. Leave "Hotkey Enable" empty. That way they're enabled by default.

[fotiosmark]

I had to make the HotKey to Null by opening the .cfg file so that worked. When I press Home the menu opens.
Press F1 gets me the Ordering of the game -

 

Now I got to get to the controls, The Keys that are bind x-z-s-a are the same as in the General Option Input and on the right side are the "controller buttons" if any (don't use one yet since I am trying things out.

I think its best if I get a controller. I changed the buttons manually one by one and didn't really changed the controls in game. I will dig around more with this. Thanks for all the help again.

BTW I believe that when I run retroarch, it starts from another Patch that when I start it from Launcbox.

When I start from Launchbox it starts from here.C:\Users\seatt\LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch

But when I start Retroarch itself it starts from C:\RetroArch-Win64

 

So I assume there are 2 config files for each time I run the game or something. Which this is where I got it wrong in the first place.

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

2 minutes ago, fotiosmark said:

When I start from Launchbox it starts from here.C:\Users\seatt\LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch

But when I start Retroarch itself it starts from C:\RetroArch-Win64

That's because you installed RetroArch twice. You once installed it manually, then downloaded it again from within LaunchBox. If you download RetroArch from within LaunchBox, LaunchBox will use that install. To change that, in LaunchBox click the "Tools" menu > Manage > Emulators > RetroArch. Click the "Browse" button and browse to the location of the retroarch.exe you want to use.

BTW. Setting up controls in RetroArch can be a bit confusing. In Settings > Input, you set up a more general binding. In the Quick Menu > Controls you can set up system / game specific controls.

[fotiosmark]

Got it, yeah I figured I installed it twice. Don't know why but I am trying things out to build an arcade game machine. Thanks again for all the help.