"Platform" vs. "Playlist"

[Zaphod54]

Basic question - is there an advantage to using a Platform vs. just a Playlist?  Or is it purely personal preference?

Details...

I have a full MAME set imported and working under the default "Arcade" Platform, but I'm going to use Flycast for Sega NAOMI emulation and I have the Nebula Model 2 emulator set up for those games.  All the YouTube videos I've seen for "importing" these games using Flycast or Model 2 indicated to import the games into the "Platform" Sega NAOMI, Model 2, etc., and setting the emulator as "associated" to that platform.

But I then see this separates out those games in the Platform and Platform Category lists into those NAOMI or Model 2 Platforms, separate from the Arcade Platform.  I'm not sure I want that.  They're still "Arcade" games, I don't care that they're using a different emulator underneath.  I don't feel like I need/want a separate "Platform" for these in the sense that "PlayStation" or "Sega Genisis" or "Wii" are clearly, truly, separate Platforms.

So then I found this forum post with Playlists already defined for the Sega NAOMI games
https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/64472-sega-playlists-naomi-naomi-2-naomi-gd-naomi-2-gd-atomiswave-model-3
and LB already had a Playlist for Model 2 built in.

I then found it very easy to simply select one of those Playlists, press CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist from the MAME imported set, and then change the emulator for that entire Playlist to Flycast or Nebula Model 2.  This was MUCH easier than re-importing each ROM for the Flycast or Model 2 emulators separately, and it keeps them under the Arcade platform.  Seems to work fine so far.

Am I missing something, or some feature advantage, by not doing these as a "Platform" as the YouTube videos indicate?

 

[Lordmonkus]

30 minutes ago, Zaphod54 said:

is there an advantage to using a Platform vs. just a Playlist? 

You cannot have playlists without a platform of some kind, the games get imported to a platform while playlists are for custom games lists such as favourites which can have games from multiple platforms.

Everything after that such as breaking arcade games into sub categories such as Sega NAOMI or Model 2 is just personal preference, nothing wrong or better about it in terms of functionality, just initial setup because of the different emulators.

[Zaphod54]

7 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

You cannot have playlists without a platform of some kind,...

I understand that.  I do already have the Arcade platform that was created when importing MAME.  It was more about whether there was any advantage to treating NAOMI and Model 2 as separate platforms vs. just playlists under Arcade, when using a different emulator for those games, particularly in regard to having an "associated" emulator to the platform?  Sounds like there's not though (just for confirmation)?

I guess, follow-up question, what does configuring an emulator to be associated with a platform actually do?  I can configure the emulator on an individual game inside a platform to any other emulator defined in the system, whether that emulator is associated with that platform or not.  So what's the purpose of adding an associated platform to an emulator config?

Edited June 29, 2023 by Zaphod54

[C-Beats]

It's so the platform has a default value that can be applied to games so you don't HAVE to manually go to each one and assign an emulator after an import and just play the game. It also drives the logic for the "Play With..." menu's that let you choose which emulator you want to play the ROM with if you have more than one emulator that can play a given system.

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, Zaphod54 said:

any advantage to treating NAOMI and Model 2 as separate platforms vs. just playlists under Arcade, when using a different emulator for those games, particularly in regard to having an "associated" emulator to the platform?

The advantage (for me) of having them in their own platform is setting the associated emulator.  If they were all in Arcade, I'd have to determine which games I need to change their respective emulators for.  There may be a way to filter, then just do a bulk edit. But [for me] this is way easier.

 

1 hour ago, Zaphod54 said:

what does configuring an emulator to be associated with a platform actually do?

With multiple associated emulators, you're able to right click a game and select one-or-the-other of them.  Say you had the Atari 7800 platform using RetroArch and you wanted to test the A7800 emulator.  You add A7800 and associate it to Atari 7800 (not making it Default) then can right click various game to test it.   ...as one example.

[Zaphod54]

Thanks, all!  I think that covers it.  This does tell me that even if I just do NAOMI and Model 2 as playlists within the Arcade platform, I should associate Flycast and Model 2 to the Arcade platform, but not make them Default (Default is still MAME).

 

6 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

The advantage (for me) of having them in their own platform is setting the associated emulator.  If they were all in Arcade, I'd have to determine which games I need to change their respective emulators for.  There may be a way to filter, then just do a bulk edit. But [for me] this is way easier.

This makes sense too, except I mentioned in my original post that I had found pre-defined playlists that someone had created for the MAME set that separated out all of the Sega arcade platform stuff (NAOMI, etc.), which made it very easy to just select that playlist, then CTRL-A to select all games in that playlist, then bulk-edit the emulator for all of the games in that playlist.

But in looking at some of the other playlists that LB creates on its own, I think creating auto-populate playlists for these games would be easy too, using "Source contains naomi.cpp" for example.