getting started with Launchbox

[romeoz]

I'm in the process of building my arcade cabinet from rec room and it comes with a 2 joystick, wheel and spinner.  I'm trying to figure out if I should pay the fee for launch box or buy a pre-configured hard drive from arcade-one website.  I know arcade-one you can run winipac app and map all your emulators to the rec room joystick panel. can you use that same program and run launch box? I assume launch box is just the frontend app that acts as the Gui for all the emulators. I have hundreds of GB files on my NaS for games and I was playing with launch box and imported a few nes games to test. seems easy to use but want to make sure I can get my system configured to work with my arcade box   thanks for the help. 

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by romeoz

[sundogak]

I would avoid a pre-configured drive. You won't get much (if any) help from the vendor for questions and they are invariably setup in ways that a person new to process will not be able to easily figure out or troubleshoot.  You also won't get much help in most forums (including here) because it is difficult to answer questions for those "kit" systems.  Particularly if you are jumping to an arcade cabinet and controllers vs just running on PC.

You can use Launchbox free to try it. The features disabled in non-paid versions won't prevent you from getting things setup.  Launchbox is ultimately "just" an emulator launcher but includes components to make the integration easier and polished (particularly for MAME and Retroarch).  Think of it as the hub but by itself it cannot run games without emulators. Thus, you have to have some familiarity with the underlying emulators such as MAME and Retroarch.  If things don't work in the emulator they won't work in LB.  There are many threads here on how to work various emulators with LB.

For iPAC setups there are several threads in the forums here on how that is done as well users who have way more familiarity than I do. But basically you have it reversed in that if you need to change ipac profiles (say from keyboard to xinput) you tell LB either via command line, batch file, or AHK setup.  Again, more knowledgeable people on the threads or someone can chime in on this thread.

Start off with several key systems such as MAME for arcade and Retroarch for things like cartridge based systems (Atari 2600, NES, Super NES).  These tend to be simpler to get going as LB has some integration for installation built in. Media packs are available via LB Download section and LB database so you can get a good BigBox experience quickly.   MAME + LB + iPAC should also be relatively straightforward as well. 

[Jabb3rJaw]

That’s what I’m currently running. Bigbox with an iPac. Definitely worth it. I just programmed my buttons with the WinPac software to what keyboard keys I want each button to represent on my control panel. I use Mame as my emulator for arcade games and Dolphin for game cube. The rest I use Retroarch because I like how I can use my control panel in Retroarch or use my Xbox controllers and don’t have to change any settings. I can literally start playing a game with my control panel then during the game pick up the controller and continue the game without doing anything. Anyway as easy as Bigbox is to set up doing it yourself would be well worth it so you can trouble shoot on your own. Although I don’t think I’ve had to change anything or had anything break once I’m set up unlike Hyperspin which I was constantly battling. Good luck!