Hyperspin to Launchbox/Big Box turbulence and rants

[Shredder_guitar]

I'll start off by saying that I've been using hyperspin almost ever since it's conception...there's not a lot about hyperspin that I don't know about. My Hyperspin setup is near perfection as far as I am able to get it so I am very particular. I have reached a point where I wanted to start to venture into Launchbox territory since everyone talks as if It's setup is a significant improvement over hyperspin. 
I find in some regards, yes, as long as you don't care about the details and just want to do a bulk import without caring about the logistics of things on the backend and get a decent display and play...... However, I do care about those logistics....very much so. 
Ideally, I wanted to connect Launchbox to Rlauncher and connect things that way... I've researched this enough and based on what I found the process is 'meh' at best from what i was expecting. 
First, Why do I have to point to a rom path in Launchbox if Rlauncher handles all of the launching? Launchbox is basically passing CLI commands to rlauncher and rlauncher is taking it from there....what's the rom path for? 
Next, In launchbox, when i set up a connection to rlauncher, why must I configure an associated platform for rlauncher for each and every platform in the emulator menu...this should only be prompted when setting up a platform, not an emulator ? I should be able to set up an emulator WITHOUT being prompted to set an associated platform. 

When I launch a game, the clear logo and rating are missing, now, to be fair, there could be a setting I have missed or don't know about to configure to get this to display, but my thinking is that if rlauncher should be handling the settings, why doesn't this display? If it's not possible to get this info to display when using launchbox and proxying to rlauncher...this would be a deal breaker for me. 

How do I use my own databases? I've read a mention of a conversion tool for hyperspin xml's to a launchbox friendly database, but where is this tool and where do i put the database so that way i can use my own artwork? Because the databases that are preinstalled/pre-imported are missing some games. 

Lastly...the folder structure design choices....o...m....f....g what a trainwreck. Regional artwork folders!? Could we overcomplicate this any more?
What I would like to do is connect my existing artwork folders (untouched) to launchbox....but it seems that whenever I do, there is a regional folder structure that gets created in my existing artwork folders....this is messy. Is there any way to shut this off? This is probably a major deal breaker for me and as far as what I have found, it seems i have no choice in the matter. 
This is what I am referring too, If i do a re-cache after updating the folder path in the platform, these folders appear.... I don't want this. It's messy. 

Also a "Theme" Folder appears in the video folder

[Retro808]

Yes, unfortunately for some users, typically power users LB filing structure is not preferred. So you would need to convert to LB style of filing/naming if you plan on moving to LB. I will advise that contrary to what was posted adding more then 2-3 systems does not slow LB down. We do have some users who have consistently mentioned their slowdowns. It does not affect everyone as we have many users who do not suffer the same fate. It is an issue the team is taking note of and trying to determine the best avenue. They have mentioned it may warrant a full rewrite of the underlying code. Again, not discounting the issue anyone experiences as it is indeed valid, but trying to throw gas on a fire that may not exist for a new user is not needed. 

Here are a couple xml plugins. Not sure how much they may help as LB may not fit your needs. We have had users convert fully and enjoy LB. Some have not and stuck with Hyperspin. Good thing we have so many options out there. 

 

[Shredder_guitar]

Thanks for the reply. I ran through and added most of my consoles (the easy ones) to LB ... I experienced some lag, but it was mostly negligible and could have been caused by other things running on my PC at the time so I don't fully discredit LB for that...the most attractive thing about LB to me is the smoother scrolling wheel effects and the customizations of the different layout's without having to go through an huge effort to make it as such....it gets into the realm of Kodi with it's different skins and I like the different visualizations. I do find some visualization shortcomings with PAL consoles themes like SNES and Famicom...the issue would be on the artist, like adding the super famicom; but the logo at the top of the theme still says it's "Super Nintendo". 

I think my primary motivation for wanting to move is that HS community seems to be dispersed nowadays and is lacking support. I think that's primarily been driven by folks grabbing artwork, compiling systems, then selling them to make a buck...naturally that pisses off the artists and rightfully so... I'm one of them as well. HS isn't without it's shortcomings either, but I think they got it mostly right on the backend, It's missing a lot of the convenience features that LB does have.  
Even though I've just paid for LB...which I feel like is a waste at this point, I think I'll continue to be a lurker and not fully go in head first. I would be happy to contribute feedback on how to structure the FS because ALOT of what I see in LB is VERY extra. I like the Artwork categories (front box, 3d box, front cart, etc) as i feel that is needed, but Regional based artwork is a hard no for me....that can simply be stated in the filename. 

I'll probably continue to be a casual lurker more than get serious into migrating until these issues get sorted. I'm happy to contribute feedback on system architecture. I was part of a global IT company and have built many IT systems, so I know a thing or two about architecture. 

[Retro808]

39 minutes ago, Shredder_guitar said:

Thanks for the reply. I ran through and added most of my consoles (the easy ones) to LB ... I experienced some lag, but it was mostly negligible and could have been caused by other things running on my PC at the time so I don't fully discredit LB for that...the most attractive thing about LB to me is the smoother scrolling wheel effects and the customizations of the different layout's without having to go through an huge effort to make it as such....it gets into the realm of Kodi with it's different skins and I like the different visualizations. I do find some visualization shortcomings with PAL consoles themes like SNES and Famicom...the issue would be on the artist, like adding the super famicom; but the logo at the top of the theme still says it's "Super Nintendo". 

I think my primary motivation for wanting to move is that HS community seems to be dispersed nowadays and is lacking support. I think that's primarily been driven by folks grabbing artwork, compiling systems, then selling them to make a buck...naturally that pisses off the artists and rightfully so... I'm one of them as well. HS isn't without it's shortcomings either, but I think they got it mostly right on the backend, It's missing a lot of the convenience features that LB does have.  
Even though I've just paid for LB...which I feel like is a waste at this point, I think I'll continue to be a lurker and not fully go in head first. I would be happy to contribute feedback on how to structure the FS because ALOT of what I see in LB is VERY extra. I like the Artwork categories (front box, 3d box, front cart, etc) as i feel that is needed, but Regional based artwork is a hard no for me....that can simply be stated in the filename. 

I'll probably continue to be a casual lurker more than get serious into migrating until these issues get sorted. I'm happy to contribute feedback on system architecture. I was part of a global IT company and have built many IT systems, so I know a thing or two about architecture. 

We definitely welcome any constructive feedback so chime in when you can. The devs do tend to listen. It is a small team so they do what they can when they can. Any additional daily use feedback/data helps as well so share any hiccups you have if you get a chance. 

[Shredder_guitar]

56 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

We definitely welcome any constructive feedback so chime in when you can. The devs do tend to listen. It is a small team so they do what they can when they can. Any additional daily use feedback/data helps as well so share any hiccups you have if you get a chance. 

Thank you for that, I am a Cloud Devops Engineer by trade  and am recently unemployed due to economic pressures , I would love to contribute on the inside; there is absolutely no way I could do it for free though. That said, i fear going through normal channels my feedback would just get lost in the mix. 
At a high level, Rlauncher was a supplemental thing to offload the technical details to make HS more lightweight ...a load balancer (figuratively speaking)...the only part that Rlauncher didn't get right was that it doesn't handle artwork assets for the front end...if it did that...these front end platforms could become extremely lightweight because all you would have to do is connect them into rlauncher and go. I see that launchbox  is trying to be a mixture of HS/Hypertools/ and Kodi ....If done correctly that could be a powerful thing that rivals plex. 
I would say that Rlauncher needs a V2 and LB needs better integration with Rlauncher (yes, I realize that is near impossible as the support is dying for these things, but that's really what needs to happen). I am passionate enough about this stuff to take this on, but there's absolutely no way i could do it for free. 

As for some free advice, implement a two-way sync system between Lb and Rlauncher, these front end platforms should be lighter weight than they are. 

Edited December 8 by Shredder_guitar

[damageinc86]

Between emumovies and the artwork packs that we've all made and contributed to the downloads section, you've got all the artwork covered really.  The work is basically already done on the artwork front, as we've all renamed everything by now.  It's ready to be dropped into the folders.  I think being worried about the few regional folders that LB has in place is a little overkill.  I never use them on purpose, but LB sometimes does put things in there when I download from within LB's metadata section.  But really,...it's not that big of a deal.  And if you drop artwork you've manually downloaded into the folders, it will all stay in the main folder.  I've noticed that artwork only goes into those regional folders if it was downloaded from within the LB metadata artwork area.   I came from hyperspin over 10 years ago, when Launchbox (Jason) had just figured out how to get a "wheel" display.  Once the initial work was done, there really wasn't any reason to keep hyperspin.  I gave it a while, but eventually I needed nothing from my hyperspin folders and finally hit the delete button.  Haven't even needed to think about going back since then.

I find the LB/RL connection to be great, and have kept using it, even with LB's attempts to integrate some of RL's features (Pause, loading screens).  I feel that RL still does it better, and it is definitely needed for the keymapping.  All i've ever had to do for system/platform creation is create my custom system in LB, set RL as the emulator, shut down LB, then go to RL and see the new system, and edit to preference.  As you mentioned, the launching is then off-loaded to RL.

Basically, just accept that you have to set up things in LB, so that LB is under the impression it knows where everything is and will be handling it, and thus presents it all correctly, regardless of RL ACTUALLY handling the launching.  This is how they got around everything.  To have LB stop what it's doing at the point of launch, because RL is set as an emulator, so LB just lets the "emulator" do it's work.

As for the databases, you don't really need to think in terms of those xmls that we got used to in hyperspin anymore.  Ditch that mindset and let LB do the database creation that it automatically does once you create a system via import, or otherwise.  It handles that.  Which is one of the biggest points of LB in the first place.  Just get your roms all situated, which they probably still are, and run an import.  You can even name the system something non-standard, but use the "scrape as" feature to tell LB to pull the metadata and artwork from the system set under "scrape as".  Because if you use a non-standard name, by default LB might not see anything for it.  But if you scrape it as another system, it might be able to import the correct items for it.

All in all, the move to LB is well worth it.  Just for the ability to be able to get rid of the need to edit those damn xml files manually or otherwise.  It was always a hassle.  And LB's internal database creation interface takes care of all that.  I'd suggest don't lurk, don't wait, just set aside some time and get all the artwork packs from the downloads sections, link your emumovies account, go on an importing rampage, and take the plunge. 

[Kondorito]

@Shredder_guitar if you don't want to mess with your artwork and roms that are already set for HS (filenames, folder structure, etc.), you can simply do a symlink for all those folders/files and set the links within the LB folders. Your orig files will not get modified whatsoever. 

That's what I did when I moved from HS to LB because, same as you, I felt a little weird by getting my HS setup modified without my "consent" after a decade of tinkering. Fair to say, time passed, and I ended up not caring anymore because everything I needed was in LB, so I was able to close that chapter in my frontend life. 

[Shredder_guitar]

I pretty much disagree with everything that you've said, lol you have a progressive mindset for sure; whatever direction is forward is ok and consequences be damned. There are gaps in the artwork downloads, The database/xml lists/whatever are not complete in comparison to the ones i use for HS. The connection to to RL, in my opinion, is illogical and I think it should work a bit different from a user perspective if not under the hood. In my experience LB is a good attempt at merging RL and Hyperspin, with a slice of Hypertools in there... I think it should be done different. 

[Shredder_guitar]

I might give that a shot and see how it goes. So far, I'm not sold on LB yet as whole. 

[damageinc86]

2 hours ago, Shredder_guitar said:

I pretty much disagree with everything that you've said, lol you have a progressive mindset for sure; whatever direction is forward is ok and consequences be damned. There are gaps in the artwork downloads, The database/xml lists/whatever are not complete in comparison to the ones i use for HS. The connection to to RL, in my opinion, is illogical and I think it should work a bit different from a user perspective if not under the hood. In my experience LB is a good attempt at merging RL and Hyperspin, with a slice of Hypertools in there... I think it should be done different. 

I'd be curious what databases are incomplete in comparison?  and the RL connection might require you to go through the systems once more and duplicate the settings you have now for the Hyperspin entry, if you want things exactly the same, as I'm sure you do.  I feel like just because you think it should be done different doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't "bite the bullet" so to speak, and just get in there and get the conversion done.  It's like putting a manual transmission in an automatic car.  You need to fabricate some connections and working paths, but once they are made, it drives how it is intended to.

[C-Beats]

While we appreciate any constructive criticism's from users (new or long standing) I'd also ask you take the time and attempt to use the software as it's intended before making any final calls. If all you want to do is use another program as if it was Hyperspin than just continue to use Hyperspin. The way other software work will not be the same and it won't correlate 1:1 in almost any way. Things like the insistence of using RocketLauncher will only cause undue headaches for very little gain and will inevitably sour your experience with the application. LaunchBox is open ended enough that it'll let you do a lot of interesting things if you want, but the more you fight against the intended use of the application the more manual and grueling your migration process will be. As you've seen should you run into issues in your migration the forums are always willing to help out, you just got to be open to the fact that the most correct steps in how to achieve what you're trying to do WILL NOT be the same as they were in your previous set up.

[dragon57]

I'll add my experience converting from Hyperspin and Rocketlauncher long ago, for what it is worth.

I also was a big Hyperspin/Rocketlauncher user and supporter back when those developments and forums were active. Like many here, I tried the free version of Launchbox and saw promise. As Launchbox matured, I decided to switch. I continued using Rocketlauncher by following the Launchbox and Rocketlauncher integration info from the Rocketlauncher forums. While this did work after editing platform names on the Rocketlauncher side to match what Launchbox used as standards, I eventually moved away from that approach as Rocketlauncher stopped being developed and supported by the devs on its forum.

Moving away from the old environments to a total Launchbox/Bigbox one has been overall very satisfying. It does take time to adapt, but that is the way of things in any world requiring certain applications to support a particular task.

I have been an application coder since 1981. While I could continue to extend and develop myself in supporting my old Rocketlauncher installation, I decided anything I developed would probably be specific to my needs and not necessarily useful to anyone else. To me, asking for Launchbox to extend support for a dead application isn't productive for the vast number of Launchbox users, and I understand why this was never done. I would recommend joining in the forums here, be patient as you learn and use the products here and have fun gaming.

[damageinc86]

2 hours ago, dragon57 said:

I'll add my experience converting from Hyperspin and Rocketlauncher long ago, for what it is worth.

I also was a big Hyperspin/Rocketlauncher user and supporter back when those developments and forums were active. Like many here, I tried the free version of Launchbox and saw promise. As Launchbox matured, I decided to switch. I continued using Rocketlauncher by following the Launchbox and Rocketlauncher integration info from the Rocketlauncher forums. While this did work after editing platform names on the Rocketlauncher side to match what Launchbox used as standards, I eventually moved away from that approach as Rocketlauncher stopped being developed and supported by the devs on its forum.

Moving away from the old environments to a total Launchbox/Bigbox one has been overall very satisfying. It does take time to adapt, but that is the way of things in any world requiring certain applications to support a particular task.

I have been an application coder since 1981. While I could continue to extend and develop myself in supporting my old Rocketlauncher installation, I decided anything I developed would probably be specific to my needs and not necessarily useful to anyone else. To me, asking for Launchbox to extend support for a dead application isn't productive for the vast number of Launchbox users, and I understand why this was never done. I would recommend joining in the forums here, be patient as you learn and use the products here and have fun gaming.

Oh, now I'd be interested to hear what things you were thinking of working on for the RL->LB connection.  I can't let go of RL just yet, because for my needs, it still does a few things that LB won't fully engage in, or flat-out doesn't do. 

[dragon57]

29 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Oh, now I'd be interested to hear what things you were thinking of working on for the RL->LB connection.  I can't let go of RL just yet, because for my needs, it still does a few things that LB won't fully engage in, or flat-out doesn't do. 

Damage, have you listed those things out already, other than Shredder's first post, or is that basically it? If so, I must have missed them in the past, so point me to the post. If not, list them here and I'll try to answer your question. I'm not trying to be vague on purpose. At the time of my decision to drop RocketLauncher, I didn't have a set todo list of items I wanted to extend in to, but if I had decided to stay with RL, I would have just taken things one by one until I was satisfied. Honestly, my decision to switch over to LB fully was because the RL devs stopped responding to the forum, direct contact, you name it. While a couple of users on the forum tried to support with updating modules, it just wasn't enough, plus no source code was released from the RL devs.

Shredder, as far as the 'extra' folders getting created under certain conditions, if that is a hard line in the sand, then you will never be happy. This has been mentioned quite a few times in the past, and the devs seem open to changes IF enough support exists from the majority of the user base (we all vote around once per year). You can request a feature under the Help & Support area at the top of the page here on the forum, but I am almost sure there are requests for this already. Again, it is a matter of agreement from the user base. 

Edited December 9 by dragon57

[Shredder_guitar]

On 12/9/2024 at 2:51 PM, dragon57 said:

Damage, have you listed those things out already, other than Shredder's first post, or is that basically it? If so, I must have missed them in the past, so point me to the post. If not, list them here and I'll try to answer your question. I'm not trying to be vague on purpose. At the time of my decision to drop RocketLauncher, I didn't have a set todo list of items I wanted to extend in to, but if I had decided to stay with RL, I would have just taken things one by one until I was satisfied. Honestly, my decision to switch over to LB fully was because the RL devs stopped responding to the forum, direct contact, you name it. While a couple of users on the forum tried to support with updating modules, it just wasn't enough, plus no source code was released from the RL devs.

Shredder, as far as the 'extra' folders getting created under certain conditions, if that is a hard line in the sand, then you will never be happy. This has been mentioned quite a few times in the past, and the devs seem open to changes IF enough support exists from the majority of the user base (we all vote around once per year). You can request a feature under the Help & Support area at the top of the page here on the forum, but I am almost sure there are requests for this already. Again, it is a matter of agreement from the user base. 

It really is a hard line for me, I find region based folder structure is extra AF and will ultimately result in a spider webbed mess. If I make the transition I will either A. make the switch and never be able to go back to HS If i choose, or B. have massive amounts of file duplication....neither option is very appealing.
If you want to gather users, it needs to be easily adaptable thing, not the 'bend to my will' approach. I preach this in a business environment all the time.  A category based folder structure makes a lot of sense combined with the ability to swap sets when needed or desired (i.e. 2d boxes, 3d boxes,carts, etc). I am used to/prefer HS's simplicity in it's structure, though at times it's not without it's own shortcomings the generic artwork folders imposes a lot of limitations, but HS got it right when it came to categories.
Most of my attraction to LB is the themes...though some of the design choices (in my specific taste) is meh..The themes I do like lack the ability to make some changes that I would want to do in a theme...like color selection or different layout choices. I do like that the themes can be updated by the devs and then pushed out to end users. But in typical CI/CD fashion, devs either get rushed to implement breaking changes or the opposite, resistant to change and let it just remain broken for users and if you don't like it, tough shit....it's annoying. 

Not to be completely negative, I absolutely LOVE the steam connector, I think that's the best thing since sliced bread.

Edited December 11 by Shredder_guitar

[Shredder_guitar]

These are the kind of gaps I'm referring too and that increases as the systems become more obscure.. I fine with sharing, but I don't want to just upload them to emu movies because that (in my opinion) is not helpful because to my understanding (or lack thereof) these assets would come from a specific repo and they need to be named correctly to be parsed and downloaded...that repo needs to be updated and I wouldn't have the authority to do that. 

[C-Beats]

1 hour ago, Shredder_guitar said:

A. make the switch and never be able to go back to HS If i choose

There are plugins to rename all your images to be named by filename like most other frontends utilize to make this endeavor easier. We also offer a plugin system to help in the development of software or scripts to write should you need a more customized/personalized solution. Since we utilize non-propriety file system you can also massage and manipulate the files from one application to another fairly easily via any other tools like mass file renamers/converters or tools you want to write in a language you're more familiar in.

1 hour ago, Shredder_guitar said:

B. have massive amounts of file duplication

Images are only grabbed for the region assigned to the game. Our download tools also allow you to limit the number of images per use case. To grab duplications you have to be intentionally doing so. We also have tools in the software to help reduce the number of un-needed image files should you decide you'd like to change primary regions or what you'd like that limit to be moving forward in your collection. In short if you're duplicating images, you're using the app incorrectly and have manually went out of the way to generate it.

Again this is you coming to early conclusions about a product because you refuse to commit to a migration of workflows. In how many markets are two competing products ever designed to flow freely from one to the other? It's why a lot of middleware companies exist that create adaptors from one to the other. We already have quite a large number of tools available on our forums for download that do this migration adaptation for you to reduce the amount of friction your change from one product to the other will take, but that doesn't remove the fact that you ARE moving from one product to another.

46 minutes ago, Shredder_guitar said:

These are the kind of gaps I'm referring too and that increases as the systems become more obscure.. I fine with sharing, but I don't want to just upload them to emu movies because that (in my opinion) is not helpful because to my understanding (or lack thereof) these assets would come from a specific repo and they need to be named correctly to be parsed and downloaded...that repo needs to be updated and I wouldn't have the authority to do that. 

If you upload to our website (https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com) and not a third party like Emu-Movies we do then ensure all files are parsed and downloaded correctly and would moving forward. Does us no good to us to have assets on our server that the clients can't reliable pull down and use. Again the choice to share artwork you create is your own (and we respect the decision regardless of which you make), but you've rushed into another "gotcha" that doesn't actually exist if you'd go through the workflows already designed to do the things you're attempting to do.

[damageinc86]

4 hours ago, Shredder_guitar said:

It really is a hard line for me, I find region based folder structure is extra AF and will ultimately result in a spider webbed mess. If I make the transition I will either A. make the switch and never be able to go back to HS If i choose, or B. have massive amounts of file duplication....neither option is very appealing.
If you want to gather users, it needs to be easily adaptable thing, not the 'bend to my will' approach. I preach this in a business environment all the time.  A category based folder structure makes a lot of sense combined with the ability to swap sets when needed or desired (i.e. 2d boxes, 3d boxes,carts, etc). I am used to/prefer HS's simplicity in it's structure, though at times it's not without it's own shortcomings the generic artwork folders imposes a lot of limitations, but HS got it right when it came to categories.
Most of my attraction to LB is the themes...though some of the design choices (in my specific taste) is meh..The themes I do like lack the ability to make some changes that I would want to do in a theme...like color selection or different layout choices. I do like that the themes can be updated by the devs and then pushed out to end users. But in typical CI/CD fashion, devs either get rushed to implement breaking changes or the opposite, resistant to change and let it just remain broken for users and if you don't like it, tough shit....it's annoying. 

Not to be completely negative, I absolutely LOVE the steam connector, I think that's the best thing since sliced bread.

Like I said before, you don't have to use that file structure if you don't want to.  You can drop all of the artwork you download on your own into the main artwork folder of the system (LaunchBox\Images\Nintendo Entertainment System\Box - Front) for example, and that's it. 

There shouldn't really be any gaps in the Sega Genesis, so that's odd.  Seems to be a very well covered system.  Unless you have some image files that are named differently than the game name within launchbox.  You also don't have to leave things how launchbox named them.  There are a few tricky games that I've preferred to be named slightly different than what the Launchbox database insists it should be, just out of personal preference.  So once I downloaded the metadata for that and had a blank entry like you do there, I went into the metadata area again and updated the title to what my image file and rom name is, ok'd the change, hit F5 on the selected game, and voila, my Box Front image I already had showed up since it was in the folder.

Case in point actually, since I wanted to revisit my genesis box fronts after seeing your screenshot there.  I noticed I had an old set and just searched for a higher quality one off emumovies and snagged it.  Arch Rivals had the "arcade game" end to the name in launchbox, but the new image I just downloaded did not.  So going through right now and re-naming a few.  Also, for some reason my romset, that I've had for years, includes some Euro and i suppose World games.  So I had to bring back a few of my old box front images into the folder to have those populate again, since this image set I just downloaded does not have those.  But like, for Austrailian Rugby, or some Asterix Euro game, I did not go put those images in the World folder or Europe folder.  I just plopped them right in the main folder. they populate just the same.

Edited December 11 by damageinc86