Is there a way to force launch to use images with exact rom name?

[Opus132]

Basically, i wanted to use the same images for both launchbox and MAME. The MAME extras contain a lot of the same media launchbox uses (screenshots, video snaps etc) so i figured a good way not to have double images for everything was to just make symbolic links that point to the same folder so the same images can be used by both launchbox and MAME standalone. Since launchbox can pick up media using the rom name, i figured why not. 

Turns out launchbox picks up ANYTHING that is similar in name. So for instance there's a buttload of roms that have the word "tetris" in the name and all the images named after those roms show up under the same tetris game. 

Is there a way to force launchbox to use images with an EXACT match to the rom name? 

 

 

[sundogak]

36 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

Basically, i wanted to use the same images for both launchbox and MAME. The MAME extras contain a lot of the same media launchbox uses (screenshots, video snaps etc) so i figured a good way not to have double images for everything was to just make symbolic links that point to the same folder so the same images can be used by both launchbox and MAME standalone. Since launchbox can pick up media using the rom name, i figured why not. 

Turns out launchbox picks up ANYTHING that is similar in name. So for instance there's a buttload of roms that have the word "tetris" in the name and all the images named after those roms show up under the same tetris game. 

Is there a way to force launchbox to use images with an EXACT match to the rom name? 

 

 

You cannot force LB to only use ROM named media.  As  you have seen if there is any other named media via title in addition to rom-named media it will add to game as well.  If you have media/image pack with ROM names then easiest is to nuke the media folder specific to MAME and then add your media with ROM name.  However, there is still a gotcha as if you ever edit a game in LB, then LB will merrily rename the media back to LB naming convention of game title (via Database) and a -0# sequence.  There is a useful plugin in download section to rename media back to ROM name but the reality is you have to battle LB's tendency to name things the way it wants. It would be great if there was some way to lock media overall to avoid this but currently no such feature. 

[Opus132]

9 hours ago, sundogak said:

You cannot force LB to only use ROM named media.  As  you have seen if there is any other named media via title in addition to rom-named media it will add to game as well. 

 

But it's not other "title" named media it's just other rom-named media that happens to be similar to the rom the game uses. There is no title named media, just atretris, tetristh, tetrissp2 and so on. 

The thing is that with title named media, launchbox uses a strict match. So if i have Tetris-01, and Tetrish-01, only the first gets picked up, but with rom based names every rom that contains the title somewhere in the name gets picked up, at least for images. For videos, there appears to be a limit of sort. For instance, with Tetris while i have every single image that contains the word tetris in it, for videos i have only two, atetris.mp4 (which is the one that matches the rom), and tetris.mp4, but none of the other rom named snaps (so no tetris1.mp4, tetristh.mp4 etc). 

Before mame all my rom named media was just video snaps which is why i never noticed there's no exact name rule for rom based media, only for title based media, but i guess now i have to keep an eye for this for all other platform as well since emumovies uses rom names for all their videos. Compared to mame it's gonna be super rare there's going to be media with similar rom names but it's still possible i suppose. 

Edited April 26 by Opus132

[CaptainGreenhat]

My understanding is that you set the rom name in additional names section in the meta data of a game and LB will acknowledge whatever you want. If you want to use the images folder in mame you can do that, just edit the platform and pick the desired folder from the folders tab. Like a lot of advanced use cases, you are gonna have to do some manual setup but launchbox is vastly better in this regard than many other front ends. Unfortunately you can not have launchbox use multiple folders for the same image type on a single platform. You can however make all the images in the mame folder symlinks in the launchbox images folder of your choosing as a work around but thats fairly complicated and I barely use symlinks because of the extra work so you'd have to look that up.

[CaptainGreenhat]

Oh if you pay for emumovies premium you can download gamesnaps directly in launchbox and then when you go to the videos in a games metadata edit page you can change the video type and launchbox will automatically rename and move it.

Edited April 26 by CaptainGreenhat

[Opus132]

5 hours ago, CaptainGreenhat said:

My understanding is that you set the rom name in additional names section in the meta data of a game and LB will acknowledge whatever you want.

You don't need to set the rom name anywhere. Launchbox will automatically pick up any media that uses the rom name instead of the title name.

The problem is that however it then "aknowledges" too much. 

I'm looking at a random example right now. So there's a computer software called "Bullet". The rom name is wmbullet.zip. Then there's a game called Bullet as well, rom name is bullet.zip, and all the media from this game gets picked up by the computer software, and launchbox also filled all the empty metadata entries with info from the game, while mercifully leaving the lines that were put there based on the rom name intact (otherwise it would be impossible to even recognize this isn't the game). The only solution to this would be to manually set specific title names for all the images, and then manually correct all the metadata entries which is hardly worth it. 

In essence, importing the full MAME set into launchbox is really not worth the trouble given those issues. Non-arcade games with games metadata, and the impossibility to use the rom name for media since everything gets picked up as long as the title is in the rom name. 

Now granted, most people aren't going to import the entire unfiltered set, but for those who would like to use that option for the sake of exploration and curiosity, it just creates a few headaches. It's a pity because launchbox makes it much easier to explore and sort out what's actually in there than any of the front ends available for the stand alone MAME emulator, but skimming through some auto-generated playlist of non-arcade games and then see a game's image is triggering my OCD too much. 

I think i'm just going to revert to a filtered import and call it a day. 

 

[CaptainGreenhat]

12 hours ago, Opus132 said:

You don't need to set the rom name anywhere. Launchbox will automatically pick up any media that uses the rom name instead of the title name.

The problem is that however it then "aknowledges" too much. 

I'm looking at a random example right now. So there's a computer software called "Bullet". The rom name is wmbullet.zip. Then there's a game called Bullet as well, rom name is bullet.zip, and all the media from this game gets picked up by the computer software, and launchbox also filled all the empty metadata entries with info from the game, while mercifully leaving the lines that were put there based on the rom name intact (otherwise it would be impossible to even recognize this isn't the game). The only solution to this would be to manually set specific title names for all the images, and then manually correct all the metadata entries which is hardly worth it. 

In essence, importing the full MAME set into launchbox is really not worth the trouble given those issues. Non-arcade games with games metadata, and the impossibility to use the rom name for media since everything gets picked up as long as the title is in the rom name. 

Now granted, most people aren't going to import the entire unfiltered set, but for those who would like to use that option for the sake of exploration and curiosity, it just creates a few headaches. It's a pity because launchbox makes it much easier to explore and sort out what's actually in there than any of the front ends available for the stand alone MAME emulator, but skimming through some auto-generated playlist of non-arcade games and then see a game's image is triggering my OCD too much. 

I think i'm just going to revert to a filtered import and call it a day. 

 

Ahh, I know what you mean. That is why I don't auto merge, auto import media, or let LB do anything but basic meta data. I have to go in an fix hundreds of things. It has gotten tremendously better of the years and isn't  anywhere near as bad as setting up hyperspin from scratch but alas, I am like you and do complete unfiltered sets, and even do things like keeping no-intro, tocsec, and goodsets seperately so I don't have to hunt things down. Hell, If I thought I could track them down I would keep a full unmerged set for every mame version. I back things up to M-disc and keep buying 20TB exyos drives, lol. Maybe you can use ai and make a batch file or powershell script to autorename copies and place them in the LB folders? Assuming you have the space. Maybe a feature request can be submitted?

[Opus132]

At least the metadata info provided by the mame.xml appears to be correct, so there's not going to be any confusion as to what is what, even if the rest of the metadata entries are filled up with info from another game. I allowed launchbox to automatically create auto populated playlists for the entire set and i've been looking at each in turn and from what i can see they are all more or less correct. Because of this i think i'm going to keep the full import in the end. Just use the "hide" function to weed out all the chaff but keep it there to look at it whenever i feel like it. In fact i think the ability to create playlists based on everything under the sun is one of the best things about launchbox and it is allowing me to sort out the full rom set in a way i was never able to before. For the first time in years i think i'm finally starting to figure out what excactly is actually in there lol. 

BTW, one of the reasons i turned to the media provided by MAME is that i couldn't get launchbox to cover all the games with images. In order to make sense of the full import i decided to set my image group to screenshots and launchbox had like 8000 images after importing 20888 games (non-merged set. Meanwhile the merged set imported 20906 games BUUUUT i'm not even gonna bother opening that can of worms. Screw it no way i'm going to go look for a dozen missing games in 20000 roms) but i just checked my MAME snaps folder and there's like 47.985 images. A lot of them appear to be just generic "this game has no ingame snapshot" image but at least the game was filled up with something. Of course, since all the images are named after the rom that's when i encountered the problem with some games picking up all the images from similarly named roms. Likewise for videos. I don't have a premium emumovies account and again all the video snaps collections out there are all named after the rom. 

Since there's a tool that converts the name of an image from title to rom name, i wonder if it's possible to do the reverse? A tool that converts media with rom names to title names? That would likely solve the issue of games picking up the wrong media at least.

As for the metadata, as long as you can identify what the rom is i don't think it's that huge of a deal though it is definitelly annoying. Like i just found a pinball game called Batman Forever that got filled up with metadata info from the beat'em up game. However, the pinball game is in its pinball playlist and after fixing the image i guess i don't have to read the metadata. Strangely, there IS an entry in the launchbox database about the pinball but the program refuses to pick it up: 

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/127968-batman-forever

When i tried to change the metadata launchbox only gives me the beat'em up game as option. Is the local metadata file different from what's in the gamedb? That's kinda wierd shouldn't they be the same? 

Edited April 27 by Opus132

[sundogak]

Quote

Since there's a tool that converts the name of an image from title to rom name, i wonder if it's possible to do the reverse? A tool that converts media with rom names to title names? That would likely solve the issue of games picking up the wrong media at least.

Yes

 

[Opus132]

Haaa i thought it only went one way. 

Alright, that ought to take care of that i hope. I'll try it tonight as soon as i get home.