Switching from HS to LB - Rlauncher question

[Shredder_guitar]

So now that HS1.5 doesn't work after the latest windows update and HS2 is just a complete dumpster fire of a platform. I'm trying to switch to using LB, but I don't want to give up on using Rlauncher because of the massive amount of configurations I have done with artworks and pause menus. I've noticed that artwork is not being pulled correctly when using rlauncher and that is because the art path is no longer provided to the launchbox plugin for things like the clear logo, box art, etc. I don't want to give up fade screens and pause menus. How can i navigate this? What are some solutions that are alternatively palatable? Is there a fix for the plugin floating somewhere around the internet? I've tried searching for days, but I haven't found anything that works and it seems that it is mostly because the artwork is stored in region subfolders, which seems to be quite difficult to pull off in AHK to parse those things. How can i proceed? 

Edited Tuesday at 08:18 PM by Shredder_guitar

[Suhrvivor]

Launchbox supports fade and pause menus natively, you don't need RL for those two things. I'd suggest ditching RL completely if you switch to Launchboxx, I know you might feel you'd lose all the work you put in it but trust me, once you leave you won't miss it. I was in a similar position as you're now 8 years ago and I don't regret leaving HS and RL. I still have RL working with Launchbox but I avoid using it as much as I can.

[Shredder_guitar]

52 minutes ago, Suhrvivor said:

Launchbox supports fade and pause menus natively, you don't need RL for those two things. I'd suggest ditching RL completely if you switch to Launchboxx, I know you might feel you'd lose all the work you put in it but trust me, once you leave you won't miss it. I was in a similar position as you're now 8 years ago and I don't regret leaving HS and RL. I still have RL working with Launchbox but I avoid using it as much as I can.

Is there tutorials /documentation for this stuff? 

[C-Beats]

1 hour ago, Shredder_guitar said:

Is there tutorials /documentation for this stuff? 

Our YouTube channel has several tutorials for LaunchBox. A large majority of them cover specific systems. I personally would suggest just run the app and organically experiment in it. Start with the Tools menu and run an import and potential the Download Media tool and just go with what sounds right at the time and tweak as you need. We strive to make LB the easiest frontend to get up and going. If you run into any stumbling blocks the community is really good about helping each other out. If you run into any hurdles you think we could probably handle better while you're going through the process there is a "Request a Feature" link in the "Help & Support" tab at the top of this page. Let us know how we can improve the app for newcomers.

[bundangdon]

As @Suhrvivor mentioned, I'd get rid of Rocketlauncher as it's pretty much obsolete and Launchbox can provide most of its functions, or you can use the Bezel Project and other plugins to get the job done. However, if you still need to use Rocketlauncher, here's an old but still relevant method-tutorial on how to use the two programs together. 

 

[zugswang]

13 hours ago, Shredder_guitar said:

So now that HS1.5 doesn't work after the latest windows update and HS2 is just a complete dumpster fire of a platform. I'm trying to switch to using LB, but I don't want to give up on using Rlauncher because of the massive amount of configurations I have done with artworks and pause menus. I've noticed that artwork is not being pulled correctly when using rlauncher and that is because the art path is no longer provided to the launchbox plugin for things like the clear logo, box art, etc. I don't want to give up fade screens and pause menus. How can i navigate this? What are some solutions that are alternatively palatable? Is there a fix for the plugin floating somewhere around the internet? I've tried searching for days, but I haven't found anything that works and it seems that it is mostly because the artwork is stored in region subfolders, which seems to be quite difficult to pull off in AHK to parse those things. How can i proceed? 

Rocketlauncher still works great with Launchbox and I still use it with over 90% of my emulator setups on LB, because it's a much smoother transition.

The only thing I couldn't get working is rom mapping, but that's because the LB xml's are not the same format as Hyperspin, hence the required information paths are not found (loads fine, but names are incorrect).

The people on this forum will try and persuade you RL is useless and everything they provide is better.

This is not the case where RocketLauncher is concerned.

If you try and set LB up from scratch with all new emulators you will take forever, RL is the way to go .... IMO

Hyperspin 1.5  BTW works fine on Windows version 23H2 and below.

[C-Beats]

3 hours ago, zugswang said:

If you try and set LB up from scratch with all new emulators you will take forever

A large majority of them at this point we can download for you automatically and instantly set it up well enough to at least get into a game, as well as inform you if you're missing BIOS files for said emulators. If you don't download media and it takes you more than an hour to import your entire ROM library I'd be pretty surprised. Media downloads can take a while depending on the size of the setup. For example your 250k build I'd not even want to guess how long it'd take to redo that media grab...

[zugswang]

22 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

A large majority of them at this point we can download for you automatically and instantly set it up well enough to at least get into a game, as well as inform you if you're missing BIOS files for said emulators. If you don't download media and it takes you more than an hour to import your entire ROM library I'd be pretty surprised. Media downloads can take a while depending on the size of the setup. For example your 250k build I'd not even want to guess how long it'd take to redo that media grab...

Currently on my Hyperspin setup I have approx 200 different emulators setup in RocketLauncher with alternate emulators used for 1,000's of other games too.

Launchbox cannot do anything about these (except either offer alternative emulator or set each different one up manually) meaning you have to remember what's the best emulator to use 3DS and Hacks being prime examples (for me)

If he is like me he may have similar, that's why I suggest doing the opposite you are all saying and use RocketLauncher as standard to get it all working, then double back in future if and when required to use LB emulators.

No disrespect intented towards LB, but RocketLauncher modules allow a much smoother transition for many emulators + it will all be second nature for him to use until he gets used to LB.

Also all the same videos from HS can just be copied to LB as well as logos. It's just the boxart/discs/carts etc that will need to be downloaded seeing as they will all be the wrong dimensions if he has converted them for 16:9 widescreen.

[C-Beats]

Yeah, I fully realize you're more knowledgeable in any attempt to utilize RL and it's differences. I've not ever used the software. Just stating that cold starting again from LB has become pretty straight forward and much faster than it was in the past when you are I first started our builds. You start getting into the weeds and needing custom command lines/emulators for every game/app sorta thing and I can definitely admit now you're looking at QUITE a bit more work lol

[Shredder_guitar]

4 hours ago, zugswang said:

Rocketlauncher still works great with Launchbox and I still use it with over 90% of my emulator setups on LB, because it's a much smoother transition.

It works in functionality at least for the simple emus like retroarch, but i run into issues with the artwork on fade screens (haven't checked pause screens yet, but probably the same) because of artwork existing in subfolders. The clearlogo path is no longer fed to the launchbox.plugin ahk file in rlauncher. 

4 hours ago, zugswang said:

Hyperspin 1.5  BTW works fine on Windows version 23H2 and below.

HS still works on my main HTPC for the moment, thank goodness, but my office PC has updated so I can't modify anything and push out to my HTPC. 24H2 has been on my machine too long to roll back (above 10 days), so I'm just stuck with it until there's hopefully an update that fixes it. But since there's no support or active updating for it, then i have concerns about how long it will be until it breaks again. 

Launchbox has much more support and does have some foundational things established that make sense to me like having a shared database for artwork. Not too keen on the automatic emu setup and configuration, I often do things in a non-standard way. Like for example, bezels, I have bezels set up in such a way through rlauncher that they rotate each time i launch a game so I see one of several different possible bezels each time.  

Customizing the Unified theme, for me, has been much more difficult, but doable. So far I've only found the artwork structure to be Launchbox's achilles heel. I have 72 systems all highly customized in Rlauncher... I would much prefer minimize resetting those up as much as possible. 

Edited 15 hours ago by Shredder_guitar

[zugswang]

5 hours ago, Shredder_guitar said:

It works in functionality at least for the simple emus like retroarch, but i run into issues with the artwork on fade screens (haven't checked pause screens yet, but probably the same) because of artwork existing in subfolders. The clearlogo path is no longer fed to the launchbox.plugin ahk file in rlauncher. 

HS still works on my main HTPC for the moment, thank goodness, but my office PC has updated so I can't modify anything and push out to my HTPC. 24H2 has been on my machine too long to roll back (above 10 days), so I'm just stuck with it until there's hopefully an update that fixes it. But since there's no support or active updating for it, then i have concerns about how long it will be until it breaks again. 

Launchbox has much more support and does have some foundational things established that make sense to me like having a shared database for artwork. Not too keen on the automatic emu setup and configuration, I often do things in a non-standard way. Like for example, bezels, I have bezels set up in such a way through rlauncher that they rotate each time i launch a game so I see one of several different possible bezels each time.  

Customizing the Unified theme, for me, has been much more difficult, but doable. So far I've only found the artwork structure to be Launchbox's achilles heel. I have 72 systems all highly customized in Rlauncher... I would much prefer minimize resetting those up as much as possible. 

If you can’t roll back 242H you can easily find a 23H2 Iso for Window11 and install that.

then just ensure you don’t install any optional update for 24H2 if it ever appears (I have been using 23H2 for over a year and no sign of it for me.

Just don’t add too much to LB or you will soon find out it’s Achilles heel ….

Speed !! 
Think of Hyperspin 2.0 currently and that’s what it turns into once you add 100’s of systems.

Just add a handful and it’s great.

Good luck 👍

[Shredder_guitar]

41 minutes ago, zugswang said:

If you can’t roll back 242H you can easily find a 23H2 Iso for Window11 and install that.

then just ensure you don’t install any optional update for 24H2 if it ever appears (I have been using 23H2 for over a year and no sign of it for me.

 

I gladly would, but installing via ISO is a destructive install.... I have way too many programs and configs to just wipe my machine and start fresh....though it probably couldn't hurt to improve my FS... I would rather build a new machine and do a fresh install at that time than to wipe my current one and reconfigure it. My office PC is about 10-ish years old, so It's about time (when i build a machine i try to future proof it as much as possible and spare no expense, though graphics card prices are getting ridiculous...there's absolutely no fuckin way I'm paying $4k for a graphics card....i paid $1200 for my gfx card now and I'm obviously still pissed about it). 

I've added most of my systems in and have experienced some slow down, but not much. It's these non-optimized tools that's the culprit...trading flash and gradient backgrounds for lightweight optimization. That's what I liked about HS 1.5, it was lightweight, easy to understand and customize and what it did, it did well. Ah, well, march forward.  Launchbox works absolutely wonderful as an asset management tool and obtaining artwork packs ina  shared DB...something I've ALWAYS thought should happen. Regarding big box, I like the ability to switch themes on the fly, but a lot of the themes are lacking in my personal taste. I like the unified theme the best, but customizing the bars is ....blah. 

Here's what i got so far, though i haven't figured out how to change the colors per system yet...if that's even possible. I like displaying the controllers at the bottom, that's pretty cool. I still need to figure out how to do a fallback system theme when an arcade theme is not present. Then there's the dreaded emulation thing. None of my systems are fully configured to work...Launchbox needs a backend specifically geared for setting up and configure emulators (i don't want them automagically configured, i want to implement them myself, customize them, and know what they are doing, and as mentioned in a previous post, I have my rlauncher set up in such a way that it cycles through a number of bezels upon loading so they are different each time. I really like to be able to do that. I have rlauncher control my bezels via ini files, not retroarch. 

[rexryan]

What ever you add.. it's going to get slower and slower..

[Shredder_guitar]

1 hour ago, rexryan said:

What ever you add.. it's going to get slower and slower..

such is life.