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 May 20 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. 

 

[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...

[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 May 21 by Shredder_guitar

[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.

[PadeMoNiuM Prods]

On 5/20/2025 at 10:18 PM, 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? 

You're not alone in experiencing this difficult transition from Hyperspin HS1.5/HS2 to LaunchBox, especially when RocketLauncher is at the heart of your setup.::) Many enthusiasts are stuck between aging systems and modern frontends... and wanting the best of both worlds (LaunchBox + RocketLauncher with artwork, pause menus, screen fades) is a perfectly legitimate quest!

Since a Windows update, HS1.5 has become unstable and even unusable.
HS2 is shaky and poorly maintained. You want to switch to LaunchBox, but:
RocketLauncher can no longer retrieve media correctly. From what I understand, you want to keep and
Use RocketLauncher for its advanced features (pause menus, fade-in/out, bezels, etc.) and stay on a stable, sustainable, and flexible system.
 To do this, you can:
Centralize the media in a single temporary folder
Create a script that, each time a game is launched:
Searches for the correct media (Clear Logo, Box, etc.)
Temporarily copies them to a central folder that RocketLauncher reads
Then deletes them after use
Example: a batch or AHK that synchronizes images before launch Currently:

There is no packaged or ready-to-use solution that completely fixes this issue.

Several users have shared custom AHK scripts, but they are often abandoned or specific to their configurations.
Otherwise, you can recreate the following features:
Fade-in/out with custom intro videos
Pause menus with tools like Pause Theme in BigBox

Bezel & overlays directly with RetroArch or MAME. But be careful: it's not yet as powerful or customizable as RocketLauncher. Hence the interest in keeping RL if you've invested heavily in it.
Clearly, you're at a pivotal stage: the old tools are falling apart, the new ones aren't everything. But it's entirely possible to create a solid bridge between LaunchBox and RocketLauncher

with a little AHK ingenuity and common sense.

I hope this helps (a little) - excuse me for the block.

[Shredder_guitar]

what exactly do you mean by this "excuse me for the block."?

[damageinc86]

If you already have stuff setup in RL it's not that difficult to point it to launchbox and then tell launchbox the emulator is "rocketlauncher".  All the fades, pause screens (with superior savestate interface to LBs), and keymapping works just fine.  RocketlauncherUI tab, frontends, add your frontend .exe

[PadeMoNiuM Prods]

On 5/29/2025 at 12:19 AM, Shredder_guitar said:

what exactly do you mean by this "excuse me for the block."?

sorry if it's a bit long== sorry for for the dump text ....google translation🤘😆

[Shredder_guitar]

12 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

If you already have stuff setup in RL it's not that difficult to point it to launchbox and then tell launchbox the emulator is "rocketlauncher".  All the fades, pause screens (with superior savestate interface to LBs), and keymapping works just fine.  RocketlauncherUI tab, frontends, add your frontend .exe

The fades don't display the artwork correctly though. Clear logos, etc. I haven't looked at pause. Since this post, I've been in process of just setting most everything up in Lb...as annoying as it is, I'm finding somewhat palletable solutions...like the gridlock fade... it contains the same info during loading and is a bit more polished. I'm getting used to some of the nuances that LB has. I have experienced the slowness that comes with adding lots of systems.... LB does lock up on me sometimes so that's a little annoying, but all in all, once i get this fully customized to my liking, i think it'll be nice. I really wish there was better bezel support in LB in the same way that Rlauncher did it... I was able to set up my bezels in such a way that my bezels rotated to a different bezel each time i loaded a game. I really liked that feature. Anyway, It's coming along... 
 

[damageinc86]

Oh, I just have my fades set to whatever system it is.  but you can do per-game fades.  I know there are some collections out there.  its just a folder of the game name with the artwork elements inside. 

Anything you've set up in rocketlauncher should stay with rocketlauncher, so i don't know why your bezels wouldn't be rotating and showing how they did before.

I think I may have messages you a long time ago.  if you want to do an anydesk call we can take a look together live.

[lamvira99]

15 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Oh, I just have my fades set to whatever system it is.  but you can do per-game fades.  I know there are some collections out there.  its just a folder of the game name with the artwork elements inside. 

Anything you've set up in rocketlauncher should stay with rocketlauncher, so i don't know why your bezels wouldn't be rotating space waves and showing how they did before.

I think I may have messages you a long time ago.  if you want to do an anydesk call we can take a look together live.

 I always assumed the bezels were strictly tied to RocketLauncher configs and didn't know per-game fades were that flexible. Might actually try setting up a few custom ones now.
 

Edited 10 hours ago by lamvira99

[Shredder_guitar]

4 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Oh, I just have my fades set to whatever system it is.  but you can do per-game fades.  I know there are some collections out there.  its just a folder of the game name with the artwork elements inside. 

Anything you've set up in rocketlauncher should stay with rocketlauncher, so i don't know why your bezels wouldn't be rotating and showing how they did before.

I think I may have messages you a long time ago.  if you want to do an anydesk call we can take a look together live.

Sorry for being unclear, The first fade is launching through Rlauncher

This is Launching through LB connected to Rlauncher 

 

The reason I understand that this is happening is because launchbox sometimes stores the artwork in regional sub-folders and the plugin (on the rlauncher side) built in AHK does not parse subfolder art and if it did there would be a risk of grabbing the wrong artwork if it did. It has been requested to be updated but Agent47 is hesitant on making any changes and has very little desire to maintain the upkeep. There has been a real lack of maintenance with rlauncher so I'm certain that the platform will just eventually die a slow death as tech moves on.

In my opinion, rlauncher would still be relevant today if the modules were centralized in a github or something for people to communally update or add to them, but that's a whole other can of worms.... rlauncher is the most 'unfun' part of emulation, but crucially important in my opinion and could have been a real powerhouse to be the backbone of all the frontend platforms...that's where bad and neglectful leadership gets us...the emulation community would have a much better time if we all upheld our pillars better...but it is what it is. 

Anyway. my mention about the bezels is that i prefer rlauncher BECAUSE of that feature...without the use of rlauncher I am bound to a static bezel within retroarch and if i have to use a different emu other than rlauncher, then as far as i know at this point and time I just can't do that... i'll look more into that later, but I've been avoiding anything with bezel project because I have my own way of doing things. I like to know what things are doing and how this stuff works and why. 

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, Shredder_guitar said:

Sorry for being unclear, The first fade is launching through Rlauncher

This is Launching through LB connected to Rlauncher 

 

The reason I understand that this is happening is because launchbox sometimes stores the artwork in regional sub-folders and the plugin (on the rlauncher side) built in AHK does not parse subfolder art and if it did there would be a risk of grabbing the wrong artwork if it did. It has been requested to be updated but Agent47 is hesitant on making any changes and has very little desire to maintain the upkeep. There has been a real lack of maintenance with rlauncher so I'm certain that the platform will just eventually die a slow death as tech moves on.

In my opinion, rlauncher would still be relevant today if the modules were centralized in a github or something for people to communally update or add to them, but that's a whole other can of worms.... rlauncher is the most 'unfun' part of emulation, but crucially important in my opinion and could have been a real powerhouse to be the backbone of all the frontend platforms...that's where bad and neglectful leadership gets us...the emulation community would have a much better time if we all upheld our pillars better...but it is what it is. 

Anyway. my mention about the bezels is that i prefer rlauncher BECAUSE of that feature...without the use of rlauncher I am bound to a static bezel within retroarch and if i have to use a different emu other than rlauncher, then as far as i know at this point and time I just can't do that... i'll look more into that later, but I've been avoiding anything with bezel project because I have my own way of doing things. I like to know what things are doing and how this stuff works and why. 

Something must be off somewhere, because I've never had launchbox have an effect on what rlauncher shows, unless it it trying to put something on top of it.  i.e., an option in launchbox is turned on and it trying to show up before, or on top of whatever rlauncher is doing.

If my bezels are turned on in rlauncher, then they are on.  launchbox has no effect on that.

I have no idea why rlauncher shows that fade correctly, but launchbox can influence it.  this seems odd. So those artwork elements that rlauncher normally puts up onto the fade are somehow being told by launchbox to not show? That would be wild.  as I've never seen launchbox have any effect on rlauncher's abilities once connected.  so far, for me anyways, launchbox just sends what game to be launched to rlauncher since it thinks that is the emulator, and rlauncher takes that game name and does whatever it needs to independently.  hmmmmm.

Edited 4 hours ago by damageinc86