Launchbox Question about Emulators/Directories

[KevlarMike]

Hello everyone, so the question I have is what is the best way to setup my emulators for launchbox.

Brief overview points:

1. I have a 7 TB build on my SSD that uses a bus powered enclosure. My drive letter will always remain (E) I use this build on my PC and my oneXplayer X1 mini (Handheld)

2. I only use launchbox as my frontend.

3. My emulators/Setup

PCSX2 (PS2)

RPCS3 (PS3)

Xemu (Xbox)

Xenia & Xenia manager (Xbox 360)

Dolphin (GameCube)

PPSPP (PSP

Ryujinx (Switch)

Techno parrot

Retroarch

MAME

My emulators are in my route directory with the exceptions of retroarch and mame.

my route directory is structured like such for the emulators

E/Xbox 360/Emulators/Xenia 

E/Xbox360/Games/ (All my Xbox 360 games)

And the same goes for the rest. I basically just made a folder in my route, titled the console. Inside that folder is an emulator folder and a games folder. 
 
Retroarch and mame are the only 2 in my launchbox emulators folder. With the games inside of my retroarch and mame folder.

For retroarch I have various systems that I don’t have emulators for. Like Atari games and other Nintendo consoles and a few others.

I have my emulators added to lunchbox and lunchbox reading my game directories.

4 The problems I’ve had. 

PCSX2 Got corrupted and wouldn’t launch. I believe it was the DLL files cause it worked after I restored them with a back up.

Xenia got corrected and I had to reinstall that and the manager.

i’ve had lunchbox not launch on two different occasions because of corruption. It seems each time it had to do with playlist setting. and a lot of media for certain consoles were corrupt. Had to restore a back up and re-down load media for the consoles that had corrupt media.

And now my latest is retroarch. My configuration got reset somehow and my ui went back to default. And my launch box playlist for Nintendo entertainment system was corrupt. And my gameboy color images were corrupt.

The retroarch is in my  lunchbox emulators folder all the games I use retroarch to emulate are in my retroarch games folder.

I’m not sure why there random stuff keeps happening, but should I be putting all of my emulators and games in the launchbox folders?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by KevlarMike
Missing word

[JoeViking245]

1 hour ago, KevlarMike said:

what is the best way to setup my emulators for launchbox.

The "best way" is in the eye of the beholder. 

Since LaunchBox doesn't ever touch any emulator settings or configurations (beyond you asking LB to install or remove them), as long as it knows where the main executable is located [and it's told the proper command-line parameters to use], it should be fairly infallible.

It does offer the /Emulators/ subfolder.  Consider it an effort to "keep things together".  It can also aide in keeping your LaunchBox setup portable in that you only need to move that one folder (/LaunchBox/) when moving it to a new location.  Caveat: Not all emulators are innately portable. Most times this can be resolved by adding a file to the emulators main folder (e.g. an empty 'portable.txt' file).  Emulators that you allow LaunchBox to install for you will be made portable.

Similarly, ROM locations can be placed wherever you want them to be.  The /Games/ subfolder is a good location, but not a requirement.  However, do note that placing your ROMs in the respective Platforms' folder under Games has the benefit of, when you add more games to that folder, LaunchBox has the ability to automatically add them into you LaunchBox collection (platform and emulator pending).

 

2 hours ago, KevlarMike said:

I have my emulators added to lunchbox and lunchbox reading my game directories.

That, is the end goal. LB knowing where these are located.  

 

2 hours ago, KevlarMike said:

The problems I’ve had. 

That's a lot of corruption going on.  

My 1st thought would be to check your drive.  Make sure it's healthy and error free.

Placing the emulators within the LaunchBox folder structure won't alleviate any corruption.

 

2 hours ago, KevlarMike said:

i’ve had lunchbox not launch on two different occasions because of corruption.

A potentially faulty drive aside, this is typically caused by not properly shutting down LaunchBox.  Note, when you close LaunchBox (e.g. click the X in the upper right corner), the UI will close virtually immediately.  However, it will still run in the background shortly while saving data.  If you turn your PC off immediately after exiting LaunchBox, or worse, turn your PC off without exiting LaunchBox, the data will not get saved.  Potentially causing you LaunchBox issues.

[KevlarMike]

I appreciate your reply. It was actually very helpful. In regards to lunchbox still saving data after I close the application. I did not know that. And that makes sense because one of those times the catch folder in images was corrupt. On my drive when I went into format, discs and partitions on two occasions, I did have errors, and I ran the program to fix them in which it did and it brought the SSD back to a healthy disc. I couldn’t really decipher as to what caused the errors. But I’m thinking now maybe I’ll do a fresh install of lunchbox on my other 8 TB SSD and make everything portable by putting everything within the launch box folders and having launch box reinstall my emulators that it is able to. I feel like that will alleviate a lot of of my problems considering I don’t necessarily know 100% where they stemming from.