Multi-Disk Launcher

[cathoderaydude]

Multi-Disk Launcher

View File

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With all of it's fantastic functionality, Launchbox is missing a few features that make it difficult to use it with emulators for old computer systems.

First is the ability to launch an emulator while passing two image files as parameters. Particularly on Japanese home computers like the PC88, many games simply require you to insert two discs to play, and Launchbox can't pass more than one at a time. You can hardcode a custom commandline for each and every single game to fix this, of course, but that's pretty tedious.

Second is the ability to call an emulator two different ways depending on whether you're loading a disk or a tape. Some emulators expect "-tape" or "-disk" on the command line, and the only way to achieve this in Launchbox is by creating two separate emulator entries and splitting your library by format.

Multi-Disk Launcher solves both of these issues with a minimum of configuration.

Installation

Just download the .dll file from Releases and drop it in your Launchbox\Plugins folder.

Start Launchbox and look in the Tools menu; if you have a "Multi-Disk Launcher..." menu item, it's installed.

Configuration

There are two phases of configuration: Setting up emulators, and setting up games.

Emulator setup

The plugin works by modifying the command sent to an emulator when you launch a game, so to use it, you need to first configure the emulators you'll be using.

Simply add the emulators as normal, including any custom commandline parameters (e.g. -fullscreen) in the standard config dialog.

Once that's done, go to Tools > Multi-Disk Launcher..., locate the emulator you wish to configure and click on it.

Check the Enable box in the upper right, then:

If the emulator simply requires two disks to be passed on the commandline: Checking Enable is enough.

If the emulator needs a flag before each disk, like -disk1 and -disk2: Fill in the "Disk prefix" fields.

If you are going to be using a mix of disks and tapes: Fill in the tape extension field (with e.g. .t88) and the tape prefix field (with e.g. -tape). If your emulator supports multiple tape formats (e.g. t64/tap) then separate them by commas: .t64,.tap

Close the window when done. Now you can move on to setting up games.

Game setup

For each game that you wish to have multi-disk support, you simply need to define a second disk in the Additional Applications section of the game's metadata.

If you imported games from a typical collection, all the disks will most likely already be in the Additional Applications section. All you need to do is edit one and set the "Disk number" value on the Metadata tab to 2.

If not, all you need to do is click "Add Application" and enter a name, a path to the second disk image, and then set the "Disk number" on the Metadata tab to 2.

That's all there is to it. You should now be able to launch the game, and your emulator will receive both image files.

Troubleshooting

I haven't run into any issues yet, but be aware of these things:

1. This functions by overwriting the "Custom command line" value in a game's metadata right before launching it. It's supposed to set that back to whatever it was after the game launches, but if something goes wrong, that might not happen and you could end up with junk in that field.
2. If a game really DOES require a custom command line, that won't work because the plugin ignores any existing data in that field. This is something I could fix if anyone needs it to work, but I can't imagine a scenario where it would come up.
3. If you suspect the plugin is causing problems, you can go in and uncheck Enable in the config dialog and it will revert to standard LB launching.
4. If you delete an emulator, it will no longer appear in the plugin config, but if you add it back with the exact same name your settings should come back.

Source code

This plugin is open-source and you can use it as the basis for your own work. The code is hosted here: https://github.com/cathoderaydude/LBMultiDiskLauncher

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• Submitter
  cathoderaydude
• Submitted
  10/21/2025
• Category
  Third-party Apps and Plugins