Same emulator, multiple command lines.. possible currently? or possible feature request.

[Dybdal]

Sending up the bat signal for JoeViking.
Que the ominous batman animated series music as he descends from the buildings in the nightsky.

Is it possible in Launchbox to setup the same emulator multiple times under the same entry under Associated Platforms?
Or do you have to keep re-adding the same emulator multiple times to use different command lines?

The issue really stems from how computers (mainly) use multiple types of media (Carts/Cassettes & Disks) when you have a lot of them, your emulator list starts looking crowded and difficult to find what you need.

If this isn't possible, can we then please get this requested as a feature?

[JoeViking245]

43 minutes ago, Dybdal said:

Is it possible in Launchbox to setup the same emulator multiple times under the same entry under Associated Platforms?

If I'm following your question correctly, Yes.
You can have e.g. MAME (the name you gave it in LaunchBox) as an emulator and MAME-2 (the name you gave the 'other' one) also as an emulator, with both of them pointing to the exact same mame.exe file.  Those 2 "emulators" can also both have the same Associated Platform (e.g. Arcade).  But only one of those can be set as the default emulator for that platform.

 

52 minutes ago, Dybdal said:

The issue really stems from how computers (mainly) use multiple types of media (Carts/Cassettes & Disks) when you have a lot of them

So.... you want to have 2 (or more?) emulators in LB (e.g. MAME and MAME-2) because your Associated Platforms list is too long?

Or is the issue, you imported e.g. your carts and cassettes into the same Platform? Personally, I separated mine out.

 

 

1 hour ago, Dybdal said:

your emulator list starts looking crowded and difficult to find what you need.

When you say "emulator list starts looking crowded" are you saying here, you have a different emulator (e.g. MAME and MAME-2) for each platform?  I mean, I have a lengthy emulator list too because I don't use RetroArch for everything under-the-sun.

At the same time, my MAME emulator has a 'crowded' Associated Platforms section because of all it can emulate.  But TBH, I don't really play any of those. I set 'em to see that they can work, then just leave 'em there.

 

If I totally misunderstood what you're trying to convey, maybe add some specific examples. Also maybe some screen captures along with the narrative.  Pictures usually show the correct thing that words themselves get lost in Joe-translation.

[Dybdal]

I think you misunderstand.
The issue at hand is that there will have to be duplicates somewhere.
 

1. Duplicate Platform listings "like you showed "Atari 2600 cartridges" & "Atari 2600 cassettes" - Duplicates = In platforms list.
2. Duplicate Emulators "like i've done, "Classic99 - Carts" "Classic99 - Disk" "Classic99 - Cassettes" - Duplicates = in the emulator list.
3. Duplicate Asociated Platforms "instead of "Atari 2600 Cartridges" & "Atari 2600 cassettes" you would o two identical lines of "Atari 2600" but with different command lines - Duplicates = in the Asociated Platforms.

While 3 isn't easy to implement, i am sure is the right way to do it. (you just need a way to name each entry, maybe with a -> [DISK] at the end of the Associated Platform so the emulator shows up as "Name [DISK]" in the list.
Take a look at the VIC-20 discussion that's been going lately, that computer is notoriously confusing to use due to memory & cartridge maps that has to be set by the emulator, so you end up with a TON of different command lines to run games for it.
This causes bloat, in eighter the emulator list making it cumbersome to navigate or it causes bloat in the Platforms list and it causes un-nessesary friction for beginner end-users (As you can see in the VIC-20 thread)
If you can give them multiple emulator entries to "trail and error" though, that neatly side steps that issue.

Hope that explains it better, im really tired

[Dybdal]

Forgot to add that bloat in the emulator list, also makes adding an emulator tedious, as asking the end-user to do a step 5-7 times in a row to get desired functionality, isn't a very solution.

[Dybdal]

Very clean solution..... damn im tired.

[JoeViking245]

16 minutes ago, Dybdal said:

While 3 isn't easy to implement, i am sure is the right way to do it.

Though you can physically add the same platform ("Atari 2600") more than once in the Associated Platforms section of an emulator, you can't really do anything beyond that.

Looking at my screenshot above, if both of the Associated Platforms in the red box were simply Atari 2600 (aka, the exact same platform), and they contain different Command-line Parameters (as shown)

1. They both can't be checked as the Default Emulator
2. There is no way to tell a game listed in Atari 2600 which set of Command-line Parameters to use
   1. If there was, you'd still need to tell each game in the platform which 'version' of the Command-line Parameters to use

 

The current way to accomplish what (I think) you want is to have the game(s) use their Custom Command-line Parameters option.  This gives you:

One emulator (MAME)
[only] One Associated Platform (Atari 2600)
One platform (Atari 2600 - containing both carts and cassettes)

 

To do this, you:

Edit the "cassette" games
In the Emulation section
    Set MAME as the emulator
    Check the box Use Custom Command-line Parameters 
    In the box below that, type in -rompath %romlocation% a2600 -cart1 scharger -cass
Wash, rinse and repeat (changing the parameters used) for the "cartridge" games

You would of course (somehow) want to differentiate the carts from cassettes within the one platform to do this. But you'd have to do the same thing with your option #3.

But once you can "sort them", you can use the Bulk Custom Command-line Editor plugin to make it go a lot quicker.

[SiriusVI]

The problem when using just one platform with cart and cass mixed is that you'd have to edit the custom command lines every time you want to update the imported rom set. That's not very practicle.

I think the best solution is importing different media types as separate platforms under an umbrella category:

• Atari 2600 (Category)
  • Atari 2600 cart
  • Atari 2600 cass

That way you can use one emulator, but still use different command lines for the different media types., and updating a specific rom set is easy.

In an ideal world, LaunchBox would have a feature that just what media type needs what command line to start in mame nand apply it automatically.

[Dybdal]

No the ideal way would be something smart'er.
Different command lines for different extensions or something.

What im trying to say is we're brute forcing a system to work, because there hasnt been implemented a smarter way to deal with these edge cases, its causing friction with the system regardless of how you view it.
I do think this is an area where Launchbox could improve to make the end user experience vastly better.

[JoeViking245]

10 minutes ago, Dybdal said:

Different command lines for different extensions

In the examples of using MAME and Atari 2600, both carts and cassettes are .zip.

 

Or something? 
I'd be curious to hear how that would/could work.  
A giant look up table that checks the platform and ROM filename then gives the appropriate command line parameters?  Atari 2600 might seem easy enough.  But get into the nightmare of Apple series command line parameters.... ugh.    But suppose it is possible. If you can find some sucker to put the lookup table together. lol  And if that works, it's just a matter of getting the developers to incorporate it.

Bit here, I'm just thinking about MAME. So there's still the others.