Launchbox \ Bigbox setup guide - some helpful advice

[jimmycoupe]

Hi everyone, after putting together my MFME pac-man controller I then tackled the frontend for my setup.  I am a massive fan of Launchbox and a life time backer so it will always be my first pick.  After hitting a minor issue I thought I would put together a useful guide for others in case they could not find the correct workarounds to get it to work.  Launchbox itself if fairly easy to get working with MFME but it was Bigbox that was causing oddities that is worth mentioning and writing a quick guide for.

 

MFME setup in Launchbox

1) Start Launchbox and Add a new platform called "Fruit Machines" - this name can be anything you like.

2) Add the emulator to launchbox, name the emulator MFME and the following to the the 'Default Command-Line Parameters' section, add  "-mode 4"  without the quotes

(-mode 4 = fullscreen maximised.  Play with the value from 1-4 for other available screen options, note there does not appear to be an option for maximised stretched.)

3) Now you are ready to import tha fruit machines.  Each machine needs adding one by one as every machine is in its own folder.

4) Import the fruit machine using the *.gam file found in every fruit machines folder.

5) Manually add the screenshots to the imported machine by right clicking the machine, select edit and go to the images and attach them.  Screenshots can be taken using MFME and key F8, the screenshot is written to the fruit machines folder.

6) Setup complete for launchbox, test a machine by double clicking it.

 

BigBox setup

Note: This is where i found MFME had the issue.  This issue is due to Bigbox taking focus to the main screen when opening a fruit machine so pressing escape to close the pre notepad messages would actually close the fruit machine and not the notepad screen which then led to Windows giving an error.  This can easily be fixed with a couple of options in Bigbox if you experience this same issue.

1) Start Bigbox, go to the  main options screen and select "Theme Specific Options" and select the theme you are using

2) Now select "Game Startup" and untick the 3 options, 1) Show Loading Message 2) Enable Start Up Screen 3) Hide Mouse Cursor

3) Finished.

Unticking all 3 of these options fixed the odd focus behaviour, when I get more time i will see which of the 3 is the cause, it might be all of them but for now I am happy everything is working .  

 

BigBox Artwork

Here is some funky Bigbox artwork for your slot machine frontend.  There is not a lot out there at the moment but it looks pretty cool when applied.

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/file/2751-slot-machines-fruit-machines-plattform-set/

 

I hope you find some of this information useful.

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by jimmycoupe

[pbb]

Thank you for this, I use Launchbox/bigbox for my games, but not really thought about MFME, will give it a shot. Can launchbox scrape fruit machines? I use emumovies as a scraper?

 

Cheers

Pete

[jimmycoupe]

No sadly not, you will need to load each fruit machine in MFME and use F8 to take the screenshot and then manually add the artwork to each machine.  For video, you can use OBS screen capture tool and then Handbrake to shrink and re-encode if required.  I will be doing this myself but currently there is no where for me to upload for others.  Descriptions is hard, there is very little information held on the internet about some of these machines so this is more tricky.  Publishers, years can mainly be found.

 

Maybe one day MFME will be scraper compatiable but until then we must lead the way and do it manually :-).

Edited March 25, 2022 by jimmycoupe

[sledge12]

perfect i was having trouble setting up as i could not get it to load fullscreen this will help a lot

 

[chinacrisis]

Hey, brilliant.  Give that man a cigar.  Really helpful.

Does anyone know if there is a way to save a cropped state to the game files?

[geordie52]

i would say would have to crop it 1st and save then load it ? 

[chinacrisis]

6 minutes ago, geordie52 said:

i would say would have to crop it 1st and save then load it ? 

Bingo.  It's in preferences.  Didn't see it before.

[robbiev]

Thank you very much took me a few hours but all working 

 

[Constantinos96]

Hello Everyone,

A small "add-on" on this guide that personally helped a lot.

In Version 13.5 make sure to Disable "Remove Quotes", "Remove file extension & folder path" & "Remove space before ROM" (which in my case at least come enabled by Default)

As well if you are lazy (like me) and you don't want to import all the *.gam files 1 by 1 you can go in File Explorer - Search with "*.gam" (without quotes) - Drag & Drop Inside Launchbox - Make sure to choose "Use the files in their current location"

 

Note.: To prevent wasting time I tried with "Symbolic Link aka symlinks" & "Hard Links". It does not work 

[STE303]

appreciate this mini guide, also a lifetime user of Launchbox and my first choice for emulator setups. 

STE

[designone60]

I have launchbox and Bigbox. I'm very new to fruit machines but I want to add a bunch to launchbox and  set up an attract mode. I'm trying to set up a unified attract file for each machine I add to the front end. I think what I've made is not bad but I'm looking for input.

The file I have uploaded,  If anyone knows where I can get more Fanart or Metadata please let me know. I'm interested in comments  good and bad about my first attempt to make a machine file for Bigbox attract mode. My plans are to swap out music, change where the glints appear on each machine and slip the machines video play into the neon box I've made. I have China grove by the Doobie Brothers and the sounds of gameplay from the fruit machine playing.

[designone60]

[Markee]

This is great! I use launchbox/big box and this is a lifesaver!

[designone60]

Thank-you,

 

I like the machines to put on a bit of a show even if I'm just relaxing or playing a different machine