Simplified Dolphin/Individual game launching.

[MayImilae]

A bunch of people have done this already. Do some searches and figure it out.

EDIT: Here.

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-steam-big-picture-and-dolphin?page=2

Seriously, why don't people do searches for things before they ask?

[LPFaint99]

(12-20-2013, 03:05 PM)Shonumi Wrote: I always thought you had to make the shortcut point to a file or folder? The only way I know that you can get a shortcut to execute CLI stuff is if that shortcut points to a batch file (which the OP wants to avoid?) The point was I didn't think you could do that in Windows without relying on batch files. Do tell if you know of a way that bypasses batch files.

you initially create a shortcut to dolphin (or anything) and modify the target of the shortcut

   

[Shonumi]

@LPFaint99 - Thanks for that, I always wondered how to do that, and my Google Fu failed to turn up anything :p

[RachelB]

(12-20-2013, 02:33 PM)Winchester7314 Wrote:

(12-20-2013, 02:29 PM)LPFaint99 Wrote:

(12-20-2013, 12:39 PM)Shonumi Wrote: Most desktop environments in Linux will let menus (or icons themselves) directly execute commands without relying on scripts. So, in something like KDE, I can make an icon in Kickoff that will launch Dolphin with a specific game file, and all I have to do is click on the icon to go.

you can do this with standard windows shortcuts

the problem is my basic purpose in this is for steam...there are several variables that go into my needs. I know you can do some of this with steam shortcuts, but the problem is, lets say for instance my hdd is dying and i need to change the games location, the second i do, i have to redo the entire shortcut method, for ALL the games i have in emulator form. This can get tiresome when you have almost 80 emulator games. I want a simplified way where i can literally just add the exe into steams library and be done with it. without having to launch the game from dolphins client either.

---

I guess really the simplest way would be to have an option to automatically load a specific iso image from the base folder of the emulator at startup.

If your hdd is dying, just replace it and copy the data to the new drive, and set it to the same letter as the old one. Problem solved.

[BONKERS]

(12-20-2013, 12:39 PM)Shonumi Wrote:

' Wrote:It would be nice to have an option for each dolphin emulator to automatically launch into an Iso, without ever seeing the window(without the use of batch files).

It's possible to easily do this in other non-Windows OSes. Most desktop environments in Linux will let menus (or icons themselves) directly execute commands without relying on scripts. So, in something like KDE, I can make an icon in Kickoff that will launch Dolphin with a specific game file, and all I have to do is click on the icon to go. If you can deal with having batch files on Windows, you can make a standard Windows shortcut to the batch file and then change the shortcut's icon.

The idea behind your launcher.exe is actually pretty niche. A combination of the GUI or CLI usually addresses the bulk of Dolphin usage cases. Not a dev, nor can I speak for them, but I don't think something like that is on their radar.

If it's indeed really Niche. Then i'm the most niche guy on the planet.

Having a way to just simply launch the game once it's been configured prior makes ease of use so much better and more straightforward. And it certainly helps sell the point more that you are just playing a game instead of having to jump through hoops.

[Shonumi]

BONKERS Wrote:Having a way to just simply launch the game once it's been configured prior makes ease of use so much better and more straightforward. And it certainly helps sell the point more that you are just playing a game instead of having to jump through hoops.

It's a niche solution because it's a convoluted way of achieving this. Having a separate launcher is not as straightforward as making a shortcut in your OS or your UI of choice (Steam, XBMC, for example). If anything it's one more step (UI -> launcher -> Dolphin executable vs. UI -> Dolphin executable with the -e paramater). There are already ways of getting Dolphin to seemlessly act as if each ISO were it's own "game" on your computer without having to resort to the launcher the OP proposed.

[Soopah]

Quote:There are already ways of getting Dolphin to seemlessly act as if each ISO were it's own "game" on your computer without having to resort to the launcher the OP proposed.

like merging the 3.5 shortcut branch?

[MayImilae]

(12-21-2013, 08:38 PM)Soopah Wrote:

Quote:There are already ways of getting Dolphin to seemlessly act as if each ISO were it's own "game" on your computer without having to resort to the launcher the OP proposed.

like merging the 3.5 shortcut branch?

AHEM - https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-steam-big-picture-and-dolphin?page=2

I get really annoyed when I paste the answer and no one bothers to click the link. So here are relevant quotes from the thread.

(01-14-2013, 02:56 AM)Epic Vegas Wrote: I have a question about creating the .bat files.

If Dolphin is installed in C:\ Program Files & games are in C:\Documents\Games my BAT should look like.


CD "C:\Program Files\Dolphin"
"C:\Program Files\Dolphin\Dolphin.exe" /e "C:\Documents\Games\R-Racing Evolution Gamecube.gcz" /b

Correct?

(01-14-2013, 03:31 AM)Shonumi Wrote: If you're using absolute paths (fullpath names with the drive name in it) the cd/dir command isn't necessary:

Code:

"C:\Program Files\Dolphin\Dolphin.exe" /e "C:\Documents\Games\R-Racing Evolution Gamecube.gcz" /b

But yes, that's how you do it if your games are in a different directory than the Dolphin executable. But do try to keep Dolphin out of Program Files, unless you're fond of getting permission read/write issues, or you constantly use an admin account.

(01-13-2013, 04:26 AM)Garteal Wrote: As said by the gentlemen before. You have several options of adding shortcuts to Steam which will launch Dolphin with arguments to run a game with it.
Just so you know, Steam doesn't allow for custom icons anywhere except the Grid view. Hopefully they'll allow us to customize the icons too in Big Picture Mode.

First, you can create a shortcut file in Windows, point it to Dolphin and add it to Steam.
The downside here is that it'll use the Dolphin icon.

Another way to do it, at a cost of quite some disk space depending on how many copies you make, is to make copies of the Dolphin exe, change its icon with Resource Hacker and save it as a (game title).exe file. Add that to Steam, right-click the just added game in steam and hit properties. There you can add the "/e gamepath" arguments to the target.
Again, the downside is that each Dolphin exe is around 12mb's large, which'll quickly eat up your space if you make 100's of copies.

The last and final method, which I use, is to code yourself a launcher which you'll use as a bridge.
I simply replace the icon of the .exe with one that represents the game and add that to Steam with the proper arguments etc.
The exe's are pretty small. Should be around 9kb clean and around 100~150kb with custom icons.

So right now my library looks like this. I have more games, but this is just to show this example.
By the way, whenever Steam updates, you'll lose them.

[Garteal]

If you're not using Steam then you can batch files for each game. I've written a batch script here. Simply follow the instructions in that post if you're new to this. Since the back-end names have changed, I'll just post the updated script here.

Code:

echo off

::Enter the emulator executable name including the filetype
set Emulator=Dolphin.exe

::Enter the game you would like to play including the filetype
set Game=Super Mario Galaxy.iso

::Enter the full path of the directory of your emulator. Make sure to add a trailing \ if there isn't already
set EmulatorDirectory=D:\Emulation\Emulators\GCnWii\Dolphin 4.0.1\

::Enter the full path of the game location. Make sure to add a trailing \ if there isn't already
set GameDirectory=D:\Emulation\ROMs\Wii\

::Uncomment (remove the ::'s) for the back-end you want to use
::Comment (add the ::'s infront of the line) everything else
set BackEnd=OGL
::set BackEnd=DX9
::set BackEnd=D3D

::DO NOT MODIFY UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!
set LaunchEmulator=%EmulatorDirectory%%Emulator%
set LaunchGame=%GameDirectory%%Game%

start "" ^"%LaunchEmulator%^" /V ^"%BackEnd%^" /e ^"%LaunchGame%^" /b