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First post, by MK2k

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Hey there,

with D-Fend (Reloaded), DBGL et al, I may be a bit late to the party... Anyways, I'd like to present Metropolis Launcher, which is a Windows based Front-End for games and emulation in general and especially DOSBox.

The main features are:

Meta Data

Metropolis Launcher ships with extensive meta data based on mobygames.com, no web-scraping necessary. The meta data goes well beyond the usual genres, year and publisher. The UI is data-driven and lets you search, filter, group and sort by any combination of over 50 fields.

The experimental Simlarity Calculation feature allows to compare a selected game to all other games and presents a similarity score of 0 (dissimilar) - 100 (exact match) based on meta data.

User Based Data

Favourites, Individual Rating (Graphics, Sound, Story etc.), Statistics (number of play sessions, length of play sessions), Keeping track of your originals (have, want, trade)

Multi User Mode with password protection and restricted access (e.g. for parental control)

Extras (Screenshots, Cover-Art)

Automatic download of screenshots and cover-art from MobyGames.com

Monitoring of screenshot directories and automatic processing of taken screenshots

DOS Game Import

Regarding DOS games, Metropolis Launcher lets you import:

  • directories filled with packed games (zip, 7z, rar), recursive import from sub-directories included
  • directory containing an installed game instance (single import only)
  • game media (e.g. cd images, single import only)

During the import, a crc-based matching takes place in order to find the correct MobyGames meta data for the imported game.

DOSBox Support

A template-based configuration engine allows to quickly define general base-configurations. Per-game configuration is based on the underlying templates.

Inofficial patches and DOSBox variants like SVN Daum or DOSBox Enhanced Community Edition (DOSBox ECE) are supported including zip-mount, pixel perfect output mode, mt-32, fluidsynth etc.

Multiple DOSBox instances are supported (one will be the default instance).

Define the main executable upon launch, it will be re-used for subsequent launches. You can also define a setup- and install executable (holding Shift or Ctrl during launch).

Other Supported Emulators

  • Any emulator supporting command line parameters for launching games, e.g. RetroArch, Mednafen, Kega Fusion, Snes9x, WinVice etc.
  • ScummVM
  • MAME

Screenshot

01_Main-Summary.png

Download and Infos

https://metropolis-launcher.net

cheers

-- MK2k

Metropolis Launcher - DOSBox and Multi Emulator Launcher/Frontend | thread website

Reply 1 of 3, by jxhicks

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I've been playing around with this since yesterday and so far I really like it. Only really tried adding DOSbox and Windows games, but haven't run into any major problems. I did report a bug on the Github about it forgetting the Fluidsynth gain setting, but nothing too serious.

If I could make a request, it would be nice if when you edit your DOSbox template you could only see that options from the patches that are selected in the emulator setup.

All in all though I really like it. Thanks for making this.

Reply 2 of 3, by MK2k

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Metropolis Launcher v1.1.1 containing bugfixes is out now. Download and Infos: https://metropolis-launcher.net

Bugfixes in this release:

- Fixed an error when adding images in the USER Extras Manager
- Wrap slideshow when only USER Extras are available
- Default values for DOSBox fluidsynth upon launch
- Garbaged visibility of tab within tab at DOSBox Configuration
- ScummVM Launch context menu wasn't active and didn't show any emulators

Metropolis Launcher - DOSBox and Multi Emulator Launcher/Frontend | thread website

Reply 3 of 3, by MK2k

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The Fall'18 Update v1.2.0 is out now.

Visit https://metropolis-launcher.net for Infos and Download.

Selected new features include:

Total DOS Launcher Support

The Total DOS Launcher by Trixter is a DOS native launcher, easily capable of handling thousands of files on vintage hardware.

Metropolis Launcher ships and supports Total DOS Launcher in the following scenarios:

1. Export your zipped DOS games as a Total DOS Launcher Collection, ready to be copied to your vintage hardware.
2. Create a Total DOS Launcher start menu for games having multiple executables (e.g. Ultima Collection, id Anthology, Duke Nukum Episode 1 - 3)

Total_DOS_Launcher_Export_Dialog01.png
Total DOS Launcher Export dialog in Metropolis Launcher

Total_DOS_Launcher_Export03_halfsize.png
Total DOS Launcher running in DOS

Click here for related Docs

Pre- and Post-Launch Commands

For any emulator you can now define commands that are launched before and after the actual emulator is launched.

Enhanced Scripting Support

Metropolis Launcher now supports enhanced scripting with AutoIt and AutoHotKey. You'll be provided with a template script containing the variables which will be filled upon launch. Use it as the starting point for developing your own script.

Instead of directly launching the emulator, your script will be executed.
Click here for related Docs

Main Window State, Location and Size

The Main Window state (maximized, minimized, normal), location and size are now saved when Metropolis Launcher is closed.

These properties are restored with the next start of Metropolis Launcher. Hold down the SHIFT key when starting up and Metropolis Launcher will be shown in the default (maximized) state.

Merged "Edit Game" and "Edit Multiple Games"

Instead of having two menu items for editing a single game and multiple games, we now have one menu item reacting according to the current selection of either a single or a multiple selection of games.

Downloader Fallback to Archive.org

The downloader for extras (screenshots etc.) falls back to archive.org's wayback machine if mobygames.com is detected as being down.

RetroAchievements Support and Challenge Mode (unfortunately less DOS related, but anyways, this is a Multi Emulation Frontend, right?)

https://retroachievements.org is a set of modified emulators (including RetroArch) and an online database allowing you to unlock and track achievements in emulated games.

Metropolis Launcher helps you keeping track of (un)locked achievements for the supported games.

Games_and_Emulation_Achievements.png

On top of that, Metropolis Launcher lets you create challenges:

Challenges_Edit_Challenges.png

- define multiple tiers per challenge having multiple achievements
- when all achievements in a tier are unlocked, the next tier is visible
- in multi-user mode a user may be bound to a challenge, so that only games of the current challenge/tier are visible to the user

Challenges can contain RetroAchievements and additionally runtime-based achievements. You can use runtime-based achievements for games which are not supported by RetroAchievements.

Click here for related Docs

Metropolis Launcher - DOSBox and Multi Emulator Launcher/Frontend | thread website