HyperLaunch 3 Has Arrived!

[Circo]

HyperLaunch is a separate game launcher for emulators and programs. HyperSpin can launch games on its own, but by enabling HyperLaunch you open up a whole new world of scripted game launching. Scripted game launching is much better because scripts can control exactly what happens during the launching of a program or game. It also controls the exiting.

It's been nine months since it was announced and now, finally, HyperLaunch 3 is here. Congradulations to djvj, brolly and the whole team that worked on this. We are especially excited about this as the new Hyperpause feature finally gives HyperSpin users a use for all that other content we have here at EmuMovies.

Here is the feature list (Beware as it's a LONG list) contine to the end for a link to the original announcement over at HyperSpin.

Major Features:

HyperLaunch HQ

• Gone are the days of you editing ini files and modules settings manually. We now have a full-featured HQ for editing every option in HL and all its modules.
• Easily maneuver all your systems and features for fast editing of any option. Everything gets saved on the fly. Keep it open while customizing!
• Launch games directly from HQ, no need to enter your front end to test changes.
• Launch your emulator without a game directly from HQ, even those pesky ones that use an 3rd-party GUI. No longer have to search down your folders looking to change an internal emu option.
• Create AHK remaps for keymapper support. No need to manually create ahk files anymore!
• Launch xpadder profiles for quick editing in xpadder.
• Direct editing of JoyToKey profiles.
• Read all those module notes - No need to ever open a module again! Also see the module's version, emu version, and author info easily.
• Profile Support - Easily save and restore profiles to test different sets of settings and sharing with your friends for many of the features!
• Default when needed - With the click of a button, set your settings back to default if you make a mistake or just want a system to use global settings instead of the custom ones you set.
• Copy Global Settings to System - You can easily copy all your global settings over to your system ones, removing the "use_global" values for fast customizations
• Paths - Use windows dialog boxes to set all your paths.
• Module Filtering - Filter what modules and emulators can be used per system! No more guessing what emu can be used for what system.
• Module Edits - Set a default editor to open modules in if you need to make edits.
• Alternate Emulators - With a few clicks, set any game to use another emulator or system.
• Auditing - Audit your roms to see if you miss any from your HyperSpin XML.
• Log Viewer - Now you can view and filter your HyperLaunch.log directly from HQ! You can also export it to HTML.

HyperPause

• You can now pause any supported emulator, freezing time in your game, and show a smorgasbord of media and artwork.
• Videos - Great place to view game-related commercials and video tutorials.
• Music - Whle paused, you can play music in the background. Excellent for Game OSTs, themes, remixes, etc. Supports m3u playlists too.
• Manuals - Start collecting all your manuals so you can reference them in game.
• Guides - Throw in your GameFAQs guides, or walkthroughs. No pdf conversion needed, we can read those too!
• Artwork - Look through as much artwork as you want related to the game or system you are playing. Throw in character images, backgrounds, fan-made art and more!
• Moves Lists - Forget how to do a Hadouken? No problem, just pause the game and reference the moves lists. Fullicon support instead of showing text as moves (thanks THK)
• Statistics - View how often you play this game, system, or total play time, along with most played games and more.
• Game Information - View detailed info for the game you are playing, like players, year, scrolling outline, and lots more!
• Change Discs - MultiGame support while paused so you can swap discs from within HP.
• Save/Load States - Keep track of save and load states and launch them from within HP for supported emus.
• High Scores - See your high scores from your game for supported emulators.
• Controllers - Move your player 1, 2, 3, etc controllers around to swap positions within HP. This will also reload profiles in xpadder.
• Screenshots - Take screenshots of your game and have them automatically accessable in HP.
• Control HP with your mouse, shutdown your system while paused, control system volume, and complete customization over how every little detail looks (via HQ).

Bezels

• Handheld systems were just not meant to be played fullscreen. So why not throw a bezel around them and simulate like you are holding the system itself! Artists can feel free to create even more bezels and throw them all in your folder and HL will randomize which gets shown on launch.

Statistics

• Keep track of information like how long you play each game or how many times you played it. How often you play a system, or game played most often. Average play times or global amount of time playing all games.
• You can show this on the fade screen and even more detailed information while in HyperPause.

Fade

• Our favorite fade screens have been completely revamped from the ground up.
• Transparency on all layers
• Over 90+ customization options - Just so you can tweak Fade till your head explodes! We are not to be held accountable if such an event occurs. You have been warned.
• And if that's not enough, gdip experts who want to make their own animations are greatly encouraged and you have been given space at the bottom of Fade Animations.ahk to do so. Your animations will appear in HQ as a selection!
• Amazing new "fading" animation that gradually fades away your front end! Oh wait, you had that already...damn! *Whistles* Moving along...
• Legacy Fade Support - For those blockheads who resist change and just cannot fathom using the awesome new system (or for those pesky emus that do not like fade using gdip)!
• 7z Progress - You can finally show progress of your compressed games and how long they take to extract. No more "WTF is taking this thing so long."
• Progress Styles - Use an image or a highly customizable progress bar, or both!
• Fade Out Image - You can now define an image to be shown on fade out back to your front end.
• Extraction Music - Play sounds or music to inform you an extration is occuring or and when it is complete. Ya know, cause you HAD to compress that 8GB game but don't want to stand there while it extracts. Go get some coffee and enjoy the tunes and be informed when that puppy is done!
• GIF animation Support - Want to use an animated GIF on fade, go for it and bask in all the glory that GIF animation can bring you.
• Image Frame Animations - Or want to create seperate images that stitch together to create an animation, whatever floats your boat.
• Full Alpha RGB - All layers and text support Alpha RGB so you can blend colors and text.
• Show Rom Info on Fade - You can show a game's description, year, system name, manufacturer, genre and rating as text or images.
• Show Rom Statistics on Fade - Yep, another thing you can show on fade...

xHotkey

• Need support for more then 1 gamepad key to exit your emulator? No problem! Need a hotkey that uses 3 or more keyboard keys? No problem! Want to hold down those keys for 3 seconds or double/triple tap them to perform a function? Fuck yea, you can do that too! You can now set any emulator to exit by holding down a key for any amount of time!

Keymapper

• Completely redone to add much greater support for xpadder profiles.
• Supports controller profiles - Define controller profiles that only get loaded for that specific controller
• Preferred Controllers - Define the order controllers get loaded. Great for always wanting a specific controller designated as Player 1, 2, 3, etc (Controllers must be plugged in before launch for this to work correctly)
• Custom Joystick names - Rename your joysticks for easy reference and configuration within HyperLaunch. This helps distinguish identical controller types.
• New HyperLaunch Profile - Can create a profile that will be loaded for use when you bring up any HyperLaunch feature that you need your navigation keys remapped (HP, MG, Rom Map Launch Menu)
• Choose different keymappers for each system or set one global for all systems!

Rom Mapping and Launch Menu

• Who likes to rename roms? Not me! Ever hate downloading a terabyte of cd games and having to rename them forcing you to no longer share those files with the torrent? Who has that kind of space? Well I do, but I want to save it for pr0n damnit! With this feature you can map your HyperSpin xml name to an entirely different one and not need to rename all those large cd sets. Want to use different archive names versus what's inside the archive, you can do that too. Want to use your "Good Sets" too? Throw all those translations and hacks inside an archive and show a menu on launch to choose between what version you want to play!
• Fully customizable launch menu!
• Show flags as region types for easy identification on different region roms.

Module and Emulator Restructuring

• Throw out all your old modules...are they in the garbage yet? Good, cause you no longer need one module for every system. From now on, your emulators are tied to a module, no matter what system or game you need to use it on. Yes I know it sucked having to update 10 MESS modules when an update came out, think of how I felt having to update them all! From now on you assign default emulators to your system and can further customize each game to use a different emulator if you so choose. Fear not about updating your HyperSpin xml anymore as exe tags are useless, all this gets stored in our ini files and managed via HLHQ!

Logging

• Logging has seen a huge change and we now can track very little or almost everything!
• Define the amount of logging and even if you want to include your module and file properties. Remember to set your log level to troubleshooting when posting logs for help with your issues!
• Logs now tell you the amount of time from one log entry to the next, so you can judge where slowdowns may be on your system.

User Functions

• For you code jockies, create your own features and have them accessable to all modules and systems or just create a custom function that you need to call in only a handful of them. You are only limited by your imagination and your skills.

HyperLaunch 3 - Your Favorite Front End Companion

Click here to view the article

[WalkToFreedom]

This looks very promising. I'm in the final stages of my cab build and have been trailing HS which I'm very pleased with so far.

[enderfect]

Kinda looks like a pain to update/setup as good as it looks ima pass until its put into a release however it gives alot of hope to Hyperspin 2.0s release

[brolly]

just try it and you might be surprised on how easy it is to setup.

[enderfect]

I Did try it i couldnt even figure out how to install it cause when i was downloading the stuff from dropbox everything became renamed into just crazy different things and files were everywhere im not trying to insult it or offend anyone by any means from what ive seen and the videos it looks amazing but it got me all mixed up so ima wait

 

 

 

EDIT: Retrying it now it seems to have downloaded correctly this time

[djvj]

You can now download everything from the download section instead of dropbox.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3

[enderfect]

Ya i tryed and gave up lol I Dont understand how im supposed to organize the folders Im so used to just the normal hyperspin expierence and it just seems like the way it looks now i have to relocate everything into Hyperlaunchs "new" media folders and just cant be bothered lol right now been setting up hyperspin and its videos artworks etc for like 2 weeks now not ready to stepup to that but it does look amazing

[Circo]

Those media folders are only if your using the advanced features of hyper pause. The modules make running the emulators in hyperspin a breeze

[enderfect]

Ya id want to use the new features lol like hyperpause looks amazing with the easy change disks and reading manuels and move lists but im on 2+ weeks working on my hyperspin ill upgrade to it eventually when i have the time and paitence and get my current build all fixed up and by then im sure there will be a even more stable compact download Amazing work on it though for the team involved

[Polemicist]

Hmmm. This could be worth playing with. Thanks to all involved.

[madmorro]

Respect to all the guys inolved will test it later.looking forward to this one hope they fixed hyperlaunch for running in the back and not closing first time its run i had issues with this..but its a great program..hyperspi and emumovies and hypersync just gets better and better..thx again for all your hard work...

[kleberluiz2]

ja atualizarao 3.03

[Polemicist]

OK. The two 50 minute YouTube clips on the HS forum are a bit long for me but have started watching. The application though is mind blowing. These dudes have some serious bling in that thing.

[Fromlostdays]

Took me one evening to get it 90 percent from a fresh install. Just merged the media and database folders from my old setup. Essentially, the only time consuming part was changing paths (I opted to update all my emulator folders with their version number). Hyperlaunch 3.0 is so easy to set up its almost irritating. Thankfully, I can now spend days, weeks, and months tweaking the bazillion settings to my absolute liking. Just remember to use global emulators and not system emulators whenever possible (which it pretty much always is).

 

Step 1: Install

Step 2: Change path for global emulator to your emulator exe

Step 3: In your system options set emulator as default

Step 4: Update rompath

Step 5: Enjoy.  

[Polemicist]

Step 6: Setup HyperSync and get everything updated.

I have to find some more HD space but I'm starting a clean install now myself. I use the HyperSpin project from UG and update as I go but now I want to start from the ground up.

Would be interested in the list of emulators you all use and why you use them?

[Fromlostdays]

The only system I feel confident about, because I spent time testing each emulator, is SNES. I was having what I now know is a refresh rate problem, and while many emulators have the V sync option, I still got that unbearable screen tear. Thread on Hyperspin: here. I found a way to eliminate the tear through catalyst control, but I also tried Mednafen as suggested and I never looked back. Mednafen didn't require any additional work, it just naturally eliminated the tear. I was so impressed with it that I got rid of Fusion even though I never had any problems with it and I use mednafen for every system it will emulate.

 

IMO best looking options snes.pixshader autoipsharper, snes.special supereagle, stretch aspect

But I'm not one to try and make a system look like it used to. 

 

Theres no module support for mame plus, but otherwise I'd use that for the shaders. Even if I could get away with using one of the other modules, I have yet to take the time to learn how to compile the cave no nag hi score stuff, so that's going to have to wait. 

I'd have to say that everything else I use is pretty standard. 

 

Personally, the best part about the new hyperlaunch is that you have a list of emulators, all you have to do is download one, set the path to it in global, and then you can change the system default back and forth between emulators for instant tests. As part of my setup I started "collecting" emulators for just this purpose, and eventually I'll be able to answer your question better, but for now, I can't say enough good things about mednafen.

 

Walter. 

 

 

 

 

 

[arcademan1]

Looks impressive.

[pixel]

I've been using Maximus for a while. This looks pretty damn impressive. I thin I'll just HAVE to try out Hyperspin..