"Daphne" games are the historical LaserDisc titles, the ones that do not use the Singe extension. There are about twenty of them, and they all follow exactly the same file structure — which is precisely where installations succeed or fail.
Astron Belt, Badlands, Bega's Battle, Cliff Hanger, Cobra Command, Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, Esh's Aurunmilla, Firefox, Galaxy Ranger, GP World, Interstellar Laser Fantasy, M.A.C.H. 3, Road Blaster, Space Ace, Super Don Quix-Ote, Thayer's Quest, Us Vs Them.
Every game is made of two parts, stored in two different places.
.zip in the roms folderThis is the "rom" proper, a .zip file that must not be extracted. It carries the game's short name and goes into a roms subfolder:
┣ 📁 recalbox
┃ ┣ 📁 share
┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 roms
┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 daphne
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 roms
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.zip
These files are generally under 100 KB. If yours is large, you picked the wrong file: this is not the compressed content of a
.daphnefolder.
<game>.daphne folderThese are the video and audio tracks, placed in a folder named after the game with the .daphne suffix. That folder is what shows up as a game in EmulationStation.
┣ 📁 recalbox
┃ ┣ 📁 share
┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 roms
┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 daphne
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 📁 lair.daphne
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.txt
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.m2v
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.ogg
┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣ 🗒 lair.commands
Expected content:
| File | Purpose | Required |
|---|---|---|
<game>.txt |
The framefile: the ordered list of video files and their positions | ✅ |
<game>.m2v |
The LaserDisc video track(s) | ✅ |
<game>.ogg |
The audio track(s) | ✅ |
<game>.m2v.bf / <game>.ogg.bf |
Index files speeding up playback | ❌ |
<game>.dat |
Additional data | ❌ |
<game>.commands |
DIP switches — see the Daphne guide | ❌ |
The
.m2v,.oggand.datfiles may carry names other than the game's: that is common and harmless, as long as they are correctly listed in the.txtfile. Some games have many of them — Dragon's Lair II is split into dozens ofdl2-XXXXX.m2vsegments.
The .daphne folder name and the .zip name must be identical and match the short name the emulator recognises:
| Game | Short name |
|---|---|
| Astron Belt | astron |
| Badlands | badlands |
| Bega's Battle | bega |
| Cliff Hanger | cliff |
| Cobra Command | cobra |
| Dragon's Lair | lair |
| Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp | lair2 |
| Esh's Aurunmilla | esh |
| Firefox | firefox |
| Galaxy Ranger | galaxy |
| GP World | gpworld |
| Interstellar Laser Fantasy | interstellar |
| M.A.C.H. 3 | mach3 |
| Road Blaster | roadblaster |
| Space Ace | ace |
| Super Don Quix-Ote | sdq |
| Thayer's Quest | tq |
| Us Vs Them | uvt |
Once the files are in place, refresh your games list: the game shows up in the Daphne system.
For per-game recommended settings (the
.commandsfile), overlays and controls, head back to the Daphne guide.