-McFly-

Yes, this is true. You won't see the start button but you can open files and folders. There are ways around the volume controls using 3rd party apps like EarTrumpet but this might not be to everyone's taste. Thanks for pointing this out!

You're right. I've yet to delete a bunch of empty folders, they're not high priority right now but they need to go. I just imported everything I could find into their specific overall platform folder. I have a lot of Image / Video folders that need to be deleted / changed as well. I found that when I downloaded ROM packs there were a lot of previously saved files, usually, '.sav' files where people have saved where they were in a game. Yes, and yes. My view is that once this is complete, it'll just stay on or hibernate or sleep. My system is exclusively LB / BB and I don't use it for anything else. Thank you. I know my collection is ridiculous, but it echoes my personality My initial intent was to be conservative like yourself, only having platforms I'd actually play... but it has snowballed into this beast that I can't control. I should stop really, but my OCD won't let me!

I've been on this quest for a few years, the more I add the slower and less responsive my whole system becomes. From browsing these forums and Googling a lot as well as trial and error I'm going to stick my neck out and give you my tips on how to speed up your system. 1. In LB - Tools / Clean Up Media. Do as much as you're comfortable with, this will delete a lot of files, which in turn will speed up your build. I started with Images only before doing Videos / Manuals / Music. 2. Defragment ALL your drives, including your C:\ drive. This may sound obvious but I've found significant speed improvements doing this. I use smart defrag, it's not the Windows one but I find it to be better overall. Start with quick then do defragmenting & prioritizing files if you choose this method. 3. Use SymLinks where you can, especially when you have drives not directly connected to your LB PC. Videos and images should be on your main LB PC, if possible. 4. If you can't put your Videos and Images on your LB PC, I suggest making sure that the ethernet connection between your main LB PC and your other computer is at least CAT 6 shielded cable. If you want to go further, use fiber (Fiber NIC/port on your LB PC -> Fiber switch-> Other PC Fiber NIC/port.) This may seem extreme but it all adds up. 5. Use an SSD drive for your main Launchbox install. If possible, use SSD's for everything... expensive I know but this is about speed and responsiveness. If you can, install LB on an NVMe drive to increase responsiveness even further. 6. Make sure you're running the fastest PC you can with all the driver and updates installed, including all the video drivers, Direct X (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35), Windows, etc. 7. Buy a faster Video Card, bigger CPU and more Memory. This makes a huge difference. You know this, just adding it here before someone else does Ultimately, the better your system performs, the better LB and BB perform. 7. After adding or removing platforms or games, repeat steps 1 & 2. 8. I found that on a system that only runs LB / BB, if you have the computer boot straight into either LB or BB without loading Windows Explorer, it's much faster. I did this by editing the registry - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon change 'Shell' to your Launchbox.exe / BigBox.exe location. I saved (exported) this key before changing to allow changing back to explorer.exe easier later. (You only need the specific line regarding this key, everything below the headers can be removed except the specific 'Shell' line) When you boot with this option, bringing up Windows Explorer can be done using Task manager - File - Run New Task and typing 'explorer' (without the quotes). I saw a significant improvement doing this. (I've attached my 2 registry files as examples. If you use these, remember to change the Launchbox / BigBox paths to your own paths.) Feel free to add any speedup tips you've found yourself, or comment on whether these tips helped you. Play on! Mikie. shell startup BigBox.reg shell startup Explorer.reg

The video with BigBox scrolling through my collection will be up soon... I'll paste a link here, if you're interested. Heck I'll even do it if you aren't.

So, I've added some more. I like '420' so I've decided to stop there for now... This is around 4 years of spare time work or so, I'll continue but I need to 'get a life' as my kids continually tell me... I've added a bunch of Windows operating systems as well as some other randoms, merely for archiving purposes. I'm kinda into making sure that older systems are kept alive and not forgotten so I'll probably add more as time goes on. This collection includes hacks / saves / differing languages and differing updates. Everything. Don't judge me, I'm a stickler for consistency. My startup video: This is my Launchbox / BigBox start up video for my current collection. My collection is freakishly large so this lasts over 30 minutes. Apologies if your life has more meaning. I have this on an HP Proliant HP370 G6 4U server with a few internal and external hard drives added for space. Twin 3.07Ghz 6 core CPU's giving 24 Cores with 60 GB RAM. Windows 10. Launchbox Games drive- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dvdY0mynRnYXZoY-tGfZzyHK1JR-1ytj/view?usp=sharing, There are a bunch of other games on different drives - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iOlYY3WPC0wXw01MVpqc67DGJ5wSSVYz/view?usp=sharing currently everything is about 28TB or so, but it will get bigger... I'm trying to get 500,000 games, so this is far from over Videos for my actual collection are for the most part downloaded from YouTube. Some can't be found so I've used others and 'been creative' to fill some gaps. Images are about 95% pulled from Launchbox, I did have to make a few myself as they were inexplicably absent from Google. Bad Google. This start-up video is basically a lot of YouTube 'BigBox Startup' videos I've merged, I'm not claiming copyright or pretending I know how to do these, I don't. A lot of my collection can be viewed here: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/collection/games/Mikieboyz Feel free to berate / condone / appreciate / admire / ridicule if you feel like adding your opinion... After all, my life isn't complete until I know what you think... isn't that how the internet works??!? Comments and questions are welcome. This is a long video, if your decide to use this as your start up BigBox video and your collection doesn't take 30+ minutes to load this video will end when your collection has loaded. Magic!! Mikie.

I've updated it. The videos are now much faster. Comments / criticisms / whatever welcome. My Games Database - https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/collection/games/Mikieboyz

YouTube mostly for the obscure ones. Launchbox does a pretty decent job of downloading the main ones though. Some of the games packs I've found had videos too.

I'm uploading the newest version of my Mcfly collection - https://youtu.be/cG0PUyH39eA comments, criticisms welcome. If you see something I'm missing, or is just plain wrong, let me know. Thanks to Lou Silver for helping me grow this collection, he inspired me to reach higher

Yes.

Here's a YouTube link, it has systems as well as a link to my launchbox database. https://youtu.be/Wm54MMTeqTA as for full systems, I did start with those and added to them, deleted duplicates, readded other full and part collections so at this point, it's a collection of literally everything I found. Complete? I don't know. For most, I'd say no. For some, probably.

Thanks! You do you

I'm using Nostalgia v5 emulator. There is a controller config for 4 players in there. http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/nostalgia/nostalgia.php It seems to work pretty well for me.

Yes - time to play! As for hardware specs I might upgrade in a year or two.

I'll get back to you when i can with this, i'm not ignoring you I just haven't had time yet

Yes, I've tried to gather as much as possible.

I'll throw my hat in the ring... https://youtu.be/Wm54MMTeqTA - 238 platforms, 403,664 titles, 268 playlists. I talk about lag in a thread here;

Yes.

The video has no sound. As for the lag, I reduced it from 16 seconds to around 6. I'm happy with that. If you come up with a way to speed it up, let me know, but for now I'm finished with this project.

try again in... 8 minutes.

I'm done. I've uploaded the finished product to YouTube; https://youtu.be/Wm54MMTeqTA - 238 platforms, 403,664 titles, 268 playlists. I managed to get the video delay down to about 6 seconds between each platform, playlists are significantly quicker. I'm happy with how this turned out. I actually have this on a 42" vertical screen, image attached. This is Pinball FX 3 showing. I bought the X-Arcade Trackball joystick as I had one before and it was superb - especially the side buttons for playing pinball. The video has a different theme to what I use for the full setup, the vertical theme doesn't look as good on widescreens. Thanks to everyone for helping me out with the video delays, most appreciated!

I imported a 'full set', the latest I have is .215

I'm currently using MAMEUI64 v. 0.215 for my arcade collection. This is the complete .215 collection, imported as a "full set". I've also got about a dozen other MAME versions I use for other platforms as they seem to work better with these older versions. I found it easier to keep the mame folders separate with their own roms in their original roms folders. For instance, Brezzasoft Crystal System uses MAME 0.168, NEOGEO uses MAME 0.137.

I defragged all my drives. I had to move a lot of games folders off of my games drives as they were almost full to allow proper defragging, then moved them back and defragged again. And again. And again.

You're right, these don't work for all Telstar and Odyssey games. I must have checked one game each with WinArcadia, found that it worked, then moved on. Unfortunately I don't know what games these were... I'll keep looking for another emulator for these platforms.

Oh - I'm now at 403,551 games on 238 systems and around... 300 or so playlists. I know