Gimpy

Definitely not as low as 30, but not far behind, I'd guess I now have between 50-60. I understand why people have these huge collection builds, but for me personally the amount of filler is insane. I used to have around 150, and I found even that was overwhelming for when people came over. Now I have a much more tightly curated list that is a mixture of games from my childhood, games I've discovered, and then 'something for everyone' style classics that people love

Yeah weirdly enough yesterday I actually sat down and just let the wheel spin 100 times and watched it - out of a pool of over 600 games, it span 100 times and pulled up a game it had already shown 41 times. Interestingly, it didn't repeat once for the first 35 times and then it was like once it had a pool of games to repeat, it just constantly landed on one it had already shown - 3 different games actually got shown 3 times. I think there is possibly something to what you said about it moving back and forth within a set number as well, because not only do games repeat, but it feels like the same pool of games always shows up, like there are some games I never ever see, and then some I can probably bet on with certainty will show up within the first 30 or so spins I understand how random works, but it feels like maybe it shouldn't actually be random then, as a less random solution would probably make it appear more random 😅 I appreciate this probably isn't a high priority thing, but it's basically the only thing about my setup that bugs me haha

Yeah I think everyone understands this isn’t true randomness, but I also refuse to believe this is working as truly intended - the way it currently works doesn’t feel random either? I don’t mind repeats at all, but my attract mode constantly repeats the same games on over and over. if I can predict which pool of 20 games it’s going to throw up at me out of a list of about 500, then it’s not random either. At the moment it feels like a metronome wavering back and forth between 2 zones more than something that could land anywhere (even on repeats)

Yeah I dunno why, because it’s a relatively minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but it drives me absolutely crazy - it’s weird as well because it feels like it’s the same games that come up constantly, even across different times the machine is turned on. I don’t think I’d mind nearly as much if it was different repeats every time I powered on, but it feels like it runs through the same 20/500 games like 50% of the time.

First of all, forgive me because I feel like I have seen this before on this forum, but I just could not find the thread again despite searching for it. I have attract mode set up to spin randomly through all games when running, and I have noticed that it will constantly loop back to the same games again and again, so even though it has a huge number of games to choose from, it seems to land on the same 15-20 or so over and over - if I sit and watch it spin through 100 games, I would say over 50% of them will be repeats, which just doesn't seem like is how it would work (where Id assume ideally it'd land on a distinct game 99% of the time). I know repeats are to be expected now and again, but it's like its only cycliing through 5% of my library or something - sometimes it'll repeat a game from 2-3 games ago What's more, it feels like even between powering on and off, it somehow finds it's way back to the same games every time. It's silly because it's not really a big deal, but if I turn around and see the video theme for Gallop Racer 3, Ganryu, Moonwalker, Maximum Force, Shuffleshot, Simpsons Bowling or Aliens 3 one more time, I might cry. Has anybody encountered something similar or found a setup that results in a something that feels genuinely more 'random'? I've looked up and down in the options and can't see anything that jumps out really Cheers!

Apologies for raising an older thread, but it seemed silly to start a new one - has anybody continued to have this issue? I can do a similar comparison list to earlier in this thread if it helps, but my attract mode will constantly land on the same games consistently (even the same games between times powered on), almost like its drawing from a much smaller list than my actual overall library. I have had a look at my Attract Mode settings and can't see anything that jumps out, but it honestly feels like my attract mode pulls from any of about 25 games on my cab rather than the 300 or so that are on there. I understand how 'random' works and stuff, but it still feels as though I get a selection of games that doesn't feel like it's working as intended

Seems to be all sorted for me now mate, appreciate it

Amazing, thanks mate, much appreciated!

Double checked and they actually are where they should be. Video Themes Video Snaps Video Priorities You can see here, it still plays the video theme on selection Unless I have completely misunderstood what you meant?

Will have a look, cheers

For some reason, regardless of theme, Launchbox totally ignores my media priorities, it uses video themes even if I have them unticked, can't figure it out

Yeah I was wondering similar - it seems to use game theme videos even if you turn them off. Was trying to figure out a way to have it be say Logo/Gameplay Screenshot, and then transition to gameplay video

Did you ever find a solution to this?

Hi mate, not a problem @echo off taskkill /f /im "" "C:\Windows\explorer.exe" start /min "" "D:\Launchbox\Launchbox\Bigbox.exe" timeout 30 start /min "" "C:\Windows\explorer.exe" Then I followed the instructions here This was one of those weird things for me that suddenly just started working even though it hadn't done previously, but it's worked exactly how I want it to since - my PC boots, you see the windows logon screen, then it stays black until my boot video loads into LB - explorer loads in the background and I retain the little things like volume functionality, etc I never had much luck with bblean or whatever setting custom shells or whatever at all, it never behaved exactly how I wanted

I figured out that this was Windows Defender just randomly deciding out of nowhere to quarrantine the 'Startup.exe' id created from a .vbs script, so the shell was looking for a file that no-longer existed. Mods can just close/remove this thread if they want!

I have a standup cabinet that I had configured to launch directly into BB without ever showing the desktop (bar the windows login screen). It's worked this way perfectly fine for months now, never without issues...I've turned it on today and it just doesn't work at all anymore, no matter what I do, if I use a vbs script or just bblean to set the shell, it'll just load into explorer and in fact it doesn't actually load Big Box at all, let alone after explorer, although if I launch BB manually, it loads fine Anybody ran into any similar issues or have an idea what could have caused this? The only thing I can think of that I have changed remotely recently on the machine is updating LEDBlinky, but even that was a day or so before this was happening

Hi All - mostly a lurker on this forum but I've found it invaluable figuring out the millions of things to tinker with building my machine, but figured I'd show it off. Dunno if this is anybody else's experience, but I find its about 4:1 ratio of time I spend tinkering with it/LB compared to actually playing it. Have mostly just MAME games on there, although a few Atomiswave/Naomi games, etc - I'm yet to find that many console games that really feel like they play well on an Arcade setup, but that's personal preference There was a couple of things I knew I wanted with the machine - I wanted cool lights, a clean design, 2 players, trackball and I wanted to be able to play most joystick arcade games without compromise. The first initial stumbling block was not having the means or the knowledge to cut my own panels for the frame, so I mitigated that challenge by paying for a company to do it for me and picked up a flatpack kit from BitCade... That almost immediately ran me into my second issue - I'd chosen Ultimarc ServoStiks, but I'd not really thought about how they'd mount to the control panel. I soon discovered was that the recesses for the control sticks were smaller than Id anticipated, and it meant the joysticks I wanted to use wouldn't fit. Luckily I had a friend who owned a dremel tool, so I was able to (clumsily) carve out a larger recess The kit for the frame had arrived a few weeks earlier, but I was waiting for the vinyls to arrive for the artwork. Now I don't know about you, but I am terrible at even putting a phone screen on, let alone a 6 foot equivalent that cost a couple of hundred quid, but I bravely carried on. Unfortunately I am the worst mix at doing this sort of thing, as I am caught stranded between being a perfectionist at this kind of thing and noticing every minute imperfection, whilst simultaneously not actually being great at it whatsoever. Somehow I actually did the first one absolutely perfectly, only to somehow completely mess up the second one beyond all comprehension. Luckily my wife came home and managed to completely salvage the mess I had made, what a woman Added the T-Moulding around the edges, which I felt like gave it a nice added bit of pop (Actually more effectively than I'd anticipated). I finished applying the vinyls and started to build the main cabinet, only to realise soon after this point that some of the joints didn't fit together properly - it had been a couple of months since I'd originally bought the kit, and it's freezing in the games room, so I'm not sure if it was wood swelling or just poor workmanship, but that put a halt to the proceedings as I needed to buy some sandpaper - at the time I was fuming at being held up by an evening as I was so excited - if only I'd known what was to come! I decided to stay positive and try and maximise the time by putting together the control panel and wiring everything up in the meantime, However it was at this point I discovered they'd somehow made a mistake cutting of the control panel, vinyl and plexiglass cover - literally all 3 were cut to different alignments, meaning I couldn't do anything with it. After that I couldn't progress with it at all, so I contacted the company and let them know what had happened and they said they'd fix it as soon as they could - annoyingly they said they'd need to cut me a new CP rather than a vinyl and plexi, which potentially sent me back a step with cutting the recesses for the ServoStiks - I explained what I needed and gave them the dimensions, and they said they'd pre-cut it for me. Decided at that point to build what I could, knowing the rest was turning up in 1-2 days. Cabinet started to take shape, but after a while I couldn't progress any more, so for a while the whole thing looked like this, taunting me Had further dramas when the replacement parts got lost in the post, further delaying proceedings. The same week the monitor turned up from Amazon completely smashed out of the box, and at this point it just felt like a cursed project. I was so done with all the hassle that I was barely even excited anymore, and tbh didn't even trust there wouldn't be more problems - I'd become a bitter, jaded old man in the space of a week! haha. The replacement control panel turned up and was almost perfect - they'd actually preattached the vinyl which was great, and it did match up with the plexi - however, they hadn't cut the recess how I needed it - they'd centered the wider dimensions around the screw holes, rather than shifting them over, meaning most of the extra space they'd cut was totally redundant. At that point I was so annoyed with having to wait, and had morphed into an impatient ape, so I just took matters into my own hands - I took apart the joysticks and reorientated the mounting plate so it would fit horizontally, and then brute forced a screw hole through the plastic plate to I could mount it to the joystick It didn't fit flush that way, but I could get it down tight enough where the servos could still move properly without their own torque pulling them out of alignment - at that stage I'd now been messing around for about 3-4 hours just to mcguyver a solution for something that's supposed to screw in, which probably says a lot about my brute forcing capabilities, but again just felt like every single step was more difficult than it should have been After all that I had to wire up the control panel - everything is so delicate and the encoder board is so small and there are SO many connections that even using literally about 400 cable ties, it was still difficult to maintain any sort of neatness, at least for me. This is how it looked when it was finished being wired - and that's with making an attempt to keep it tidy! That's 133 different wires connecting into an encoder board roughly about the size of an iPhone plus. Insanity. Ran into a few problems with running out of ground points on the board, but just stripped some wires and daisy-chained them into one, which I felt proper smug about even though it's the most basic electronics job ever. I did actually tidy up this cabling a little more after this photo just in case it's giving anybody anxiety Afterwards though, it was actually starting to look like an arcade machine. Set the PC up inside to see if all of my wiring connections had held up and my lights still worked... Success! The very last thing to was to paint the front plexiglass - masked it out with from Frog Tape and sprayed it up. Weirdly this was by far the most difficult bit for me. Dunno if it was just me being an idiot, but I had to redo it about 8 times to get it right - you can see in the pic below that I initially didn't block out enough of the screen, so I had to go back again and redo it The finished product looked something like this Overall I am really happy with the outcome, although there are loads of little issues I had with the flatpack itself - Bitcade's custom built machines look second to none quality wise, but there are loads of 'flaws' I found with the flatpack that have ended up with a bunch of imperfections/compromises I've had to make with my machine which is a bit disappointing, which was a shame considering how much I shopped around before buying one. For starters the monitor is only hed by a single bracket that I had to glue in to stop it pulling itself off the sides, nothing feels that secure. The pieces didn't fit together that well - could be swelling but was still hassle to put together. This is my own fault but the square looking plexiglass is ever so slightly longer on one side, meaning that I painted it up and realised id done it the wrong way, so it doesn't sit in there that well - their custom machines have really nice, flush custom bezels and you just can't do that on these. The back just screws on and there is no gap for cabling so you're basically sealing it up and then there's no easy way to access the back. My vinyls were ever so slightly smaller than the actual panels, and lastly I am dreading anything going wrong because there is no easy way to access the CP - I'll basically have to take it apart if I ever need to replace anything. Bit disappointing all round really, but maybe I was expecting too much from a flat-pack That said, I now have an Arcade machine, so it's helped get over it a bit!

I have now managed to achieve this after ages of messing around - a misunderstanding of the correct syntax to use could have saved myself a lot of time! I’ll post my bat file when I’m not on my phone in case anybody else wants to achieve this incredibly specific thing

I've been on a journey of hacking a solution together, and each time I feel like I am getting closer, but ultimately find some other issue I can't conquer I downloaded a program called Bills Process Manager that lets you do stuff like launch one program when another one launches, restart a program if it ends, etc - so I set this up to launch explorer when BigBox starts (I had tried to do this using a bat file previously, but couldn't get it to work, so instead had the batfile start Process Manager and then start Bigbox) So I had a bat file that loaded Process Manager, then loaded Bigbox, and then created a vbs file that I have turned into an exe, which launches that bat file on Startup and set that as a custom shell (which I had originally learned from this very helpful post here, which didn't work for me, but at least got me started), and explorer would launch 10 seconds after BigBox started up and it worked!...kinda ProcessManager loads minimised, then Bigbox loads and the startup video loads fullscreen, but when explorer loads it also launches a File Explorer window which takes focus away from everything else. If I run explorer.exe from Task Manager it doesn't do this behaviour, but running explorer from this startup process makes the window appear. So now my new mission is to make this not happen I can't just hide it off screen because it steals focus from the Front End. I've tried setting the File Explorer Settings to 'This PC' rather than 'Quick Start', I've checked the Startup folder and made sure it's not trying to load explorer.exe a second time (which would also cause a window to open). I've downloaded autoruns and made sure there's no automatic processes that are trying to find a location that doesn't exist, etc. I've checked my folder settings to make sure that it's not remembering last position or forcing window on launch or something.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have tried that, as well as various other suggestions I've encountred on here, using various vbs/bat files, etc but for whatever reason I can never get them to work as intended, even though there doesn't seem to be any logical reason why they wouldn't. I can only ever get either Bigbox and no Explorer, Big Box and then explorer window opens on top of BigBox, or the desktop loads and then BigBox starts. I am actually beginning to lose my mind I think

Does anybody know where these can still be obtained? The original link seems to have had the content removed

I have an upright cab that I finally got around to setting up a shell using bblean so the PC boots straight into BigBox, so you never see a desktop, which is perfect. However, I quickly noticed that some games have trouble launching without explorer already being open (Some Teknoparrot games for example) - I got around this by having Explorer.exe as a startup app for those specific games, but as time has gone on, I have realised there are loads of niggling little issues that essentially arise from Explorer not already being open (for example if I launch say HotD4, it will load explorer and load fine, but if I play another Teknoparrot game after, its going to try launching explorer again, and since it's already open will just open an explorer window that comes into the foreground. Is there a way I can get BigBox to immediately launch explorer on launch? I guess I could set up a fake platform or something and launch it from within BB, but I'd prefer something more elegant than that if possible? I figured its something that might be able to be done with AHK or command lines, but I am not familiar enough with them Cheers! edit: I have since tried Bills Application Manager, which looked like it might do the trick as it also has options to reinitialise processess if they're ended, etc, but of course it doesn't open unless explorer is already running, so back to square one!

Apologies, I somehow never saw your reply. I've tried switching themes, but it still happens. Once in a blue moon they reappear until next time, I just can't figure it out!

Upping this just in case someone else sees it. Still has just never sorted itself out

Ive suddenly had this weird problem occur where when Im in a platform view, when I scroll left or right to switch between letters, the letters don't actually appear - the bar appears, but every box is empty. Tried restarting, refreshing images, etc, just can't seem to get them to reappear