jacks897

Hi, my gameplay images in bigbox appear very dark, when first loading they normal but after a split second they are then dark and hard to see like some kind of overlay is applied to the game play images. This is a new installation. This is the same for all games. Please see screenshots. How can I fix this so the gameplay images are clear?

If you would like the images to be kept at original dimensions then skip the first run and proceed to run 2 and make sure dimensions are set to 100% you could probably then set compression to 80% just be sure to keep a backup and make sure you are happy with the results

This is a guide focusing on how to mass optimise/compress LaunchBox images. Some images are several MB and take up a lot of space. This will also mean that the interface is more responsive. Before I did this my LaunchBox images took up over 60GB! After this process only 25GB with no noticeable loss of quality. STEP 1. BACKUP YOUR LAUNCHBOX IMAGES FOLDER!!!!! - very important as this tool will replace images rather than creating a copy. STEP 2. Download Mass Image Compressor from this link - https://sourceforge.net/projects/icompress/ STEP 3. We will be performing 2 runs with the compressor tool. The first is to reduce the image dimensions of large images to 70%. The second is to compress the other images. STEP 4. Set directory to LaunchBox images directory then tick "Compress Images of All Child Directories" - BACKUP YOUR IMAGES FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN 1 Settings ---------------------- Compression Parameters: 85% New Dimension in %: 70% Tick Compress if File Size Greater than 1MB RUN 2 Settings ---------------------- Compression Parameters: 85% New Dimension in %: 100% Tick Compress if File Size Greater than 400KB This will result in a massive reduction in the size of your images folder and will optimise the images.

I did try updating the klite media codec but it said that VLC doesn't use it so no idea how to troubleshoot.

Hi, my startup video and full screen videos in BigBox result in a black screen the first time they are played each launch. The second time they load ok. I'm using VLC as the video plugin, does anyone know what could be causing this?

Does anyone know how to get the virtual key code for the Xbox One controller share button? I've tried the JoystickTest-1.ahk but it doesn't detect any key. I think because of xinput?

The main selling point of this is wouldn't it be amazing if the next time you load a large windows game etc it loads very quickly because it has been moved automatically by LaunchBox. This would give LaunchBox a USP above even Steam or other launchers, because it would manage load times of games and storage based on what you are actually playing. Nothing else does that. Not even Windows. People would buy LaunchBox even for their Steam or Origin libraries just for the software SSHD functionality. Moreover, I don't even think this would be hard to achieve. It would need a background application that would manage the safe caching of games and a new field - cache-able to exclude game folders that are not moveable. Some games are over 100gb now, if a software application managed the efficient use of expensive SSD based on what is played it would be amazing! (and very niche and fitting to the moment with SSD being expensive and HD's at 12tb) I believe this is relatively easy to develop, it is the database and indexing of what can and can't be moved for Windows that would be the barrier but that could be easily achieved by the community. Also launcher compatibility, would symbolic links work? Maybe LaunchBox would keep the original copy where it is and if a game does not load after being moved then LaunchBox would automatically revert back to the original or the user could specify the game did not load and it would revert.

Thanks I'll check out the plugin. Yes this is more useful for windows games than it is for roms etc

Hi, I have thought of an idea but I am not sure whether it would be possible to implement. The idea is for LaunchBox to automatically move the most played games to fast SSD storage. The idea is that every time a game is launched, LaunchBox counts the number of times played. If the number of times played hits a threshold then the game is moved to an SSD storage for faster loading times. Think of it as a software version of an SSHD drive. This way the most played games are on SSD, perhaps after a few weeks of not playing they are automatically moved back to the slower HD. What do people think of this? Would it be worth putting in a feature request?

Does anyone know what the code is for the share button on the xbox one controller?

Hi, I have 2 controllers connected to my pc, one is a wireless xbox one controller, the other is a wired xbox 360 controller. Whenever I play dos games using built in dosbox only my wired xbox 360 controller works but I want the wireless one to be the working default. Does anyone know how to change the default controller for dosbox?

Ok thanks for the info and makes sense I did read somewhere that the new beta has improved platform xml loading speed.

Hey, I would like to start BigBox minimized at windows startup. The idea is that it will load quickly but sit in the background minimized. I tried making a shortcut in the startup folder with minimized property but it doesn't start minimized. Does anyone know how to do this? Would be a great feature for speedy BigBox loading!

Yes this solved the problem many thanks

Thanks I created a new thread, I couldn't find out how to tag you though.

Hi, I'm creating this thread to keep the other thread clear as requested by @Jason Carr @Jason Carr LaunchBox and Big Box are not loading properly for me. They hang for several minutes on the populating games screen. I tried installing a new copy of the latest version to another location and it loads ok without the data. Is there any way to troubleshoot?

I'm using Kaspersky. I tried a new installation to another location and it started fine, for some reason my collection is broken now is there any way to troubleshoot?

Both LaunchBox and Big Box wont load for me even after applying the 1.15 update, they hang for several minutes on startup populating games.

Hi, both LaunchBox and Big Box are not loading at all for me. They were working a couple of days ago.

Cool, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I already have one of your packages L.A.P.D Future Cop so I will take a look at reverse engineering that, I never could get that game to run on modern systems, great game from my youth.

Thanks, that sounds like a much better way of using the hdd's. Is there a way to convert an img hard drive to a vhd? i downloaded a copy of a Windows 98 image on Archive.org that was already configured for pcem, that's why I have an img file

Does anyone know how to shrink a PCem hard drive .img file?

Thanks for the reply, yeah I realized that after going through scan disk, I hadn't seen that screen for years! Your PCem config/Bat work very well, thank you

Hey, anyone know of a way to exit PCem when a button is pressed? It doesn't seem to work for me whatever I try.

Hey thanks for this, amazing work you do! Would that mean having a seperate image for each windows 95 with startup folder game or is there a way of using configs? If multiple windows 95 images need to be used, is there a small 95 image or a way of making one? Thanks dude!