ChunkyLoverMark

There are a couple of things that I think would greatly improve the first time set-up for Android Launchbox. I have two feature requests to improve the onboarding experience: Firstly I think it would be better to have persistent background downloading of images videos. Currently what I have to do is change my phone/device screen timeout to 30 minutes and not use my device for the time it takes to update all of the media from each platform. This is massively time consuming for both small and large libraries. With the Launchbox competitor 'Beacon' (not as good as Launchbox), they have a persistent background service that keeps on working even when a different app is being used. This would be a great addition for Launchbox to keep it in memory whilst other phone stuff is being used: And I also like how another competitor ES-DE (not as good as Launchbox) works on Android. In the set-up flow of the app they give you empty, platform named folders to place all your roms in. This takes away all of the effort of manually adding every single platform one by one how Launchbox currently does it. It's just copy and paste with a file manager and once this has been done once you don't have to do it again because you can reuse the same folders with every setup. ES-DE recognises what every folder should contain, and this comes in handy when setting up RetroArch and downloading media as it knows what region (eg; sega32x, sega32xjp, sega32xna) and platform the folder is for and needs to pull media for without selecting inside the settings when adding a platform. I know something similar has recently been released for Launchbox for Windows where you can add many platforms at once and it would be great for the same folder structure to be recognised by both Launchbox in Windows and Android. You could in fact keep both methods, still allow the current manual single platform importing but just important into one of these predefined, named folders, and have the new multi platform way just a copy and paste away. This could keep everyone happy. With adding these features, it would combine the best features from all of the Android frontend's into one app. Thanks for all you do 🙂

Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them This is really cool, I left feedback requesting it and I'm really happy you added it so thank you very much. The cancel button doesn't seem to work when trying to download from a Network drive that hasn't been woken up. I have to use a third party file manager to wake up my network drive before using LaunchBox to download my games. The application freezes when trying to download games from my network drive when it hasn't been woken up. (My Network drive is the Nvidia Shield 2017) Like someone else said as well, there is no idea how long any of the downloads will take as the bar fills up instantly with only the MB/s giving any idea that the download is still running. Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network This is also useful, Seems to work really well. Perfect for mobile with limited storage. Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares This makes a huge difference, night and day difference how much quicker games download. Before I was thinking if it was worth hosting my games on a NAS drive but this part of the update has convinced me. Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash I'm still having issues with downloading EmuMovies videos, this might be because I'm on a beta version of Android 15 on my Pixel 8 Pro. Downloading videos from EmuMovies works fine on my Windows machine and I'm a LifeTime supporter.

Brilliant, didn't know that existed. Thank you.

Hi, just wondering if there's a workaround fit this? For instance I have added Super Nintendo roms but I've changed the roms, added some and removed some. Is there a way I can remove just this platform from Android LaunchBox and re add the roms for this platform? So remove all images, videos, memory of these roms and start a fresh but keep all the other platforms I've already added?

I've just installed the Beta version of LaunchBox and now I see a pop up saying that MAME isn't supported on Network drives? Is this something your hoping to have sorted out in the next couple of months or shall I import locally?

Thanks, in that case it's working correctly. It's just the change log item made me think it was separate to the Android settings: Network Drive Support: Import games directly from your local network drive. When launching a game, they will download locally Local Game Indicator: Games stored on your local network arew easily identified by a cloud icon for all default views New Filter Option: Quickly filter your game library to view only local or non-local games Customizable Screen Timeout: Control your screen timeout independently of Android's system settings Expanded Emulator Support: Added full support for CEMU and Lime3DS emulators Framework Overhaul: Upgraded to the latest MAUI framework for improved performance and stability Fixed Play Time Sync: Resolved an issue that could cause inaccurate play time tracking Android Game Parsing Fix: Addressed an Android game parsing issue on startup for certain Android based VR headset

Today Retroarch has added CloudSync support for game saves: https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-20-0-release/ Has anyone tried this yet and got it syncing?

Thanks Faeran, I'm seeing very different favorited games on my Android device compared to my Windows device that are both signed into the same LaunchBox account. I don't think any favorited games synced across to my Android device and the ones I'm seeing are just ones that I manually favorited last week. The Sync Status: In Sync and clicking Sync Now doesn't change anything. I'm using the same set of Roms for both systems.

Yeah, very true 😂😂

Hi all, my question is if I favourite a game on the LaunchBox Android app, should it show as a favourite in my Collections on the LB Database? https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/collection/manage If so the heart (Favourite) isn't showing on my games that i've favourited and not syncing between my signed in account: I'm signed into the same account on both the browser and Android app. The reason why I first noticed this is that my favourites didn't transfer across to my latest installation of LaunchBox. I'm trying to find out where I can see what's synced according to this pop-up: Thank you.

That makes perfect sense thanks, I like the Q & A sections where you answer the communities questions and reveal additional development insights and plans for what's coming next. I do try and watch the live streams on Twitch when I can but it's not always convenient with pesky things like work and kids 😁

Thanks AstroBob, just tried this out. Tried Atari Lynx, and Nintendo Wii and they both crashed on me. I tried both Europe and North America and they both crashed. I also tried with just the option selected to download from EmuMovies and it also crashed.

Hi, I know in the past that the Launchbox Streams used to be uploaded to YouTube but that doesn't seem to have happened with the most recent ones. Is this something they've said would happen? The YouTube streams seem to have a lot more views. I personally would like to watch them on YouTube rather than Twitch as I have a YouTube Premium account so I don't get adverts every five minutes.

Hi again, Again, I'm not sure if it's already on the roadmap, but I'd really like to see a themed icon for the Launchbox app for Android. I like having LaunchBox on my first page and it sticks out as I like my apps to be themed. Themed Icon support for Android was introduced in Android 13: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/13/features Thank you for your consideration.

Hi all, Not sure if this is already in your app roadmap, but I would find it useful for NAS drive users to have an option for just 'Download' to go with the 'Download and Play' I believe that the Network Share option only works in LaunchBox for when you're on the same WiFi network, so before I go out and I know I want to do some gaming when out, I go through the games I might want to play. It would be nice to do this without having to close down whatever Emulator opens up with every game. Thank you.

OS: Android 15 QPR2 Beta Launchbox Version: 1.16 When I downloaded the artwork for my games, it downloaded the Japanese box art for Diddy's Kong Quest when I selected Europe. When I try to change the artwork in the LaunchBox app to the European version through edit media from the Launchbox Database, it says it's downloading it but it doesn't change it. Select game, then the 'Edit Media' option. The 'Box Image' shows as 'Exists' Click it. Choose 'Browse for New Games Database Image' Select the image I want from LaunchBox database. Choose 'Use as Box - Front Image' Screen pops up saying 'Please wait while downloading and applying the image...' It then cycles back to the screen showing all the images but the old image hasn't been replaced. The images below show the workflow:

OS: Android 15 QPR2 Beta Launchbox Version: 1.16 I've checked my EmuMovies account and it looks like everything is okay on there, LifeTime membership with no Warnings. Signed in successfully on Launchbox but whenever I try to download media including videos on the latest version of Launchbox it crashes the app. It always used to work really well. When I unselect the option for downloading videos it seems to work fine so I think it's an issue with EmuMovies and the link to Launchbox.

Hi Ravippe, Did you comment on the right post? This is for streaming YouTube videos, not local MP4 files.

OS: Android 15 QPR2 Beta Launchbox Version: 1.16 When I set my screen timeout on my phone to 15 seconds, and the Launchbox timeout settings to 1 hour. The screen turns off in Launchbox in 15 seconds. The setting in Launchbox is supposed to override the Android one right? Not sure if this is because I'm on a beta version of Android or not.

Brilliant, that worked. Thank you very much 👍

Here is the file in a test folder hosted in my NAS Drive.

I'm having issues getting MAME Arcade platforms zip files, to load from my NAS Drive (Nvidia Shield 2017 Android TV) in Launchbox on my Pixel 8 Pro running Android the QPR2 Beta update. I've added all my other roms fine eg; SNES, Gameboy, Megadrive ect. But Launchbox crashes when I try to add even one MAME rom. They load fine when the files are loaded locally but not from my NAS drive. This is the guide I was following: Launchbox Tutorial Whenever I try to add a Zipped MAME rom, whether it's 1,000's or just one. The application crashes. This happens even when I chose the default options in the Importer or change the options. I also posted this on Reddit and Astro Bob has been looking into this but I thought I'd also post here so I can include some pictures: Reddit I'm not sure if this is because of the Android Beta software I'm running, or if this is a bug with Launchbox.

I'm having issues getting the YouTube videos to play for each game (Not the locally downloaded video from EmuMovies, as they do work) in Launchbox on my Pixel 8 Pro running Android the QPR2 Beta update. This is the guide I was following: Launchbox Tutorial These are the steps that I followed: Menu/Options/Video Streaming - Enable Video Streaming Optimize Library Go to a game and it should be playing a video (but doesn't) Text does appear that it's downloading a video even though I've chosen to stream the videos but nothing plays. I'm not sure if this is because of the Android Beta software I'm running, or if this is a bug with Launchbox.

I'm having issues getting the Platform theme videos to play in Launchbox on my Pixel 8 Pro running Android the QPR2 Beta update. This is the guide I was following: Launchbox Tutorial And these are the steps I followed: From platforms view, click the three dots in the top right and change view to Wheel with details (Also should work with text with details view.) Download Theme Videos from the same three dots menu Select to prioritize 'Colourful HD by Viking', Do you want to replace existing videos as well? 'Download All' Wait a few seconds for all to download In landscape you should see videos for each platform playing in the background After doing all this, no background image shows, and no videos. I'm not sure if this is because of the Android Beta software I'm running, or if this is a bug with Launchbox.

Amazing update, like my own personal Steam library for my retro games! Just wondering if it could technically be possible in the future for the network drive support feature to add Google Drive storage as an option?