AstroBob

Hi @Joe35car sorry for the issues here, may I confirm a few things to try and narrow this down: Which games specifically are not showing in Big Box, and are there any patterns between them (i.e from the same platform). Do you have the show games marked Broken enabled? Are any platforms from the missing games marked to be hidden in Big Box (right-click on the platform > edit and see if the Hide in Big Box item is checked What theme are you using in Big Box, and if it’s not the default, are those games also missing if you switch to the default theme? Let me know and we’ll try to get you sorted Cheers,

Hi @CyberMonkey sorry for the issues here, may I confirm a few things to try and narrow this down: - What version of LaunchBox do you have installed? - Where is your LaunchBox directory location (i.e SSD, Network Drive, Cloud storage etc) - What theme are you using within Big Box - What are the specs of the machine you're running (CPU, GPU, RAM, etc) - Can you elaborate a bit more on the frequency to which this happens? You mention it happens (sometimes), though are you able to reproduce this, or it appears to happen randomly? Let me know and we'll see if we can get you sorted.

Hey @Kefka2b, the only way to do this would be to create actual new Platforms for your Light Gun categories, and then change the Game’s metadata to that new platform, but this isn’t a workflow I’d recommend since you’ll lose association with the original platform. The best approach seems to be to use your current workflow (where you’ve created a new Category with some playlists for LightGun games). It’s not ideal, but you could create two auto-playlists underneath each platform: one for lightgun games from that platform (e.g., NES) and one for normal NES games. If you can let me know a bit more about your ideal end goal and how you’re looking to set things up I can try and advise further. Cheers,

Hi @51mm5 thanks for the update and apologies for the issue here. May I confirm a few things to try and get to the bottom of this: - Your original issue mentioned that LaunchBox closes or crashes, whenever you close a games. Do you happen to know which one it is (i.e are any error messages being displayed), - Under Tools > General do you have any of the following options checked (Minimise LaunchBox when launching games OR Restore LaunchBox when exiting games)? - Does this happen for every game, regardless of platform, or do some games not exhibit the issue? - Your original post mentioned that this is something that only started happening recently. I realise it's been a while since then, but is this an issue that happens continuously (i.e it's been like that ever since) or it only sometimes happens? - If you're able to do a quick screen recording showing the issue, that would be incredibly helpful Let us know and we'll try to get you sorted. Cheers,

Hi @earthprime thanks for the suggestion here. Currently, there is no functionality to switch between Big Box instances within the same UI, as it's been designed very much with the intention that people are running off a single build. That said, I can totally understand use cases such as yours where you've had to maintain a separate build. Because each instance of Big Box is its own application, the route you seem to be going down does appear to be the most sensible, whereby you have some sort of custom integration that points to which Big Box instance you want, and I imagine you want to keep that all within the Big Box interface. I realise it's not the ideal solution, but it certainly seems like it could work for you. We don't currently have any plans to add something like this officially, but I'd love to hear from others in the community about whether this would be something they'd like to see. While I realise there are plenty of valid use cases for it, I am curious why you've chosen to maintain 2 builds (space, access from different locations?), just in case it's a side effect of something that we can address, that would allow you to work off a single build since it certainly would be easily to maintain in the long run. I'm going to move this to the Features section of the forum now to get some more eyes on it. Cheers,

Hi @regismaltais33 thanks for the question. Assuming these builds focus on separate platforms, then it's a pretty straightforward process, you can simply copy the data files from the LaunchBox\Data\Platforms folder for the respective platforms, along with any media folders (such as Images, Music, Videos etc) from one build to the other. Unfortunately, if both builds contain the same platform (i.e both contain Arcade games), then it's a bit tricker, and your best bet would be to simply re-import the games, since the above method won't work. Either way, make sure you take a full backup of your build before attempting any merging, just incase 😉 Regarding your section question, would you mind elaborating on what you're hoping to archive here. Are you referring to having playlists for each of your categories of games? Let me know and I'll see how I can help 😊

No worries at all, glad it seems to be going in the right direction. Totally understand it's a faf to curate everything, so highlighting the best ones first seems like a great way to hone in on the best games. There is also a setting to put games marked a Favorite at the top of your view, which can be used in tandem with your current sorting, as a way to highlight specific picks (on mobile atm so can't remember the exact location of that preference). Let me know if you have any further questions, and good luck with the cab build! Feel free to show it off in our Collections & Builds section of the forum if you want 😊 We'd love to see it

Hi Jon, Welcome to the LaunchBox family! 🙌 Emumovies is indeed a great addition to a MAME Big Box setup. If you've recently purchased a Windows license, you should have already received a 25% discount code for EmuMovies. Coincidentally, literally, as of yesterday, we have kindly donated some EmuMovies lifetime codes that we've been giving on our streams. I can't confirm how many of those there will be, but if you were ever curious you can catch the schedule here and pop along next time, it could be your lucky day 😊

Hi @djdaveoc22, thanks for the updates there and for elaborating on your use case. Given what you're trying to achieve, I think we can simplify things to give you exactly what you need. Assuming this build only needs your 10-ish platforms, organised by star rating, here's what I suggest. 1. In LaunchBox, change your view (on the left-hand side under the search bar) from Platform Categories to Playlists. From there, using my previous method, create auto-playlists for each of your platforms, and set the playlist to be organised by star rating—no need to bother with adding them to any categories, and under the Parents tab, just leave everything unchecked. 2. In Big Box, go to Options > Views > Default Startup View and change the option to Playlists Assuming you don't have any other playlists already, this means now that when you load Big Box, it will simply show you the playlists you created, and going into those will organise the games by star rating. Let me know if this works for you and how you get on.

Hi @Rams128, may I confirm what version of LaunchBox you are running, since there were some optimisations made to the sync feature in 13.17. If you're on an older version, can you try updating to the latest version and letting us know if you still see issues with syncing? Cheers,

Also attaching a video at the correct timestamp that shows some other use-cases on how you can create playlists

Hi @djdaveoc22 thanks for the reply and no worries at all. I totally understand it can be tricky to track down some information and I also realised playlists is one of those areas we're yet to have a dedicated tutorial for. It's certainly something we're looking to improve. Here's how you can go about the workflow I mentioned. If you're looking to be able to view each platform by star rating, my suggestion would be to create a new category, and then nest some playlists for each platform inside that. Here's how to do it 1. Make sure you're in the platform category section of LaunchBox 2. Right click on any platform and select Add > New Category. Give it a name, and under the Parents tab, choose where you want to nest it (select Root if you want it to appear with your other platform categories) 3. Then, right click again, and select Add > New Playlist. Under the Auto-Populate tab, this is where you configure what appears in that playlist. Here's an example below 4. Back on the Details tab, under Sort Games By, this is where you choose what you want that playlist to sort by. Choose Star Rating 5. Finally, choose where you want that playlist to live from the Parents tab. You can have it appear under that new category you just created, or somewhere else. It's worth noting you don't have to add the new category first, you could nest the playlists directly under each platform, it's entirely personal preference. This playlist will now also appear in Big Box and will respect the sort order by star rating. Hope that helps, give me a shout if you get stuck along the way or have any further questions

Hi Folks, We recently published an FAQ on this topic that provides detailed instructions and highlights any important caveats to keep in mind. Sharing the link here in case anyone stumbles across this old thread.

Hi Folks, We recently published an FAQ on this subject that goes into detail on how to do this and any caveats to take into account. Linking here in case anyone comes across this old thread

Moving your LaunchBox setup to a new PC is a straightforward process, but there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure a smooth transition. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, including handling games, emulators, and dependencies. Can I move my LaunchBox build to a new PC? Yes! LaunchBox is designed to be portable, making it easy to transfer your setup to a new machine. The process involves copying your entire LaunchBox folder to the new PC. What do I need to transfer? The entire LaunchBox directory. This folder contains all your settings, themes, media, plugins etc. What about moving my games? If your games are stored in the LaunchBox\Games folder: No additional steps are required. Everything should transfer seamlessly. If your games are stored outside the LaunchBox folder, You must copy these separately and update the folder paths in LaunchBox for each platform. Navigate to Tools > Manage > Platforms, then within the Edit Platform window, select the Folders to update the games directory What about emulators? The key consideration is whether your emulators are located in the LaunchBox\Emulators directory and are set up as portable. Portable emulators, like RetroArch, PCSX2, and Dolphin (when managed through LaunchBox), store all their settings within their own directories, making them easy to transfer. However, some emulators save preferences and user data outside their folders, typically in the AppData directory. Many emulators offer an option to switch to portable mode, which consolidates all settings within their main folder. Check each emulator’s documentation for instructions on enabling portable mode. If your emulators are portable: and they live within the LaunchBox\Emulators directory, then no additional steps are required. Everything should transfer seamlessly. If your emulators aren’t portable: You’ll need to transfer any settings stored outside the emulator’s directory. Check the emulator’s documentation for details on where its configuration files are stored. ⚠ Don’t forget your BIOS files ⚠ If your emulators or games require additional BIOS files that don’t live within your LaunchBox directory, make sure those are transferred as well. Are there any dependencies I need to install on the new PC? Yes, LaunchBox has a few key dependencies: .NET Core 3.1 Runtime: This is required for the embedded Chromium implementation used in LaunchBox. You can easily download it from Microsoft’s official site if it isn’t already installed: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/thank-you/runtime-desktop-3.1.32-windows-x64-installer Operating System: Your new PC must run Windows 10 or above (64-bit). Older versions of Windows 10 may cause issues. Do I need to re-enter my license? No, your license lives within your LaunchBox directory. As long as you copy the entire directory, your license will transfer automatically. If you encounter issues, contact support@unbrokensoftware.com for assistance. What else should I consider? It's worth backing up your LaunchBox data directory before making changes. You can create a manual backup of your LaunchBox data by navigating to Tools > File Management > Create Data Backup In Summary Backup Your LaunchBox Data Directory Copy the entire LaunchBox folder to an external drive. Transfer the folder to the desired location on your new PC. Transfer any games, emulators/settings or BIOS files outside of your LaunchBox directory (if any) Ensure .NET Core 3.1 Runtime is installed on the new PC. Test a few games to ensure paths, emulators, and media are functioning correctly. By following these steps, you can ensure a seamless transition of your LaunchBox instance to a new PC. If you have further questions or encounter any issues, feel free to reach out. Happy gaming! 🎮

Hi @beeboy , thanks for the great question! To get started, you’ll want to create some playlists in LaunchBox. Any playlists you create can also be accessed from within Big Box. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to automatically import the collections that you’ve created in Steam. However, depending on the size of your collections, it should be relatively straightforward to recreate them as playlists in LaunchBox. Here are a few things to keep in mind when working with playlists: You can create playlists using either the auto-populated method, which uses specific fields to fill out the playlist (e.g., Favorite = True), or manually by selecting games. To add games manually, you can right-click a single game or select multiple games using Ctrl + Click, then right-click and choose “Add to Playlist.” You’ll be prompted to name a new playlist or add the selected games to an existing one. You can choose to omit specific playlists from Big Box. To do this, edit the playlist and check the Hide in Big Box option. Playlists can be accessed through the Playlists section, or you can embed them into your platform categories view for easier navigation. In your case, you may want to embed them under the Windows platform Hope that makes sense, let me know how you get on and if you have any other questions

Hey @djdaveoc22 🙌 Welcome to the community, time to put that cabinet to good use 🤩 Within LaunchBox, you can easily change the sorting by going to View from the top menu and then selecting Arrange By > Star Rating. Note that you may also want to go to Tools > Download > Update Community Star Ratings which will download community star ratings for all your games. Note that this sorting affects all of your different platforms within LaunchBox, however you can set a sort order on a per-playlist basis. Just edit the playlist, and under Sort Games By, you can choose a custom sort from there. For Big Box, there isn't a way to change the default sort order across all of your views like you can with LaunchBox. However, any playlists that you've created and the Sort Games By option that you've selected will be respected in Big Box. So if you want to view your arcade games by community star rating, I would suggest creating an auto-generated playlist, set the Sort Games By option, and then use that within Big Box To download themes directly from Big Box, under the System Menu go to Manage Themes. Here you'll see a list of LaunchBox-vetted themes that you can install directly from within Big Box. To download external themes manually, head to our themes section on our forum, download the theme that you want, and pop it into the Themes folder of your LaunchBox directory. Then you can manage them from the same Manage Themes section, much like any other theme. We recently hosted a stream all about themes in Big Box, if you want to learn more or give it a watch, I'm attaching the recording at the correct timestamp where we cover themes in more detail. Hope that helps, let us know if you have any questions and definitely let us know how your cab build gets on, would love to see how it turns out 🕹️

Hi Folks, Thanks for the updates there and for testing this out. I think we can safely assume my hypothesis was not correct, since what you're seeing in the task manager is normal. I'd like to move on to try and isolate certain feature sets that may / may not be causing the issue. @duerra, based on your observations of it happening shortly after closing a game, I am curious if you have LaunchBox's startup/shutdown screens enabled. If so, could you please temporarily disable them and see if the issue still happens? Tools > Options > GamePlay > Game Startup and then turn on Use Game Startup Screen Secondly, can you disable LaunchBox's notifications by going to (Tools > Options > General > Notifications) And then thirdly, can you please try disabling auto-store imports ( Tools > Manage > Storefronts) and then turn off Enable Automatic Imports On Startup Please turn these off one at a time, and see if any has any effect before disabling the next one so that we can identify which of these make a difference. Thanks for continuing to help us test this, please let me know how you get on

Yes, still very much in active development. We have an update that is nearly ready to come out of the oven, so expect some news on this very soon.

Hi @duerra Sorry for the dealyed response here, we've been using your video to try and narrow things down but unfortunately we're not able to reproduce this yet. We do have one hypothesis that I'm hoping you can help us test (and @Sbaby too). When LaunchBox opens a second window (e.g., the storefront manager, platform manager, etc.), this window takes precedence over the original LaunchBox window, and you cannot interact with it until this new window is closed. We've seen some instances in the past, where a second LaunchBox window may open but become hidden, preventing interaction with the first LaunchBox window until the hidden one is closed. While this doesn’t appear to be the case for you, it would be helpful to rule it out. Here’s an easy way to test: when LaunchBox becomes unresponsive, open the Task Manager and check the LaunchBox process. Normally, it will just display as “LaunchBox,” but if there is an additional LaunchBox window open on top, it will show as “LaunchBox (2).” Can you confirm if this happens when the issue occurs? If so, this might explain the unresponsiveness, and we can investigate further from there. Please let me know how it goes, and thank you for the detailed troubleshooting steps you’ve provided. We’ll get this sorted out!

Hi @AOR, thanks for the great question. LaunchBox is designed to be portable, so as long as you keep all your games, emulators, media etc within the `LaunchBox` directory, you can simply copy the entire LaunchBox folder over to your new machine and it should work just like the old one. If you have certain folders in different directories (i.e your games), then you can follow the same process, but you'll want to go to `Tools > Manage > Platform`, and then go to the `Folders` tab for each platform. There you can set the directory for your games and media folders. Let us know how you get on, if your setup isn't covered by the above 2 use cases, let us know and we'll see how we can advise further. Cheers,

Hi Folks, Following up on this thread to see if we can get this sorted. I know it's been a while since the last post, so just to confirm @Jabb3rJaw, did you manage to follow Joe's instructions with the full command line path for Dolphin. And if so, is the issue still occurring for you? For the other users who are experiencing this problem ( @Briantodd & @Next 1 Up 301 ), can you both please confirm: - What version of Dolphin you have installed? - What command line parameters you are using? - What error message is displayed when trying to Launch a game using Dolphin - Does the error occur when launching directly through Dolhin (not LaunchBox) - Can you follow Joe's instructions, and let us know if the issue still occurs for you Let us know and we'll try and get y'all sorted. Cheers,

Hi thanks for reporting this and apologies for the issues here. Would it be possible to get some examples of the types of changes that were rejected? We can use this to cross-reference where this is coming from. Feel free to PM me the details; the more info and examples we have on this, the better. Cheers,

Hi Folks, Thanks for reporting this and sorry for the issues here. I've tried to reproduce this on my side but unfortunately haven't had much luck so far. Can I confirm a few things to try to narrow this down? For those experiencing the issue, can you confirm: - When you talk about the games `lagging`, just to confirm you're referring to the performance of the actual games itself (choppyness, framerate etc) and not the amount of time it takes to actually load the game right? - If so, what does RetroArch or MAME's FPS counter show, is it showing it running at a reduced frame rate? - Is this consistent across any emulator that is launched through the game discovery centre, or does it only appear to affect games from a specific emulator (i.e MAME) - How about PC games (i.e names launched via Steam), do these experience similar issues - Can anyone provide a screen recording of the issue in action, showing both launching through the games discovery center and another view If anyone can confirm these details we'll try to narrow this down.

Hi Folks, Apologies for the delayed response here, thanks so much for the recent troubleshooting steps and repro video. Just to let you know I've collected all this info and we're trying our best to reproduce this on our end. We haven't had any luck so far but will keep trying and I'll reach out if we need any more info in the meantime. Thanks for bearing with us here while we try and nail this down, really appreciate it.