AstroBob

Hi there, Sorry for the issues here, please double-check check the email hasn’t ended up in your mail client's spam folder since this can sometimes happen. If it definately hasn’t arrived, please reach out to support@unbrokensoftware.com and they should be able to supply you with an installer. Cheers,

Hi there, thanks for the update. There are 2 known ways LaunchBox will not track time from a PC game. 1) If the game in question opens some sort of splash screen first before the game, or any other window before the actual game executable. This can sometimes trip up LaunchBox into thinking the application hasn't taken focus, which means it won't start tracking time. 2) If you use the LaunchBox startup screen, and this screen ends before the game has a chance to load, this means LaunchBox can sometimes regain focus before allowing the game to start, resulting in it not tracking time. Could you confirm if either of those applies to your use case? And if the latter does, can you try disabling LaunchBox's startup screen, and then seeing if it tracks time properly for you? Cheers

Thanks for the update, at this point we need to start trying to rule out what could be the cause here, starting with the controller itself. Do you happen to have another type of controller you could connect as your primary, and try launching Duckstation through LaunchBox. If the issue isn't present it may be something to do with the DualShock 4's controller mappings. Could you give that a try and let me know how you get on.

Hi there, can you confirm you don't have any shortcut set for the Exit Game short, under Options > Game Controllers > Shortcuts. You also mention this happens with Duckstation, does this issue also apply to other emulators? And finally? What sort of controller are you using? Let me know and we'll try and get you sorted

Hi there, I can't say when this was added back in since it's been a while, but testing this out just now, the enter key does indeed work to launch a game within LaunchBox. This has also always been the case with Big Box, but let me know if you're not seeing this and we'll see what we can do. Cheers,

Hi @DWhitlow thanks for reporting this. Unfortuantely 13.3 is a pretty old version of LaunchBox, so it's hard to say if this may be an issue that has been resolved in newer version. If possible, I'd highly recommend testing this on the latest version of LaunchBox. If you can't upgrade your current build, you can simply install a brand-new build on the latest 13.18. I'd be interested to know if the same issue is present on this version, and if so let me know and we'll try and get you sorted. Cheers,

Hi there, thanks for reporting this, may I confirm a few things to try and narrow this down? Is this the first time you're downloading RetroArch through LaunchBox? Can you confirm that there is not already a RetroArch directory in your LaunchBox > Emulators folder? Let us know and we'll try to get you sorted. Cheers,

Hi there, Thanks for the report here, could I please confirm a bit more information to try and understand what is happening here: For which platform does the playtime tracker not work? How are you importing those games for the affected platform? Does this affect all games imported through this process or only certain ones? If you can please confirm how to reliably reproduce this I'll run some tests on my ends to see whats up. Cheers,

Thanks for the update. If the emulator you’re using is RetroArch, please note that the controls configured there are separate from those set in Big Box, so you’ll need to configure them directly in RetroArch. Depending on your controller, RetroArch is generally quite good at recognizing most common controllers right out of the box. However, if it doesn’t, you can manually configure them using the guide below: • RetroArch Input and Controls Guide RetroArch’s configured controls will typically apply across all the platforms you use with it. However, it also allows you to make per-platform or per-game controller adjustments if needed.

LaunchBox is designed to be portable, allowing you to move your LaunchBox folder to another location or machine, and everything should work seamlessly. You can learn more about LaunchBox's portability and how to move it between PC's in our FAQ here. However, as you add more games and media to your library, the size of your LaunchBox build can grow quickly. In this guide, we’ll explore how to keep your build neat and tidy, saving space while maintaining functionality. Let’s get started! Games Games will most likely be the largest thing in your collection, especially with CD-based games, they can take up a lot of space. How you store games is very much down to personal preference, but if you're really short on space, here are some things you could try: 1. Compress ROMs and Extract Before Running Certain emulators, like RetroArch, allow you to store ROMs in compressed formats like .zip and extract them only when needed. Pros: Saves space for medium to large sized games. Cons: Extraction times can be noticeable for larger systems. To enable this: Go to Tools > Manage > Emulators, select RetroArch, and check the box for Extract ROMs Before Running. Note: Some systems such as Arcade come in a compressed format, but require that you do not extract them. 2. Use Compressed Formats for CD-Based Games CD-based games are notorious for being particularly large in file size. Common formats include ISO, which is an exact copy of an entire optical disk but often contains a lot of data that isn't required to play the game. If you do not intend to play these games on original hardware, you may want to look into compressing them, to allow for smaller file sizes whilst retaining all aspects of the game. Compressing CD-based systems is a whole other topic, and again, it comes down to personal taste and the emulators/systems you are using, so we won't cover them here, however as a starting place, a lot of users prefer .CHD files, as a way to save significant space. There's even a LaunchBox plugin from one of our community members that will convert games to .CHD for you, directly within LaunchBox! 3. Store Games in a Separate Location While it’s preferred to keep games within your LaunchBox directory for maximum portability, we understand not everyone wants to do this. During the import process, you can choose to leave games in their current location instead of moving them to the LaunchBox folder if you choose. Alternatively, if you decide you want to relocate games within your LaunchBox directory to an external one, here’s how you can do that: Highlight the desired games. Go to Tools > File Management > Change ROMs Folder Path for Selected Games. Follow the prompts to update file paths. Media Media files, like images and videos play a key role in LaunchBox’s design. However, with larger builds, the amount of images and videos can quickly build up. While this won’t impact performance, media types such as videos can quickly fill up space on disk, so it’s worth keeping an eye on them for those with smaller hard drives. Here’s some tips on how to manage them: 1. Limit Image Downloads Whenever you use LaunchBox's Download Meteadata and Media Wizard, take note of the Image download limit (per group). This limit indicates how many images (e.g., background, clear logos, screenshots, etc.) it will download for each group. It is generally recommended to keep this at 1, however you can increase this if you want. If an image group has more than one image available, it will choose the one to display based on region of the game file, or when that is unknown, your region priorities, when that image group is displayed in either LaunchBox or Big Box. Note: Remember that this limit applies to the image group, not individual image types. For example, Screenshot - Gameplay and Screenshot - Title Screen are part of the Screenshots image group. So, even if you select both options but set your limit to 1, it will only download one image. You can adjust the priority of these groups under Tools > Options > Media, and select the group priorities you'd like to adjust (premium required). 2. Only Download Media Types Used by Your Theme If your LaunchBox or Big Box themes only uses a few image types (e.g., box fronts, clear logos), avoid downloading extras like banners or 3D boxes as they will never be used by your themes. You can choose which media types to download during import. For example, the Default theme in Big Box only uses a combination of Box Front, Clear Logo, Background & Screenshot (+ Box Back & Spine if you use the 3D Model feature). Keeping a lean media set like this ensures you still get the most visually appealing presentation of your games, whilst cutting down on space. Note: Since you can technically use multiple themes for different parts of Big Box, just make sure you're only keeping media that is used by each of those themes. 3. Run Cleanup Media Whenever you delete a game from your LaunchBox library, the associated media is not automatically deleted along with it. Therefore, if you've been cleaning up your games or you've download an excess of media files, the Cleanup Media tool can help: Go to Tools > Clean Up Media. Select select the currently viewed platform, or all platforms. Select which media types to clean up (images, videos, music etc) Note: You also have the option to scan for duplicates with the Scan Images for Rough Matches option. This will intelligently scan your images for any duplicates, even if they are technically two different files (ie. not the same md5 hash). This will take a long time, so you won’t need to run this frequently, but it’s worth doing every once in a while. 4. Use the Audit Window You can use the Audit window to easily identify how much media you have per image group. Simply go to Tools > Audit and select either All Games or a specific Platform. You’ll be presented with a detailed view of all scanned games and their associated metadata. By scrolling to the right, you can see how many images each game has for each image group. Clicking on the column headers allows you to sort by any field. For example, if you accidentally downloaded multiple box arts for a game but only need one, you could sort by the Box - Front column, identify the games with the highest number of images, and edit them directly from this window to clean up their media. Tip: While you can't delete images across multiple games at once from this view, you can also remove images via your file explorer. Let's say for example I downloaded 3D boxes for all my games, but my theme doesn't use them. I can go into LaunchBox > Images, and then under each platform, looks for the Box - 3D folder, and delete it. Use caution when doing this, and make sure you know what you are deleting first. 5. Take Note of Video Quality Videos are the media type most likely to take up the most storage space in LaunchBox. While they look fantastic and add a distinct visual flair to your build, they also come with the largest file sizes. Videos can only be downloaded from EmuMovies. If you don’t need them, ensure you deselect videos during the media import process to save space. Additionally, some video types, such as Video - Gameplay, offer options for High Quality or Low Quality versions. Unless your theme features full-screen videos and you’re using a high-resolution display, the low-quality option should still provide satisfactory visuals while significantly reducing file size. Emulators Each emulator will often require, or create additional files that can quickly build up over time. While we can’t cover suggestions for every emulator out there, here are some common things to look out for and that you can try to keep your emulators neat and tidy: Texture Packs Higher-end emulators like Dolphin, PCSX2, Cemu and more give you the option to download and/or import high-resolution texture packs. These are normally quite large in file files, so you may want to clean these out for games that you are not playing regularly. Tip: You could even use a custom field in LaunchBox to mark which games have texture packs installed, and then create an auto-playlist to easily reference games as candidates to have their texture packs cleaned out Cache Files It’s quite common for higher-end emulators to cache certain pieces of information, either before or during gameplay, to ensure quicker access the next time you play. Common examples include shaders, which are generated either at runtime or as you play the game. The intention is to cache this information to improve performance and reduce loading times in subsequent sessions. Over time, these cache files can build up, but most emulators that generate these cache files, will also give you the option to clear them out. It can be handy to occasionally clear out caches for games you haven’t played in a while. For example, in RCPS3, simply right-click on a game, go to remove and then select Remove ALL Caches. Other emulators like Cemu have a similar option How to remove cache files in RCPS3 Saves & States Saves and save states for most lower-end systems are generally incredibly small in file-size, and so won’t take up a huge amount of space on disk. That said, you can use LaunchBox’s save management feature to identify saves and save states that are no longer in use, and even delete them directly from this interface. To learn more about how to do this, check out our article here: For larger systems (e.g RCPS3), save states are known to be particularly large in file size, so you may want to routinely clear out save states that are no longer in use. Themes Uninstall Unused Themes There is a treasure trove of themes available for Big Box, and the `Manage Themes` interface in Big Box allows you to easily download and install themes directly within the app. That said, some themes are beefy in size, and when you've made the decision that a theme just isn't for you, remembering to delete it will save you that extra needed space. In Big Box: Go to System Settings > Manage Themes. Here you'll see a section for all your installed themes, with the option to uninstall any unused ones. The same applies to Startup & Pause Themes, you can follow the same process under the Manage Startup Themes and Manage Pause Themes section. For LaunchBox themes: Go to Tools > Manage > LaunchBox Themes. Follow the same process to uninstall any themes not in active use System Files Remove previous update/beta installers Whenever you update to a newer version of LaunchBox (including betas), the installer for this version is downloaded to your LaunchBox > Updates directory. These installations are not automatically deleted from here, just in case users need to revert to a previous version. If you've been using LaunchBox for a while and never looked at this directory, you may have quite a few redundant installers in there. Each one of these installers can be upwards of 300+MB, so if you don't have any need for them, you can safely delete them Remove unwanted backups LaunchBox automatically keeps up to 25 backups of your Data directory, which stores all the metadata for your library. These are located at LaunchBox > Backups and while these backups are generally small in file size, if you have a very large library, you may want to periodically clean out older backups to save space. Warning: It is highly recommended to keep at least one backup of your LaunchBox directory in case you need to restore it in the future. Ensure you understand the implications before deleting any backups, and double-check that you won’t need them later. Double Warning: You can disable LaunchBox’s automatic backup feature by navigating to Options > Data > Backups and unchecking Automatically back up the LaunchBox XML data files. However, this is not recommended. Only disable this option if you are confident in your ability to manage backups manually and are regularly creating your own backups. Summary By implementing these strategies, you can keep your LaunchBox build lean and efficient: Optimize game storage with compression or external locations. Limit media downloads and clean up unused files. Regularly maintain emulator folders and themes. Remove redundant install files. Taking a little time to manage your build can go a long way in ensuring smooth performance and saving precious storage space. Have more tips? Share them in the comments! 🎮

100% can resonate with this, I've been playing Sonic Adventure 2 for 14 years and only just realised on a recent playthrough that you can switch between Shadow & Sonic in the final boss... 🤦

Hi there, Thanks for your question! The controls customized and mapped in Big Box are specifically for navigating the Big Box interface and are not tied to your games. If the controls aren’t working within your game, you’ll need to customize and set them within the game itself or the emulator that the game uses. If you can provide more details about the type of game you’re trying to play, we’ll be happy to advise you on the best way to set this up. Cheers,

Hi Folks, Thanks for reporting this, this is a known issue in 13.18 as the Use Emulator to paly this game is incorrectly being checked when doing these types of imports. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve confirmed this behaviour, and it is indeed a bug. We’ve address it internally and it will be available in our upcoming beta. In the meantime, for storefront games, it’s recommended to use storefront importers. For standalone .exe files, you can uncheck the Use emulator to play this game option after importing. I understand this is far from an ideal solution in the short term, and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused. I’ll keep you updated as soon as the fix is available. Cheers,

Hi @ChunkyLoverMark thanks for the update. There were some issues around this release regarding importing Arcade over NAS, so apologies if that caused any confusion there. As you can see though, right now we don't supported importing Arcade platform games over a network drive, due to some of the dependency files that arcade games can require. It's hard to say right now how long and if we'll find an elegant solution to this, so my suggestion would beto import those locally for now. Apologies for any confusion caused there. Cheers,

Hi there, Please reach out to support@unbrokensoftware.com with your name and email address and the team will be able to get this sorted for you. Cheers,

Thanks for the kind words, we’re glad to hear you’ve been enjoying the experience. Best of luck with your build, and do let us know if you get stuck or have any questions along the way!

Thanks Mark, yes that is our bad. Bit of a miscommunication on our side with the release notes. I'll look to get these release notes updated so thanks for pointing that out. Give me a shout if you have any further questions.

Hi @Xyb0t thanks for the details report here and apologies for the issues caused here. We have just released a new beta for Android, details on which can be found here: There were a bunch of changes made there, which may inadvertently affected this. Can you please let me know if you see this issue on the latest beta? If so, let me know and we'll try to nail this down for you. Cheers,

Hi there, Thanks for giving that a try and reporting this issue. That's very strange, as I know a lot of our users are running S2 Ultra's but haven't seen anything like this yet. I'm curious, as a test would it be possible to confirm if this happens on a fresh install of the app? I'd love to know if there's something in your specific data, or a larger issue that is causing this. Please let me know and we'll get you sorted. Cheers,

Hi @ChunkyLoverMark, Thanks for reporting this! I think you might be partially right here. From what I’m observing, when following your steps to choose a new box art, it seems the thumbnail of the image in the metadata editing window isn’t properly updating. However, if you back out to your game view, the new box art does appear to be correctly applied and shown there. It looks like the issue is limited to the thumbnail preview in the edit metadata window not consistently updating. That said, I’ve noticed it sometimes does update correctly, but not always. Can you confirm if you’re seeing the same behavior on your end?

Hi @ChunkyLoverMark, thanks for the updates there. At this point, it’s hard to say exactly what is causing this issue, as we aren’t able to reproduce it on our end. However, we do receive these crash reports automatically, and our Android developer has been making adjustments to address some unrelated issues that might also improve things in this case. We’re expecting to release another version of the Android app relatively soon. Would it be okay to hold off until that version is available? Once it’s out, please let me know if the issue still persists. If it’s still occurring, let me know, and we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Cheers,

Hi @ChunkyLoverMark, Thanks for the question. This setting is actually directly linked to Android's default screen timeout and is just a quick way to be able to change this from within LaunchBox. When you first try to change this setting, your device should ask you to confirm LaunchBox can Modify System settings. If you didn't allow this, go to the Android App Info for LaunchBox, and then under Advanced you should see the option for Modify system settings. you'll need to set that to Allowed and then you can modify the screen-timeout time from within LaunchBox. Hope that helps to clarify, give me a shout if that isn't working for you. Cheers,

Hey, thanks for the report. We weren't able to reproduce the exact behaviour you're describing, but we've been fixing a few things under the hood that may in-directly impact this. We should have a new version of the app out very soon. When that version is released, could you please see if the issue persists and let us know? If it is still happening, can you please let us know what device you are using this on and which version of Android it's running? Cheers,

Hi @Whatscheiser thanks for the thorough investigation here. We've done some digging on our end and after some internal investigation, we’ve identified the cause of the issue. The image priority displayed in this pane is actually hard-coded to provide the cleanest images out-of-the-box, and to prioritize the following, in order: Storefront Screenshots Background (according to your image priorities) Gameplay Screenshot It seems that in recent versions, the priorities of gameplay - screenshot and background images were inadvertently switched, which is why you’re seeing this change. We’ve corrected this internally, so you can expect it to behave as it used to in our next beta release. I’ll let you know as soon as that goes live. Thanks for your patience while we worked through this! Cheers,

Hi @Mr. Shizzy, After some internal investigation, we’ve identified the cause of the issue. I’m assuming you’re referring to the logo and image displayed in the game details pane on the right-hand side of LaunchBox. The image priority displayed in this pane is actually hard-coded to provide the cleanest images out-of-the-box, and to prioritize the following, in order: Storefront Screenshots Background (according to your image priorities) Gameplay Screenshot It seems that in recent versions, the priorities of gameplay - screenshot and background images were inadvertently switched, which is why you’re seeing this change. We’ve corrected this internally, so you can expect it to behave as it used to in our next beta release. I’ll let you know as soon as that goes live. Thanks for your patience while we worked through this! Cheers,