Lordmonkus

Just tested the latest version from the website and what I posted back on the first page still works perfectly for me. Maybe you got 1 of the boxes on the edit emulator window checked and that is interfering.

Try checking your task manager to see if there is an instance of LB already running. Kill the process and reload LB if there is.

I edited it to fix it.

Yeah, pretty much. This is not a LB issue, this is a Windows issue, file paths that long throws Windows for a loop. You can look into this though for a potential fix: https://www.howtogeek.com/266621/how-to-make-windows-10-accept-file-paths-over-260-characters/

Indeed, this would get abused to hell and back. I can just see people buying up licenses at 5$ US and reselling them for 10 - 15$ costing Jason a lot of money in lost legitimate sales.

That is weird, I downloaded the update earlier today in about 5 minutes on my awful 12 Mbit internet.

Version 8.4 - Released August 13, 2018 - New Premium Feature: Platform, playlist, and platform category-specific background music is now available in Big Box! Enable it in the Big Box Sound options and place your music in the LaunchBox\Music\Background\Platforms\[Platform Name], LaunchBox\Music\Background\Playlists\[Playlist Name], and LaunchBox\Music\Background\Platform Categories\[Platform Category Name] folders. - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now has a new Options window with a bunch of box configuration options for premium users: Background Opacity, Colorize Backgrounds to Match Images, Text Outline Opacity, Text Outline Thickness, and Align Text - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now has full controller support - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next game hover icons have been implemented - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next custom spacing options have been implemented - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next box image and cache optimizations and performance improvements - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now has a small progress bar at the top to show when images are caching in the background - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now obeys the default background settings properly - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now resets to the default background when changing to a new platform/filter - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now works with clear logo backgrounds - Improvement: Show Versions has been implemented in LaunchBox.Next - Improvement: The LaunchBox.Next list view now retains its sorting on refresh and between filters - Improvement: "Use Random Color Theme On Startup" has been implemented in LaunchBox.Next - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next will now jump to the new game when a new game is added - Improvement: A maximum width has been added to the LaunchBox.Next side bar in order to prevent issues with it being too large - Improvement: Music playback has now been implemented in LaunchBox.Next - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now contains a volume control in the bottom right - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now obeys the "Colorize Game Dividers" option - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now obeys the "Colorize Scrollbars" option - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now obeys the "Colorize Background Fade" option - Improvement: New option in LaunchBox.Next for centering the text - Improvement: New option in LaunchBox.Next for showing or hiding the subline - Improvement: Added automatic music and background music support for .sid, .ac3, .alac, .amr, .dts, .xm, .it, .mod, .ape, .opus, .qcp, .nsf, and .spc file formats. These formats were previously playable by LaunchBox and Big Box but not automatically picked up when searching for music files. - Improvement: LaunchBox.Next now has an option to return to the OG interface, and the OG interface now prompts the user to try LaunchBox.Next, with options to always use .Next or stop prompting as well - Improvement: The "Minimize on Game Launch" and "Restore on Game Exit" options have been implemented in LaunchBox.Next - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next was not resetting to the default image group when switching to All Games or any filter that does not have a specific image group specified - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next "Search" field is now translated - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next exiting issues while switching to Big Box - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next disappearing boxes bug - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next possible Options freeze - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next stability issues, most prominently when launching games - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next side bar combo box and search box not sizing properly for custom fonts - Fixed: Playlists are now sorted properly via the playlist's sort settings in LaunchBox.Next - Fixed: Occasional multi-select issues with games not being unselected in LaunchBox.Next - Fixed: Rare Big Box threading null reference errors - Fixed: Rare splash screen threading error - Fixed: Rare image format error in Big Box Coverflow - Fixed: French translation error on deleting games from a playlist - Fixed: Greek translation error in Add/Edit dialog - Fixed: LaunchBox.Next videos playing in the background while playing games

It is still meant to mimic a PVM/BVM though and not a CRT computer monitor. I don't know of any shaders that are meant to do that, though of course I don't know if one exists or not. One trick I was just messing around with is you could try a scaling pass of the stock.glsl shader and change the vertical resolution to 480 and then apply a CRT effect after in 2nd pass, that might give the desired look you are after. Here is a couple of screenshots of Sonic using the crt-aperture shader. The first one is the stick crt-aperture and the 2nd is with a scaling pass first that renders the image at 480 before applying the crt-aperture pass. It certainly is not perfect and has some artifacting like some lines being improperly spaced but it is a proof of concept that maybe could be refined further. Make sure to view both images at 100% size to get the full effect. Here is the shader I slapped together quickly if you want to try it out, simply drop it in your Retroarch\shaders\shaders_glsl\crt folder and load it like any other preset. crt-aperture-480p.glslp

Royale and the Kurozumi edit of Royale are both built for 4K displays but they are meant to mimic a high quality CRT TV or PVM not a CRT monitor.

I very rarely use SweetFX / Reshade anymore and never in Retroarch.

Removing the jumping sound does seem to get rid of that "popping" sound that happens. I guess there is something going on with that sound effect that causes it to make a loud pop every so often. As for the shader differences with Castlevania and Metroid goes i'm not sure what to say other than with Castlevania the shader looks correct, the scanlines are the proper size but with Metroid using the same shader it has the same look as when used with a 480p game (N64 and Dreamcast). Here are some screenshots to show this off.These 2 Castlevania shots are using the stock crt-aperture shader. This Metroid shot is showing the stock crt-aperture shader, same as the Castlevania shots. Notice the scanlines are thinner and there are more of them. This last Metroid shot is crt-aperture but with a 240p "descale" pass applied before the crt effect pass. It shows the scanlines in line with how they look in the Castlevania shots.

I definitely get pops in both but they are less common in the stand alone version of Mesen. I was hoping to eliminate or reduce them in RA by changing some settings like increasing audio latency and disabling Hard GPU Sync but that made no difference. Overall performance though is perfect, there is zero frame loss or skip and no other audio glitches than the occasional pop. I don't know if this is something that can be fixed in the pack itself or I just need to get a better CPU.

Do you know what scale the MegaMan and Castlevania packs are using ? Because those 2 look great and play perfectly with CRT shaders. I don't want to come off as being critical of your pack here because I think it looks amazing but my personal tastes lie more in line with the amount of enhancement the MegaMan and Castlevania ones do. They upgrade the graphics without going too far like some of the other packs do, Nuts & Milk and Super Mario packs for example go too far and clean to the point of looking like cheap flash versions of the game. Your pack actually looks perfect when "descaled" back down to 240p using a shader though that does cause a couple of minor graphical issues like cutting off certain parts of menu text. Doing some testing I have found the sound issues are in both the stand alone and RA core and it usually happens when I jump. I'm gonna play around a bit more with some stuff to see if I can find a setting to make it not do it.

@Aclectico this Metroid pack is only scaling 2x ? it looks way too good to be that low, I was expecting it to be more like 4 or 8x. In my experience Retroarch versions of emulators tend to require a bit more CPU than the stand alone so that probably has something to do with it and my CPU while it is fairly capable it is not the best for emulation. I have an AMD 8350 @ 4GHz and it does get the job done for the most part though I do find it to be right on the edge of performance requirements for certain things like Saturn using the Beetle core vs stand alone Mednafen for example and with Mesen using the more intensive hdpacks.

Shaders will look different than normal with this pack because it is scaling the image and how much it scales depends on the pack. MegaMan and Castlevania only scale it 2x I believe and it looks like the Metroid one is scaling it much higher, maybe 8x so that really impacts the look of a CRT shader. I used a "descaling" shader pass to bring it back to 240p before applying the CRT effect, here is a couple of example screenshots. This one above is just the CRT-Aperture shader alone with the hdpacks scaling, you can see how the scanlines are thin and there is a lot of them. This one is the same CRT-Aperture shader but with a "descaling" pass first that scales the image back down to 240 before applying the CRT effect. You can see the scanlines are thicker and there are fewer of them, it looks like how it would with a normal NES game.

Even with my stripped down 2200 game setup of LB I noticed a performance boost, it's screaming fast now, practically instant. In fact performance might even be too fast now, on my full setup if I press and hold an arrow key on the keyboard to scroll it will keep scrolling when I let go of the keyboard if I hold it down for a few seconds. Not sure if this is a new bug or not but I updated my full LB setup and noticed with the default spacing settings the 2nd line of text in the game name is cut off.

Metroid pack has been released, this one is quite taxing on the CPU. On my AMD 8350 @4 GHz I get some audio popping using the Retroarch core but the stand alone is much better. https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0

Where is your mame.ini file located ? If it isn't located in the main folder where the mame executable file is located try moving it there. I don't know if that would be the cause of the issue you are describing but it has caused other problems.

You know we have a whole thread dedicated to the latest beta ?

Are there supposed to be 2 of these threads and uploads ?

Just the same hints I have posted in several places before. Have the correct bios and either put them in \roms folder of your Mame install or add the location of the bios to the paths in the mame.ini and use the correct command line.

The latest beta is fully functional. Once Jason gets the last couple of major bugs worked out it will get an official update.

But then it wouldn't be Aracde 64, it would just be normal Mame which already exists.

Did you spell the Associated Platform the same as your platform in LB ? Mattel only has 1 l in it.

This is in the latest betas.