Sepulchre

Question, are we finite or infinite? If we are finite, how can we truly grasp the infinite. Our eyes only see so far. Our minds can only comprehend so much. We are constantly learning more and more each and everyday (if we choose to). If we are to fully comprehend God in absolute sense, then God is under the domain of our natural senses and not truly omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I think the biggest hurdle for some people is to willingly submit to God out of love in good faith. If we cannot escape the laws of physics, why do we try to escape the laws of spirit? The banana argument does not "prove" God's existence, nor does it disprove it. However, I disagree with FistyDollars and kerszr. Just because God does not present everything on a silver platter in absolute perfection does not prove the absence of God's existence or God's love. I could rationally say that God provides us with the raw materials, but we must provide the labor, specifically, the fruit of the Spirit (e.g., love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, etc). Now, why would God do that some may ask? Physical perfection is not the ultimate goal; spiritual perfection is the goal. God uses that which is physically imperfect to shape us into closer approximations of spiritual perfection. Being in a state of longing is very powerful and should not be seen as a punishment. For example, I get more out of a video game's journey (sense of progression) and the longing of a video game's ending then I do the actual ending itself! Enjoy the journey. I believe the real issue at hand is that some people have a hard time understanding and rationalizing that God is good and the definition of "good." I have no problem whatsoever! However, it is obvious that there are those who are "blind" in a sense. Please do not take the term "blind" as an insult. I must admit, growing up it was hard for me to understand how people can honestly say they cannot understand and/or rationalize God's existence and God's love without thinking they were deceitfully and pure evil. Only recently have I learned how people are greatly shaped by their upbringing and their environment. Hopefully this remotely answers your question.

Maybe that would explain why Hyperspin starts up faster than BigBox, because it only loads up the "Main Menu.xml" that only lists the platforms, not everything else. Likewise, it could explain why transitions between platform menu items are snappier as well (clear logos with game video backgrounds theme). For those of us with very large collections, tens of thousands of games, splitting up the XML could potentially provide a significant increase in performance (just a hypothesis).

I find the VLC engine superior (minus the bugs of course), because coverflow performance is much smoother than WMP on my system. Even though WMP is stable, the coverflow animation is too choppy and comes off as an eyesore. Windows 10 x64 i5-2500 12GB RAM HD 5770 ATI (AMD) Radeon 7200 RPM HDD

I was scrolling through different games in the coverflow with details theme, and BigBox suddenly crashed with that error.

Hello, BigBox crashed with the following error: System.NullReferenceException: Image = Meta.Vlc.Wpf.ThreadSeparatedImage, Image.SeparateThreadDispatcher = , ThreadSeparatedImage.CommonDispatcher = System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines)

Posting this error here as well as Higan's VLC thread just in case: System.NullReferenceException: Image = Meta.Vlc.Wpf.ThreadSeparatedImage, Image.SeparateThreadDispatcher = , ThreadSeparatedImage.CommonDispatcher = System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines) This error crashed BigBox and occurred in v6.9-beta-4 in the coverflow with details theme.

After further testing of BigBox v6.9-beta-2, BigBox is crashing with the following error: System.InvalidOperationException: VlcPlayer not be ready, if you want to use VlcPlay no in XAML, please read this Wiki: "https://github.com/higankanshi/Meta.Vlc/wiki/Use-VlcPlayer-with-other-controls". at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines)

As of beta v6.9-beta-2, BigBox crashed in the coverflow w/ details theme during attract mode with the following error: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr , IntPtr& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoLockCallback(IntPtr opaque, IntPtr& planes) I also noticed several instances where the video frame played an overscanned preview of the video with the right and bottom sides cutoff. Here is an example:

Hello, Testing the VLC engine in BigBox v6.8-beta-8 occasionally crashes BigBox when browsing platforms and games. It produces these errors: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr , IntPtr& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoLockCallback(IntPtr opaque, IntPtr& planes) //... and the following code.. // System.InvalidOperationException: VlcPlayer not be ready, if you want to use VlcPlay no in XAML, please read this Wiki: "https://github.com/higankanshi/Meta.Vlc/wiki/Use-VlcPlayer-with-other-controls". at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines) I have noticed that coverflow performance is much smoother with the VLC engine, but game videos are still missing at times.. WMP is playable but not ideal. The great thing about WMP is that it does not crash.

After watching the developer session, I realized I had only been using the VLC engine, not WMP. I thought changing to WMP in Launchbox also made the change in BigBox. I thought it was weird getting a VLC error in "WMP." After manually changing to WMP in BigBox, there have been no missing videos, audio looping, or crashes. Everything seems to load just fine using WMP in BigBox v6.8-beta-6. Thank you!

I have a relatively large library as well. For me, BigBox slows down significantly when moving through the different letters (A-Z) in the quick search (coverflow w/ details), not the full search. I cannot quickly move from letter to letter without significant pauses between many letters. Platforms can have between 700-1300 games and have fan art as the background and game videos enabled. Does BigBox need to cache the different letter "bookmarks" to transition smoothly? Windows 10 x64 i5-2500 12GB DDR3 7200RPM HDD

@Jason Carr - Thank you for making this issue a priority. I appreciate it! Here are my findings: I have tested v6.8-beta-3 with both VLC and WMP using the same browsing process as before (quickly changing platform background videos in the systems view and game videos in the coverflow w/ details theme) for about 30 minutes. Good news: There has been no audio looping from the videos in either VLC or WMP. The last video cuts off completely when starting the current video. Bad news: Sometimes a game video will not show and play on a selected game in the coverflow w/ details theme. I have to "refresh" it by going to another game and returning back to the game with the missing video for the video to show and play. BigBox consistently crashed four times with the same error log ( 3x w/ VLC, 1x w/ WMP) System.InvalidOperationException: VlcPlayer not be ready, if you want to use VlcPlay no in XAML, please read this Wiki: "https://github.com/higankanshi/Meta.Vlc/wiki/Use-VlcPlayer-with-other-controls". at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& ) at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines) I hope this helps.

I think I may know how to trigger the audio looping. When moving to the next platform or game video, immediately change again (right before the video starts) to the next video . Repeating this process, one right after the other, seems to trigger the looping, for me at least. This affects both platform background videos and regular game videos.

Here is a video as an example. Because I have a very slow upload rate, I did not record to the point of BigBox crashing. I apologize in advance for the poor framerate of the video, and the fact the audio and video are out of sync. I am not sure what screen recorder to use. https://youtu.be/AtT38orUu2U

@Jason Carr: I am using game videos as the background for platforms and using game videos for the coverflow with details view in the default video frame view (they are not used as background videos). The audio loops on both the platforms view (game videos as background) and games view (game videos in default view frame of the coverflow w/ details theme).