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I didn't realize your performance issues were only with the MAME platform. Something must really be causing LB/BB issues there then. Just removing and reimporting the games won't help if it's at all related to any of you custom metadata and/or image files. As a test you might trying simply installing LB to a brand new folder and importing MAME to it "normally". If that doesn't cause any performance issues, and I don't think it will, then at least you have an option. Also, leaving LB run overnight doesn't help it cache. It only caches when scrolling through the games, and a little time after, but not hours.

From what I've found, you need to delete all but one box art of the same kind if you want to force just one specific one to show. I think it's supposed to show the art with highest region priority so maybe that is another way to deal with it. For me, I just make sure I have only one front box for each game.

I think this may be a @Jason Carr level issue.

I didn't read the entire post, but LB/BB will seem slow when it's caching the image art. In LB you must actually scroll through EVERYTHING manually to get it all cached. For BB there is a setting to force the cache. In both cases it takes time, but once it's done, performance should be fine. Can it auto cache automatically for everything until done -> no it doesn't. Do I wish it would -> yes, i do, but it doesn't. It used to a very long time ago when I first started using LB, but since certain performance improvements were made, you must manually scroll. If you want to know if LB is still caching files, you can open up task manager, click the resource monitor, then watch the disk usage WRITES for processes launchbox.exe and bigbox.exe. If it shows it's doing writes to Launchbox\images\cache then it is still caching. It can take time to force all the image caching, but once done, I've found things work well.

Nothing is being lost and the images don't disappear. Maybe you have more than one front box file for some games for example, and you set LB to show the front box, but it randomly changes. I have seen that, but you shouldn't have more than one front box for one game in this example. If you see something like that, it's best to edit game and delete the front box art images that you don't want and just keep one front box image. This is just an example. I can assure that if you don't have any funny business going on, your images are not going to randomly change or disappear. This type of thing is usually caused by some changes the user doesn't realize they are making. Edit. The xml files inside your Launchbox\Data folder is where all this stuff gets stored.

Master

The imports go to the platform xmls files. So for example, your ps1 game should be added to your LaunchBox\Data\Platforms\Sony Playstation.xml file sort of like this: <Game> <ApplicationPath>..\Arcade\Sony Playstation\roms\Silhouette Mirage (USA).cue</ApplicationPath> <CommandLine /> <Completed>false</Completed> <ConfigurationCommandLine /> <ConfigurationPath /> <DateAdded>2016-10-17T08:31:17.5343615-07:00</DateAdded> <DateModified>2016-10-17T08:31:17.5343615-07:00</DateModified> <Developer>Treasure</Developer> <DosBoxConfigurationPath /> <Emulator>9b1063f5-8680-4e3b-986a-4af176f1bd24</Emulator> <Favorite>false</Favorite> <ID>c83af880-3480-4d7f-b379-34cea8d30a4b</ID> <ManualPath /> <MusicPath /> <Notes>In an apocalyptic future, the Edo computer has gone beserk, dividing the world's inhabitants into two mutant classes, Silhouette and Mirage. Now, the watchguard computer safety system has sent forth the Messenger of Justice to travel to Edo and repair the damage before the world is lost forever. As the Messenger, Shyna Nera Shyna, blast, beat, and bash your way through seven wild and bizarre stages using friendly parasite weapons to aid your advance against wacky enemies, huge fully-animated bosses, and devilishly difficult obstacles. Providing the utmost in playability and replayability, the game wizards at Treasure, the brilliant minds behinds such international hits as Gunstar Heroes™, Dynamite Headdy™, Mischief Makers™, and Guardian Heroes™ have come up with another sure-fire classic that pushes the 2-D capabilities of your PlayStation® game console to its limit, and come up with a hit!</Notes> <Platform>Sony Playstation</Platform> <Publisher>Spaz (Working Designs)</Publisher> <Rating>E - Everyone</Rating> <ReleaseDate>1999-12-31T00:00:00-08:00</ReleaseDate> <RootFolder /> <ScummVMAspectCorrection>false</ScummVMAspectCorrection> <ScummVMFullscreen>false</ScummVMFullscreen> <ScummVMGameDataFolderPath /> <ScummVMGameType /> <SortTitle /> <Source /> <StarRatingFloat>0</StarRatingFloat> <StarRating>0</StarRating> <CommunityStarRating>2</CommunityStarRating> <CommunityStarRatingTotalVotes>3</CommunityStarRatingTotalVotes> <Status>Imported ROM</Status> <DatabaseID>13611</DatabaseID> <WikipediaURL /> <Title>Silhouette Mirage</Title> <UseDosBox>false</UseDosBox> <UseScummVM>false</UseScummVM> <Version /> <Series /> <PlayMode>Single Player</PlayMode> <Region>North America</Region> <PlayCount>0</PlayCount> <Portable>false</Portable> <VideoPath /> <Hide>false</Hide> <Broken>false</Broken> <Genre>Action;Shooter</Genre> </Game> So, after you import the game, you can search the xml file for this game while LB is still running and see if it got written to that file. But then make sure you close the xml file. Then close LB and check the file again. If it's still in there, it should remain on next launch. At least this should give you some ideas on where to start looking.

When you escape with controller automation, 'persona 4 ultimax.exe' should automatically close. If it doesn't you can kill it with an additional app that runs after game exit, which can just be a simple command or batch file to exit/kill the process, including cryptserver.exe if necessary

maybe @neil9000 can give the step by step for that, but it's basically just importing the game file 'persona 4 ultimax.exe' and then edit the game choosing Additional Applications tab and add cryptserver.exe as a before game app

Reboot and try again.

or you could fix the Invalid character in given encoding line 1 position 1 in sony playstation.xml if it's obvious. my line 1 looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

that's a bummer. have you tried setting only one controller in LB and BB controller settings instead of setting to all controllers?

This is usually solved by adding a ahk script to the LB emulator settings in the emulator tab. It looks like this: $Esc:: { Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}} }

if you just need to run cryptserver.exe (like double clicking it) and then you just double click the file 'persona 4 ultimax.exe' , then just have the LB game set for running 'persona 4 ultimax.exe' , then edit the game choosing Additional Applications tab and add cryptserver.exe as a before game app. That would launch cryptserver.exe and then would launch 'persona 4 ultimax.exe'. As long as that's all you need, that should work.

describe what you do manually to run the game, then it can be replicated via script

you dont have to remove anything or tweak the settings so it's not as pretty if you use a capable drive. keep the bling - that's what's cool about LB/BB in the first place!

yeah i'd suggest you play some games when the emulator and roms are on your usb flash to make sure you dont see weirdness and/or stutters and that you can still upscale as much as you do on the hard drive, of course for BB and LB, make sure you fully cache your images before you try anything at all. you can use resource monitor to see when LB/BB is done caching.

i wouldn't get a WD SSD. samsung and intel have the best ssd controllers by far. samsung=you are safe

I've not tried an SDcard, but I think the issue described was using a usb flash drive. I found several emulators didn't work well at all with a "fast" usb flash drive due to the file caching it was doing with temp files, and BB didn't run well either due to the flash. I didn't try to remove all the cool LB/BB stuff to see if that helped the LB/BB aspect because my goal was to use it with all its coolness since it would be running on capable systems. But even if I optimized LB/BB settings for a usb flash drive (assuming any settings would make much impact there), it wouldn't work because of emulators like PCSX2 and others. I suppose if you just want to run the older games with RA, it might be possible to tweak things so BB and the older game emulators works ok on usb flash drive. If no media writes are going on, it should be ok. But after seeing what I saw with usb flash drives, I don't want anything to do with using those for emulation, unless they get much better, or unless it's something like a samsung t5.

hmm i use xbox one s with microsoft wireless usb dongle and do not have any such issue.

you are right. that is annoying. i tried it like below also since notepad.exe is a real application. eventually, the emulator runs before you close the notepad file and exiting notepad.exe application path: C:\Windows\notepad.exe application command line parameters: C:\Temp\test.txt Edit: I hope @Jason Carr will fix this or shed some light with a workaround. it seems to take more than 15 seconds for me to see the emulator launch.

I have major troubles using either of my Logitech wireless keyboards with integrated touchpad (one of the keyboards is a very nice higher end one too) with LB/BB on my HTPC running Win10. I've learned to live with it. It could be the Logitech devices fault, but who knows. I know some people on the forums have used at least one model wireless logitech with no issues. I try not to use my htpc wireless logitech keyboard and touchpad at all when BB is open (LB is almost unusable if I open it). So just use my usb xbox 360 controller. Also, when I first started using LB/BB, I was running Xpadder as well as LB/BB controller settings for xbox xinput. That was causing erratic behavior like double inputs. I don't know if you have any controller apps running, but if you do, you might try disabling those controller related apps as a test. You could also try messing with LB/BB settings like the disable mouse setting, don't set to use all controllers, etc. Something might help.

I had the same exact idea by putting a small subset onto a portable usb device. BUT, I found that LB/BB and emulators do not run well at all on a usb flash, not even a usb 3.1 flash!! I tried many of the more expensive usb 3.0 and 3.1 flash keys (I returned them all). They suck ass because of the writes that happen from LB/BB and from emulators. These small flash drives have horrible ssd controllers, so they are not good for this sadly. I ended up moving my portable LB folder to an old usb 3.0 500GB portable 2.5" hard drive and everything runs great that way. I think the only way you will get things to work well on flash storage is if you use a real external SSD and controller, like a Samsung T5 (link below). The T5 is has a quality controller and flash storage. It's almost as small as a flash key, but not quite, and most sadly requires a cable to connect rather than a direct usb key-like connection. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T5-Portable-SSD-MU-PA250B/dp/B073H552FK This flash drive should rock your emulator world. Eventually they may make quality flash key ssd drives, but not today. ps: @cleverest , i saw the same issue you described when I tried using usb key-type flash drives. after investigating, i found it was from the writes that were taking place. edit: also note that I never even tried using videos on the flash drive setup to keep the storage usage down

I'm really hoping 1 or 2 of the items on Lordmonkus' "little things" list will be tackled for this release. I'm most interested in those things.

you should probably post screenshots of your Launchbox emulator setup, and for one of your games with right click edit game option.