Special T

Thank you for responding and for the width information. Do you have any pictures of the bartop arcades you've built? I was thinking about building the bartop myself. I've watched a few videos and read a few articles online... it doesn't seem too complicated but I would need to purchase some power tools because all I have is a miter saw and a drill. What resources (websites / books) did you use when you built your first arcade?

I saw Jason's video of his children playing the bar-top arcade and I thought that would be something fun for my family. So for anyone that owns or has played a bartop arcade, is there enough room for 2 adults to play comfortably? It will most likely be my children playing but I was hoping to get my wife involved as well. My only other thought would be to space out the controls for more elbow room (similar to the image below) but I think that is just a mock up I haven't seen anyone make a bartop arcade like that except for the image I referenced below.

I typically don't convert everything to png unless it makes sense for example, I've tried to convert several jpg images into png's but they tend to be larger in size so no reason to convert them. However, bmp files which some emulators use when capturing screen shots compress very well when converting to png and can be reduced in size by 50-75%... at least on the tests I've done using Sega Genesis & 32x images. Anyway, I ran some tests this morning to see which program is better PNGGauntlet or XnConvert. I didn't have any bmp image files to test so I just used png images I found on my hard drive. ========== Test #1 ========== I used 107 different png screenshots taken of Shining Force III for Sega Saturn and ran them through each program. PNGGauntlet Tested Using Default Settings - Time: 20 Minutes - File Size: reduced in size by 1,531,904 bytes (Original: 15,978,496 bytes - Compressed: 14,446,592 bytes) XnConvert Tested Using Minimum Compression (level 1) - Time: 6 Seconds - File Size: the files actually increased in size by 3,678,208 bytes (Original: 15,978,496 bytes - Compressed: 19,656,704 bytes) XnConvert Tested Using Maximum Compression (level 9) - Time: 60 Seconds - File Size: the files actually increased in size by 364,544 bytes (Original: 15,978,496 bytes - Compressed: 16,343,040 bytes) ========== Test #2 ========== I tried another test using 96 different png screenshots taken of various Sega 32X games and ran them through each program. PNGGauntlet Tested Using Default Settings - Time: 8 Minutes - File Size: reduced in size by 573,440 bytes (Original: 8,130,560 bytes - Compressed: 7,557,120 bytes) XnConvert Tested using minimum compression (level 9) - Time: 18 Seconds - File Size: the files actually increased in size by 450,560 bytes (Original: 8,130,560 bytes - Compressed: 8,581,120 bytes) ========== Conclusion ========== XnConvert Pros: Extremely easy to use (drag & drop), allows for batch conversions between various image formats, & fast XnConvert Cons: Doesn't appear to reduce file size or compress png images PNGGauntlet Pros: Extremely easy to use (drag & drop) and won't increase file size i.e. it will either reduce file size of that image or leave it in it's original format if converting increases file size PNGGauntlet Cons: Since it tests several different compression algorithms it takes a long time to compress images (even longer if the image is extremely large i.e. several MB in size like cover images) So, XnConvert is an extremely easy to use however it doesn't compress png files to save space as far as I can tell. On the other-hand, PNGGauntlet does take a lot longer to process images, however it will either reduce the file size in the conversion process of skip that image if converting results in a larger file. So, for my needs, PNGGauntlet takes the gold. On a personal note, since PNGGauntlet uses a lot of the computer resources, I will normally just leave my computer on over night and start the compression process when I go to bed, by the time I wake up it's done and I saved save and didn't have to waste any time configuring anything because the default settings are already set to maximum compression. ========== Suggestions to LaunchBox Developers ========== My suggestion would either be to ask people to use PNGGauntlet before uploading images or possible run the images through the program on the back end once they've been uploaded to the website. Maybe add a flag (somewhere behind the scenes) indicating whether or not the image has been optimized. Yes, the file size reduction is marginal, however it you extrapolate that over hundreds of thousands of images and hundreds of thousands of downloads, I would assume the reduced load on the server would be worth it plus the images would only need to be optimized once and then after that everyone benefits. Combining the two examples above would equate out to a savings of approximately 10371.15 bytes per image (2,105,344 bytes / 203 images). I don't know how many images are on this site but lets say the database contains 100,000 images (100,000 x 10371.15) which would equate out to a total savings of about 1 GB. The trade off seems worth it to me since the reduction in file size doesn't degrade the image quality. Thoughts?

I joined this community two weeks ago and have read through every topic in the LaunchBox Games Database section to familiarize myself with the state of the database and what obstacles people are faced with when adding or moderating content because I would like to be a contributing member of this community, but I worry that the effort may not be worth it which is how others new members may feel as well. Be for warned, this will be a long but hopefully interesting post to read through. I hope the development team of LaunchBox and other community members read through this post and leave honest feedback or point out potential caveats that I may have overlooked. Since I’m new to this community and to LaunchBox, I hope none of the information I’m posting here is inaccurate, but if any of the information is incorrect, please let me know and I will be happy to update this post. Development Priority: Compressive Change Log: To Do List: Features that will not be implemented: My suggestions and feature requests: Please let me know if any of these suggestions are useful and I’ll be happy to add them to the BitBucket. Add a link to the Moderator & Contributor guidelines within the Games Database: Split the Name field into two separate fields and incorporate a tag system: Allow multiple entries in the Release Date, Publisher, & ESRB field and Incorporate the above mentioned tag system: Convert ESRB field to an Age Appropriate field: Incorporate a more flexible Genre system with examples: Fields to add that aren’t currently present: Allow inclusion of the source to reference when submitting a new game or changing an existing entry: Merge or link similar developers together: Create a reward system that encourages contributions: For anyone that actually read through this post, thank you and feel free to post your thoughts or feedback.

Let me know what you think. By the way, does XnConvert shrink the size of png files without losing quality?

For anyone interested in saving space on their HD by compressing images, you can try PNGGauntlet in most cases it reduces the file size and per the website, it doesn't degrade quality. It's free and you can batch convert multiple images at once.

Thank you for the responses. I had issues setting up rocket launcher which is why I was curious if it was already integrated into launchbox. Does anyone know if that functionality will be added to launchbox in the future or should I spend more time trying to figure out rocket launcher? I think rocketlauncher is probably a very good program but the only reason i would use it would be for the merged roms funcionality since that is how my game collectuon is set up.

Thanks for the quick response. So if I understand you correctly, I can select both emumovies & launchbox games database in the import process and it will download both versions of the box art and then I can manually compare them and keep the better image. Is that correct?

I have a question about emumovies and I figured it would be best to post it here instead of in a new topic. Can anyone tell me if the boxart images on emumovies are better / higher quality than the ones in the launchbox games database? I already have a lifetime membership to emumovies so the cost is not an issue, I'm new to launchbox and was trying to figure out which service to use to get my media from. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hello, I just wanted to say thank you to the creators of this software. It appears as though it will suit my needs perfectly. I was wondering though, how does launchbox handle merged roms sets i.e. if I have for "Knuckles' Chaotix (Europe)" & "Chaotix ~ Knuckles' Chaotix (Japan, USA)" merged into a single archive and attempt to play it using Kega Fusion, would a prompt come up asking me which rom to send to the emulator or does launchbox not support merged roms? Thanks for any help provided.