Rod

Hi, @Jason Carr Since a number of versions when a new release it out and I get the message an update is available I click on download and then the download bar in the launchbox window goes to something like 90% and then it stops. This has been happening for a number of releases now, it will just freeze there and do nothing anymore. I've been downloading the updates from the website instead to make a clean install everytime. But it's a slight annoyance. The automatic update feature used to work flawlessly. I have the idea that the issue started occuring somewhere with the 11.x releases. So also just now with the 11.9 release it blocked again at 90% download. My update setting is set to only update to official version (not beta) and don't download in the background. Is there anything I can do to resolve the issue?

Hi Jason, With a future update could you please look into having the "Launch With..." submenu content sorted alphabetically in Launchbox? I noticed you'd implemented this for Big Box but not for Launchbox. It was touched upon in a previous message here: Sort names alphabetically in Launch With... menu Would be much appreciated, thanks again for Launchbox ?

That's great, thanks ?

Hi Jason, Thanks for the 8.8 release, great stuff. This is not a beta issue, but hopefully small enough that it wouldn't warrant an own topic. Currently the items in the "Launch With..." menu seem to be "randomly" sorted. It would be great if the emulators in that menu could be alphabetically sorted. Mainly because I'm using version numbered emulator releases (as sometimes new MAME versions break things), so I keep different versions in the Launch With menu, which would make it more beautiful if they were alphabetically sorted.

Hi Lord, yes I understood so much, thanks for letting me know you have the same issue (annoyance?) I find it just a bit too vague that it would break things, I mean look in the screenshot above , there's ample room to move the column to the left. I'm also a perfectionist, and this issue is starting to annoy me just a bit too much to be honest, without a good understanding why this isn't possible... Jason, can you clear up the mist for us? Would it otherwise be possible that you allow for setting a specific colum size via config file editing? Something must be possible right?

Hi @Jason Carr Enjoying Launchbox as usual I'm using .Next in a 15Khz CRT setup with a desktop resolution of 720x576. It looks great, apart from this glaring issue. See picture below; the left colum sizing can't go further to the left and it's eating quite a large chunk out of my real estate. The column size should be half of what it is now. I hope you see this is kind of annoying, sorry to use these words. I understand that you're very busy with other stuff, but I have the feeling that this is only a one byte change in your code and the issue would be fixed. I hope you can make this little change or otherwise let me know what's holding you back on this. Thanks Best, Rod

Hi @Jason Carr I've just been trying to use the new LBPlex theme with Launchbox.Next on a CRT setup. The resolution of the display is PAL interlaced (something like 720x576). It's looking pretty cool, but I'm running into two issues, see the attached picture: 1. The left sidebar is too big for the playlist names and takes too much area; I would like to move it to the left, but it's already at the minimum size ?. 2. The clear logos are beautiful, but too big displayed. I want to size them smaller, but the slider is already at the smallest position. I would greatly appreciate if you could alleviate both restrictions, such that the LBPlex theme can also be enjoyed to its fullest on CRT setups too. ? If that would interfere with how high-res setups would function, possibly you can make a switch/setting, that alleviates the above two restrictions when turned on? I just want to enjoy LB.Next and LBPlex on my CRT setup. Hopefully this is possible.

Hi Grila, Thank you very much for this theme, it's awesome! ? Can you share what settings you're using in Launchbox for the boxes spacing and padding (the launchbox settings) that are shown in the preview pictures, do you have everything set close to zero? I really like to use this theme on a crt setup with limited horizontal resolution. For some reason the left column has a minimal width, while I would like to make it smaller because of the limited horizontal resolution on the CRT. Could you possibly point me to the value in the xaml that sets this minimal width for the left column, is it by any chance limited by the search button area? Where would I find that value?

Thanks guys for the response. For what it's worth Jason, the setup I'm using this with is not particularly slow(er). It's using a Core i7-7700HQ (3.8Ghz) with a GTX1070 and SSD. This is what I've been trying to see if it changes things: I've tried both the different video replayers VLC and WMP, but that makes do difference. I've tried replacing videos with the smallest file sizes (lowest quality) to large(r) files (highest quality) but that also makes no difference. I have enabled / disabled all kind of combinations of soundtrack / music and video settings but it also makes no difference. It seems very random whether or not the video audio will keep quiet or not. It's a bit peculiar in the sense that it seems to happen more for some platforms than others. For example with the SNES platform it works 9 out of 10 times correctly, but for example with Commodore Amiga it's almost the exact opposite, like 1 out of 10 times correctly. So then I tried replacing video files from the Commodore platform with files from the SNES platform (renaming them to the game names in the Commodore folder), but it makes no difference for the Commodore platform. Would be really great if you could get some time to fix this issue, it's about the last thing that keeps me from having a perfect BigBox experience (Launchbox.Next is already there for me ) Please let me know if/when I can help with testing to resolve this issue.

@Jason Carr I'm running into the mentioned issue from this thread, where both music audio and video audio start to play together in Big Box randomly (i.e. most of the time, but not always) when using "prioritize soundtrack music over Video Audio" in Big Box. After browsing through the forums I found this thread, so I would be greatful if you could let me know if this issue was ever really resolved, or if there's a workaround for it? I'm using this with the "four-by-three" theme in BigBox. @eatkinola Please see my reply above to Jason. I'm running into the issue with both music audio and video audio playing together at the same time when using "prioritize soundtrack music over video audio". This is with the four-by-three theme in BigBox. Based on your comments in this thread I tested the Nostalgia theme and the issue does indeed not occur for me. Could you possibly share what you changed for the nostalgia theme to work around the issue?

Thanks for the custom theme, I'm liking it too ? The only thing I would like differently is that the scroll bar completely on the right side is a little thin now. I'm using it on a laptop (with an integrated mouse touchpad) and it's now a little difficult to grab that scrollbar. Could you say what setting changes the width of it?

OK, thanks. A platform specific aspect ratio setting would already be a huge plus, as we then can accommodate at least for platforms with only tall or only wide or only square (CD jewelcase) boxes, so I hope that feature will come. I also noticed the spacing issue seems to get magnified somewhat the less boxes you have in a row. On a 1920p wide monitor I'm now used to having rows with only 4 boxes shown. Yes they're big then, just like I'm watching them up close on a shelf in a game store ?. The vertical spacing issue is such that on 1080p height I only see half of the second row now for standard size boxes. You've already thought of this I'm sure, but is it an option to calculate the "correct" aspect ratio for the boxes per row from the image resolution of the thumbnails loaded in each row? Optionally of course. Or would that be too resourceful?

Hi @Jason Carr, With the latest beta 13 if I disable/untick "show subline" in Boxes setting and have "text lines to show" at 1, then half of the bottom of the titles get cut off. With regards to the boxes spacing, there's this one thing that gets in the way of having perfect aesthetics. The case is the following, for example with my SNES category, they're almost 100% European boxes, and 1 or 2 are Japanese (the tall ones). If I have spacing such that there are say 5 boxes per row, and I have 100 boxes in total, then there are 20 rows, of which in only 1 or 2 rows there's a tall box. Nonetheless .Next takes the height of that 1 or 2 Japanese boxes to space all other rows with the same height. This means that for like 18 rows of boxes there's a huge vertical spacing between the rows. I haven't found a remedy or workaround for this. Is there currently? It's really unpleasant to look at and disturbs the otherwise perfect aesthetics of .Next. Thanks again for all of the hard work, enjoying .Next every day ?

@Jason Carr I'm using a GPD Win, I think you know it, because it was one of your videos that got me convinced I had to get one myself ? . The controller automation was already off, but when I turn off the "Enable Gamepad / Joystick Input", the cpu usage spikes are indeed gone (GPD Win is at about 2% overall cpu usage steady, and .Next itself is at about 0% in task manager on the processes tab), so thanks for mentioning that. I'm mostly using LB.Next (not BB) on the Win so I'm OK with turning it off. I did notice that in task manager when using the regular Launchbox with "Enable Gamepad / Joystick Input" ON , that cpu usage (on the processes tab) is much lower between 0% and 1% without any spikes, whereas the same setting in .Next shows a cpu usage between 0% and about 5% (with the regular spikes). So there may me something odd going on with "Enable Gamepad / Joystick Input" = ON in .Next still? In any case thanks for keeping low CPU usage in LB a high priority, while balancing all those priorities. .Next dots all the right i's, and is a sheer pleasure to use (even on a pretty low powered device as the Win ?).

Hi @Jason Carr, After following the beta developements for Launchbox.Next (it's my default use case by now) and occasionally installing 8.3 betas, I've just updated to the final 8.3 release. To my disappointment I noticed this final 8.3 release of Launchbox.Next has the cpu spiking up to 14% every few seconds ?. This was not happening in the latest beta I had installed (Beta 7). To verify I have gone back and forth, and beta 7 has almost zero percent cpu usage and certainly no regular occuring "spikes". If I look in the detailed processes tab then I see about 0% cpu usage for Launchbox beta 7, and with the 8.3 final release it's continually cycling between 0% and 4% (for some reason in the overal cpu graph the spikes are continually between about 2% cpu usage to about 14%, whereas for beta 7 this is constant at about 2% to 3%). For the time being I'm reverting to this latest beta because of this. I'm using it on the GPD Win 1 btw. Below are some pictures for Beta 7 cpu usage and Launchbox.Next 8.3 final cpu usage, such that you get an idea of the periodicity for the cpu usage spikes. I hope you can retrace and revert what has introduced the CPU spiking behaviour between Beta 7 and the final release.