Fursphere

I checked versions I could find online - 10.11 (nope), 7.8 (nope), and 4.7 (before big box was released - so nope). On both of my cabinets, there is an entry in Task Manager - Startup for "BigBoxLauncher". I manually disabled it. See screenshot. 1) I would not have named it "BigBoxLauncher" (I would have simply called it BigBox) 2) I would not have hacked the windows registry to put the entry there. This is not the startup folder. I would have just used shell:startup folder. So while I understand folks believing "it was never there" - I have two cabinets (two independent Windows 10 installations, made years apart) with this in the TaskManager Startup location. What made these entries? I remember BigBox options screen doing it, and it was a little quirky.

I tried installing an old version to see if it was there, but no luck. Just trying to start bigBox on a 10.x version tries to auto-upgrade to the latest, and canceling the 12.14 upgrade caused BB not to load at all. I swear there was an option in those older versions - but its not that important. I was just curious.

Has the option for "Start Bigbox w/ Windows" been removed from BigBox? I looked through all of the options multiple times yesterday and can't seem to find it. I'm running the latest beta 12.15, beta 2. I can easily put a shortcut in the shell:startup folder (in fact, that's what I've been doing). But I remember there used to be a way to have BB do this for you - and my task manager: startup apps have some references in there from when I used to use this option. thx

In case anyone finds this thread (as I did), I put together an easier way to make this integrate with an existing setup. Windows 'symlinks' I put exodos in d:\exodos and ran setup.bat. Let it do its thing. I also put exowin3x in D:\eXoWin3x\ my existing launchbox is setup in d:\launchbox I used the following commands to 'symlink' the important parts of exodos into the existing launchbox setup without having to move or copy anything. This same approach works for exowin3x as well (see below) exosdos links... (File links) mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Platforms\MS-DOS.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Platforms\MS-DOS.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Plugins\eXoplugin.dll" "D:\eXoDOS\Plugins\eXoplugin.dll" (optional playlists - I prefer not to use these, but included them as they were mentioned in the Exo's instructions) mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS 3dfx Games.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS 3dfx Games.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with CGA Composite.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with CGA Composite.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with Gravis Ultrasound.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with Gravis Ultrasound.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with MT-32.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with MT-32.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with Sound Canvas.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Games with Sound Canvas.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Remote Multiplayer.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\eXoDOS Remote Multiplayer.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\Installed eXoDOS Games.xml" "D:\eXoDOS\Data\Playlists\Installed eXoDOS Games.xml" (directory links) mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\exo" "d:\eXoDOS\exo" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Images\MS-DOS" D:\eXoDOS\Images\MS-DOS mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Music\MS-DOS" "D:\eXoDOS\Music\MS-DOS" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Manuals\MS-DOS" "D:\eXoDOS\Manuals\MS-DOS" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Videos\MS-DOS" D:\eXoDOS\Videos\MS-DOS exowin3x links... (File links) mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Platforms\Windows 3x.xml" "D:\eXoWin3x\Data\Platforms\Windows 3x.xml" (Not needed if you already did Exodos plugin) mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Plugins\eXoplugin.dll" "D:\eXoWin3x\Plugins\eXoplugin.dll" (optional playlists - I prefer not to use these, but included them as they were mentioned in the Exo's instructions) mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\Installed eXoWin3x Games.xml" "D:\eXoWin3x\Data\Playlists\Installed eXoWin3x Games.xml" mklink "D:\LaunchBox\Data\Playlists\Retro Learning Pack.xml" "D:\eXoWin3x\Data\Playlists\Retro Learning Pack.xml" (directory links) mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\exo\eXoWin3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\eXo\eXoWin3x" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Images\Windows 3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\Images\Windows 3x" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Music\Windows 3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\Music\Windows 3x" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Manuals\Windows 3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\Manuals\Windows 3x" mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\Videos\Windows 3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\Videos\Windows 3x" The only goofy one is mklink /d "D:\LaunchBox\exo\eXoWin3x" "D:\eXoWin3x\eXo\eXoWin3x" as it assumes the \exo\ folder in launchbox already exists, as it was created during the exodos links. One of the benefits to doing it this way is it allows the stand alone exodos launchbox setup to continue to function, and doesn't double the storage needs, as its shared with the symlinks. And symlinks can span mutiple drive letters if that's a consideration as well for you. anyway, have fun!

Upgrade both of my cabinets to Beta 4. Ran BigBox for about an hour or so. Cab-a - BB process @ 1.2 GB Cab-b - BB process @ 800 MB Both felt response as well at this point. Not sure why there is a difference, but I'll take it. Memory consumption is much better at this point. Thank you!

Is anyone else seeing the memory leak issue? Or is it just me?

Ok, definitely a memory leak going on. Both cabinets running Beta 3. Cab - A - Intel i5 11400 cpu, 16 GB of memory. NVidia GTX 1650 Super GPU. Windows 10 BigBox startup memory usage approx 700 MB. After approx 1 hour running, it had jumped to just under 8 GB. Cab - B - Intel i5 2500k, 16 GB memory. NVidia GTX 660 Ti GPU. Windows 10 BigBox startup memory usage just under 700 MB. After approx 1 hour of running, it had jumped to 11.5 GB. Both installations are basically the same. "old" default theme, same number of platforms, same number of games. Both run LEDBlinky. Cab-A has a dynamic marquee is about the only difference. Let me know if you need logs or anything.

I'm seeing a new behavior in Beta 3 on both of my cabinets. After around 30-60 minutes of the cabinets running BigBox in attract mode, they both seem to get slower in response to menu actions. Lag of some sort. The longer they sit idle in attract mode, the slower they get. I don't know if its a memory leak or something else, but they didn't do this in the previous 12.13 version.

ESC / Back issue in BigBox appears to be fixed in Beta 2. Thank you!

Think I found a bug. Just updated both of my cabinets. Now in BigBox - the 'back' (ESC is what I have it bound too) no longer works. One cabinet is on the new 'Default' theme, the other is on the 'Old Default' theme. So I can select a platform / game, but can't go back.

Dreams are good. For me, personally, having been in the emulation game for multiple decades now, every time I think about switching to linux, I usually find some core function that isn't compatible. Like some emulator I use, or some piece of hardware I use just isn't going to work. (I think the Mayflash Dolphin bar is currently on that list of things that don't work in Linux for me). LEDBlinky is another tricky one. Or my entire virtual pinball cabinet would be a mess in Linux. basically having to run WINE, which at that point... just run Windows. lol Long story short - Linux is a hobby in itself. For everyone that loves Linux, more power to ya.

This idea SteamOS is build on Debian 8 I believe. So its building on the backs of all the Linux Devs that came before it. Batocera is built of buildroot I think...? Its super stripped down, but also built on the linux kernel. So there is a lot of "work" that others have done that Batocera builds on top of. Making LaunchboxOS would mean that it would be responsible for: All motherboard support All video card support All peripheral support (USB devices, sound games, etc) Basically, all drivers. For everything. Every possible combination of hardware that makes up a "PC". This is way the Raspberry PI is so popular - everything is using the exact same board. So all development is unified. So... on top of building Launchbox features, the developers would be getting bombed with "My random PC part I bought on AliExpress doesn't work" questions. Not a place I'd want to be. This is one of the biggest draws to Windows - DirectX. Microsoft made a bunch of APIs that developers could commonly call (Back in 1995), and then Microsoft does all the heavy lifting with mapping those API calls do the hardware layer. Its a middle man translator. Not entirely sure how Linux does it, but I remember a time not to long ago (say, less than ~10 years ago?) where getting anything to work on Linux was a nitemare. Its come a long way, but its still a mess in my opinion for desktop users.

Sounds interesting! I like the way ArcadeEIP does it best - where its loading the MAME roms and they're fully playable, then switches to another game. I know this would be difficult for almost any other platform outside of MAME though.

A couple of the items I didn't quite understand. Like, I think I do, but its hard to imagine what the final result would be. A graphic mock up would be helpful in future polls to show exactly what you're talking about. And as for the screensaver integration - isn't attract mode a screensaver in itself?

That make sense. I tried that, and it didn't seem to work. Maybe I have to remove it from the "combined" Game first, then import it.

Hello, Looking for a way to break the relationship between different regions imported as the same game. Normally, this is exactly what I want LB to do - all regional versions of the same game 'are' the same game, and only the prioritized region should show up in the main game list, with alternate regional versions available in a sub menu basically. But Super Mario Bros 2. for NES is an exception. The USA version and the Japanese versions are completely different games, even though they have the except same name. Is there a way in the GUI (or even XML hacking) to break the Japanese version into a separate game all together? thanks,

Thanks. Doing the work is quite simple. But it becomes a tax down the road, as every time I update my set its something I have to remember to do. If LB is only going to support MAME in .ZIP format, fine by me. I'll just leave it be.

Fair enough. I'll just switch my set back to ZIP. (Still have a backup). I don't want go XML hacking, at least not right yet. Its kind of odd though - since every other platform in LB doesn't care about file extensions. Maybe add a note to the import page "Files are expected to be in ZIP format" or something.

You can save around 8 - 10 GB of space if you repackage into 7z. Even more if you move to a MERGE set. I always repackage ROMS because the 'full sets' you download from out there are never actually complete, but that's a topic for another thread. Launchbox MAME importer happily imported my set as 7z, and will happily re-import it after it thinks its not there anymore. And you're correct, the metadata for a game shows it with a .ZIP extension. So basically somewhere in the import process it appears to be hard coded to .ZIP. Here is a link to the official mame docs showing archive support: https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/assetsearch.html

Found a bug in 12.10 Beta 4 this evening. I have my MAME .240 set as "split" and 7zipped. (filename.7z) I can import and run them from Launchbox / BigBox just fine. If I do a "Scan for Removed Roms..." (all platforms or any platform) it thinks that all my MAME roms are gone. On my other cabinet where the MAME .240 set is regular zipped (filename.zip), the scanner does not have this issue. Seems to not recognize 7z as a valid filename in regards to scanning for removed roms.

There is a plugin to help with this. LB/BB will extract the file first, then launch the emulator from a temp location. Check it out.

This is kind of related. Who the heck builds these "full" sets? I've been messing with MAME for 15+ years now, and every time I download a "full set", when I do a check with a tool like CLRMAMEPRO against the matching mame.exe binary, it always has some differences or missing roms, sets named or packed wrong, etc. Split or merged, doesn't seem to matter. I just got in the habit or rebuilding when I decide to do an update. Its just bizarre to me. And you also have a to do goofy stuff like torrentzip to build your current set to the torrent set so you can join at greater than zero percent, and even that has weird inconsistencies. Anyway, just thinking out loud here. Not complaining, just truly trying to understand what the heck is going on so updates are easier / more efficient.

Update to this. I got my second cabinet running today. Using RetroArch I was able to play a 2 player Netplay game going between the cabinets using NES fceumm_libretro.dll Core. Took a little windows firewall work, but I was able to start the game 'hosting' on Cab "A" then join the game on Cab "B" (manual join). Works great. Then using the RetroArch fbneo_libretro.dll core, I was able to do the same with MAME games. I had to enable advanced user interface features in RetroArch to tell each instance of retroarch which "player IDs" to request when joining. So I have Cab A request 1 and 3, then Cab B request 2 and 4. I got a 4 player game of Golden Axe 3 going. On my LAN, there is no lag. Runs great - at least in my limited testing. There are some quirks, but its totally playable.

I’m currently building two cabinets to do exactly this. Originally I was going to setup a hardware KVM solution to mirror the displays and link the controls. While possible, it gets pretty complicated with control mapping. Plan now is to use RetroArch Netplay. It’s not supported on every core, but should work with most of the stuff I want to do. Another option is PARSEC, but it shares similar problems as the hardware KVM solution. (Remapping controls) What are you going to use for control inputs? I’m using Ultimarc IPac Ultimate boards in each cabinet.