CDBlue

Is the 1.0 version only for Launchbox 8+? I'm still on the 7.16 official release and get an exception error/BB crash whenever I try to switch to Nostalgia. I can get you the error if you wish, but if this is for 8+ then there is no need to report the error I guess

Just putting my 2-cents in here, as I've also tried multiple emulators and thought my tests might help you as well (if you were not aware of some of the other options out there for N64 emulators for example). For me Mupen64 did not scale very well on my laptop, and the performance was lacking overall. Parallel 64 for me was a much better core to use in Retroarch. It's still relatively new, so I expect bugs are still to be ironed out, but it scales well, and the performance seems to be rather good. But, for me the best emulator to use for N64 is still Project64. Not sure on compatibility with the games you're looking to play, but all the ones I'm interested in playing, or am playing now, seem to work just fine in that. That, plus is upscales much better than the RA cores (Parallel is a close one though for that), but the performance is much better for me. FYI, there's also a retroachievement-ready version of Project64 called RAProject64 (http://retroachievements.org/viewtopic.php?t=4686) in case you were into that as well. The way I have my launchbox set it I have RAProject64 as my main emulator, and then the Parallel core as my secondary emulator setup in Retroarch/launchbox as well. That way if I find a title that does not play in RAProject64 (which so far is none for me as I mentioned above) I can select launch with ... and select Retroarch instead and it will load the game using the Parallel64 core. Anyway, just thought I'd share that as it might help you (or others) who are looking at emulator options for N64.

Just came across Mesen as well (retroarch core, not the stand alone). So far it seems to be a great emulator, and the HD packs have great potential. I have the Megaman one install and it's nice. For an even bigger change you can try the Super Mario HD Texture Pack remake which I also just came across (http://www.emutalk.net/threads/55446-new-super-mario-hdnes!) Warning, this changes the look considerably more than Megaman's pack. May not be to all people's liking, but it definitely shows what the HD texture packs can do for an old console Hoping that more become available for some of the classics.

I just confirmed what AVissie just posted above. Only seems to happen for me as well when I select Text with details view for the games list view.

I noticed this as well. Seems to me I only started noticing this in 7.14. For me it happens with the default theme, criticalzone (and v2) as well as the cityhunter themes. In fact, it might be for all the themes I have installed, but those are my goto themes and I can reproduce it in each one. I have my games view set to Text list with details. Attached is a screenshot of what I get. In this example, the first game I went to in my SNES games list was Zelda. I then escaped back and selected another game, you can see the banner in the game view still shows Zelda while the rest is all FFII, which is the game I was in. https://ibb.co/du8Pub (also attached a screenshot to this reply in case this link doesn't work) Hope this helps Btw, love LB and BB, and have not looked at any other front ends since I came across this masterpiece. Keep up the great work. -CDBlue

I've noticed this too, but for me it seemed to only be certain themes, and only certain consoles in those themes that seemed to have this issue. For example, I believe for me it was in Nostalgia , on Super Nintendo Entertainment System, that it would do what you mentioned, and play the video clip as well as the audio clip for the game selected. I don't recall if I was getting it in any other theme I have installed, but I'm pretty sure I could reproduce it in that one. I also don't recall if it was this version of Nostalgia, or the previous beta version that I could replicate the above on. For me, all I needed to do was pick a different theme and my issue went away. Maybe you can see if that works for you, and then I guess if we can confirm that it's a theme issue, maybe we can report it to the person(s) who wrote the theme to see if they can determine what changed in their theme and/or Launchbox that might be causing that bug.

Suprisingly, since I switched back to CriticalZone I was also able to bump up the internal scaling in PSX HW to 4X (was using 2X before), still using Vulkan since nVidia has good support for it in it's drivers, and am still getting rock solid 60 FPS to sync with my monitor's refresh rate. So not only is it more stable than before, it's also looking better too

I played around with settings, etc. and I think I found the culprit. It looks like the framerate dropping was being caused by the theme I was running in big box. In this case it was BigCouch. When I changed the theme back to CriticalZone the framerate drop I was experiencing in PSX HW stopped, and it stayed rock solid at 60. Even though I love the look of BigCouch, I can live very much with CriticalZone, as it also looks great. Anyway, thx again all who tried to help. Hopefully my findings and fiddling around might help someone else with the same issue.

Thx again for the reply. Yes, I am upscalling the PSX HW core to 2x and am already using Vulkan. It does the framerate drop in both Vulkan and OpenGL. Like I said I'm going to check other cores I use in retroarch to see if the issue is across the board, but maybe due to the requirements of the core some handle framerate drops better than others. From what I can see it looks like maybe Big Box is using a resource the the core/retroarch is also trying to use. One thing I didn't try, and I will also try this when I get home, is retroarch is set to use fullscreen in windowed mode. Maybe I need to turn that off to play more nicely with Big Box mode?

Not using any shaders in retroarch. I'm at work right now so can't confirm 100%, but I believe it's a Intel i7 3630QM processor in that particular model. It's an Asus ROG laptop, so the specs were really high when I bought it (but it is not new, admittedly). Again though, games runs totally fine/stable via retroarch directly, and via launchbox in desktop mode, with the settings I'm using, etc.... just seems to be a resource issue (conflict?) with big box mode and retroarch. Also, I'm using the latest version of retroarch, launchbox, and the cores in question. Thanks again for trying to help diagnose the issue. When I get home again I'll also try checking to see if it's all cores in retroarch being launched via big box mode that have that frame rate drop, and maybe it's just those cores that don't like that, or if it is just those cores that I noticed it on that are dropping and the rest are ok.

Sorry, knew I forgot something, specs The system I'm currently using this on is my Asus ROG G75VW laptop: Intel i7 processor 16 GB DDR3 ram nVidia Geforce 660M video card (latest drivers installed from nVidia) etc. the above are the main specs I would assume matter. I guess maybe the system might not be powerfull enough to run the PSX HW core with the settings I'm using and Big Box in the background. However, it doesn't explain why SNES9X did the same thing. I'm pretty sure that's a low-end resource core that doesn't require much processing power at all, yet it did the same thing. Other cores in retroarch don't give me any grief, or at least not that I noticed, but those were the main two that seems to have consistent frame rate drops for some reason when launched via Big Box mode. Maybe I'll try other cores and see if maybe it's all retroarch through Big Box that gives me grief, and maybe other cores don't suffer as much when framerates drop. FYI, I think I could fix this by disabling v-sync in retroarch, but I prefer it on as I don't like screen tearing.

Hey guys, Firstly I want to thank the guys at Launchbox for putting out a great product I have an odd issue though, which I'm hoping someone can assist with. I use a wide variety of emulators for launchbox (retroarch, MAME, Dolphin, PCSX2, etc.). In most cases everything works fine. However, I noticed that some cores through retroarch seem to have issues with frame rate drops when being they're launched via big box. For example, if I use retroarch's Mednafen/Beetle PSX HW core and launch a game via the desktop mode (or from retroarch directly), it works fine, no frame rate drop, stays solid at 60 (which is my monitor refresh rate) for the settings I use in that core. However, if I launch the same game via launchbox in big box mode, in retroarch the frame rate starts dropping from the 60's to the low 50's usually within the first few minutes of it loading up. I can reproduce this everytime, with this core at least. Again, works 100% solid in desktop mode via lauchbox, or in retroarch directly, but frame rates drop in retroarch for this core if launched via big box mode every time. Anyone notice this, and/or have a fix for it? In some cases, I ended up using stand-alone emulators for the cores that seemed to cause the biggest issues (sound break etc.) like SNES9X. This core did the same thing if launched via big box, but worked fine in desktop or straight through retroarch. When I used the stand-alone emulator for SNES9X the problem went away, and is rock solid no matter how I launch it. But, I really prefer to use retroarch/cores when possible, but for the ease of setup and as they're easier to keep up-to-date, etc. Anyway, sorry for rambling on, and hopefully I've explained what I've been seeing clearly enough. If you have any questions please ask, and I do appreciate anyone that might have an answer. Thanks, CDBlue