[SSD M.2 vs SATA is the speed difference noticeable in Big Box?]

2 minutes ago, skizzosjt said:

You're welcome! You probably already know if you need more RAM, without even knowing it. Even if your system has room for it, does the program or task at hand actually benefit from the additional and/or faster RAM? So you are in the right mindset to be wondering does it make a difference to Big Box. My understanding is likely not and I say that because of the earlier comment, you probably already know if you need more. Do you ever get pop up warnings stating your system is "out of memory" or "memory is low" etc type of errors? If you do, yea you need more RAM. If not, the amount of RAM is likely sufficient. So any improvement would need to be made from faster RAM. But I'll admit, I'm not sure, but learning towards "no" that faster RAM would make a noticeable improvement for Big Box. It's more likely you would already be disappointed with the performance of your system if the amount or speed of the currently installed RAM was insufficient. If you're happy currently, I'd say leave it as is, since you being able to ENJOY using your PC is really what counts in the long run! My thought process here is the longer you stretch out the dollar you spent on your current system, you will then have more funds saved up to spend on the newer system when it comes time you really need an upgrade bc the current one is no longer capable of what you need it to do.

I've learned the hard way specifically with RAM. My last audio workstation, still have it setup as my backup, is a 2009 Mac Pro and I put 48GB in there to find out the Pro Tools version I was running at that point doesn't even utilize more than 8GB, which is what I had in there originally 🤦‍♂️. I had to upgrade the Pro Tools version (aka more $ spent) which can utilize all the RAM installed. So yea I can say it's easy to spend on something that sounds good on paper, but there is some asterisk making it more or less like "wtf I just spent how much $ to get no improvement!". Just sharing to say, learn from my mistakes 🤣

 

Lol thanks man! I once bought exactly the same 8gb ram module (to up it to 16gb) only to have realy big problems with my system later on, i didnt knew what the problem was so I reinstalled the entire system etc. Long story short; the new ram module was broken and I couldnt get a refund because I didnt knew anymore where I bought it from. So because of this I'm honestly scared to try that again. As you said I don't have any problems with the system or get notifications about it neither. SSD it'll be then thanks again for all your help, much appreciated!

[SSD M.2 vs SATA is the speed difference noticeable in Big Box?]

29 minutes ago, skizzosjt said:

My experience suggests you will not notice any real world improvements in this regard when comparing a NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD. There have been a handful of tech youtubers who did some "real world" tests with game loading times for an experiment. Telling people something like "load up this game on PC A (running SATA III), and then load it up on PC B (running NVMe), etc".....the majority of them couldn't tell a difference because statistically, load times are only going to be fractionally better if at all. (my game loaded in 12.5 secs instead of 13 secs....woo hoo lol) The difference between going from a HDD to a SSD, whether SATA or M2, will be a huge noticeable improvement. It will make your system feel like a new one I bet! My recommendation would be if the purchase is made to be used for Big Box and/or game storage, then I would go with a 2.5" SATA SSD over a M2 NVMe drive. Of course, I'm assuming that NVMe is going to be more expensive than SATA though. If they are the same or close enough price per GB then I sure wouldn't blame anyone for going with NVMe. It seems like NVMe drives get utilized to their utmost potential when they are used for working with large creative work flows, such as video editing where you really need fast speeds for a good experience. For storing and loading games, there isn't a real world benefit as of right now.

Check out your motherboard's manual if you're curious if you got a spare M2 slot or need to know how it operates. Some M2 slots when populated will disable SATA ports or PCIe lanes. Warning you about that because you could find yourself installing a new M2 drive and then wonder why one of your other SATA disks that you didn't even touch all of a sudden is no longer being detected.  I mentioned the how it operates part because some work different depending on what type of M2 drive is installed. There is M2 SATA and M2 NVMe. M2 SATA is going to be basically a 2.5" SATA SSD but in the M2 form factor so speeds and capability is the same as traditional 2.5" SATA SSD at around the 560MBps you mentioned. But this will surely take up existing SATA ports, as in, it will disable 1 or more normal SATA ports when populated. M2 NVMe is the type with the 3.5 GBps+ speeds and these may take up PCIe lanes, and/or disable SATA ports.

If you don't know about this page, check this out. It an excellent source to use to compare various PC components. You can narrow your search down using the filters on the left hand side and sort with the columns on the right.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/

Thank you so much for all this info and help, this'll really help me on my way

I have another question if you don't mind, I have 8gb of ram and it works great as it is for me but will Big Box load the media on screen faster with 16gb? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade both or just go SSD. I will only play games up to gamecube and maybe Wii so game loading times aren't an issue, I just want Big Box itself to be as fast as I can make it on my machine.

[SSD M.2 vs SATA is the speed difference noticeable in Big Box?]

I'm planning to go from HDD to SSD in the future. I'm looking for current prices and speeds a bit, the big difference I see is 3.500MB/s read (and up) on M.2 drives and 560MB/s read on SATA drives, that is quite a difference. Can anyone tell me if you'll really notice these speed differences  much in Big Box speeds (loading the media on screen)? I'm not even sure if I've got a second M.2 slot though but I do have SATA that I know.

[MAME - Double Press Escape to Exit?]

There is an option in Mame somewhere where you need confirmation to exit, if you cant find it let us know.

[13.0 Beta Thread]

32 minutes ago, faeran said:

Fixed: Potential error in Big Box attract mode caused by badgers (er, badges)

Great now I have the Badger song inside my head, thanks bro! 😁

[How do I disable the "Welcome to launchbox" screen?]

Left bottom corner theres a checkbox

[13.0 Beta Thread]

It worked flawlessly @C-Beats, you made my day! I was afraid I was gonna have to do 1300 games one at a time lol

[13.0 Beta Thread]

43 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Yeah, I admit showing that page with that box unchecked does make it a bit confusing. You should have no problem doing what you want though. Checking "Do not replace..." (middle option) also applies for metadata and so we won't overwrite data you have in that field (if you have anything). If feeling a bit uneasy about it still, just create a backup first, run the tool, then spot check a few items. See any changes you don't want just restore the backup.

Great idea and tip, i'll try that! Thanks man

[13.0 Beta Thread]

16 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

@Mr. RetroLust @Drybonz This is LaunchBox working as intended. If you uncheck that box we don't search in LaunchBox GamesDB for metadata OR media and since you also unchecked EmuMovies you didn't actually tell LaunchBox you wanted to grab anything at all and so it spins up, acts like it'll start grabbing something, then immediately stops with nothing gained.

Thanks for checking. What I dont want is the metadata to be changed as I changed a lot of the metadata to my own tastes. If you uncheck metadata wouldnt it be logical that you dont get the download media window afterwards if its not going to download anything because of it? Also if I uncheck everything in the download window for Emumovies why wouldnt it download what I checked for LBDB then? Im confused lol

[13.0 Beta Thread]

I have a problem which i'm not sure if it's the beta but when i'm selecting multiple games (edit: but also single games) (in this case Clutch Hitter and Cobra-Command for arcade) and use the download media tool under tools, I unchecked "Search for game information", then in the LBDB section I only select Advertisement Flyer Back (everything else in unchecked), next for Emumovies I unchecked everything. Then 'Yes but do not update existing fields (recommended)'. Then it searches for media and get the message it's been updated but when I look in my images it didn't download the Flyers. When I select a single game and go to edit/media/images and use the download button here I use the same settings as above and they do download. Does it behave like this as well on your end? The Flyers Back are available to download in their corresponding database entry so that's not it i'm afraid.

[13.0 Beta Thread]

Wow guys, the 3D Box Models are awesomely done! Love what you've done with them, kudos!

[12.16 Beta Thread]

I'm not sure if this is related to this beta version or just a general thing. I'm playing some arcade games (Finally making time to play these games lol) from a playlist, when I'm done with the game I give them a rating and hide them. When hiding games in a platform it works after backing in and out of the list it then refreshes but in this playlist they still show unless I reboot Big Box, not a big problem though but something that I noticed.

[Mr. RetroLust's Lights Out! Retroarch Bezels]

9 hours ago, drseussicide said:

any chance of requests? would love psp, ps2, ps3, nds, and 3ds for starters. when i check the updates against my collection i'm certain i'll have more. (if these have been requested thank you and, THANK YOU anyway. 

I'll be adding most of those in the future, but they will be limited to what retroarch can run. Ps3 for instance is 16:9 and hd so I wont be making a bezel for it as it's full screen already.

[Image colors washed out]

3 minutes ago, Jair said:

Here you go. The first screen shows the color as it should be. On the wheel pages, it's fine. But on the detail page, as you can see, the colors of certain graphics like the cover and logo (I'm using a banner here for it) get washed out. And this happens no matter what theme I'm using, I tested it yesterday with a bunch of other themes.

Just to be sure, have you checked that doom cover doesnt have a duplicate/second image file which has less black level? Reason asking is the blue background doesn't seem to be less saturated in both screen shots.

[Mr. RetroLust's Lights Out! Retroarch Bezels]

To add, you'll also need to save the shader preset once you're satisfied with the shader parameters in the shader menu itself by choosing "Save" and then again use Save Content Directory Override .

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

28 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

Brlliant stuff, had to just change the mame.ini as below and it now shows curved, can't thank you enough

 

Awesome! Happy gaming bro

[Mr. RetroLust's Lights Out! Retroarch Bezels]

10 minutes ago, RetroSalad said:

I'm really sorry to waste your time, but I've been looking for a tutorial like that and I haven't found anything yet, except one that was using an older version of retroarch that doesn't have the same options. Could you point me in the direction of such a tutorial?

I don't really have the time to make a tutorial but i'll try to write it down as good as I can. I'm using an older version of RetroArch so it probably wouldn't be the same for you where the settings are or maybe renamed but this is what I do.

All I can say is you'll load the preset (.cfg file) in the "Quick Menu" under the "Onscreen Overlay" tab (Also set Overlay Opacity to 1.00 to make it fully non transparent), then you go to the video options and there you'll use Custom ratio X pos for the x position, Custom ratio Y pos for the y position, Custom ratio width and height, after you are satisfied you'll go back to Quick Menu and scroll down to "Overrides" then choose Save Content Directory Override and it will save the bezel and the size and position of your game screen in a preset for the directory where your games are stored. You also may want to use a shader effect that curves the screen and adds scanlines to your liking, I use crt-easymode-halation myself.

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

47 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

Thanks, I think I understand what you're saying. I took this from a youtube video 

 

For example from the video above I can see Arkanoid as below showing curved text for scores etc

 

 

On mine it looks as you say flat

I've downloaded all the files including the presets but I'm out of my depth knowing how to fix this. I really appreciate the help, this is a serious great project you've done

Regards Dave

 

Yep thats what I ment, you can read all about the effects in mame on this page, justvtake your time to suck it all in: https://docs.mamedev.org/advanced/hlsl.html

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

2 hours ago, fazmeister said:

It's Ok now, I understand how the parameters affect the screen etc so what I'm effectively asking for isn't possible unless I lose the whole curved optical look. If I want everything displayed it'll be as a rectangular screen so that's the trade off, thanks for the help

I see what the problem is now, your screenshot of 1942 shows the gameplay screen entirely flat, at the start of our conversation I told you I use an effect in mame to curve the screen, you can also add scanlines and other effects. Im not at the pc atm but im sure a google search will help you on your way, search for "Mame apply scanlines" or something, In the downloads section of this project I also added my mame effect presets but they might not work with newer mame versions as I use version 0.198, in that case if you open the presets with a notepad editor you'll see what I used for effects and the curvature amount.

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

34 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

Thanks for this, I've had a good crack at working this out and I've come to the conclusion what I'm trying to do isn't possible without it affecting the curved look of the bezel at the bottom.

For example on 1942 my standard screen looks like this with the 4 corners obscured due to the curved bezel (yellow)

Therefore is there away to reduce the playing screen slightly so all 4 elements show fully or some other way without losing the curved look

Regards Dave

 

 

I think you just have to adjust the width and height of the game screen, adjust the x and y coordinates to the new size of the game screen and thats it. I dont understand what you mean by losing the curved look as that should'nt happen.

[Mr. RetroLust's Lights Out! Retroarch Bezels]

You can find 

24 minutes ago, RetroSalad said:

I'm trying to install this on retroarch, but I can't seem to get it to work. First of all, the overlay files don't seem to tell retroarch to scale the size of the screen to fit within the bezel. Maybe this is taken care of in the CGP files included, but I can't figure out how to install those. Any help would be appreciated

You can find loads of tutorials on youtube how to use overlays in retroarch. You'll need to size them yourself.

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

12 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

I think we're at crossed purposes, I want to know if I can do anything to make the stuff on the game not be clipped, in 1942 e,g the 1 up and 2 up are slightly obscured due to the curved screen

Ah ok, you can adjust the height, width, x and y position in the .lay file included in the zip file. Just open the file with a notepad editor.

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

21 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

Ok thanks, so what you are saying is that's just because of the curved CRT look and not an actual alignment issue, i.e the bend could be made to go round all the text ?

When you bend it with the curved CRT effect you'll see more of the text because when the game screen is flat the bezel will cover the text.

[Mr. RetroLust's - Mame 4K - Lights Out - Realistic Bezels]

57 minutes ago, fazmeister said:

Apologies if this has been asked before but do you need to do a change somewhere so that the top and bottom corners aren't clipping off information?

For example on 1942 the 1up and 2up and number of planes and credit info is obsured

Thanks in advance

 

Make sure "artwork crop" is disabled and also use the mame effect setting to bend/round the corners of the screen.

@fazmeister See also: 

 

[Marquee screen not displaying correctly when launching a game]

Not sure if it works for you in this case, but always make sure both displays have the same windows dpi text scaling set. This fixed the issue for me in the past.