Developers, please give LaunchBox streaming the priority it deserves (a flaming appell)!

[Mettlog]

Guys, it's so frustrating. It could be the dream-come-true for hordes of long-time gamers, the all-in-one solution we had been praying for over the last 30 years. So tempting. So close. So promising. But it just doesn't work although it should. I'm talking about LaunchBox in BigBox mode, streamed to a tiny, noiseless box under the big screen in the living room. 50000+ titles from the last four decades, from Pong and Pac Man through 3 dozen historical platforms up to the latest AAA titles. Running on a big fat noisy PC with enough horsepower, but far away from where living takes place. No more hiding my favourite hobby in the dark and dusty home office under the roof or in the cellar; just clean, plain, family-friendly fun from the couch on the huge TV screen or on a small tablet, beautifully presented and controlled by nothing but a set of wireless gamepads. Let's be honest, many of us had been giving their right arms for this, at least when we had no kids to grow up and feed. We've been waiting for it. Patiently, but desperately. And now it's here. Nearly. If there weren't these many small issues that pile up to a complete show stopper. Both Nvidia (ShieldTV) and Valve (Steam Link) made a lot of progress recently, no problem to play the 2016 gaming charts this way. But no chance to run LaunchBox and play the arcade version of Asteroids or show my kids the titles that wasted my time so unforgettably on the NES when I was at their age. Or to have another round of Diddy Kong Racing with them after the real N64 said farewell with a puff of smoke some years ago. It looks like I could, and BigBox even starts, but then rejects any input from the controller. Game Over - before it even started. Dear LaunchBox devs, I know you're extremely busy with the games database and all that. But looking at the frequent forum threads here, the popularity of (far inferior) all-in-one retro gaming projects on the RaspberryPi, and the development that content streaming has made over the last few years, don't you agree that it would be worth concentrating a bit more on a streaming optimized LauchBox in BigBox mode? Isn't that what all these things must have been made for, the natural next evolution milestone and big landmark in gaming history? With LaunchBox as the project that made it all possible first? Pleeeeeaase Devs, give this a higher priority than before. Put it on your to-do list as one of the next important steps in LaunchBox development. We're so really, really damn close, but it urgently needs fine tuning to really make it happen. If a Nvidia ShieldTV is all you need, let's raise some donations in the forum and buy one for you. All current and future streaming solutions would benefit from the knowledge you could gain. Everything seems to shout "Do it now!" and the world is ready for it. Please give it this last bit of full attention it both requires and deserves. Your biggest fan Stan

[SentaiBrad]

The reason why it's not a priority is because streaming your LaunchBox to a small device like this is already very possible and people do it all the time. I would also say that the Raspberry Pi isn't at all all that popular on our forums specifically. That said, there are certainly things we can do to make streaming easier, we just recently fixed a giant bug that made streaming to a Steam Link pretty much impossible, however I guess I am missing the intent of your post? If it is to stream to a small little PC, that can be done. It can even be done on less elegant solutions like DropBox though over network or over internet play would suck due to the nature of the internet, but it's completely doable. In terms of being on other devices, the RaspberryPi 3, forgetting for a second that we don't run on Linux, is not powerful enough for LaunchBox or BigBox in it's current state. It could probably load, technically, but it would completely drag. As far as other OSes are concerned we are completely open to them, Android as a platform would be killer because that can be easily installed on powerful tablets that can out put to a TV, it's extremely versatile, but the same can be said for a laptop or a small PC. In terms of streaming though, we're already there. Granted, we're not done and more progress can always be made, but we are there. I don't want to sound like I am denying what you are saying, I honestly don't quite get what you mean. As far as your title goes, this is our day job, we give it ALL the attention we have. Our market is primarily not streaming though, we see our highest market being traditional Computers and Laptops with a lot of users making Arcade cabinets. We see a lot of requests for Android and that would honestly be our first major step in another OS in Linux and Android. If I am completely missing your point please please please tell me I am wrong. I tried to answer the question a few times but I fear that I am missing it.

[Mettlog]

Brad, thanks for reacting so quickly. Maybe it's me who is missing something. You say that streaming LaunchBox to a small device is possible - so maybe my strategy is wrong and I would need to get a hint where to start reading. If possible I would like to avoid having another full-featured PC in the living room, the Windows license alone costs more than a Steam Link for example. A small box with no other input device but a gamepad would be ideal. What I'm trying is to use Nvidia GameStream to stream BigBox from my PC to a Nvidia ShieldTV (in house) and it doesn't work because once started, BigBox doesn't react to the Shield gamecontroller at all, and it doesn't respond to a wireless Xbox 360 controller (for Windows, using the USB receiver) either. The desktop version of LaunchBox works somehow, but desktop apps are not meant to be controlled with a game controller on a TV in general and I'm sure you're fully aware of this because you must have developed BigBox for a good reason. A friend owns a Steam Link, and didn't have much luck either (he also had controller issues and other problems). My point was that the user experience with BigBox on the two widely available streaming solutions is not exactly flawless, but has great potential. That may not require programming changes in LaunchBox, but then it does require instructions. Maybe it could be covered in one of the weekly YouTube How-Tos? I completely agree that a RasPi and similar devices are not powerful enough, but there are some projects (RecalBoxOS, RetroPie) trying to create a combined launcher for many classic consoles, not completely unlike what LaunchBox does on a PC. And of course LaunchBox does it so much better, not only because a PC is simply the better device for emulators. And so I don't see any need to port LaunchBox to any other hardware or O/S (except MacOS maybe) - as long as there's a comfortable and stable streaming solution from an existing, powerfull Windows PC elsewhere in the house. So if you say "streaming your LaunchBox to a small device like this is already very possible and people do it all the time", then please tell me how it can be done.

[AutumnSounds]

There are Sooooooooo many options to do this these days. I have a several years old LG TV and even that lets me use the TV as a 2nd screen either extended or mirrored etc via Intel WiDi. If you have a smart TV that connects to your router/internet, it might be worth checking you can already stream straight to it without the addition of extra boxes or software, even on older devices like mine. In Windows 10 (and 8) simply click notifications (next to the clock on the taskbar) and select 'Project'. From the 'Project' menu you can choose how you want the Wireless display to be shown, just like any other additional monitor. Your TV may need to be in a certain mode, my LG for example has an obvious 'Screen Share' channel. ** Additional Tips: Always set your TV's colour scheme to 'Game Mode', as this uses less processing thus reducing lag between you pressing a button on your controller and something happening on screen.

[Mettlog]

AutumnSounds said There are Sooooooooo many options to do this these days.

Thanks, mate, that probably helps others who stumble upon this thread. Unfortunately you explain how to use a TV as a monitor and this is not what I asked. Just assume that my PC is a big, noisy beast that will never be anywhere near my living room, let alone inside of it because it also acts as a home server/private cloud/TV recorder and runs 24/7. My approach is to leave the PC where it is (2 floors below in the cellar, next to the heating where it doesn't disturb anyone), but to utilize it's power elsewhere by streaming and RDP connections. This works (surprisingly) well for many things, but so far I had not much luck with Launchbox, so I would like to know if anyone is successfully streaming LaunchBox in BigBox mode to any kind of low-noise and small sized device for the living room. I'm fine if this a a small sized PC like an Intel NUC, but I still think this is a kind of overkill because they are too expensive for what they do and just don't neccessarily fit into the concept. I'm actually looking for something "embedded". Just as a comparison: the ShieldTV brings my GTA 5 and lots of other games in FullHD, max details and 60 fps to my TV and never makes any noise although I read it had a small fan inside. I never heard it. I bought it as a "Black Friday" offer and paid a bit over 130 EUR for the entire thing including the wireless gamepad and a small remote. If you buy only the OEM/SB Windows license and a wireless Xbox360 controller for windows you pay the same, but then you don't have any computer hardware yet. Sure, I need a PC and it should be a very powerful one - but one should be enough nowadays and it doesn't have to share the room with me.

[AutumnSounds]

Mettlog said I'm fine if this a a small sized PC like an Intel NUC, but I still think this is a kind of overkill because they are too expensive for what they do and just don't neccessarily fit into the concept

NUCs are super cheap these days at around £100. A Celeron NUC (which you can actually see one in my photo above) has been living as my PLEX sever and strangely has been powerful enough to transcode 4 streams at once, so definitely as viable, if not infinitely more useful than an Android device** ** You could just have LaunchBox sit on your cloud-drive to sync or even on a NAS and run it natively on your smaller TV device rather than streaming. This will also give less controller lag. You've gotten me thinking now about an Arcade Big-Box build since the NUC comes with a VESA mount to directly attach to a monitor... Hmm... <3 So many exciting possibilities! With the hardware issue aside, I'd presume any kind of streaming like this would have to be a general 'full screen' capture rather than application specific since there'll be a multitude of emulators, windows games and apps etc to cater for. So that decision would have to be weather it's really worth including (it's not going to be an easy job to maintain) or if deciding if one of the many 3rd party steamlink-like programs would be better for this niche.

[SentaiBrad]

I don't know how Nvidia does it's streaming, but we do have users who use Steam Links to stream their PC using In-Home streaming. If you are 2 floors away, that could potentially be a problem for latency or connection too. I am not sure how to go about doing it completely, neither Jason (the developer by the way) nor I stream our PC's like that. I know it works though because we just fixed a driver issue when it came to Xbox One and Steam controllers for users who do that streaming. If there is a compatibility issue somewhere we can certainly fix that if we have more information and it turns out to be a bug. On your streaming device, can you have a keyboard or mouse attached to it? You can navigate BigBox via Keyboard, does this work if you try it over streaming?

[Mettlog]

Sorry for the late reply, I was off for the weekend and could only test it yesterday. Thanks for all your answers, and even bigger thanks to you guys at Unbroken Software for lovely LauchBox and your devotion to it. Indeed BigBox streaming works when I connect a keyboard to the Nvidia Shield TV: I bought a Logitech K400 and I was probably lucky that I had no other choice in the shop because BigBox also didn't respond to the cursor keys first, but it all started working once I clicked the left mouse button. This makes me think BigBox simply loses focus when it starts. I repeated this several times and it turns out that even the gamepad works once I click the mouse. Maybe this is the only problem (and maybe you could look at it when you have the opportunity - on a PC you probably wouldn't even notice it), afterwards navigating works well and the emulators run fine with just very little additional, noticeable lag in games. Not very surprising because it's the same with the PC games I stream this way. @AutumnSounds, you're right, all these streaming solutions are a sort of "full screen capture" and usually you shouldn't even have to bother about streaming at all in LaunchBox development, except such small issues like avoiding focus loss as it appears now. What I will do within the next weeks is trying different streaming software (Moonlight, Remotr, KinoConsole) on all the hardware I can access or get from friends for testing (iPad, Amazon FireTV, several smartphones and some of these cheap, chinese Android boxes should be within reach) and let you know if this is a Nvidia-specific issue or a general one, then we might have some facts to discuss. Just because this tread devoloped a bit into a general off-topic discussion let me add my two cents to make my intentions clear: I always had a HTPC in my living room for far more than a decade (and spent a fortune on upgrades in all that time) but I got rid of it last year and I don't miss it. Usually it was either not powerful enough to do everything, or it was too noisy to have it in the living room. It was always a foul compromise, and I'm now pretty convinced that this is a thing of the past with the entire entertainment industry and technology changing so fast and so dramatically. I really like the NUCs, but it's not true that you spend just a hundred bucks because then you may have the box, but you don't have any RAM, no mass storage, no remote control, no gamepad and no Windows license yet - and how do you think the Dreamcast/PS2 emulators or Dolphin will perform on a Baytrail-"Celeron"-Atom and it's integrated graphics? The great thing about LaunchBox is that it's so flexible and can be used to emulate whatever the PC hardware can handle. For MAME, SNES and the other old staff a RaspberryPi would be good enough - and then again you would spend far too much for a solution based on an entry-level NUC. Ok, you would miss LaunchBox then... I am now moving more and more functions to a "home server" (what a big name for a normal PC) and this has just recently started making more and more sense for me. Not everything is perfect yet, but the progress is amazing. These cheap "thin clients" are a blessing: with Kodi or Plex including Live-TV recording and media access on your NAS, streamed games, streamed music and video from Netflix/Spotify etc., and lots of native apps for whatever, there's no need for "more" and you don't even have to worry when your TV's "smart" functions are no longer up to date (usually on day three after the next year's model was released). When there is enough technical progress after a few years, I will simply replace the cheap box with another one.

[DOS76]

Couldn't agree more about your views on the NUC they look great and if you do buy the top end model you could probably end up with a really sweet mini PC but I've priced these and with a 6th gen Core i5 inside and if you add 16GB of DDR4 RAM an SSD or mSATA drive with any halfway decent capacity you are talking around $600 easy. I'll never give up on my HTPC's though I have one in my bedroom, kitchen, living room and my rec room in the basement. My 2 newest one I built around Christmas they both have 6 gen Core i5 6500's and they are so quiet it is unbelievable. They run at around 15C when they aren't under load and they are very good on power consumption at the same time as being decently powerful machines The i7 4770 I have in my room is also very quiet and the i5 3330 in my basement while suffering from not having a graphics card still handles almost every emulator that I can throw at it with some varying degree. Also you home server is not a normal PC it is the foundation of your networks infrastructure (Ok its a normal PC but I just love mine so much that I don't like to think of it like that) I just mentioned to my brother that my WHS2011 PC is the most important machine on my LAN but that I haven't needed to sign in or mess with it in over 2 months it just sits there and does its work like a trooper. Good luck getting your streaming working how you want it to. The K400 is an excellent solution for couch computing (I own 5 of them).

[SentaiBrad]

Yea it's pretty much a normal PC but you can decide how you want to set it up. I see some users work with a headless server and it ends up working where some people still need a monitor. Servers in your own home is a revelation for computers though. Very handy.