LaunchBox Beta Testing - 6.8+

[Sepulchre]

As of beta v6.9-beta-2, BigBox crashed in the coverflow w/ details theme during attract mode with the following error:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

   at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr , IntPtr& )

   at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoLockCallback(IntPtr opaque, IntPtr& planes)

I also noticed several instances where the video frame played an overscanned preview of the video with the right and bottom sides cutoff. Here is an example:

[Zombeaver]

I'm happy to report that the %romfile% works for the purposes of loading multi-disk Atari ST games in Steem.

Similarly to @lordmonkus's Daphne example, it's not exactly just "click a button and you're done" but it's an option that didn't exist previously so that's great!

In order to instruct Steem to insert the first disk into drive A and the second into drive B via command line, the rom files have to be listed in order so you choose the first disk as your rom through LB:

Then you add in the command line parameter and after %romfile% just include the path to the second disk:

And voila:

It boots up properly and you can swap between the disks as necessary when prompted (via a combination of buttons on the controller if you assign them in the emulator's hotkeys).

Thanks Jason!

[Lordmonkus]

Awesome, this same principle applies to X68000 emulation through Mess. Putting this in the custom command-line box loads up Castlevania which is a 2 disk game.

x68000 -flop1 %romfile% -flop2 "H:\Emulation\Roms\X68000\Akumajou Dracula (1993)(Konami)(Disk 2 of 2).dim"

Now if we can refine this further that would be even more awesome.

If we could have the ability in the emulators associated platform windows default command-line parameters to have something like:

x68000 -flop1 %romfile1% -flop2 %romfile2%

Just using Mess and X68000 as an example. But since we now have multidisk import support and now the %romfile% feature it should be doable but I have no clue how difficult it would be.

[Riffman81]

Attract mode is a welcomed feature! Thanks @Jason Carr Just wondering if it's possible to reset play counts in LB/BB? And also, have you considered coding an option to shell BigBox and hiding windows? Has anyone here been successful shelling BigBox in Windows 10?

[Mute64]

11 minutes ago, Riffman81 said:

Attract mode is a welcomed feature! Thanks @Jason Carr Just wondering if it's possible to reset play counts in LB/BB? And also, have you considered coding an option to shell BigBox and hiding windows? Has anyone here been successful shelling BigBox in Windows 10?

I have,  you never see windows in my build unless you want to.

[Riffman81]

Just now, Mute64 said:

I have,  you never see windows in my build unless you want to.

Mind sharing how or pointing me in the right direction? Would really like to do this for my cab.

[Lordmonkus]

I have used a program called bsetshell.exe to change shells in the past. Here is the page you can download it from. http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/

On the left hand side under tools you will see a link that downloads it. It is just a simple zip file with and single exe file inside it. Run the exe select other and point it to BigBox.exe, and click set & logout. Log back in and you should have BigBox as your shell.

I have used it on Win XP, 7 and 8 but I have not tested in on Windows 10 so I cannot say it will work on 10 or not. If you set a shell and it doesn't work all you do is bring up the task manager with ctrl+shift+escape, click file, run new task and browse your hard drive to bsetshell.exe and set it back to explorer.exe, then click set & logout then log back in and you should be back to normal.

Disclaimer:

I have used this many times in WinXP, 7 and 8 but I will not take responsibility for any problems you may encounter as I have not used this in Windows 10.

[Riffman81]

Thanks! @lordmonkus Will look into it!

[Lordmonkus]

You are welcome. Like I said in theory it should work but if it goes tits up just bring up the task manager and run bsetshell to go back to explorer default. I used to use bbLean as my Windows shell and used this tool a lot. Over the course of tinkering with bbLean I managed to screw it all up so bad I would have to reset back to explorer to fix it, lol.

[Mute64]

20 minutes ago, Riffman81 said:

Mind sharing how or pointing me in the right direction? Would really like to do this for my cab.

Will point you in the right direction when im home from work. 

[Riffman81]

1 minute ago, Mute64 said:

Will point you in the right direction when im home from work. 

No rush, and thanks! Going to try the program @lordmonkus linked to as well. Will report back

[Mute64]

5 hours ago, Riffman81 said:

No rush, and thanks! Going to try the program @lordmonkus linked to as well. Will report back

You still want to here the way i do it? Its pretty much the " manual " way compared to the programe lordmonkus suggested.

 

By the way @Jason Carr the new attract mode is awsome! ... ive had one crash so far when watching attract mode with VLC... and im testing now with WMP, so far no crash.

[ALIE]

12 hours ago, ALIE said:

Nice like I have set up in Kodi.  So it uses images or videos? 

OK tested it out not exactly what I was hoping for  any chance of a traditional Screensaver that could go through images.  Not sure if there's a bit bucket ticket for this. 

Edited August 26, 2016 by ALIE

[kmoney]

One bug I have noticed with my setup while using attract mode is that even when you have attract mode turned off in the options menu, is that attact mode will continue to run even with it turned off.

[audunv]

I am wondering how the Launchbox Games Database works when importing games.
I watched your last developer session Jason, when you added the Amiga xml file to the database.
When I try to import Amiga games why isn't the games matched with the games in the database? The filename match the name in the database. 
When trying to import, the importer only removes underscores from the filenames. Se screenshots.

Edited August 26, 2016 by audunv

[DOS76]

I don't believe that Jason ever got the Amiga games to work they are still one of the problem systems that need some care.

[JaysArcade]

I only got to see the new attract mode feature briefly last night before heading off to bed. It looks pretty good to me, especially for your first try at implementing something like that. Thanks Jason! I'm sure you guys will get the VLC stuff worked out soon. Glad you are now able to focus on other stuff besides spending all your time on those VLC issues.

[Sepulchre]

After further testing of BigBox v6.9-beta-2, BigBox is crashing with the following error:

System.InvalidOperationException: VlcPlayer not be ready, if you want to use VlcPlay no in XAML, please read this Wiki: "https://github.com/higankanshi/Meta.Vlc/wiki/Use-VlcPlayer-with-other-controls".

   at (VlcPlayer , IntPtr& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& , UInt32& )

   at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoFormatCallback(IntPtr& opaque, UInt32& chroma, UInt32& width, UInt32& height, UInt32& pitches, UInt32& lines)

 

[Jason Carr]

19 hours ago, CriticalCid said:

Btw. I’m wondering if you made any progress on the navigation issue of the horizontal wheel?

 

Sadly not yet Cid. Hoping to get back to adding theming features early next week.

[Jason Carr]

14 hours ago, Riffman81 said:

Attract mode is a welcomed feature! Thanks @Jason Carr Just wondering if it's possible to reset play counts in LB/BB? And also, have you considered coding an option to shell BigBox and hiding windows? Has anyone here been successful shelling BigBox in Windows 10?

Hi @Riffman81, sadly we still need a feature to reset play counts and stuff. It's obviously accessible directly in the XML, but I imagine it'd be a royal pain to reset them all manually. Not sure if we have a ticket for that but we should definitely add one if not.