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LaunchBox Beta Testing - 6.8+


Jason Carr

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I'm not sure why we'd dump something that's optional... VLC could certainly be the default but why would we get rid of something that some people (potentially) find beneficial? I've used WMP since the beginning simply because it never exhibited any of the various issues presented by VLC. I'll grant that most or maybe all of those have been resolved at this point, but that doesn't invalidate WMP. Honestly, the difference in performance between the two is negligible on my end. I switched over to VLC last night and it's been working fine but nothing about it made me think "Woah this is so much better than WMP!" It works. WMP also works.

I guess if simply keeping WMP as an option is somehow creating a significant amount of additional work for Jason, then I can understand wanting to get rid of it, but I was under the impression that all the work that's been invested has been for the purposes of fixing VLC not maintaining WMP. If it's not creating a significant amount of additional work, I think it should stay. One of Launchbox's greatest assets is the fact that it gives you options and allows you to do what you want with it; I don't think taking one of those options away simply because some people prefer one option over the other is in keeping with that.

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I think it's because the VLC files are in the LaunchBox download making it a standalone product, were as the WMP files need to be installed of which 99% of Windows pc's they are.

I agree WMP works fine so it may as well stay as an option, maybe if WMP has been removed from someones Windows install then LaunchBox could direct the user to the windows install page... or just display a message

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Well as I said, I don't see any reason VLC couldn't be the default. If that's the case, it will work from the start whether someone has WMP installed or not. If it's really a concern, simply adding "(must have WMP installed on your PC)" next to the WMP option should suffice.

I just don't like arbitrarily making this kind of decision for people.

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1 hour ago, Zombeaver said:

Well as I said, I don't see any reason VLC couldn't be the default. If that's the case, it will work from the start whether someone has WMP installed or not. If it's really a concern, simply adding "(must have WMP installed on your PC)" next to the WMP option should suffice.

I just don't like arbitrarily making this kind of decision for people.

The question was originally:

Keep both and support both.   Or dump one so efforts could be focus'd on other things.  

As someone who works in an extremely complex tech environment - anytime I can say something is "out of scope / not supported" is a breath of fresh air.  Users always find new and interesting (crazy) ways to use a product that were never envisioned by the deployment folks.  

If WMP is left in, and users start having issues with it, Jason will have to make the decision to work on (fix) WMP or spend time on something else (new feature, some other bug, user requests...)

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33 minutes ago, Fursphere said:

If WMP is left in, and users start having issues with it, Jason will have to make the decision to work on (fix) WMP or spend time on something else (new feature, some other bug, user requests...)

That's just it though... that's never happened or been an issue (to my knowledge). In fact, it's been the complete opposite, with the issues consistently stemming from VLC. From the very beginning it's been a matter of "Well, if you have a problem with VLC just use WMP." and then it was fix after fix after fix after months of fixes...for VLC not WMP. This is why I'll say, once again, if simply having the option to use WMP is somehow causing some significant amount of work for Jason, then I understand getting rid of it. And yet, feel free to go back and look at change-logs as far back as you want, what you'll see is "Fixed [insert] for VLC" over and over. To be frank, the entire time that was going on I was just thinking "Why in the world is so much effort being dedicated to VLC when we've had WMP which has worked fine from the beginning?" Because I agree, there are other things that I'd rather see worked on, but you're gonna have an awfully hard time convincing me that all that work, over the course of months, was the result of having WMP as an option.

Based on your argument, VLC should have been dumped a long time ago.

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I'd like to add that all of this is Jason's prerogative, period. I'm in no way upset that so much time was dedicated to improving VLC. I'm glad that it's in a good state now and that people like using it (and in some cases prefer it). That's great. And even though I never really thought it was necessary, I respect that Jason felt differently and focused his efforts where he thought they were needed; and I recognize that an improvement in any aspect is an improvement to the whole.

I just think it's a little odd to toss aside the thing that's consistently worked well during the entire period where the same couldn't be said of VLC; and based on @ckp's and @viking's posts there may still be some lingering issues with VLC too.

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Alright, we'll keep WMP; makes sense. There's only a few minor issues with it that need addressed. I will make VLC the default for new users, though.

@viking I hit you up on your theme about that VLC issue.

@paulmichel21 Honestly I'm clueless as to why that wouldn't be working. All I can figure is it's some kind of odd bug with AutoHotkey on your machine. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful with that.

For everyone who is experiencing performance issues in Big Box, try editing the image priorities options in LaunchBox under Tools > Options. Change the priorities to only have one selected item in the list (if possible) and make sure to uncheck anything that you aren't using. @cammelspit reported that it made a big difference for him; let me know if it makes any difference for anyone else. I haven't been able to replicate any performance improvements myself, but it's worth a shot.

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Thanks Jason!

By the way, I've been playing around with the background music option (Love it! I've been wanting this for a while!) and noticed a couple things in the process:

1) When you back out of the options screen, it changes the background track that's playing. This seems a bit odd to me. Is that intentional?

2) I wanted to map the triggers on my 360 controller to be next (right trigger) and previous (left trigger) tracks but the mapper doesn't seem to recognize trigger inputs. Any idea if that can be fixed?

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4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

@Zombeaver #1 is just because the music engine has to re-initialize if music options were changed. It could be improved though, yeah; I just didn't consider it much of a priority. #2 (per @Charco) is a known issue that I should be able to fix eventually, just a matter of priority of course. :) 

Gotcha. Thanks.

I'm not sure if it helps but I believe the triggers are on the Z axis (because they're actually analog) as far as Xinput is concerned. I think LT = Z+ and RT = Z- 

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Alright guys; new beta is out that fixes a few bugs and improves the video download features for the new cinematic videos from James Baker. The new interface will show you what is available, what isn't, and let you pick between the available options for each platform. We may rename some files yet in order to make it more obvious what is what.

Also, please let me know how the download performance is for everyone when downloading the new beta. We've made some changes and we're hoping to see some improvements there. Also let us know how the download performance is when downloading the videos. Thanks all. :)

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