LaunchBox Beta Testing - 6.8+

[neil9000]

16 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Ah, good find @kmoney. I think we may indeed have had an issue with some people's collections during the XML split, specifically with the platforms. Still not sure what might have happened there. Let me know if you see any more weirdness occurring with the platforms XML after replacing it. I think it was only the XML split process, but I'm not entirely sure.

Just to add, I was having a very similar problem where I had to wait a handful of seconds before entering a platform, not just arcade any platform. After reading @kmoney post I deleted my platforms xml, and all is now good, no delay at startup.

[emko]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

Thanks everyone; I am slowly working through these issues. I'd say the 7.0 release was mostly a success, considering the amount of changes and how it compares to other releases historically. That said, I'll be working this week to fix as much as possible and then I'll be putting out the official 7.1 release that will focus mostly on bug fixes.

I should have a beta out before the end of the day; in the live stream this morning we went through @Pacman56's performance issues and discovered some significant performance issues with loading the scrolling notes. Hoping to have a fix for this out later today. @emko, this may also be what is causing your performance issues, not sure.

i don't think its a performance issue the wheel works fine on the platforms view but in the games view when i press down or up the whole screen is black for 1-2 seconds but on some games it works correct going back and forth really fast no issue but on most i have to wait for the black screen and when i say black screen i mean there is nothing but black on the tv. 

[emko]

Would it be possible if the games database gave each image a ID number so that it could be compared to what we have  so that we don't download duplicate images and so that a new version of a image will have a new ID making it easy to compare that the ID is older so it will download and replace the new image.

like

Clear logo image  would be like Mario Kart 64 - 1.jpg so say we delete this one from the database and we upload a new better quality clear logo now it would make it Mario Kart 64 - 2.jpg, so now when user checks their library to update image/metadata it will see that local image has ID 1 and database has ID 2 make ours old and will download and replace the old one with the new one. This would also prevent the system from downloading multiple duplicate images as happens over time. I know this would work only for launchbox games database not for emumovies but i would rather get my images from lanuchbox if it worked like this and just set emumovies for videos.

 

what do you guys think?

[Hexxxer]

I have had a lot of people report that the Futurestate theme has been suffering some major lag since the update. I have not witnessed it myself but asking people to turn off shadows on the wheels seemed to improve performance for some.

[kmoney]

25 minutes ago, Hexxxer said:

I have had a lot of people report that the Futurestate theme has been suffering some major lag since the update. I have not witnessed it myself but asking people to turn off shadows on the wheels seemed to improve performance for some.

@Jason Carr @Hexxxer I don't know if it is a coincidence or not but the error I have gotten in BigBox that I posted above only has happened while using the Futurestate theme. I have gotten the error about 4 or 5 times times now or sometimes BigBox will just crash and close down but again only while using the Futurestate theme. I use CriticalZone equally as much and I have not gotten those same errors with that theme.

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr I just noticed something really weird if you place fanart in the theme folder and then subsequently delete that fanart it still shows in properties for that fanart folder that it is still the same size inside that folder even when you go to control panel and show hidden files and folders you see nothing inside that folder as you deleted everything already but it still reports as if there is something there.  I had to reupload the vertical theme as it showed it was over 15mb when in fact it was only a few kb see screen shot before and then after deleting folder and putting in a new folder ps i cut to desktop then replaced it back in documents after replacing folder, you can check it out in the one i mailed to you previously on here.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Maddoc1007

[Maddoc1007]

@Jason Carr I figured it out it is a fault in the windows operating system that was never fixed by Microsoft apparently sometime when you add pictures jpg or png's to folders Windows creates a hidden thumbs.db in that folder but when you delete the pictures the thumbs.db is left behind until that too is deleted hence explorer reports that the folder is in fact not empty (it also creates sometimes a hidden desktop.ini as well, the only way to see these files is to go to control panel, folder options, click on view tab then uncheck Hide protected operating files and then click apply.  you can now see these hidden .db files and then can delete then and even the desktop.ini files, these files will rebuild again when you reboot computer but wont be rebuild for empty folders thus showing you that the folder is really actually empty.  Don't forget to recheck the Hide protected operating files and then click apply when you have finished.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Maddoc1007

[DOS76]

I always have my hidden folders showing I want to be able to access everything just in case

[Maddoc1007]

@DOS76 Good Call i re-uploaded the Vertical theme as it had a hidden thumbs.db left in the images folder for fanart which made the file larger than it should have been i wonder if that was causing the video problem for you might not be but no harm in checking (maybe BigBox looking for something that wasn't there) as the re upload is now only a few kb compared to what it was,   Will be taking a leaf out of your book and having hidden files showing from now on.

[cammelspit]

Heh, If I had a nickel for every time I have done that... Well, I would have a lot of nickels...

[Rod]

18 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Well that's odd...does anything in this thread help?

https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/67403-sleep-command-not-working/

Something about changing SendMode might be answer.

Thanks for looking into it. Upon second try I now see that "sleep" does work in Launchbox, but there's a different (but still related) issue what's causing my problem.

Launchbox runs the autohotkey script in parallel to starting a game/emulator, instead of waiting for the Autohotkey script to finish, thus any "sleep" in the autohotkey script has no effect on delaying the emulator start.

I'll explain a bit what I'm using it for, just that it (hopefully) also makes sense for you. For some of my emulators I'm switching "Primary display" in a multimonitor setup before launching a game/emulator. For this there needs to be a small delay after initiating the screenswitch before launchbox starts the game/emulator, otherwise it opens the game while the screens are switching, which confuses things / messes things up.

In the old launchbox for some reason adding a "Sleep 1000" after the screenswitch command worked (Which may have been coincidence after all)

In any case, this could be solved by:

A) Making launchbox wait for the Autohotkey script to finish before launching a game / emulator, instead of running it in parallel to executing the script (which seems current behaviour).

or

B) Add an option that enables the user to choose between the behaviour of A and the current behaviour.

Hopefully any such solution is possible.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Rod

[Jason Carr]

@emko I will be adding something in eventually to better deal with duplicate images, yes. We'll probably use a combination of a few things, including a checksum algorithm of sorts.

Per the black screen issue, I'm pretty lost on that one. It doesn't sound like anything I've seen before. Is it just blanking out the screen or are things transitioning to the black screen?

[Jason Carr]

Per the FutureState theme, I can't seem to replicate any issues there either. I did just put out a new beta though that addresses a performance issue with the scrolling notes, so it's worth a shot to see if it's any better. Details to follow.

[Jason Carr]

@Rod, ah, that makes sense. I'm not sure if there's any good way to do that without the DLL integration that we had to get rid of. We're restricted to only calling the EXE due to the GPL licensing so honestly I'm afraid that might not be possible. We can always tell when the AutoHotkey.exe file exits, but I'm not sure if there's a way to have the EXE exit as soon as the script is done running. If there is, we'd just have to add an option somewhere to specify whether or not to wait for the script. If not, we're unfortunately out of luck.

[Jason Carr]

Alright guys, as I stated above, the first 7.1 beta is out. Here's the changelog so far:

- Improvement: Resolved some performance issues with scrolling notes in Big Box

- Improvement: Added a new VideoControl for Big Box custom themes (for more flexible use of custom video backgrounds and such)

- Improvement: Changed the Documentation.pdf file to reflect the Big Box custom themes changes and additions for 7.0 and 7.1

Per the scrolling notes, we discovered that they were causing some major delays when long notes were displayed in Big Box. It was the dynamic width calculations that were automatically being done by the XAML that were causing the delays. The solution isn't perfect because we're basically using a percentage width of the screen now instead of a proper dynamic calculation, so let me know if anyone is seeing incorrect widths for scrolling notes.

The new VideoControl element was built for themes that currently use a MediaElement (such as @CriticalCid's CriticalZone theme to display the background video). The new control will properly switch between VLC and WMP per the user's settings which should result in some performance improvements since only one engine is used instead of two (at least when using VLC). Performance is better even on my souped up machine, so that's a win. However, theme creators will need to update their themes to use this new element; it won't happen automatically. The new element will also not be available in any previous versions, so it will require the beta. However, we hope to put out the official 7.1 version very soon. Documentation on the new VideoControl is available in the updated Documentation.pdf file.

[billyc999]

im not sure how your using ahk, but shouldnt winwaitactive be used in your script to wait for the emulator to load before switching the screens, not sure how it would work having it wait for various named windows, the ahk guys on there forums are pretty helpful though

 

lol i keep reading your post, as i've never used ahk with launchbox so not sure how it calls it, but if possible have the ahk that loads with launchbox sleep then load another ahk to create the correct sleep, obviously both would need the exit command to close them both

Edited December 20, 2016 by billyc999

[Jason Carr]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:52 PM, spycat said:

Hi Jason.

I tested the official V.7 and the left sidebar Platforms view not sorting issue with LaunchBox ever since the Category feature was added is still there.

With Game Counts enabled, here is how Platform sorting displays for me with various combinations of the ALL, NONE and EXISTS options:

With ALL, NONE and EXISTS all disabled - platform sorting is correct.
With ALL, NONE and EXISTS all enabled - platform sorting is correct.

With any one of these three options enabled and the other two disabled - platform sorting is incorrect.
For example, with ALL enabled and both NONE and EXISTS disabled.

With any two of these three options enabled and the third one disabled - platform sorting is correct.
For example, with both ALL and EXISTS enabled and NONE disabled.

With Game Counts disabled, then all of the above combinations of ALL, NONE and EXISTS will sort platforms correctly.

Believe it or not, I still can't replicate this @spycat. There must be something elusive that we haven't figured out that's causing it. Would you be willing to zip up your Data folder and send it to me?

[Jason Carr]

36 minutes ago, billyc999 said:

im not sure how your using ahk, but shouldnt winwaitactive be used in your script to wait for the emulator to load before switching the screens, not sure how it would work having it wait for various named windows, the ahk guys on there forums are pretty helpful though

 

lol i keep reading your post, as i've never used ahk with launchbox so not sure how it calls it, but if possible have the ahk that loads with launchbox sleep then load another ahk to create the correct sleep, obviously both would need the exit command to close them both

I think he more meant waiting for the script to finish before launching the emulator, rather than waiting for the emulator to load.

[billyc999]

ah i see

[Jason Carr]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:49 PM, ckp said:

Sure @Jason Carr, I have before but rather than try to find that thread...

My LB will crash when launching various games from various emulators for some that require the 7zip unzip process. I am using only LB and not RL or anything else for these emulators/games, such as Dreamcast Demul games. My Demul games in in .rar format with .bin, .raw, .gdi inside.

My games launch fullscreen. 

My Demul is set like this (although it's not just with Demul):

..\Arcade\Emulators\Demule\demul32-0.5.8.2\demul.exe

checkbox for no space before rom and extract rom.

Where I double click a game in this Dreamcast platform from regular LB (works fine with VLC in BB), LB will run 7z.exe to unzip. As soon as that is done, the Demul emulator starts up and launches the game, but at that very time LB crashes. Every time it's like this when using VLC setting. But Media player has no such issue.

And of course since LB crashes, the unzipped game files are left for me to manually clean up in the unzip folder inside LB.

Win 10 x64 with all updates. It's been like this ever since I first bought and started using LB several versions back.

For my LB view, when I select a game, it shows the video on the right bar along with screenshots, boxes, etc.

My Dreamcast videos are .mp4.

I have all .NET Frameworks and updates installed.

Win 10 logs this in Event Viewer:

.net runtime:

Application: LaunchBox.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: exception code c0000005, exception address 00000000748E9C17

Faulting application name: LaunchBox.exe, version: 7.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x58542eef
Faulting module name: libvlccore.dll, version: 2.2.2.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000079c17
Faulting process id: 0x10cc
Faulting application start time: 0x01d257f5acdfe333
Faulting application path: R:\LaunchBox\LaunchBox.exe
Faulting module path: R:\LaunchBox\VLC\x64\libvlccore.dll
Report Id: 510f67df-c786-4131-9c94-ef09ec1caa74
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Edit: and i run LB window maximized.

Thanks for this detailed report, @ckp. Unfortunately I can't seem to replicate it to save my life. Can you list out all the emulators that seem to be causing it? Is it every emulator that unzips files? Also, does it happen every single time or is it random?

Has anyone else seen this happen?