LaunchBox Beta Testing - 6.8+

[shinra358]

45 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

@shinra358 Can you explain what your file names and folder names are exactly?

Examples of all of my cd based folders and games:

 

Bomberman - Party Edition <---folder

Bomberman - Party Edition.bin

Bomberman - Party Edition.cue

 

or

 

Final Fantasy IX <---folder

Final Fantasy IX [v1.1] (Disc 1).bin

Final Fantasy IX [v1.1] (Disc 1).cue

etc etc.

 

Also, I just noticed that choosing rom names when importing doesn't give the selection the rom name at all. It gives it the name that it uses in the data base.

Edited August 19, 2016 by shinra358

[Zombeaver]

@Jason Carr okay cool. I'll leave it alone for the time being then. I just wanted to make sure I had a good grasp on how to prepare/package them.

As far as the platform names, yeah I totally understand what you're saying. Honestly though any amount of underlying logic for name adjustment/matching would be better than what I have now which is "If your platforms are named exactly like X, Y, and Z, this download will be easier/faster to install; if not, here's a big folder with everything in it..." 

[Bedwyr]

Is it just me or is the update function really slow today? I'm at 1/3 complete after about 8 minutes, no other slowdowns (50Mbps).

Edited August 19, 2016 by Bedwyr

[Mute64]

So i tested out the package feature with Launchbox today @Jason Carr, packed up my whole setup, it worked great and launchbox cleaned up my directories a heap so its much better now apart from the naming of the folders, they have dates on them which stuffs up RL and its sub-directories, apparently the folders need to be named exactly what  they are in RL's data base for example: 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe " RL DATA BASE " and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe [1980] " LB " . So now i either have to add every single directory to RL or use a bulk renamer to remove the dates from the folders and then i guess i will need to re import my games to LB since there directory will be changed. Is this worth looking into and changing for future compatibility with RL ??      

[spektor56]

I created a ticket for the consolegid.com on BB before but it was rejected, that's why i mentioned it on stream.  Below is Turion's theme using the Steam "Clear Logo's" for the PC collection.  Consolegrid has steam format logos for all emulated games that are used in steam with ICE.  Another thing that is nice with the steam style logos is that they are stupid easy for anyone to make, most of them are just ripped from box art directly (no messing around with transparencies).  Would be nice to have all my systems using this style (not just PC)

Edited August 19, 2016 by spektor56

[Jason Carr]

No worries @Bedwyr; at some point in the future we may add customization options that allow LaunchBox to behave like a standard Windows app and use the normal configuration folders, but that's far from a priority at this point.

@shinra358, I see what's happening there. If you use the folder names for the imports, it expects the disc numbers to be in the folder names, not the file names. I can see how it'd be better the other way though; I'll see if this is relatively simple to do. I'm not following you on your last sentence: "Also, I just noticed that choosing rom names when importing doesn't give the selection the rom name at all. It gives it the name that it uses in the data base." Can you explain that?

I get you, @Zombeaver, agreed.

[Jason Carr]

I see @spektor56, that makes sense. Sorry your ticket got rejected; I just opened it back up. Looks like Brad just was confused.

@Mute64, that's mostly good to hear. I haven't played with that package feature for so long, I'm almost surprised it's still working. But I'm glad it is. We should probably come back to that here soon to make sure everything is ideal for all the latest features.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, have some really good news. Higankashi who wrote the Meta.Vlc engine that we use for VLC integration in Big Box finally got back to me with a fix for a lot more of the VLC issues. Somebody really needs to buy this guy a beer (or a yacht).

I'm the only one who's tested it at this point, but there's a new beta out and it seems to fix the video centering issues as well as the issues with the videos not being fullscreen on 16:10 monitors. It also should help to address bugs like the video audio playing in the background and certain error popups. So glad to get some of this stuff fixed. Hopefully you guys can test and see the same results. The VLC videos should also be faster to load and the transitions with them should be much smoother as well.

@kmoney I'm expecting/hoping that this will fix all of the VLC issues you had reported recently except for #2 (the green stuff for the webm videos), which are caused by VLC itself. I think I may be able to upgrade the integrated version of VLC in order to possibly fix this.

I'm planning on putting out the official 6.8 in a few days, once we've all tested this and we're happy with it. A lot of bugfixes have gone into this stuff so I think it's important to release it sooner rather than later.

Also, thanks to @imdavid555 we've found a glaring bug that if certain transitions are used for the Screen Transition setting, the frame rate can drop to a crawl specifically in the CoverFlow views. I'm going to be focusing on this one to get it fixed somehow before the official release. Thanks all.

[Jason Carr]

@ThePolish I still have on my list to look into the restarting WMP videos as well. Hopefully I can fix that before the release too.

[shinra358]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

@Bedwyr

@shinra358, I see what's happening there. If you use the folder names for the imports, it expects the disc numbers to be in the folder names, not the file names. I can see how it'd be better the other way though; I'll see if this is relatively simple to do. I'm not following you on your last sentence: "Also, I just noticed that choosing rom names when importing doesn't give the selection the rom name at all. It gives it the name that it uses in the data base." Can you explain that?

Yeah but the thing is, it works fine without that option being checked with the same folder (without the disc number). But just doesn't work with that option checked. (if that's what you were saying, then ignore this line).

 

When 'use folder names' is unchecked when importing, the rom name will be Mortal Kombat - Johnny Baba Ayyy.iso but the name that will be imported into launchbox is whatever the metadata name is which would be Mortal Kombat: Johnny Baba Gaaa

Edited August 19, 2016 by shinra358

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr I just gave the newest beta a test with the vlc player and sadly I am still seeing #3 on my list (except I don't think it is quiet as often as before) with the platform clear logos view and the coverflow with details view which is:

3. Occasionally when I am scrolling through my game list in any platform and stop on a game the video doesnt start unless I move to the game beside it and then back to the game I was on and then the video starts. This is random and does not happen with WMP

I also got a BB crash error when scrolling through the games about the vlc player but I failed to copy it down,if it happens again I will report back.

Also I did notice that one time in the platform clear logos view that the faint line was back and was under some of the clear logos again totally randow as I only noticed it one time after starting and shutting down BB about 5 times.

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, shinra358 said:

Yeah but the thing is, it works fine without that option being checked with the same folder (without the disc number). But just doesn't work with that option checked. (if that's what you were saying, then ignore this line).

 

When 'use folder names' is unchecked when importing, the rom name will be Mortal Kombat - Johnny Baba Ayyy.iso but the name that will be imported into launchbox is whatever the metadata name is which would be Mortal Kombat: Johnny Baba Gaaa

I have the folder issue fixed for the next beta here. I *think* what you're saying on the last line is that the name of the game will be the name from the LaunchBox Games Database instead of the name from the ROM file, which is by design. Is that what you're saying?

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, kmoney said:

@Jason Carr I just gave the newest beta a test with the vlc player and sadly I am still seeing #3 on my list (except I don't think it is quiet as often as before) with the platform clear logos view and the coverflow with details view which is:

3. Occasionally when I am scrolling through my game list in any platform and stop on a game the video doesnt start unless I move to the game beside it and then back to the game I was on and then the video starts. This is random and does not happen with WMP

I also got a BB crash error when scrolling through the games about the vlc player but I failed to copy it down,if it happens again I will report back.

Also I did notice that one time in the platform clear logos view that the faint line was back and was under some of the clear logos again totally randow as I only noticed it one time after starting and shutting down BB about 5 times.

Thanks @kmoney. I'll look into #3 there. Too bad we didn't catch that Big Box error; that's the kind of stuff that I hate not having fixed. Any chance the error was that dreaded "VlcPlayer not be ready, if you want to use VlcPlay no in XAML, please read this Wiki" error? Would you happen to remember?

And bah on that image issue. I have yet to see it since we "fixed" it in the live stream but if it happened once, it'll happen again. Ugh.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, another new beta is out. This one fixes the multi-disc folder issue (the file names are now used instead of the folder names to detect the disc if you check the box to use the folder names for the game titles). It also fixes the frame rate issues that were showing up in the CoverFlow views when using 3D screen transitions (or at least it does for me @imdavid555). 3D screen transitions seem to be taxing even my highend system though so that might not be a great idea to set in the configuration, but at least now the framerate should no longer be affected after the transitions are over.

I'm also hoping that @ThePolish's restarting videos issues with the Windows Media Player engine are fixed in this beta as well, though I couldn't really reproduce it so I don't really know for sure.

Finally, I tried upgrading the VLC version to see if that would fix the green line issue when playing back the .webm Steam trailers, but sadly they're still there. I do have some more ideas for this one though. Also, Circo at EmuMovies mentioned that he could re-encode them and include them in EmuMovies which would solve the issue as well.

Let me know what else you guys find.

[shinra358]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

I have the folder issue fixed for the next beta here. I *think* what you're saying on the last line is that the name of the game will be the name from the LaunchBox Games Database instead of the name from the ROM file, which is by design. Is that what you're saying?

Haha, yesh my son. That is what I am saying. Ok, that's fine. I thought it was supposed to to have the rom name. But that's cool. Was just trying to figure out how to retain my hyphens and brackets instead of getting the semi colons. So the folder thing would fix that. But i could see a problem with mame roms (only if they dnt support scanning folders inside folders _ but i dnt remember if it does or not. Ill check that when im back home in a few).

 

Edit: Wait, if you say it is by design for it to use launchbox database names instead of the name of the rom, then why does it specifically say: 'use folder names instead of ROM file names for game titles'?

Edit 2: I also tried inserting brackets or hyphens manually, and they just don't show in this program at all.

Edited August 19, 2016 by shinra358

[imdavid555]

41 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Alright, another new beta is out. This one fixes the multi-disc folder issue (the file names are now used instead of the folder names to detect the disc if you check the box to use the folder names for the game titles). It also fixes the frame rate issues that were showing up in the CoverFlow views when using 3D screen transitions (or at least it does for me @imdavid555). 3D screen transitions seem to be taxing even my highend system though so that might not be a great idea to set in the configuration, but at least now the framerate should no longer be affected after the transitions are over.

I'm also hoping that @ThePolish's restarting videos issues with the Windows Media Player engine are fixed in this beta as well, though I couldn't really reproduce it so I don't really know for sure.

Finally, I tried upgrading the VLC version to see if that would fix the green line issue when playing back the .webm Steam trailers, but sadly they're still there. I do have some more ideas for this one though. Also, Circo at EmuMovies mentioned that he could re-encode them and include them in EmuMovies which would solve the issue as well.

Let me know what else you guys find.

Thanks for all the help this week Jason. You were right it was the screen transitions!  (Phew)

The only ones that don't give me any issues are slide, fade, and none. The rest cause major slow down in coverflows for me. Surprised no one else here really had these issues lol. Downloading the new beta as we speak and will let you know how that goes.

Thanks again Jason!

[Bedwyr]

Feature request: Labeling the changelog by which beta they were introduced. It's hard to see which changes are under beta 7 vs beta 8. Is that doable under your workflow?

[Sepulchre]

Hello,

Testing the VLC engine in BigBox v6.8-beta-8 occasionally crashes BigBox when browsing platforms and games. It produces these errors:

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)



//... and the following code.. //



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)

 

I have noticed that coverflow performance is much smoother with the  VLC engine, but game videos are still missing at times.. WMP is playable but not ideal. The great thing about WMP is that it does not crash.

 

Edited August 20, 2016 by Sepulchre

[Jason Carr]

Thanks all. @shinra358, it makes sense that it's confusing. It basically only uses the file or folder name in order to identify the game that is correct for that file. But I get what you're saying, sounds like maybe we should have an option for that either way. I do have an item on my list though to allow people to use the file names already. Some people really don't like us remove the region and stuff.

@Bedwyr, yeah, I could muster up the obedience to do something like that. I tend to describe what is new in this thread, though. The problem with that approach is I don't even put all the changes for the betas in the change log, only the changes since the last official release. If I fix an issue with a previous beta, it doesn't end up in the change log (otherwise I'd spend too long detailing it all out).

Thank you for that error code @Sepulchre. If we're lucky that's the same error code that @kmoney saw. Should be easy to fix.

[ThePolish]

3 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

@ThePolish's restarting videos issues with the Windows Media Player engine are fixed in this beta as well, though I couldn't really reproduce it so I don't really know for sure.

Sadly it's still doing the video restart issue. But, that being said, it doesn't do it on vlc, and with the new vlc fixes I'm happy to stick with that. I didn't have a chance to really play with it too much to see about the background music, others must test this, but wmp I can confirm on my end. That being said,  when I have more time on my next day off I'll replace those videos which skip and see if it's just on my end, no sense chasing something that could be on my side if no one else is having complaints. 

 

Thank you for all your hard work on this! 

Edited August 20, 2016 by ThePolish
Poor grasp of my first language