7.10-beta-1 Released

[Expello]

1 minute ago, Jason Carr said:

Unfortunately it's not that simple. There are a million different DirectX DLLs, and you have to check for each individual one. I'm also not aware of an official MS way of doing with outside of running the installer.

Ok, thanks for your feedback. 

And BIG thanks for the speed update! :-D

[Norfair]

19 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

That is odd; it's possible that there's something unique about your collection that is affected by the changes we made. If you can, reboot your machine to see if there isn't something else weird that's going on. If you're still seeing the same results, PM me your Data folder if you can and I can test.

I've had some weird delays on my Samsung SSD for a while. Now I remembered that I activated a driver feature called "Over Provisioning" a while ago.
I tried disabling this and started Launchbox:
1. Before Initializing (before any GUI is shown) 0s
2. Initializing 0s
3. Populating Games 2s
4. Caching Playlists 0s
5. Loading Interface 2s
Total: 4s

My 4 second loading time from LB 7.8 is back. Awesome!! 
It must have been some kind of hardware/driver issue. Ironically "Over Provisioning" is something that should optimize performance.

[Zombeaver]

Any idea if you'll be able to re-work how startup vids are implemented, now that you're working on startup time? The minimum startup time implementation never seems to work quite right, probably due to startup vids typically not being of second-exact length, but in my experience no matter what you set it to it's either a little bit too long or a little bit too short.

[Jason Carr]

Just now, Zombeaver said:

Any idea if you'll be able to re-work how startup vids are implemented, now that you're working on startup time? The minimum startup time implementation never seems to work quite right, probably due to startup vids typically not being of second-exact length, but in my experience no matter what you set it to it's either a little bit too long or a little bit too short.

Yes, it was on the poll, and it didn't get a ton of votes, but it got enough that we will be covering it. Just not as a top priority.

[Zombeaver]

Understood. It's admittedly not a big deal at all, but I thought since it was of some relation to something you were already working on, might be a good time

[deliyuerek85]

BigBox does not start anymore in Beta-3. I get following error:

App:     Big Box
Version: 7.10-beta-3
Type:    System.ArgumentException
Site:    Void ThrowArgumentException(System.ExceptionResource)
Source:  mscorlib

   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)
   at ()
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Fields.InitializeDictionary()
   at (String )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Fields.GetIsValidFieldKey(String key)
   at (PlaylistFilter , Game )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.PlaylistFilter.GetMatches(Game game)
   at (Playlist , Boolean )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Playlist.GetGames(Boolean sort)
   at (Playlist , Boolean , Boolean )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Playlist.GetGameCount(Boolean includeHidden, Boolean includeBroken)
   at (<>c__DisplayClass56_0 )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Root.<>c__DisplayClass56_0.<PrecachePlaylists>b__0()
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

Recent Log:

   11:00:05 PM Exception

And Launchbox takes still 15-20 seconds to start.

 

 

EDIT:

Now Launchbox crashes too at startup

App:     LaunchBox
Version: 7.10-beta-3
Type:    System.ArgumentException
Site:    Void ThrowArgumentException(System.ExceptionResource)
Source:  mscorlib

   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)
   at ()
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Fields.InitializeDictionary()
   at (String )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Fields.GetIsValidFieldKey(String key)
   at (PlaylistFilter , Game )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.PlaylistFilter.GetMatches(Game game)
   at (Playlist , Boolean )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Playlist.GetGames(Boolean sort)
   at (Playlist , Boolean , Boolean )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Data.Playlist.GetGameCount(Boolean includeHidden, Boolean includeBroken)
   at (<>c__DisplayClass56_0 )
   at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Root.<>c__DisplayClass56_0.<PrecachePlaylists>b__0()
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

Recent Log:

   11:14:53 PM Exception

 

How do I update now?

 

EDIT 2: Ok, somehow Launchbox started again now. And Bigbox is starting too

Normally I have never problems with new beta releases.

Edited May 1, 2017 by deliyuerek85

[Kriven]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

Just to add @Jason Carr I have also just noticed this today, starts with a random track then goes sequential after.

Oh, thank god somebody else has this issue. I've spent the last few days completely reorganizing my music folders hoping it was just a problem filename. x.x;

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, Kriven said:

Oh, thank god somebody else has this issue. I've spent the last few days completely reorganizing my music folders hoping it was just a problem filename. x.x;

Yeah i only noticed it today, i only have one album in the folder, Far Cry Blood Dragon soundtrack, which has 25 tracks. When i opened bigbox it started on track 6 then proceeded to play the rest of the album in order until i went in to the options and came back out, when i came out of the options it selected another random track but then carried on playing in order again afterwards.

[deliyuerek85]

I'm getting the error again

[Kriven]

8 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Yeah i only noticed it today, i only have one album in the folder, Far Cry Blood Dragon soundtrack, which has 25 tracks. When i opened bigbox it started on track 6 then proceeded to play the rest of the album in order until i went in to the options and came back out, when i came out of the options it selected another random track but then carried on playing in order again afterwards.

I've got about 4500 tracks in my Background folder because I like the experience of having music I haven't heard in a while/at all (but still own, for whatever reason) played to me. Admittedly, the number of tracks in the folder might have contributed to the problem, but it was working properly right up until the update. Since I just picked up my Music folder and dumped it into the Background folder, that also included my .m3u playlists and a whole lot of folders-within-folders, which I thought may have been confusing Big Box somehow. I'm almost about done restructuring all of that content to simply be in the one folder with no .m3u files present, but it hasn't really changed much (Big Box now seems to favor the Assassins Creed Complete Soundtrack over Savant's Alchemist album, though).

Edited May 1, 2017 by Kriven

[Maddoc1007]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

I'm loving that view, @Maddoc1007. I trust you got this solved since I saw the video of it. Right now the placement of the videos is a serious pain point with the themes, so that is pretty high up on my list for the theme improvement stuff. I should have a better solution for that soon.

@Jason Carr Congrats on another great update seems a lot more fluid and responsive the transition between platforms KUDOS.  The only way i have solved it at the moment is by bulk editing all my screenshots and resizing them all to the same size 640x480 as images don't stretch to the video container but also as a workaround for different size images i placed a black background mask behind the video display area in the Arcade Cabinet.

[Expello]

7 hours ago, deliyuerek85 said:

I'm getting the error again

Can you backup and then delete your Playlist folder (LaunchBox\Data\Playlists)...and test again.

[DOS76]

@Expelloyou should be able to backup and delete your playlist folder without any issues.

[Expello]

2 hours ago, DOS76 said:

@Expelloyou should be able to backup and delete your playlist folder without any issues.

Yes I know it should be a help for his problem. Or do I misunderstand you?

Excuse me, I come from germany, my english is a bit crazy! ;-)

Edited May 2, 2017 by Expello

[DOS76]

I'm saying as long as you backup your playlist folder 1st it is safe to then delete it. It won't cause any issues and if worst comes to worst you can just paste the folder you backed up back into the LB root directory and it will be like you never removed it at all.

[Expello]

Exactly, so are also my experiences. 

[Jason Carr]

@deliyuerek85 I believe I have that bug fixed for the next beta, which should be out later today.

@Kriven Of course I can't seem to replicate that, but I have added something that I hope will help. We'll have to see when the beta comes out later today.

@Maddoc1007 Okay, I'll be working on the theme video placement issues shortly.

[gustarrini]

21 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

- Improvement: Massive startup performance increases for both LaunchBox and Big Box; in some cases it is now well over twice as fast; used multi-threading and other strategies

- Improvement: Significant performance increases when selecting platform categories in Big Box

Sweet improvements so far for 7.10, jason!

I hope we can expect more of these in future betas/versions.

Edited May 2, 2017 by gustarrini

[dov_EL]

Is possible download boxart for Region ? 
Example 

Nes = US , EU 
Famicom = Japan 

?

[EazyCheeze1978]

A suggestion for the beta... Whenever controller automation is used to exit an emulator or program (send the Alt+F4 combo), lock out automation (or else only allow it to be sent once every reasonable interval) for a second or two to prevent a duplicate combo from being sent. I believe this actually occurs when exiting from Demul (Dreamcast/Naomi emulator), as when I hit Back+Start on my controller (Xbox 360 Wireless Controller), the emulator exits, LaunchBox restores, and simultaneously (and alarmingly) I see the old-school Windows shut down dialog. I think this is down to Demul exiting and LaunchBox not correctly recognizing that it's truly exited, and repeating Alt+F4 even if I simply tap Back+Start for the shortest possible amount of time. It's weird, but not a huge problem especially since it doesn't shut down Windows right away. But it might alarm new users.

Anyway, just something to think about.