Best Way to use Launchbox with NAS system

[zoemorn]

Seems good enough to me, i hadn't tried prior windows server versions to know the difference.

the media take up considerable space, my laptop drive is small, so i figured i'd try just putting all of that on the nas where room is more a'plenty.  i've not noticed too much load delay in initial tests but we'll see.

 

[DOS76]

You can try but I wouldn't count on getting great performance loading all those small image files over the network.

[zoemorn]

12 hours ago, DOS76 said:

You can try but I wouldn't count on getting great performance loading all those small image files over the network.

Ya you may be right, we'll see if its still enjoyable.

So i did some tests of a few scenarios, all with LB core system installed to my gaming pc:

constants:  Used full Atari2600 set to example "light weight" games, and a few PSP games as 'medium heavy' games. Didnt have anything heavier (more advanced systems) to try out for this test. I realize this is a very small subset of the typical collection so results may and likely will be different under the full load of a large collection. I'd love to hear other folk's experiences of performance with their big collections as pertains to similar storage and connection scenarios described below.

the NAS described below is an old Supermicro server box i bought used, 16GB of ram, 3.5ghz xeon cpu having 4 x 1TB drives (7200rpm i believe) and an extra old drive that i installed win2019 server to. (Free to try out so why not) - previously had tried out FreeNAS but per my past experience sticking with Winblows is more straightforward.  But FreeNAS seemed pretty decent, lots of features, but i digress...

Test1:   Games/Media on a USB drive - had a usb 3.0 64gb drive.    Result: load times were good, didnt feel too slow. but 64GB not nearly enough capacity.

Test2: Games/Media on external hard drive, on an old  usb/ide/sata adapter (NOT usb 3.0... might be 2.0, i dont know)  and an old 7200 RPM sata hard drive (ha ha, so the components dont exactly scream 'fast' right?)  Results: little slower load time but didnt 'feel' all that bad. seems usable.   I've heard of some who keep all their stuff on external HDD's, just plugging in the HDD's that house the games they want to play at the time. Though not great, I might be able to stomach that but LB would crash on me if i browsed through a platform for which the drive wasnt connected that had that platform's contents.  I dont mind an error popping up stating "content unavailable" but to have it actually crash out was painful.

Test3: Games/Media on NAS, connected over Wifi  - noticeable lag time to load the media... enough so that i wouldnt want to continue in that fashion. Theres likely improvements that could be made with some network tweaking but who has the time.. lol   -- however after having done this test, i have been working in LB over wifi and havent minded the load times that much, like they arent HORRIBLE so if i'm just wanting to pull up a game on my laptop without connecting to the TV then the extra delay is tolerable.

Test4: Games/Media on NAS connected over LAN - similar to the 'on USB' tests above, load times 'felt fine' and didnt have horrible load times.  so currently thats my planned plan of action.

hope this is helpful to anyone considering the storage side of their setups.  my laptop's storage capacity is limited but my desire for a collection is great! ha 

[thefritz11]

On 1/7/2019 at 10:59 PM, Aevans0001 said:

So correctly what I have.

1 Nas (4x4TB) Total 11TB

1 Box account (50GB)

1 Amazon Drive (1 TB)

Multiple computers and laptops with C and D drives

Cdrive is for windows and random emulator user profiles (using symbolic links)

D Drive is for LB/BB, Rocketlauncher, Some emulators, All image files (Boxes, SS, etc), Windows games

Z drive is NAS and I have All Roms, All Videos, All Manuals, All Music, All Configuration files

By not using a backup software to backup my settings, I have no need to make sure that the files have been updated,  it is instant.  

 

Currently I have CEMU, CXBX, Pinball FX2, Xenia, Retroarch, and MAME running from my D drive with the settings being on the Z: drive.

For frontends I use LB/BB and Rocketlauncher (although shortly I hope to get rid of RL and just use LB/BB from the D Drive

I have symbolic links from the default folders to my Nas drive.  For instance I have a symbolic link from d:\games\Launchbox\Games\ --------> z:\videogames\Games also one from d:\games\launchbox\manuals ----------> z:\videogames\manuals

 

This way there is less configuration to do in launchbox, everything is default.  

 

Since @peterrrjr post I now have my images in a symbolic link from d:\games\launchbox\images ---------------> d:\cloud\amazon drive\Launchbox images.   Which automatically backs up to my amazon drive with unlimited photo storage, and in turn also sync to my nas drive under z:\amazondrive and to my arcade to d:\cloud\amazon drive\launchox images.  Which again means less configuration as all pc machines are the same. If I add images to one pc, it will automatically sync to the other pc within minutes.

 

If you would like any of y other batch files, let me know.

 

 

 

Sorry this one is old but I'm trying to figure out which config files I can share/sync across installs and which I can't. For instance have a gaming PC with  LB/BB that has different controller options than my arcade cabinet and different than my Living Room PC. Having a tough time getting roms, settings and images etc. syncing but still allowing me to have unique controller and/or graphic settings in BB or more importantly emulators.

Edited September 1, 2023 by thefritz11

[Knowcontrol]

13 hours ago, thefritz11 said:

Having a tough time getting roms, settings and images etc. syncing

There may be a more elegant way, but I would suggest having individual LB installs on each machine. Each LB would then be directed to the media and ROM folders on the NAS.

[thefritz11]

1 hour ago, Knowcontrol said:

There may be a more elegant way, but I would suggest having individual LB installs on each machine. Each LB would then be directed to the media and ROM folders on the NAS.

Thanks. What about emulators. I currently have them on NAS but will need unique settings for some for the different LB installs. Any thoughts there?

[Knowcontrol]

8 hours ago, thefritz11 said:

What about emulators

That would be the idea with the individual installs - each emulator would be able to handle the individual video and controller settings.

You don't need a license for each machine, LB allows for a single license on multiple machines.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Knowcontrol

[thefritz11]

2 hours ago, Knowcontrol said:

That would be the idea with the individual installs - each emulator would be able to handle the individual video and controller settings.

You don't need a license for each machine, LB allows for a single license on multiple machines.

Yeah I was more hoping to even sync emulators where I could across all installs. So they stay up to date version and install wise (for games that need updates installed like PS3 etc.).

[Knowcontrol]

I hear you but, as you know, RPCS3, PCSX2, and Dolphin are ultra simple to update and trivial to do so. You could

1. run the emulators from the server and write-protect the controller and emulator settings files OR

2. Run LB & emulators locally and then use FreeFileSync to automatically (--automatic using the included RealTimeSync .exe) sync all LB and emulator files to/from the server. You would then set the files you don't want to sync as excluded in the Filters list in FFS.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Knowcontrol

[Aevans0001]

So just an update and maybe a better explanation of how i ended up using my nas with my arcades.

 

The Equipment: I have a total of 1 arcade, 2 racing arcades, 3 pc machines, 2 NAS systems.

The plan: I wanted to be able to load my arcade up to any of my devices and get the same experience.  If I change it on one, it changes to all

How I accomplished:

I loaded all roms, updates, videos, manuals, emulator configurations from the NAS

I install all emulators as portable and install them all into the same directories on each computer

I created .bat files to automatically assign symbolic links to each  of the emulators, Launchbox, Rocket Launcher on each computer.  For instance, my mame ini files are located on my NAS drive, each computer has mame installed at c:\games\emulators\mame with a symbolic link between.

I symbolic links so launchbox thinks my games are in c:\games\launchbox\games when they are really on NAs drive

The biggest issue i faced was the images for the games.  In my experience when i was running the images form the NAS, it made the system run VERY slowly to load.

I ended up installing the images on my arcade and then using a backup program to send it to the other pcs.

 

End Result:

It goes in phases and not sure if this is an issue with my configuration or not but sometimes when exiting Mame, it freezes for about 30 seconds, then returns to Launchbox.  I'm sure that the games load slower but it is not really noticeable.    

[Fursphere]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:47 PM, Aevans0001 said:

It goes in phases and not sure if this is an issue with my configuration or not but sometimes when exiting Mame, it freezes for about 30 seconds, then returns to Launchbox.  I'm sure that the games load slower but it is not really noticeable.    

Sounds like MAME is waiting to write to the NAS disk.   Do you have your disks set to automatically spin down in the NAS?   Can you add an SSD write cache disk to your NAS?   Might solve/help those issues.