8.4-beta-1 Released

[Retro808]

47 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

This is separate from a caching issue; I have seen it and it's on my list to resolve. For whatever reason on rare occasions with certain size settings the boxes don't display properly. A fix is coming.

Well I'll be.....changed the aspect from 0.65 to 0.70 and no image issue. Thanks Jason. Will leave it at this setting until a fix.

[Jason Carr]

29 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

Well I'll be.....changed the aspect from 0.65 to 0.70 and no image issue. Thanks Jason. Will leave it at this setting until a fix.

Should also work just to resize the window or the side bars, or change the image size.

[Rod]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

You should be able to fix any issues with lines being cut off by adjusting the aspect ratio and spacing settings. The vertical space issue always has been an issue, even with OG LaunchBox. We may look to solve that at some point with some trickery, but it's not a new issue; unfortunately there's no good way to solve it. In the future, we might add a platform-specific aspect ratio setting, so that extra space is removed for platforms like SNES (for example), but it still doesn't solve the issue of Japanese vs. NA boxes being different heights.

OK, thanks. A platform specific aspect ratio setting would already be a huge plus, as we then can accommodate at least for platforms with only tall or only wide or only square (CD jewelcase) boxes, so I hope that feature will come.

I also noticed the spacing issue seems to get magnified somewhat the less boxes you have in a row. On a 1920p wide monitor I'm now used to having rows with only 4 boxes shown. Yes they're big then, just like I'm watching them up close on a shelf in a game store ?. The vertical spacing issue is such that on 1080p height I only see half of the second row now for standard size boxes.

You've already thought of this I'm sure, but is it an option to calculate the "correct" aspect ratio for the boxes per row from the image resolution of the thumbnails loaded in each row? Optionally of course. Or would that be too resourceful?  

Edited July 22, 2018 by Rod

[Jason Carr]

6 minutes ago, Rod said:

OK, thanks. A platform specific aspect ratio setting would already be a huge plus, as we then can accommodate at least for platforms with only tall or only wide or only square (CD jewelcase) boxes, so I hope that feature will come.

I also noticed the spacing issue seems to get magnified somewhat the less boxes you have in a row. On a 1920p wide monitor I'm now used to having rows with only 4 boxes shown. Yes they're big then, just like I'm watching them up close on a shelf in a game store ?. The vertical spacing issue is such that on 1080p height I only see half of the second row now for standard size boxes.

You've already thought of this I'm sure, but is it an option to calculate the "correct" aspect ratio for the boxes per row from the image resolution of the thumbnails loaded in each row? Optionally of course. Or would that be too resourceful?  

That is a possibility, but with people's various preferences as well as the various nature of the aspect ratios of boxes even in a particular platform (unfortunately often the images are not exactly all the same aspect ratio), it would probably resort in at least minor issues to automatically detect the aspect ratio. And of course it wouldn't work at all for situations where sizes were mixed. I have thought about trying to do it on a row-by-row basis though; it would be a challenge but I might at least attempt it at some point.

Per the spacing issue getting magnified with less boxes on a row, you should be able to tweak your settings so that it's not an issue.

[Suhrvivor]

3 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

I'm not certain but I think @Suhrvivor's issues were different, though I could be wrong. Are you still experiencing similar issues @Suhrvivor?

15 hours ago, Rod said:

I haven't encountered that issue in a while now, but to be frank, I don't usually launch my games from Launchbox, I mostly use it to manage my collection, test and modify settings. I have a few days off to tinker a bit with it, I'll let you know if I find any issue again.

Regarding vertical spacing, Windows 10 explorer seems have figured out how to do it rightt, there must be a way to mimic its behavior.

[kmoney]

@Jason Carr One thing I just noticed with LB Next is the difference in volume with VLC and WMP. For instance if I keep my main PC volume at 12 and I have LB Next volume knob set at 25% I can here no sound from the videos with VLC but I switch to WMP and I can here sound from the videos at that low of a level. So if I am using VLC as my video player in LB Next I have to turn the LB Next volume knob up a lot more to get the same sound output from WMP at a lower level. Not a big deal but wanted to point it out.

[Retro808]

8 minutes ago, Suhrvivor said:

I haven't encountered that issue in a while now, but to be frank, I don't usually launch my games from Launchbox, I mostly use it to manage my collection, test and modify settings. I have a few days off to tinker a bit with it, I'll let you know if I find any issue again.
 

Same here. I primarily use BigBox in the cabinet. I was only recently testing somethings in Next during an import and stumbled across the issue. So have no clue how long it has been there. I remember you posted you had it happen a couple times which is why I mentioned you. Thanks for tinkering  if you can. 

[Jason Carr]

20 hours ago, kmoney said:

@Jason Carr One thing I just noticed with LB Next is the difference in volume with VLC and WMP. For instance if I keep my main PC volume at 12 and I have LB Next volume knob set at 25% I can here no sound from the videos with VLC but I switch to WMP and I can here sound from the videos at that low of a level. So if I am using VLC as my video player in LB Next I have to turn the LB Next volume knob up a lot more to get the same sound output from WMP at a lower level. Not a big deal but wanted to point it out.

Good to know.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 14 is out now with the following:

• When starting up OG LaunchBox, there is now a window prompting you to use .Next instead, if you wish. There are options for yes and no, as well as options to always start .Next or stop prompting entirely. This should inform anyone who isn't aware of .Next about what's coming.
• Fixed a few .Next translation issues.
• Fixed .Next to behave correctly with image groups and selecting All, or when a particular image group is not remembered via platforms, playlists, or platform categories. It should now show the default image group properly instead of just using what the previously selected image group was.
• Implemented "Colorize Background Fade" in .Next
• Added an option to revert to OG LaunchBox in the .Next main menu. This is necessary due to the option to "always use .Next" when starting up OG LaunchBox.
• Hopeful fix for the occasional .Next freezing issue when selecting Options
• Hopeful fix for the boxes not displaying properly issue in .Next with certain box and window sizes

There are still a few one-off issues out there with .Next that I have heard from a few different people, but I believe that the remaining issues are due to driver or MS bugs, though it's hard to confirm. Hopefully we'll get more feedback from people after the official release comes out (which should be very soon, early next week at the latest, but hopefully sooner).

Anyways, please let me know how this beta fares and if the above listed issues are indeed fixed for you.

[Mr. RetroLust]

15 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Beta 14 is out now with the following:

• When starting up OG LaunchBox, there is now a window prompting you to use .Next instead, if you wish. There are options for yes and no, as well as options to always start .Next or stop prompting entirely. This should inform anyone who isn't aware of .Next about what's coming.
• Fixed a few .Next translation issues.
• Fixed .Next to behave correctly with image groups and selecting All, or when a particular image group is not remembered via platforms, playlists, or platform categories. It should now show the default image group properly instead of just using what the previously selected image group was.
• Implemented "Colorize Background Fade" in .Next
• Added an option to revert to OG LaunchBox in the .Next main menu. This is necessary due to the option to "always use .Next" when starting up OG LaunchBox.
• Hopeful fix for the occasional .Next freezing issue when selecting Options
• Hopeful fix for the boxes not displaying properly issue in .Next with certain box and window sizes

There are still a few one-off issues out there with .Next that I have heard from a few different people, but I believe that the remaining issues are due to driver or MS bugs, though it's hard to confirm. Hopefully we'll get more feedback from people after the official release comes out (which should be very soon, early next week at the latest, but hopefully sooner).

Anyways, please let me know how this beta fares and if the above listed issues are indeed fixed for you.

Fix translation issues confirmed! Thanks man  

[Jason Carr]

Beta 15 is out now with just some minimal changes:

• Fixed a crash on single-core/single-threaded machines
• Prepped the changelog and the release notes for the translators

@kmoney I looked into the volume control differences between VLC and WMP, and that's unfortunately a pain to solve. It seems like they're the same at 100% volumes but for some reason VLC and WMP behave entirely differently at various volume levels, so I'm not sure if there's even anything I can do about it. Strange, but I guess it's just how they made them.

Also, I'm still waiting to hear back on the hopeful fix for freezes loading up the .Next Options screen, and the hopeful fix for the disappearing boxes. If anyone can test and let me know, I'd appreciate it. I'm sending this release over to the translators for translating, so hopefully we can get the official release out in a few days or so.

[FistyDollars]

I'm having a weird issue where sometimes when I single-click on a game to select it, the game immediately launches. I'm 100% sure I'm not double-clicking it, and it's only ever happened in NEXT, not OG Launchbox. Has anyone else seen this?

[dragon57]

@Jason Carr, I have checked to see if I still have the missing graphics in .Next with the latest beta, and I do. I performed a close check on both my Windows 7 and Windows 10 machine and both have the issue. Both are running the latest Nvidia drivers (with different video cards) and the latest Windows patches.

I check the type of graphic in each case and I did not see any strangeness with them. All were non-interlaced png files, with a mix of 72 dpi and 300 dpi files. Most of my png files are interlaced, but not all, and not all non-interlaced files were missing.

[Zombeaver]

I'm getting a fairly frequent crash when starting some games.

And another somewhat less frequent crash just while browsing around clicking on different games.

[PattersonCZ]

@Jason Carr New welcome page with launchbox selection dont scale properly. I dont see lower place of the page, so i cant choose launchbox version.. Using 1920x1080 , 150% scale (big tv screen ) win 10

Maybe thats why i have problems with gap between covers.

 

EDIT : yup in OG Launchbox covers dont change size but in Next they are twice as big then on 100%. And gap between them is larger.

Edited July 25, 2018 by PattersonCZ

[Retrofrogg]

5 hours ago, FistyDollars said:

I'm having a weird issue where sometimes when I single-click on a game to select it, the game immediately launches. I'm 100% sure I'm not double-clicking it, and it's only ever happened in NEXT, not OG Launchbox. Has anyone else seen this?

Yes, I have the same problem. I have identified one trigger for this behaviour - when I am using a different monitor (with LBN, or at least the video snap, paused), then return to the one that has LBN on it and single-click on a game, the game will launch. If I click elsewhere in the LBN window and then single-click on a game, it doesn’t launch. Does this apply to you at all?

Edited July 25, 2018 by Dan

[Retrofrogg]

An odd issue that I have noticed over the last 1-2 weeks (and it persists with the current beta). This problem is independent of the external monitor. It doesn’t occur on first starting LBN when loading the first game.

After that however, sometimes when I load a game in LBN by double clicking on it (it doesn’t happen if I right click and then select play), the game selection will jump to the game directly below and the game details will change accordingly. This is visible for 1-2 seconds before the emu loads and takes the screen. 

[FistyDollars]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

Yes, I have the same problem. I have identified one trigger for this behaviour - when I am using a different monitor (with LBN, or at least the video snap, paused), then return to the one that has LBN on it and single-click on a game, the game will launch. If I click elsewhere in the LBN window and then single-click on a game, it doesn’t launch. Does this apply to you at all?

Nope, I'm just using a single monitor. But it might have something to do with clicking outside of Launchbox and back in, I'll have to test.

 

EDIT: Yup, that's the cause (or at least one cause.) Any time I click away and launchbox loses focus, when I click back into launchbox the game that I click gets launched as if I double clicked.

Edited July 25, 2018 by FistyDollars

[MadK9]

@Jason Carr I finally managed to find out what was causing the issues i was having with LB Next, and i was actually surprised and puzzled by it at the same time.

Adobe Photoshop, i spent the last two days playing in LB Next with little to no issues (i had one hard lock and had to end the task, but i think it was my own fault), late evening i needed

to make up another piece of media i was missing, so was working away in Adobe, then i go back to LB Next and add the new media, instantly no refresh. Tried with adobe loaded and unloaded.

this made no difference once i loaded Adobe then Next became unstable for me, rebooted and next was back to normal working fine with no issues, so loaded Adobe again and again i started

to have some issues.

Not sure there is any way to pinpoint why this is happening, and even if there is a fix, i will add my Adobe PS is paid not a dodgy version, not sure if anyone else has had the same issues as me

but seems to be rare, and while i appreciate that this is an issue, please don't waste too much time on it, i know the cause now for me at least and i will just work around it.

 

[Jason Carr]

Thank you all for the bug reports/sleuthing. @MadK9, that is especially helpful to know. I think there must be some kind of weird video conflict between .Next and various applications that use video acceleration in some cases, at least that's my guess. I would call it just an MS bug, but obviously it's not an issue with Big Box, so there has to be something causing it. I'm still trying to figure it out.

I'm holding off on the next official release until I can get these various bugs solved. They're a challenge because most of them are very difficult to reproduce (if I can reproduce them at all), but I'll get it all worked out. Hopefully we'll see the next official release some time next week.