BigBox Input Lag Investigation

[Iscariath]

The same problem does persist with other themes, but I gotta say, the absolutely love Fundamental theme! I'm definitely keeping it.

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, Iscariath said:

The same problem does persist with other themes, but I gotta say, the absolutely love Fundamental theme! I'm definitely keeping it.

lol, well i suppose thats sort of a win.  

[Lordmonkus]

@Iscariath try setting your image quality in BB to medium if you have not done that already. Having it set to max quality can cause issues I have found on my older computers, some of the art work can be quite large and eat up ram in a hurry.

[Iscariath]

2 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

@Iscariath try setting your image quality in BB to medium if you have not done that already. Having it set to max quality can cause issues I have found on my older computers, some of the art work can be quite large and eat up ram in a hurry.

The only option I see for image quality is for coverflow, a feature that I don't use. Is there another setting for images quality that affect the quality of all images?

[Iscariath]

Alright, after a little bit more experimenting, I found that my stuttering is mostly due to BigBox populating images to the library. After browsing BigBox for a while, the experience became much smoother. Then I refreshed all images in the options and the stutter came back until I browsed for a bit. Is there a way to allocate more resources to populate images faster at startup?

[chilidog]

Hello

Just wanted to chime in and say I see the same problem as Iscariath,  It is not necessarily controller related.  Seems like big box can try to load all images in a platform at once when I am scrolling.  Sometimes it will hang for 10+ seconds and I have to wait, scroll again, hang again.  This is on a PC with a 4790k and 970 gpu.

 

 

[chilidog]

Some more information which might help diagnose:

All my assets (images etc) are local on an SSD, but most of my (pre-PS2) roms are hosted on a gbE NAS.

[noiseordinance]

I'll just chip in the thread I created in 1/2017 regarding this: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/35069-bigbox-lag/

From my end, I have 2 systems: one with i7 4770k, 16GB RAM, GTX 970, and the other with i5 4460, 16GB RAM, GTX 650. Both run SSD drives where both games and images / videos are loaded. Both stutter frequently when scrolling up and down using xbox 360 controllers connected via official Microsoft receiver, and no stuttering whatsoever using the wireless keyboard. Both systems run Win 10 and even with the Launchbox as the only software installed, the problem persists.

I too typically use Powershell to wipe out as much bloat as possible.

Also wanted to add that one of the recent betas that @Jason Carr created seemed to fix the issue but then after upgrading and then trying to downgrade the fix did not return, so I'm at a loss.

Edited September 28, 2018 by noiseordinance

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, just to clarify a few things here:

- We've done a huge amount of testing and experimentation in the past with the controller code, and it does seem like controllers somehow behave more poorly on some systems than others. However, we haven't been able to identify what causes it. It is true that controllers are just inherently slightly more intensive to use than the keyboard, so if your system is already being pushed to the limits, then it can happen. That said, I still have yet to see it happen on any of my numerous machines (unfortunately), so I'm at a loss.

- One huge area of confusion is the background cache. It is important to note that Big Box can be sluggish if it's still caching things in the background. On fast systems it's usually not very noticeable, but if your hardware is being pushed, you're best bet is to just bite the bullet and pre-populate the cache, which will remove that as a performance issue. You can pre-populate the cache by going to Options > Image Cache in Big Box. Most stutters are related to this (at least ones that aren't controller-specific).

[wallmachine]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

you're best bet is to just bite the bullet and pre-populate the cache, which will remove that as a performance issue.

Doesn't really work as intended because when using the A-Z search it ignores pre-built cache.

[noiseordinance]

I can't tell you how many times I've prepopulated the cache without any meaningful impact on the stuttering, unfortunately. 

[Jason Carr]

56 minutes ago, wallmachine said:

Doesn't really work as intended because when using the A-Z search it ignores pre-built cache.

That just simply isn't true. Not exactly sure what you're getting at there.

49 minutes ago, noiseordinance said:

I can't tell you how many times I've prepopulated the cache without any meaningful impact on the stuttering, unfortunately. 

Sure, which I assume is still controller-related.

[lumni]

Jason, how does the cache work? Is it a just a RAM cache of the files or some paginated/hybrid type?  Can we assume that pre caching everything is always better?  Even for large collections?
Thanks

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, lumni said:

Jason, how does the cache work? Is it a just a RAM cache of the files or some paginated/hybrid type?  Can we assume that pre caching everything is always better?  Even for large collections?
Thanks

Yes, pre-caching everything is always better. The Big Box cache is a disk cache only; there is no RAM cache for Big Box (nor is there a RAM cache for LaunchBox anymore now that we got rid of the OG interface). The only disadvantage to pre-caching everything is the disk space required.

[Lordmonkus]

I would just like to direct everyone who says "Launchbox is slow" to this post over here:

 

The user was having issues with long load times and it turned out to be caused by some speakers he had. This is a prime example of what I have been saying, sometimes other software interferes in some odd manner that is outside of Launchbox. So when I say that many of us don't have these issues that people complain about and it could be your computer this is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about.

 

[Kondorito]

I am doing some tests (I am not affected by this issue but feel the urge to help in solving it). I "think" I am seeing a pattern in all the users being affected by the controller lag. 

If you read this post, have the issue and you are NOT running Windows 10, let me know below. 

If you have the issue and are running Windows 10, let me know if either you are using the default Windows 10 drivers for the controller, or have installed them manually. 

Thanks! 

[dragon57]

1 hour ago, Kondorito said:

I am doing some tests (I am not affected by this issue but feel the urge to help in solving it). I "think" I am seeing a pattern in all the users being affected by the controller lag. 

If you read this post, have the issue and you are NOT running Windows 10, let me know below. 

If you have the issue and are running Windows 10, let me know if either you are using the default Windows 10 drivers for the controller, or have installed them manually. 

Thanks! 

I'm am running Windows 10. I am running the Windows default driver for my 3rd party 360 controller and the DS4Windows driver for my OEM Dual Shock 4 controller.

[Kondorito]

13 minutes ago, dragon57 said:

I'm am running Windows 10. I am running the Windows default driver for my 3rd party 360 controller and the DS4Windows driver for my OEM Dual Shock 4 controller.

Dragon, have you tried fully closing LB/BB, unplugging one of the controllers, launching BB again and test? If not please do and try with each one being the only one connected at BB launch. Does is stutter with both joysticks hooked one at a time? 

The 3rd party 360 is cabled or wireless? Whats the name of the driver in the Device Manager? 

[noiseordinance]

I'm running Windows 10, genuine XBOX 360 controller(s) and wireless receiver. Controller lag issue happens with a single or multiple controllers attached. Using the default Windows 10 driver for the wireless receiver. 

In device manager: My driver is listed as “Xbox 360 wireless receiver for Windows”, date of 4/10/2018, version 10.0.17134.1. 

[Z3R0B4NG]

Can somebody explain or post a video how that controller lag actually LOOKS LIKE?  

I currently have 14513 game entries in my launchbox (160GB, no roms in the folder, all just scraped media), Windows 10, Xbox App is installed (i need that for Forza, Gears of War... i don't get why people uninstall that thing so often, aren't you happy that you can play the Xbox Exclusives now?).   

I usually use 8bitdo pads but for testing purposes i used my Xbox 360 wireless pad and no change... works fine as always. (maybe if i knew what exactly to look for?)  
I'm still using the default theme, with some standard customized settings. Like white text list on the side as game list that just keeps scrolling, no fancy animations with clear logos or whatever.  
That said i have a solid gaming PC, 16GB RAM, GTX1080, 7700K@5GHz, LaunchBox installed on SSD.  

To the whole Xbox App theory, maybe it has to do specifically with the "DVR" recording feature, that you should always disable. ( https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6239-DZCB-8600 ... i think the UI changed a bit since that article was written but you get the idea), recording video will obviously cost a lot of performance and especially on slower machines that may be very disruptive.  ...but that would most likely not be limited to Big Box, that would probably affect all other games as well, still worth checking if you disabled that nonsense.  
And i've heard that setting defaults to ON randomly for some people when updating Windows 10 at least it used to when it was new, so it is worth rechecking every now and then, personally i turned mine OFF once and it stayed that way since but YMMV.