Disable Image Cache

[starplayer]

Hello.

I just found out that Launchbox caches the images, not sure why, as they should already be in the image folder.

Thing is, in my system it has already 8 GB. Since I'm not swimming in space, I'd like to know if there is some way to disable this image caching.

Or maybe I could delete the original images from the image folder? Seems pointless to have things duplicated, even more so since I want two Launcbox installations (which were supposed to share the image folder)

[Jason Carr]

Without the image cache, LaunchBox would be extremely sluggish due to the typical large size of images that are downloaded from the LaunchBox Games Database. So turning the disk cache off completely is not possible. If you're low on space, I would suggest removing any image types that you don't need, and then clearing out the cache.

[starplayer]

Thank you for your answer.

I will do that. Slightly unrelated, is there an option to just download one image max per game? For example, is there is no Box-Front available, download a flyer or cart or something.

Thank you

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, starplayer said:

Thank you for your answer.

I will do that. Slightly unrelated, is there an option to just download one image max per game? For example, is there is no Box-Front available, download a flyer or cart or something.

Thank you

Not currently, unfortunately. I believe that's the first I've heard of the request. We might add an option for that eventually if it becomes a more popular request.

[starplayer]

Ok.I found this thread, at least two other peopple want similar things

 

I find it troubling to have to download a bunch of images that I don't want to see ever. Plus, it stresses your servers with no need.

I know most people have no space problem, but for small computers with ssds and such (or even SD cards), images quickly add up.

I hope this feature will be added in the future!

Thank you

 

Edited September 29, 2018 by starplayer

[neil9000]

12 minutes ago, starplayer said:

Ok.I found this thread, at least two other peopple want similar things

 

I find it troubling to have to download a bunch of images that I don't want to see ever. Plus, it stresses your servers with no need.

I know most people have no space problem, but for small computers with ssds and such (or even SD cards), images quickly add up.

I hope this feature will be added in the future!

Thank you

 

Well all the image downloads have checkboxes on them, just uncheck the image types you dont want. So for example uncheck everything except Box-Front and only box front images will be downloaded. Then if you have games missing box-front after you can highlight all those games missing the image and specify a different image type for those games by unchecking box-front and checking the box on a different image type.

[starplayer]

Yeah, that's what I'll do, thanks for the tip. Still gonna get the other versions from different regions, but it's not as bad.

[starplayer]

So, I've followed your advice. I deleted all the images, ran the import for the N64, with no images.

Went to add images to Banjo Kazooie, just Box-Front. It still download a bunch other images (carts, clear logo, screenshots fanart).

Deleted all the images. Tried again, but unticked all the boxes (to download nothing basically). It still downloaded images. What is going on?

Edited September 29, 2018 by starplayer

[Kondorito]

Check in your image preferences in the Tools > Options (if I remember correctly) menu, and be sure that for front box images you only have the box checked for front, and nothing else. 

[starplayer]

Ok, that should be it, the priorities coincide with the extra downloaded images. Unfortunately, as I'm still using the free version, I can't see to change the settings.

[slagfart]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I have a similar issue. I have a larger LaunchBox collection, but I keep the images on an M2 SSD for performance, and accessing & resizing them at 4K is not a performance problem for my PC - even if I delete the cache, the images load fast enough for me on the next load.

However, the image cache continuously bloats out in size as it insists on writing the resized image to disk in the cached folder. I've just deleted 200GB of cached images, and have to do this on a routine basis. My M2 drive is only 500GB, and so these cached images take a large portion of my total space.

Short of a script that continuously deletes the Cache-* directories, I'd like to request that I can disable the cache. I also believe loading the source images would be even faster if it didn't have to perform the write operation at the end of each render of an image.

Edited September 29, 2021 by slagfart

[Jason Carr]

9 hours ago, slagfart said:

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I have a similar issue. I have a larger LaunchBox collection, but I keep the images on an M2 SSD for performance, and accessing & resizing them at 4K is not a performance problem for my PC - even if I delete the cache, the images load fast enough for me on the next load.

However, the image cache continuously bloats out in size as it insists on writing the resized image to disk in the cached folder. I've just deleted 200GB of cached images, and have to do this on a routine basis. My M2 drive is only 500GB, and so these cached images take a large portion of my total space.

Short of a script that continuously deletes the Cache-* directories, I'd like to request that I can disable the cache. I also believe loading the source images would be even faster if it didn't have to perform the write operation at the end of each render of an image.

I can guarantee that loading the source images without the cache would definitely not be faster and would be more of a performance issue. We always test that stuff before we implement things the way we do.

I understand the desire to not write the cache images to disk, however. I think performance for most users would be significantly negatively affected in that case, but I do understand why you would want to do it. If you would, please create a BitBucket ticket for it and we'll see if other users are interested in it as well (Help & Support > Request a Feature in the header of this page).

[Fursphere]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this seems to be relevant.

If LB/BB is just going to cache images, there doesn't seem to be any benefit to downloading higher quality images.  So a couple of questions.

- What is the resizing target for images?    Is it a static target size, or a percentage, or something else?   

- Which LB/BB image categories are cached?

- Would it be possible to check the source image and do an analysis before caching?  "if source is = target, don't cache" or something.  I could see this being a mess too. 

- And finally, maybe just a mass processing button.   "refactor images for performance"   This is along the lines of if LB/BB isn't going to use HQ images, there doesn't seem to be a point in downloading and storing them in the HQ format.   Just process them down to what LB/BB will consume and be done with it.

That's my thoughts on the subject at least.  

thanks!

[neil9000]

12 minutes ago, Fursphere said:

What is the resizing target for images?    Is it a static target size, or a percentage, or something else?  

Its theme dependant in Bigbox, and in Launchbox it depends on the size you have the images set to, if you have them very small with lots on screen, small cached images, if you have them large with just a few on screen larger cached images. If you never change themes or the size of images in Launchbox then nothing will be cached again as the approriate sizes are already there.

[Fursphere]

3 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Its theme dependant in Bigbox, and in Launchbox it depends on the size you have the images set to, if you have them very small with lots on screen, small cached images, if you have them large with just a few on screen larger cached images. If you never change themes or the size of images in Launchbox then nothing will be cached again as the approriate sizes are already there.

I see.  So lots of variables go into that.

Would it be possible to make the image cache location a user option?  For example, let me put LB/BB on my spindle drives, and then the cache folders on my SSD as a comprise? 

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, Fursphere said:

I see.  So lots of variables go into that.

Would it be possible to make the image cache location a user option?  For example, let me put LB/BB on my spindle drives, and then the cache folders on my SSD as a comprise? 

You can do this with symlinks.

 

[Fursphere]

Ya, I know you can do it with symbolic links.

To build upon the idea, if there was an option to choose your cache folder / drive, there could also be a size limit.   For those with smaller SSDs.   Say at 50GB or 100GB start trimming off the oldest files or something.   I'm guessing this probably isn't a problem for most users though, so might not be worth the effort. 

[C-Beats]

On 9/17/2022 at 1:26 PM, Fursphere said:

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this seems to be relevant.

If LB/BB is just going to cache images, there doesn't seem to be any benefit to downloading higher quality images.  So a couple of questions.

- What is the resizing target for images?    Is it a static target size, or a percentage, or something else?   

- Which LB/BB image categories are cached?

- Would it be possible to check the source image and do an analysis before caching?  "if source is = target, don't cache" or something.  I could see this being a mess too. 

- And finally, maybe just a mass processing button.   "refactor images for performance"   This is along the lines of if LB/BB isn't going to use HQ images, there doesn't seem to be a point in downloading and storing them in the HQ format.   Just process them down to what LB/BB will consume and be done with it.

That's my thoughts on the subject at least.  

thanks!

Full size images can be used in the UI, they just aren't in the wheel because the load times become problematic at times (especially for older machines). Also if the source is higher quality the scaled image produced is also higher quality because it has more accurate data to use in the scaling process.

If you wanted to you can change the normal image folders for a platform via the Edit Platform window and then store the non-cached image one a different drive than the cache is stored if you're running into HDD size issues. I will say however this needs to be done manually per folder, per platform so can be pretty time consuming and tedious to do.

[Mock]

This is really not thought through using these cache folder without having any settings to configure it. My LB setup is not from a network drive from my NAS as i have multiply devices using the setup with relative paths. i use Symlinks for the video and game folders, but put everything else on SSD. for the image folder its almost 1 TB so it don't fits great on SSDs only because of the cache folders. could i just keep the image folder on the NAS and change cache folder to SSD this would benefit a lot i think.

the only solution to fix this might be to create a powershell script that creates symlinks of every folder inside the image folder, so that only the cache files a generated on SSD.

Launchbox should look more into the possibilities that some would like a portable setup

[C-Beats]

On 2/4/2023 at 5:45 AM, Mock said:

Launchbox should look more into the possibilities that some would like a portable setup

LaunchBox is designed from the ground up to be a portable app. Your install case however isn't a portable one, as you've stated you're using external locations for games/resources. You can change the individual image folders for every platform to be wherever you want as well already so there is no need to over complicate things and use symlinks to do it.