9.2-beta-1 Released

[Jason Carr]

Hey all, the first 9.2 beta is out now with the beginnings of the next major feature: startup screens. Startup screens are enabled by default with this new beta, and can be turned off under Game Startup in the LaunchBox and Big Box options. Please keep in mind that this new feature is a work in progress, and not everything will be smooth at this point. You may even have to disable it in order for some emulators to work properly. That said, for the vast majority of emulators it seems to be working great so far.

Here are the current known issues with the startup screens:

• The startup screens currently do not work properly with emulators or games that do not use fullscreen exclusive mode (such as Project64). For most of these emulators, the startup screen overlaps the emulator and never shows the game. Pressing Escape should close the emulator and the startup screen to get out of this state. Fixes are coming in the next beta.
• If the game is closed too quickly (currently less than five seconds after it's started), then the startup screen will flash while exiting the game.
• There's currently no way to abort the game loading process (during file extraction, etc.).
• Key/button presses (spamming) can still hijack focus on game startup and cause the game not to be displayed or focused properly.

And here are some additional features that I plan on adding in future 9.2 betas:

• Better window hiding for some emulators (window hiding is already in place and works for most emulators already, including Dolphin)
• Emulator-specific and game-specific settings to allow you to turn certain game startup features on or off for certain emulators or certain games
• Game shut down themes instead of just a black screen on game shutdown

Let me clarify that these are only the plans for the 9.2 release of the startup screens. I've heard all the requests in the "Startup Screens, Pause Screens, and Bezels Discussions" thread and many of them will be implemented, just not for the first official release.

Let me know how testing goes.

[bundangdon]

Great work once again! I like how the startup screen implements the fanart and the logo in there. It would be great if the boxart or arcade advertisements could be thrown in there somewhere too Also, I noticed that the fade-in (returning to launchbox) is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes it will fade and other times it won't. But for a first release with this feature, it's looking very good!

[PanteraZombie]

This is great to be able try this feature out so quick! One thing I noticed that was cool and wasn't expecting, is that the disc spins for disc games on the start up screen if you're already using a theme that supports it. I did notice that PCSX2 is one of the emulators that stays covered by the startup screen and never shows the game. This first iteration without even being themed yet is already showing a lot of promise. Looking forward to watching the progress in future betas!

[PattersonCZ]

Great idea @Jason Carr. Some suggestions:

1, every steam game is affected because of that small launching game window steam produce

2, some unity game want constantly setup settings , so again small window

3, make choice which images use , nice touch it shows box art in right top corner but be better with fanart background and with that box art in corner

 

 

[damageinc86]

I didn't know this was going to be turned on automatically.  My game launched normally with rocketlauncher's fade, after the launchbox fade, and then the screen went black and I can hear my game in the background but I'm guessing it's launchbox that won't' let me do anything.  Had to hit esc and get out to turn it off so I can check out if there are any options for it.

Edited December 8, 2018 by damageinc86

[Lordmonkus]

6 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Startup screens are enabled by default with this new beta,

 

[bundangdon]

3 hours ago, PanteraZombie said:

This is great to be able try this feature out so quick! One thing I noticed that was cool and wasn't expecting, is that the disc spins for disc games on the start up screen if you're already using a theme that supports it. I did notice that PCSX2 is one of the emulators that stays covered by the startup screen and never shows the game. This first iteration without even being themed yet is already showing a lot of promise. Looking forward to watching the progress in future betas!

Yep, same here. I tried PCSX2 and it's fine without the startup screen turned on, but I only get a black screen with the startup screen implemented. However, no problem with retroarch, mame, vice64, altirra, redream

Edited December 8, 2018 by bundangdon

[damageinc86]

Are there options to have just an image or a background image for the startup screen?

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, Lordmonkus said:

Startup screens are enabled by default with this new beta,

Yeah that's in this post,...but I had no idea when i clicked the update button and restarted the program.  I wasn't in the forums then.

Edited December 8, 2018 by damageinc86

[Lordmonkus]

4 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Yeah that's in this post,...but I had no idea when i clicked the update button and restarted the program.  I wasn't in the forums then.

It's generally not good practice to install beta versions of software before checking out any information on it.

8 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Are there options to have just an image or a background image for the startup screen?

It's to be fully theme-able from what I understand based on what Jason has said about it so far.

[damageinc86]

5 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

It's generally not good practice to install beta versions of software before checking out any information on it.

It's to be fully theme-able from what I understand based on what Jason has said about it so far.

I'm sure generally speaking it is.  Have never had any problem over the last 2 years with it so far, but guess there is a first for everything.  fully them-able sounds awesome.  I'm sure this will shape up to be a great feature.

[RULLUR]

Not sure if it's the way I have it set..but CCS64 goes black after launching with that new Startup. I hear a slight pop in which lets me know the game is running, but all I see is black until I close it out with the Windows Key I set as a command for exiting CCS64 just in case I can finally work a Fullscreen launch and all, and since the Esc key is needed at times within C-64 too.

Bottomline I'm just letting you know CCS64 is one that seems to have an issue with this new startup feature.

[bundangdon]

48 minutes ago, RULLUR said:

Not sure if it's the way I have it set..but CCS64 goes black after launching with that new Startup. I hear a slight pop in which lets me know the game is running, but all I see is black until I close it out with the Windows Key I set as a command for exiting CCS64 just in case I can finally work a Fullscreen launch and all, and since the Esc key is needed at times within C-64 too.

Bottomline I'm just letting you know CCS64 is one that seems to have an issue with this new startup feature.

As someone who plays around with all of the Commodore 64 emulators, and after reading this I just gave CCS64 a try with the new startup screen implemented. Make sure that you have full screen set up in the video options, and then exit out with ALT+X. Afterwards, the emulator will automatically start in full screen and the startup screen should work also. The only issue for me though, is that there's a loading mouse-pointer floating around on the screen while CCS64 is running

Edited December 8, 2018 by bundangdon

[Cauptain]

Bezel is the only feature that LB needs to stay PERFECT for me.

Its pleasure of seeing PCSX2, REDREAM, DEMUL, RCPS3 and others with Bezel is the best of dreams.

[neil9000]

Awesome, just had a quick play and seems to be working well so far. Ill give it more of a beating over the course of the day, but so far looking great.  

[RULLUR]

13 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

As someone who plays around with all of the Commodore 64 emulators, and after reading this I just gave CCS64 a try with the new startup screen implemented. Make sure that you have full screen set up in the video options, and then exit out with ALT+X. Afterwards, the emulator will automatically start in full screen and the startup screen should work also. The only issue for me though, is that there's a loading mouse-pointer floating around on the screen while CCS64 is running

PERFECT! Worked like a charm, and yes I too see the pointer in the way as it keeps doing the buffer too now. I think anything else that could further better my C-64 experience is finding a way to Maximum Speed or 5x Speed things via controller along with flipping disks and all that without much need of the keyboard

Edited December 8, 2018 by RULLUR

[bundangdon]

Just now, RULLUR said:

PERFECT! Worked like a charm, and yes I too see the pointer in the way as it keeps doing the buffer too now.

Glad to hear you got it working! While CCS64 is a great emulator, I use Hoxs64 or Vice, which at the moment, don't have the loading-pointer issue that I mentioned with CCS64

[RULLUR]

2 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

Glad to hear you got it working! While CCS64 is a great emulator, I use Hoxs64 or Vice, which at the moment, don't have the loading-pointer issue that I mentioned with CCS64

I used to use Hoxs64 as the YouTube Tutorial recommended, but later found in a thread here that CCS64 lets you speed things up with ease and all, so I never looked back after hearing about that

[bundangdon]

Just now, RULLUR said:

I used to use Hoxs64 as the YouTube Tutorial recommended, but later found in a thread here that CCS64 lets you speed things up with ease and all, so I never looked back after hearing about that

Actually, all three emulators allow you to speed up the disc-loading process significantly, and the compatibility is about the same. With Hoxs64 I use "-fullscreen -quickload -autoload" in the command line settings, and it speeds everything up nicely. But it's all a matter of preference which one you choose

[RULLUR]

I probably didn't set those commands right or something because my Hoxs64 stuff would take forever to where my Controllers would turn off after the wait to where I felt something really had to give. Overall I'm just glad things with my C-64 stuff is becoming smoother than ever, especially with this advice in which I truly appreciate. Now to go and see whatelse may need further testing with this Beta