9.2-beta-1 Released

[neil9000]

 

[Reevesad]

Hey All, Probably a really dumb question but how do you setup the "auto generated playlists" for each platform?

[neil9000]

Just now, Reevesad said:

Hey All, Probably a really dumb question but how do you setup the "auto generated playlists" for each platform?

The beta thread isn't the place for this, but you need to be in platform category view then just right click the platforms.

[Reevesad]

20 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

The beta thread isn't the place for this, but you need to be in platform category view then just right click the platforms.

oops sorry, and how do you enable this in Bigbox.

Ps loving the load screens on beta version 9.2, got my sweet Silver ring Logos splashed all over my screen.

[Jason Carr]

Thank you all. Once we get emulator-specific and game-specific settings in place for the startup screens, we'll be able to tweak all the little issues. Also, mouse cursors are not being hidden at all from within LaunchBox right now, so that's something that just hasn't been tackled yet.

Next week I'll start on the emulator-specific settings, and we'll start perfecting the startup screens.

[GreenGriffon]

2 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Next week I'll start on the emulator-specific settings, and we'll start perfecting the startup screens.

Hey @Jason Carr, I'm loving the startup screens feature being added, so thanks for working on that.

Quick question - would it be possible to include the option to use a single image selected by the user as a startup screen (rather than one generated by a theme)?

The reason I ask, is because there's already a wide variety of loading screens out there, by emulator as well as by game title. It would be great to be able to choose either a theme, or be able to have select image that can be displayed per title, or per emulator.

I don't know how much extra work this would involve, but thanks for any consideration.

 

[Jason Carr]

11 minutes ago, GreenGriffon said:

Hey @Jason Carr, I'm loving the startup screens feature being added, so thanks for working on that.

Quick question - would it be possible to include the option to use a single image selected by the user as a startup screen (rather than one generated by a theme)?

The reason I ask, is because there's already a wide variety of loading screens out there, by emulator as well as by game title. It would be great to be able to choose either a theme, or be able to have select image that can be displayed per title, or per emulator.

I don't know how much extra work this would involve, but thanks for any consideration.

 

A single static image would be a pretty boring way to start games, and it would be missing the progress bar, so I'm not sure that that's really worth implementing on its own. Right now the default startup theme just uses the game's fanart background, but it would be easy to tweak the theme to display any image type you want in the background. So long as you can get the images into LaunchBox, it should be fairly easy to use them as startup screens with a simple theme tweak.

[Jason Carr]

Speaking of themeing the startup screens, I should clarify a few things as to how the new startup screen themes work, as they do work a tad bit differently than Big Box themes. In the LaunchBox\StartupThemes folder, you'll find a Default folder that represents the default startup theme. As with the Big Box themes, you can simply copy and rename this Default folder to create a new startup theme.

What's different though is how the XAML files work in the theme folder. The startup themes can easily have separate themes depending on the selected platform, category, or playlist, and/or depending on the platform of the game being run. These files currently exist in the default startup theme folder:

Default.xaml
Nintendo GameCube.xaml
Nintendo Wii.xaml
Sony Playstation 2.xaml
Sony Playstation.xaml

This means that Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 2, and Sony Playstation all have custom startup screens, and the rest of the platforms will use the Default.xaml view. Currently, the custom platform files are only there in order to add spinning discs for those particular platforms, but each one can be tweaked however is needed.

It's also worth noting that if no specific view is found in the file system for a particular category or playlist, the startup screens will then look for a file that matches the parent platform. You can certainly add a separate view for each child playlist though, such as a separate startup screen for Nintendo Wii Strategy, or each available genre for a platform, etc.

[neil9000]

Just now, Jason Carr said:

Speaking of themeing the startup screens, I should clarify a few things as to how the new startup screen themes work, as they do work a tad bit differently than Big Box themes. In the LaunchBox\StartupThemes folder, you'll find a Default folder that represents the default startup theme. As with the Big Box themes, you can simply copy and rename this Default folder to create a new startup theme.

What's different though is how the XAML files work in the theme folder. The startup themes can easily have separate themes depending on the selected platform, category, or playlist, and/or depending on the platform of the game being run. These files currently exist in the default startup theme folder:

Default.xaml
Nintendo GameCube.xaml
Nintendo Wii.xaml
Sony Playstation 2.xaml
Sony Playstation.xaml

This means that Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 2, and Sony Playstation all have custom startup screens, and the rest of the platforms will use the Default.xaml view. Currently, the custom platform files are only there in order to add spinning discs for those particular platforms, but each one can be tweaked however is needed.

It's also worth noting that if no specific view is found in the file system for a particular category or playlist, the startup screens will then look for a file that matches the parent platform. You can certainly add a separate view for each child playlist though, such as a separate startup screen for Nintendo Wii Strategy, or each available genre for a platform, etc.

Yeah, i have actually copied and renamed one of those non default themes for all my other CD based systems so as to have the spinning disc for them., works just fine.

[TheNewClassics]

Great work Jason, very cool addition. This works perfectly with RPCS3, it's actually a big improvement because the startup screen hides the emulator startup/loading very well. For some reason Dolphin is just putting up a black screen for me, and I thought I was using exclusive fullscreen. Either way, well done.

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, TheNewClassics said:

Great work Jason, very cool addition. This works perfectly with RPCS3, it's actually a big improvement because the startup screen hides the emulator startup/loading very well. For some reason Dolphin is just putting up a black screen for me, and I thought I was using exclusive fullscreen. Either way, well done.

Dolphin is working as expected for me here, so yes i would take a look at your settings in Dolphin.

[ALIE]

This is already looking like its gonna beat RL. i love that it just uses fan-art for a game something the database already has a good chunk of instead of having to create folders for each game and having to put the fanart in and renaming it. 

pretty sure this has been mentioned and answered but other then fade out. The only thing missing is universal platform specific images for games out anything. And it doesn't seem to randomize fan-art when a game has more then 1 image.. 

But seriously very impressive first beta and the spinning disc is a nice touch ?.  and i just realized my 2 things was on the upcoming list ?

Edited December 8, 2018 by ALIE

[GreenGriffon]

2 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

A single static image would be a pretty boring way to start games, and it would be missing the progress bar, so I'm not sure that that's really worth implementing on its own. Right now the default startup theme just uses the game's fanart background, but it would be easy to tweak the theme to display any image type you want in the background. So long as you can get the images into LaunchBox, it should be fairly easy to use them as startup screens with a simple theme tweak.

Thanks @Jason Carr. I wasn't actually speaking about something like a fanart background. That would indeed be boring. I meant something more specialized.

Here's one of my own WIP artwork projects as an example.

With hundreds or even thousands of games on a given device, I want to be able to show my users the controls for each game using a launch screen. This art is intended for Retropie (I build custom Raspberry Pi retrocades). Going forward, I would love to be able to do this with my full-sized cabinets that will be based on Win10 with Launchbox as the frontend. Obviously my particular launch screens are specific to the joystick layout I'm using, but it's just a rough example for illustration.

Here's the logic I'm proposing. Each LB platform has an image folder called "Startup Screens". Each rom that is loaded searches for an image in the following order:

1. romname.jpg (a per-game launch screen)

2. default.jpg (a general launch screen for the platform)

3. If neither exists, the "themed" launch screen is generated

 

Feel free to completely shoot this idea down, but I think it would be a tremendous addition that would give the user total flexibility over the launch image feature, and yet another reason to abandon the use of RocketLauncher.

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by GreenGriffon
added images

[TheNewClassics]

Turns out I was wrong about Dolphin, it is working well. The two emulators that don't work for me are PCSX2 (as someone previously noted) and Xenia. 

[Lordmonkus]

1 hour ago, GreenGriffon said:

Feel free to completely shoot this idea down, but I think it would be a tremendous addition that would give the user total flexibility over the launch image feature, and yet another reason to abandon the use of RocketLauncher.

This would be better for the pause screen function once that is added, the loading screen goes too quickly to really read it on my system.

[RULLUR]

So I have a version of MUGEN that I've been working on for years that usually takes a while to load the game since it's over 8gb in size. Thing is the Startup feature doesn't wait as long as that version MUGEN does to start and I get a black screen even when it starts in the same way I once had with CCS64. Not sure if I just need to go in and Fullscreen this version of MUGEN or not as it seemed to be the issue with CCS64, but this version of MUGEN I have is known to get unresponsive in the load up to where I might see about fresh copy and Import the data of it back in and see if that starts things fast without all these issues. Not sure whoelse here messes with MUGEN or not to really see if they too are facing the same issue with the startup

Edited December 8, 2018 by RULLUR

[GreenGriffon]

16 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

This would be better for the pause screen function once that is added, the loading screen goes too quickly to really read it on my system.

Good point, but this is just my particular use case where there is actually something to read.

Other users might simply want to choose their own specific game or system artwork rather than random fanart / backgrounds, which tend to vary greatly in both quality and relevance.

[PanteraZombie]

12 hours ago, neil9000 said:

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.  

How are you getting the game backgrounds to show? By default, I'm just getting a black background.

Edited December 8, 2018 by PanteraZombie

[RULLUR]

Just giving an update on the MUGEN stuff, and turns out it was a Fullscreen issue after all. So for anyone trying MUGEN, you'll be fine as long as you have it all start in Fullscreen. Nothing I can figure out as to why it takes forever to load up on the first try though other than these games can be pretty large and have so many files to gather? I'm certainly no Programmer to really tell it down to the finest detailed info on how all that can be fixed though

Edited December 8, 2018 by RULLUR

[neil9000]

18 minutes ago, PanteraZombie said:

How are you getting the game backgrounds to show? By default, I'm just getting a black background.

Make sure you actually have fanart for the games you are testing, and also that you dont have background fade set to 100%.