9.2-beta-2 Released

[Jason Carr]

Hey again all, beta 2 is out now with the new startup screens very much improved. Each emulator now has separate startup screen options:

In addition, I've fixed the various issues with Project64, so I expect that the issues with the majority of emulators can be resolved by tweaking these various settings on the emulators. Please let me know what emulators you're still having issues with after playing with the above settings.

Here are the known issues that still exist:

• There's currently no way to abort the game loading process (during file extraction, etc.). Implemented in beta 5
• Key/button presses (spamming) can still hijack focus on game startup and cause the game not to be displayed or focused properly. Fixed in beta 4
• Game-specific startup screen settings (for Windows games for example) do not yet exist. Implemented in beta 6
• Steam games cause weirdness, but do still work. This may be a tough one to solve, so we may just disable the startup screen for Steam games. Fixed in beta 5
• Edit: Mouse cursors are still visible; not doing anything yet to hide them. Implemented in beta 3

And here are some additional features that I still plan on adding:

• Better window hiding for some emulators (window hiding is already in place and works for most emulators already, including Dolphin) Implemented in beta 5
• Game shut down themes instead of just a black screen on game shutdown Implemented in beta 4
• Full plugin support Implemented in beta 3
• Edit: Automatically populating the above settings with known-working settings for known emulators Implemented in beta 6

Enjoy.

[GreenGriffon]

Excellent. Am I right in assuming that the startup load delay will be roughly how long the startup screen will appear before a game is loaded?

And to answer your last question from the previous thread, yes, I was definitely asking for a new image group in LB. That way, we users as well as theme creators could (hopefully) have more control over the startup image displayed for each game or system.

Thanks very much! 

[bundangdon]

Very nice! It's really good to have the option to disable startup screens with the older systems which load up instantly (atari 2600, nes, etc.) and be able to use the startup screens for the more slower-loading systems (playstation, dreamcast, etc.). And +1 on GreenGriffon's idea, mentioned above this post. Great work as always?

Edited December 11, 2018 by bundangdon

[Jason Carr]

59 minutes ago, GreenGriffon said:

Excellent. Am I right in assuming that the startup load delay will be roughly how long the startup screen will appear before a game is loaded?

The startup delay is the amount of time between when the emulator's EXE is launched and the game is displayed, not the amount of time that the startup screen will be visible.

[ed20910]

4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

The startup delay is the amount of time between when the emulator's EXE is launched and the game is displayed, not the amount of time that the startup screen will be visible.

If i understand correctly, if the emulator loads faster than the start up delay, its going to launch into the game regardless of the delay?  I have tried different settings and the game is loading faster than the 30 seconds (was testing the delay).  trying to understand the point of the delay if the startup screen is supposed to stay up until the emulator loads anyway.  Also, maybe i missed this in the discussions, is the start up screen supposed to be running after the game has launched?  i see a second lb in the task bar and when i exit a game from retroarch, the start up screen flashes up before lb reloads.

[TheNewClassics]

Also hoping I can gain some understanding about the delay time as well, because for at least one emulator it seems to have made the transition less smooth. For instance, prior to the delay option, RPCS3 would load once the game went fullscreen, regardless of how long it was (some take longer to load, build shaders, etc). However, now, with a 5 second delay for example, on some games it's ending the loading screen while RPCS3 is still loading the game. Would there be any possibility of having both options for the startup screen? Because with 9.2 beta 1, it was much more seamless.

Either way,  thank you for the great work!

[damageinc86]

Obviously still in the infancy stages, but this is so promising.  I can't ditch my RL just yet thought, because the settings just aren't there yet.  But i'm excited about it.  The RL people should just fork over their code so LB can rise to power lol.

[bundangdon]

@Jason Carr Just tried out 9.2 beta 2 but I haven't noticed any difference in the startup load delay. No matter what time I set it, (2 sec, 5 sec, 12 sec, etc. the startup screen and emulator all load up in about 1 second. Did I miss something or do something incorrectly?

[FistyDollars]

I have LB set to minimize when launching, and restore when exiting. When I use the startup screen in Retroarch (haven't tested other emulators yet) it doesn't restore the LB window after exiting.

[RULLUR]

I wonder how this startup timing adjustment will do with MUGEN since at times if you ever load it up the first time that day it'll take a while and almost be unresponsive until it finally starts, and then of you go back into that same version of MUGEN it'll start in way less time than before. With that being said, I just hope if things like that get set to the timing of the longer load if it will or will not keep on the startup screen if the game finally is ready to play in the shorter load time of the same program..or will it switch right over to the game?

[Jason Carr]

15 hours ago, ed20910 said:

If i understand correctly, if the emulator loads faster than the start up delay, its going to launch into the game regardless of the delay?

This depends on the emulator and the startup settings. If the emulator uses exclusive fullscreen mode, then nothing I can do can prevent it from being displayed fullscreen immediately when the emulator switches to exclusive fullscreen mode. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. In this case, you want the startup delay to be long enough so that the startup screen doesn't go away or switch to a black background before the game starts up into exclusive fullscreen mode, but if the startup delay is too long, then it will flash the startup screen for a brief period on game shutdown if you close the game too quickly.

If the emulator does not use exclusive fullscreen mode, then the startup screen will wait the full startup delay time after starting the EXE before displaying it.

15 hours ago, ed20910 said:

Also, maybe i missed this in the discussions, is the start up screen supposed to be running after the game has launched?  i see a second lb in the task bar and when i exit a game from retroarch, the start up screen flashes up before lb reloads.

Yes, the startup screen will remain in the background while the game is running. This is by design, as the same window is used as the shut down screen. You shouldn't be seeing any flashing though, as it should simply show a black background currently after the game closes, and then fade back to LaunchBox or Big Box.

[Jason Carr]

14 hours ago, TheNewClassics said:

Also hoping I can gain some understanding about the delay time as well, because for at least one emulator it seems to have made the transition less smooth. For instance, prior to the delay option, RPCS3 would load once the game went fullscreen, regardless of how long it was (some take longer to load, build shaders, etc). However, now, with a 5 second delay for example, on some games it's ending the loading screen while RPCS3 is still loading the game. Would there be any possibility of having both options for the startup screen? Because with 9.2 beta 1, it was much more seamless.

Either way,  thank you for the great work!

In this case you just need to increase the startup delay.

[Jason Carr]

13 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Obviously still in the infancy stages, but this is so promising.  I can't ditch my RL just yet thought, because the settings just aren't there yet.  But i'm excited about it.  The RL people should just fork over their code so LB can rise to power lol.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this solution is to get something that *just works*, not something with a thousand options that requires a bunch of effort and tinkering. Rocket Launcher is perfect for that. So if you're looking for that, honestly I would recommend sticking with Rocket Launcher.

[Jason Carr]

12 hours ago, bundangdon said:

@Jason Carr Just tried out 9.2 beta 2 but I haven't noticed any difference in the startup load delay. No matter what time I set it, (2 sec, 5 sec, 12 sec, etc. the startup screen and emulator all load up in about 1 second. Did I miss something or do something incorrectly?

Please read my explanation in my response to @ed20910 above.

[Jason Carr]

9 hours ago, FistyDollars said:

I have LB set to minimize when launching, and restore when exiting. When I use the startup screen in Retroarch (haven't tested other emulators yet) it doesn't restore the LB window after exiting.

Good to know; I'll take a look. Remind me though, why do you need to minimize and restore LaunchBox when launching games? I imagine that this will just generally make the startup process less smooth.

[Jason Carr]

6 hours ago, RULLUR said:

I wonder how this startup timing adjustment will do with MUGEN since at times if you ever load it up the first time that day it'll take a while and almost be unresponsive until it finally starts, and then of you go back into that same version of MUGEN it'll start in way less time than before. With that being said, I just hope if things like that get set to the timing of the longer load if it will or will not keep on the startup screen if the game finally is ready to play in the shorter load time of the same program..or will it switch right over to the game?

I assume MUGEN uses exclusive fullscreen mode. If that's the case, just set the startup delay to a large value (the max amount of time MUGEN can take to load). Assuming it does use exclusive fullscreen mode, it will start up when it's ready regardless of the delay. The only drawback to this is that if MUGEN starts up quickly, the startup screen will flash on shutdown if you close the game within that delay period.

[FistyDollars]

@Jason Carr I was minimizing and restoring LB because otherwise I was having issues with the emumovies video for the game continuing to play when the game started. If that's been fixed since then I can disable that option

 

[Jason Carr]

28 minutes ago, FistyDollars said:

@Jason Carr I was minimizing and restoring LB because otherwise I was having issues with the emumovies video for the game continuing to play when the game started. If that's been fixed since then I can disable that option

Gotcha. As far as I know it has but of course I haven't tested with every game under the sun. Let me know if you still see it.

[damageinc86]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

Keep in mind that the purpose of this solution is to get something that *just works*, not something with a thousand options that requires a bunch of effort and tinkering. Rocket Launcher is perfect for that. So if you're looking for that, honestly I would recommend sticking with Rocket Launcher.

Oh yeah totally get that.  All I'd really need is a folder to put my custom startup screen background art (not fan art), and the ability to not show the cart and other art on top of that BG. Oh and the ability to have a custom logo for now loading.  

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, damageinc86 said:

Oh yeah totally get that.  All I'd really need is a folder to put my custom startup screen background art (not fan art), and the ability to not show the cart and other art on top of that BG. Oh and the ability to have a custom logo for now loading.  

Sure, all this stuff is available already via the custom themes. I'm sure we'll have plenty of theme developers popping up for this soon enough if you don't want to dive into it yourself.