9.4-beta-1 Released

[Lordmonkus]

The scan for added roms works only with the rom folder set in LB which is a sub folder within your LB install folder, not the folder where your roms were imported from originally.

You can change the path using the manage platforms tool.

[ea4492]

Just now, Starbuck said:

Recently started have an issue which very well could be something in the settings I've missed. I have my games on several different drives. When I import games from a drive that is not the drive Launchbox is on everything works great . If i go back and scan for new roms it finds no new roms even if I have some. If I do the same on the drive launchbox is on, both operations work fine.

Thats not an issue. Launchbox is set to scan games that are in the launchbox/games folder and not in any other location. you can change that folder, in under each platform settings, in the Folders tab you will see Games, and you change the location to your roms folder.

[Jason Carr]

Just now, ea4492 said:

Thats not an issue. Launchbox is set to scan games that are in the launchbox/games folder and not in any other location. you can change that folder, in under each platform settings, in the Folders tab you will see Games, and you change the location to your roms folder.

Yes it *will* work with any folder you choose, but you have to manually change it under Tools > Manage Platforms.

[Starbuck]

If in my original import I use the directory on another drive. Does the rescan not work on the same drive automatically ?

[Starbuck]

Did as EA4492 and Jason suggested and it worked. Would it not be better if Launchbox remembered the drive and folder that you originally scanned.

Just a thought.

Thank you both for your help

[ea4492]

5 minutes ago, Starbuck said:

Did as EA4492 and Jason suggested and it worked. Would it not be better if Launchbox remembered the drive and folder that you originally scanned.

Just a thought.

Thank you both for your help

that make sense that it should change the default Location to the folder or drive you choose, when you import games that are not in the Launchbox folder, and i also have my game in other folders outside of Launchbox folder.

[Jason Carr]

13 minutes ago, ea4492 said:

that make sense that it should change the default Location to the folder or drive you choose, when you import games that are not in the Launchbox folder, and i also have my game in other folders outside of Launchbox folder.

It does make sense in very specific cases, but it's not exactly cut and dry. The wizard allows you to move the ROMs to whatever the existing folder is during the import, so that's one reason. We'd also likely only want to change it on the first import. So it is on the list, but the priority of it isn't very high because it would only happen in specific circumstances.

[GreenGriffon]

Hi @Jason Carr, on the latest official 9.3, I'm having a problem.

When exiting any MAME game, BigBox loses focus, and I have to hit Alt-Tab to make it the active window again. Never had that happen before this build.

I thought maybe it had to do with the startup screen because I could still see it when I alt-tabbed out. I tried disabling the feature, but the lost focus issue still persists.

My install has no mods, 3rd party plugins, or anything odd. Just using the CriticalZone Blue theme.

Thanks.

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, GreenGriffon said:

Hi @Jason Carr, on the latest official 9.3, I'm having a problem.

When exiting any MAME game, BigBox loses focus, and I have to hit Alt-Tab to make it the active window again. Never had that happen before this build.

I thought maybe it had to do with the startup screen because I could still see it when I alt-tabbed out. I tried disabling the feature, but the lost focus issue still persists.

My install has no mods, 3rd party plugins, or anything odd. Just using the CriticalZone Blue theme.

Thanks.

I have heard of this before, but I've never seen it or been able to replicate it. It's been sporadically reported by various other people on rare occasions, and with older versions as well. So I doubt that it has anything to do with the new version. I'm guessing that it somehow has to do with another app interfering or maybe it's OS or driver related. I'd really like to pinpoint it, but haven't been able to as of yet.

I would first try rebooting, and then maybe try closing all background apps to see if you can figure out what's causing it.

[runsamok]

I'm also having focus issues, but in my case it's mostly noticeable with my MS-DOS games (from exodos 3.11, migrated manually into an existing install) & seems to be caused when I use the startup screens.

Current sequence of events with the startup screens enabled is:

1. I double-click a game in LaunchBox. A brief note or two of music plays despite auto-playing of music being off in the View menu, whatever it can squeeze in between the double-click registering & the startup screens launching (this is new behaviour in 9.4 betas, I haven't seen it myself before. Sometimes it doesn't stop when the game launches, causing a cacophony of overlaid music/themes). 
2. Startup screen shows for a second or two while the game loads.
3. Game starts, in-game intro screens show up briefly.
4. Behind the scenes, LaunchBox finishes its start sequence & blacks out the screen, taking focus from DOSBox, booting it out of full screen in the process & obscuring the DOSBox window behind the blackout.

When I hit Alt-Tab DOSBox appears to be the focused item since it comes up first in the list, but it's obscured. Clicking on the blackness or attempting to interact with it causes the shutdown screen to pop up while DOSBox continues to do its thing. If I use Alt-Tab to get back to DOSBox without interacting with the blackness or other applications & quit the game, LaunchBox does not have focus after the shutdown screen plays. If another app (like the browser I'm writing this post in) is running & was interacted with prior to going into LaunchBox & was not minimized, it becomes the active window & gets focus on the game exiting, rather than LaunchBox which was the previously-focused app. 

The same lack of LaunchBox focus on exit occurs when startup/shutdown screens are used with other emulators too (MAME, Retroarch+all cores, PCSX2, Cemu, Dolphin), but at least they're not getting kicked out of fullscreen & if I disable the startup/shutdown screens or minimize everything else LaunchBox gets focus on quit. 

To summarize the startup focus-related issues:

LaunchBox + exodos DOSBox games + startup screens = Games losing focus & full screen during startup.

LaunchBox + exodos DOSBox games - startup screens = Games maintain focus & full screen during startup.

To summarize the the shutdown focus-related issues:

LaunchBox + other apps visible + startup screens = LaunchBox loses focus on game exit.

LaunchBox + other apps visible  - startup screens = LaunchBox gets focus on game exit.

LaunchBox - other apps visible + startup screens = LaunchBox gets focus on game exit.

LaunchBox - other apps visible - startup screens = LaunchBox gets focus on game exit.

 

I really dig the startup/shutdown screens & think they add a lot to the overall presentation of LB/BB, but their current implementation seems to have some issues, unless I'm missing some setting somewhere (which is possible, I find the settings/configuration to be pretty inscrutable in their current state).

Is the issue with the DOSBox games possibly due to the fact they're from the eXoDOS pack & use the included batch files rather than leverage LaunchBox's internal functionality? Given that the games are loading up fine before the issues occur makes me think not, but there's a lot of moving parts interacting.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by runsamok

[Reevesad]

Not sure if this is beta related or not. Version 9.4 beta-2

So over the last few weeks I've been changing my screen ratios in mame to .966 to fit my game bezels.

I just launch a mame (arcade) game within launchbox, tab to settings, change ratio then straight out, 10 second job...and repeat. Not had any issues with this, but after the latest beta release update (could be just a coincidence) I do this same process and then all of a sudden I'm stuck on the loading game screen. Am unable to exit this screen, the only way to do it is to ctrl alt del and sign out. sometimes this happens after 20+ ratio changes or I've had it also happen after doing just one or two ratio changes.

it's worth noting that I have over 2k roms in my set and have completed about 1,700 ratio changes prior to this happening.

anyone else had this issue?  or any ideas why this is happening?

 

 

[Jason Carr]

@runsamok Good to know about eXoDOS and the startup screens. I'm not surprised there's an issue there due to there being so much going on behind the scenes (and yes, I expect the eXoDOS batch files to be the issue). I'll take a look; there may or may not be a good solution for the startup screens and eXoDOS games, sans for disabling the startup screens for those games, but I'll give it a shot.

In the mean time though, it would be worth trying the various available options. It's not too difficult to move a few sliders and check a few boxes and experiment. We held off on implementing startup screens for ages because you're basically fighting the Windows operating system by definition for their implementation. As nice as they are, it's unfortunately not realistic to expect them to work perfectly in every single situation (at least not ones that I didn't predict).

The other emulators you mention work perfectly fine with the startup screens if they're configured correctly (though most should be configured automatically). If you're seeing focus issues with all those emulators, then there's something different about your system that remains a mystery to me, unfortunately. System specs and OS details would be appreciated.

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, Reevesad said:

Not sure if this is beta related or not. Version 9.4 beta-2

So over the last few weeks I've been changing my screen ratios in mame to .966 to fit my game bezels.

I just launch a mame (arcade) game within launchbox, tab to settings, change ratio then straight out, 10 second job...and repeat. Not had any issues with this, but after the latest beta release update (could be just a coincidence) I do this same process and then all of a sudden I'm stuck on the loading game screen. Am unable to exit this screen, the only way to do it is to ctrl alt del and sign out. sometimes this happens after 20+ ratio changes or I've had it also happen after doing just one or two ratio changes.

it's worth noting that I have over 2k roms in my set and have completed about 1,700 ratio changes prior to this happening.

anyone else had this issue?  or any ideas why this is happening?

It does sound like this is somehow related to the startup screens. You may need to disable them while tweaking that kind of stuff, or the MAME emulator may just need some different settings in the Game Startup tab.

[Reevesad]

14 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

It does sound like this is somehow related to the startup screens. You may need to disable them while tweaking that kind of stuff, or the MAME emulator may just need some different settings in the Game Startup tab.

Thanks for your prompt response. will disable the startups for now then and see if anything happens.

[Reevesad]

so stupid of me not to have disabled the startup screen to begin with while doing this exercise because it's so much quicker to do each one doh!!

 

[runsamok]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

System specs and OS details would be appreciated.

Windows 10 Insider, i5-2500K, 16GB RAM & a Radeon 7870, my games & configs are all portable & on an external drive. Drivers & patches all up to date. I'm configuring everything on my current rig while my dedicated emulation PC's parts slowly filter in. That machine will always only be running BigBox, so I'm not too worried about the various focus issues on exit there (knock on wood).

Generally don't have anything running except Vivaldi, an Explorer window or two & WhatsApp running. I'll generally shut down the browser if I'm emulating anything newer than the early '90s. Nothing running in the background that's uncommon & I haven't done much of anything tweak or whatever-wise to this machine & all that's really installed is the usual suspects of cloud syncing stuff, Steam, VNC & Citrix for work. I've tried to keep everything as close to default as possible, to help with the upcoming migration to a different computer as pain-free as possible. I've also manually closed out every system tray app I could & no change.

I've also tried the slider, which is what lead me to believe it's whatever happens at the end of the startup screen's sequence that kicks me out of full screen, as the longer I push it, the longer the game stays in fullscreen before being dropped out. Turning on Aggressive makes it so I don't get the fullscreen at the beginning at all, just the startup screen until it times out & ends up the same place as without the checkbox, only without the glimmer of hope. In both of these cases when I drop out of fullscreen the LaunchBox Game Startup all-black window is at the bottom of my desktop stack obscuring only my desktop itself, with all my other open windows on top, with the game running in a window up in the upper left of my screen. The Exclusive-Fullscreen-Only option leaves me at a black screen (with my mouse cursor visible or not, depending on the relevant checkbox) & I have to alt-tab to the all-black Launchbox Game Startup window, triggering the shutdown screen & dismissing the black window, leaving the game in a window with my desktop visible; if I alt-tab to the game directly the screen stays black (with my mouse cursor visible or not, again). It almost feels like the LaunchBox Game Startup window is always at the wrong spot in the z-order of the windows. Or at least not where it should be. Which is why it takes focus & kicks DOSBox outta fullscreen & also obscures everything when running exclusive-fullscreen-only.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by runsamok

[Retrofrogg]

Possible bug - @Jason Carr - every time I edit a game and then press the "publisher" drop down menu, Launchbox freezes and crashes (opaque white screen) and I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL.

[RULLUR]

1 minute ago, Retrofrogg said:

Possible bug - @Jason Carr - every time I edit a game and then press the "publisher" drop down menu, Launchbox freezes and crashes (opaque white screen) and I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL.

I've had that happen with me for the longest. At times it seems fine, but then it gets stuck at longer times than others

[runsamok]

More info on the erroneously playing music issue. If I double-click in LaunchBox I get a peep of music until the start screens appear as I've described, but if I right-click to pick a different ROM version or whatnot it'll play continuously, through the entire start screen & even after the game has loaded. And then I have to alt-tab to the LaunchBox Game Startup window, trigger the Game Over screen, then alt-tab to the LaunchBox window, pause the music, then I can go back to the game. I keep my LaunchBox dark & silent, my BigBox flashy & noisy.

 

[Jason Carr]

On 1/22/2019 at 2:27 PM, Retrofrogg said:

Possible bug - @Jason Carr - every time I edit a game and then press the "publisher" drop down menu, Launchbox freezes and crashes (opaque white screen) and I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL.

This is a known issue. It's not frozen (it will come back eventually), but when there are too many items in those drop-down lists it takes forever to load them. Honestly I probably should've solved that problem a long time ago; it's back near the top of my list. Unfortunately Windows does not have good control for a multi-select dropdown, and the custom control that we're currently using leaves a little bit to be desired.

23 hours ago, runsamok said:

More info on the erroneously playing music issue. If I double-click in LaunchBox I get a peep of music until the start screens appear as I've described, but if I right-click to pick a different ROM version or whatnot it'll play continuously, through the entire start screen & even after the game has loaded. And then I have to alt-tab to the LaunchBox Game Startup window, trigger the Game Over screen, then alt-tab to the LaunchBox window, pause the music, then I can go back to the game. I keep my LaunchBox dark & silent, my BigBox flashy & noisy.

Are you certain that you have Auto-Play Music in LaunchBox disabled? The only other thing I can think of with this is that maybe the system just can't pause the music quick enough. I've never seen it do this before, and it's strange because your specs don't look like they're slow enough to cause those kinds of issues.

Per your external hard drive, is it USB 3.0? The only performance issue I can think of with your specs is that maybe the hard drive is just slow.