Some nooby questions

[MrSumOne]

Hey,

I'm coming over from HyperSpin, finding LaunchBox a lot easier to deal with. I have a couple of questions as a newbie:

Do I need RocketLauncher for LaunchBox or BigBox at all? What's the benefit of using RocketLauncher if LB can keep track of and launch my games already?

I'm really interested in BigBox but some people have reported that it doesn't perform very well on their computer, with it being slow, laggy, clunky, unresponsive. Is there any way to try out BigBox before forking out the cash?

How active is development? As HyperSpin has been the same exe for the last two years, I'm wondering what new features are going to be added to LB/BB?

 

Thanks

[Rincewind]

Hey @MrSumOne,

I also came over from Hyperspin a long time ago now, how ever I started afresh and without using RocketLauncher so I cant give you any advice there apart from many of the features are already integrated into LaunchBox and BigBox.

I have it setup on my main PC which is what I would call a more modern powerful computer and it fly's on there. I also have it on a arcade cabinet which is a much older.... Much much older, a core 2 duo which it runs fine on but does lag sometimes if I'm using a more demanding theme.

Development is amazing as the creator is coding most days and is fully active in the forums, as for the new features Jason the developer puts out a poll and users can vote on items they would like to see and the top ones get added as soon as possible. There are also a lot of members here that can help out if you want to know anything else or get stuck.

[Lordmonkus]

29 minutes ago, MrSumOne said:

Do I need RocketLauncher for LaunchBox or BigBox at all?

Nope.

30 minutes ago, MrSumOne said:

What's the benefit of using RocketLauncher if LB can keep track of and launch my games already?

Some extra cosmetic features mainly and some extra scripting that makes some of the more difficult emulators a little easier to setup but that is the rarity.

31 minutes ago, MrSumOne said:

I'm really interested in BigBox but some people have reported that it doesn't perform very well on their computer, with it being slow, laggy, clunky, unresponsive. Is there any way to try out BigBox before forking out the cash?

There is no trial but if you find it's not working the way you expect it to you can ask for a refund, Jason is very good about providing them to people.

31 minutes ago, MrSumOne said:

How active is development? As HyperSpin has been the same exe for the last two years, I'm wondering what new features are going to be added to LB/BB?

Extremely active, Jason works on it full time as his job, this isn't a hobby for him. Well I guess it's is hobby cause he loves but he gets paid to do it, It's not a side project for him at all.

This is the short list of the current things being worked on right now, once these are done Jason will put out a poll which will have all sorts of new features for people to vote on for the next year or so.

 

[FlightRisk]

I'll add that RL adds things like "pause screens" and you can use it to do bezels instead of configuring them in the emulators, but LB just added what RL calls "fade screens" (startup screens in LB), so there isn't much left to use RL for. Especially with pause screens on the way. But it is nice to have the choice.

BigBox is basically the Hyperspin-like front end to LB. You can use it or not. It is pretty incredible though. I use both interfaces depending on what I am doing. Housekeeping and some playing in LB, and the when I want the visuals or friends to play, it's all BB.

As Monkus as said, Jason keeps up with things daily. He is a force of nature. I have never experienced a software product that in every way is as good as this one is. Not just gaming, any piece of software. The pace of development is astounding. Changes, additions and bug fixes happen on almost a daily if you want to beta test, otherwise new official releases occur often.