DaveC1964 Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 (edited) I am making separate instances of LB on a low spec PC (GPD Win 2). I do this to dramatically reduce startup times. Since I already have a GUI to pick the system I want as in the Windows desktop I find it much quicker if for example I just want to play a SNES game to load the SNES only LB setup icon from the desktop. It then loads the appropriate LB setup and loads resources quickly, no need to load resources from 20,000 games I won't be playing. It also cuts out the extra step. It works fine with one obvious issue, disk space. A LB install is HUGE at around 3gb each. 10 setups eats up 30 gb of disk space. You can see this can get impractical. I have noticed there are a lot of things I will never use in a SNES specific setup for example such as dosbox, scumm vm etc. I tried to just delete the files but LB would have none of it. Every time I start LB all of the "bloat" was magically stuck back in there. My internet is slow so I have no idea where it was grabbing that stuff from. Is there a way I can force LB to let me do what I want to do and make a minimum install? Is there some setting or trick or a place that hides these files so I can do this? Thanks. Edited June 16, 2019 by DaveC1964 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 6 minutes ago, DaveC1964 said: I am making separate instances of LB on a low spec PC (GPD Win 2). I do this to dramatically reduce startup times. Since I already have a GUI to pick the system I want as in the Windows desktop I find it much quicker if for example I just want to play a SNES game to load the SNES only LB setup icon from the desktop. It then loads the appropriate LB setup and loads resources quickly, no need to load resources from 20,000 games I won't be playing. It also cuts out the extra step. It works fine with one obvious issue, disk space. A LB install is HUGE at around 3gb each. 10 setups eats up 30 gb of disk space. You can see this can get impractical. I have noticed there are a lot of things I will never use in a SNES specific setup for example such as dosbox, scumm vm etc. I tried to just delete the files but LB would have none of it. Every time I start LB all of the "bloat" was magically stuck back in there. My internet is slow so I have no idea where it was grabbing that stuff from. Is there a way I can force LB to let me do what I want to do and make a minimum install? Is there some setting or trick or a place that hides these files so I can do this? Thanks. Those things like dosbox and scumm are part of the Launchbox install and will always be re-created at launch, they really take up no space at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveC1964 Posted June 16, 2019 Author Share Posted June 16, 2019 Where is it getting it from? I am sure there are lots of things I could get rid of if only running a Genesis emulator in that instance for example. All of that stuff adds up when it is x10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 1 minute ago, DaveC1964 said: Where is it getting it from? I am sure there are lots of things I could get rid of if only running a Genesis emulator in that instance for example. All of that stuff adds up when it is x10. Its part of the program, therefore Launchbox checks at boot that all the files it needs are in place, and if they are not it re-creates them and adds them back before launching, dosbox and scumm vm are both Incorporated into the program and its UI as certain Tools and UI elements rely on them being there, so you cannot remove them im afraid as they are required files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 DOSBox and ScummVM take up almost no space at all (it's like 40MB total), so removing them wouldn't really make much difference. The majority of the space requirements come from Chromium and VLC, both of which are fairly integral and required to run the apps. What's your reasoning for running so many instances? My GPD Win 2 startup times aren't bad at all with 50K games. I haven't timed it though. I would think that running more games than that would run you out of space on the GPD Win 2 anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveC1964 Posted June 17, 2019 Author Share Posted June 17, 2019 (edited) I don't like waiting for a UI to load just to load one game. 20 seconds is too long when I can get there in 5. It is also less steps. If I do it the standard way I hit LB from the desktop, then when it loads I need to scroll through system names, select one, wait again for the thumbnails to load. With multiple instances I have each one on the desktop. So I just select SNES for example and it pops up with all of my SNES thumbnails right away. It is just quicker and less steps all around. As for games I have a 512gb micro SD with everything on there. Edited June 17, 2019 by DaveC1964 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 For what it's worth, you can treat the GPD Win 2 just like a laptop and just shut the lid when you're not using it, which will put it to sleep. There's no need to even close LaunchBox or Big Box, which really makes those 40 seconds moot unless you're looking to use the device for productivity as well (or something like that). Regardless, I get it now, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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