Launchbox/Bigbox/Emulators/Roms issues

[vgbox]

Hello,

I own and installed launchbox premium/bigbox 10.6+emumovies files+bezelproject files. Currently standalone Mame and retroarch (genesis gx plus core for SMS and Genesis roms, nestopia core for NES roms) but planning soon to install ALL consoles full sets of roms i can find from the 80's up to PS3 and XBOX 360 roms. My questions and issues are:

1. Bigbox program opening - I added a bigbox startup video. In the first few opening of BB the startup played fine but now there is a black screen and only the sound is playing, in each scenario, its impossible to skip the video with a press. Anyway, after the startup video ends there is about 5 seconds of black screen before the platform menu appears. How do i make the startup video display again? How do i make a smooth transition from the end of the BB startup video to BB? How do i press a button to skip the startup video in case i want to?

2. Bigbox unified redux displaying black background screen in platform view and some kind of "screensaver" like black screen with a line of information at the bottom - when i enter the vertical platform menu it goes black and only when i press up or down the menu appears for a second and then goes black again. When its black it displayes a line of information at the botton. How do i change the black background to something nicer in the platform view screen and disable this "screensaver" like black screen of information?

3. Standalone mame in BB - In game view screen it won't show any game videos, only images and when entering a game it shows this annoying "this machine is not working" and than another screen of "CPU, etc..." information before the actual game launches. How do i make the mame game videos appear? Is there a way to disable the 2 opening info screens before the mame game actually launches?

4. Launchbox premium/bigbox backup - how do i backup LB/BB and make a fresh install that will remember my configured emulators, platforms, imported roms, emumovies files? My emulators and roms are located outside LB folder.

5. Game view - How do i make LB/BB only display one region of a platform full set, say, EURO region, or only two regions of a platform full set, say, EURO and JAPAN? How do i make BB not display a rom that does not have a video or image information in the game view?

6. Slowness (hardware limitation?) - SMS, Genesis and NES games run really slow - unplayable. When i enter RA directly, say that i want to update cores, it also runs really slow. Standalone mame runs fine but it seems that my motherboard graphic card does not support HLSL (or is it?) which makes mame games look fake. BGFX acually work but currently mame cannot save BGFX on so its not an option. My computer spec is:

CPU
    Intel Core i7 2600K @ 3.40GHz    48 °C
    Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
    32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 802MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8Z68-V (LGA1155)    32 °C
Graphics
    SMBX2450 (1920x1080@59Hz)
    Intel HD Graphics 3000 (ASUStek Computer Inc)
Storage
    3726GB Seagate ST4000DM005-2DP166 (SATA )    31 °C
    2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1ER166 (SATA )    33 °C
    931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ (SATA )    34 °C
Optical Drives
    HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70
Audio
    High Definition Audio Device

How do i make BB, RA and a collection of say, 8 Teras(?), of emulators and roms from the 80's until Ps3 and XBOX 360 (including) with all their emumovies files run smoothly in perfect performance and experience from the moment that BB launches? Would i need to upgrade my graphic card? Would i need to buy a new computer? By the way, my CPU is not overclocked if that is a relevant information.

 

That is all for now...

Thanks in advance!

Edited October 27, 2019 by vgbox

[CDBlue]

lol those are alot of questions   Don't have answers for most of your post, but I thought I'd help you out with a couple of things.  First of all, RetroArch running slow.  If it's running slowing on your system, it's likely an issue with the video driver you've selected to use in the driver settings in retroarch (or more than likely the one that retroarch determined was "best" for your system).  Looking at your specs, that on-board Intel graphics is really going to hold you back (better forget anything newer than maybe PS1 with that card).  For that graphics card I would bet that RetroArch determined that it can do OpenGL (which it can... on paper at least) and likely that's the video driver that's being used.  From experience, I can tell you that it won't work well with most onobard intel graphics cards.  Try going into Retroarch settings, drivers, video driver and select d3d11, as that's likely going to give you the best performance for that system.  Once you select it, save your settings and restart retroarch and try a game.  The specs you have listed looks like they should allow for SMS, NES, SNES, Genesis etc. games from that era to run at near full, if not 100% full, speeds.

As for getting better performance, as I mentioned above, the onboard graphics are really going to hold you back.  Forget about playing anything modern on that card, unfortunately.  To get much better performance you'll need to look at getting a dedicated graphics card (AMD or nVidia are the main cards to look at).

One last things, for the black screen with sound when you launch BB, that might be related again to the onboard video.  I find for those, you sometimes get better performance/less issues if you select Windows Media Player as the video player in LB/BB.  Try that out and see if that resolves your black screen with sound on startup.  As for pressing a key to bypass the startup video early, you can do just that.  Press your select key that you have bound to your controller in BB and that will exit the video as soon as BB is loaded in the background.

Hopefully some of this will be helpful, and maybe someone else will chime in and help with the other issues/questions you have listed.

Cheers,
CDBlue

Edited October 27, 2019 by CDBlue
spelling errors

[DeadVoivod]

Quote

4. Launchbox premium/bigbox backup - how do i backup LB/BB and make a fresh install that will remember my configured emulators, platforms, imported roms, emumovies files? My emulators and roms are located outside LB folder.

I run everything from external disk, than you have already a backup and it’s the easiest way to carry over to another system. Just make a 1:1 copy of your installation, most important being the xml files where LB stores your paths etc. 
And indeed that Intel GPU will be your bottleneck for sure, but still should run lower systems you mentioned well enough. 

Edited October 28, 2019 by DeadVoivod

[vgbox]

On 10/28/2019 at 12:18 AM, CDBlue said:

lol those are alot of questions   Don't have answers for most of your post, but I thought I'd help you out with a couple of things.  First of all, RetroArch running slow.  If it's running slowing on your system, it's likely an issue with the video driver you've selected to use in the driver settings in retroarch (or more than likely the one that retroarch determined was "best" for your system).  Looking at your specs, that on-board Intel graphics is really going to hold you back (better forget anything newer than maybe PS1 with that card).  For that graphics card I would bet that RetroArch determined that it can do OpenGL (which it can... on paper at least) and likely that's the video driver that's being used.  From experience, I can tell you that it won't work well with most onobard intel graphics cards.  Try going into Retroarch settings, drivers, video driver and select d3d11, as that's likely going to give you the best performance for that system.  Once you select it, save your settings and restart retroarch and try a game.  The specs you have listed looks like they should allow for SMS, NES, SNES, Genesis etc. games from that era to run at near full, if not 100% full, speeds.

As for getting better performance, as I mentioned above, the onboard graphics are really going to hold you back.  Forget about playing anything modern on that card, unfortunately.  To get much better performance you'll need to look at getting a dedicated graphics card (AMD or nVidia are the main cards to look at).

One last things, for the black screen with sound when you launch BB, that might be related again to the onboard video.  I find for those, you sometimes get better performance/less issues if you select Windows Media Player as the video player in LB/BB.  Try that out and see if that resolves your black screen with sound on startup.  As for pressing a key to bypass the startup video early, you can do just that.  Press your select key that you have bound to your controller in BB and that will exit the video as soon as BB is loaded in the background.

Hopefully some of this will be helpful, and maybe someone else will chime in and help with the other issues/questions you have listed.

Cheers,
CDBlue

Changed to d3d11 and games run fine now. I will lower my expectations from big box presentation until i get a new GPU.

Can anyone recommend a dedicated GPU for my pc spec? It seems like a good time to buy one now that black friday is coming soon.

Yeah, hopefully someone else can answer my other questions.

On 10/28/2019 at 1:18 PM, DeadVoivod said:

I run everything from external disk, than you have already a backup and it’s the easiest way to carry over to another system. Just make a 1:1 copy of your installation, most important being the xml files where LB stores your paths etc. 
And indeed that Intel GPU will be your bottleneck for sure, but still should run lower systems you mentioned well enough. 

That does not answer my question. I need to know EXACTLY which folders and files to keep. Surprisingly, no LB backup tutorial addresses that. From what i can learn myself by experience it seems that the folders and files that need backup are: Folders: data, images, manuals, metadata, videos. Files: launchbox.exe xml, bigbox.exe xml. Maybe i'm wrong though. Anyway, the last thing i want is to import Teras of roms, emumovies, etc. for like, 15 different platforms, again and again in case of a fresh LB install and possibly loose data.

Edited October 29, 2019 by vgbox

[DOS76]

those are the folders you would backup along with Music (if you have any and want it). You may also want to backup the Themes and Launchbox Themes folder especially if you are using any edited ones. Even if you aren't using edited ones if you like to have multiple themes this will save you the time of redownloading them again. Also your license file should be backed up (despite it being easily retrievable from LB) its a small file and having it saved just saves you some time if you need to rebuild when (not if) your hard drives meets its inevitable demise.

[vgbox]

9 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

those are the folders you would backup along with Music (if you have any and want it). You may also want to backup the Themes and Launchbox Themes folder especially if you are using any edited ones. Even if you aren't using edited ones if you like to have multiple themes this will save you the time of redownloading them again. Also your license file should be backed up (despite it being easily retrievable from LB) its a small file and having it saved just saves you some time if you need to rebuild when (not if) your hard drives meets its inevitable demise.

And lb.xml and bigbox.xml, right? Aside of these folders and files, all the settings should reset to default, right?

[DOS76]

yes

[neil9000]

If you have all your roms elsewhere then you may as well just zip the whole launchbox folder. With all the things you want to actually backup the only things you are leaving out are relatively small in filesize. Personally i'd just zip the whole folder and be done with it, no messing then just a ready to go zip.

[DOS76]

meh why do I want to waste space though on backing up 7zip and VLC and stuff like that I know its not large but just seems pointless easy to pick the stuff you want but to each their own.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, DOS76 said:

meh why do I want to waste space though on backing up 7zip and VLC and stuff like that I know its not large but just seems pointless easy to pick the stuff you want but to each their own.

Yeah i guess for those in particular Launchbox will recreate them anyway when you launch it.

[CDBlue]

2 hours ago, vgbox said:

... Can anyone recommend a dedicated GPU for my pc spec? It seems like a good time to buy one now that black friday is coming soon....

For your specs any of the modern generation, or previous generation cards, should work fine.  AMD and nVidia are the two front runners when it comes to dedicated GPU's.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of AMD cards for retro gaming, as alot of the modern emulators seems to have issues unless they support Vulkan as an API, which some do, and some are moving towards that. The ones that rely on OpenGL as an API of choice though, AMD's fall behind due to poor OpenGL driver support.  For those emulators I find you need to rely on the devs to come up with hacks and/or graphics packs to bypass AMD's OpenGL shorcomings/issues and even then they are generally slower than their nVidia counterparts on that API.  Therefore, I normally suggest going with nVidia because it just works and you don't need to fuss as much to get good performance.

 

So, long story shot, nVidia 1000 or 2000 series cards (ie. this, and last generation) should be more than enough to run most of the emulators.  Just a heads up though, a decent gaming-grade GPU can be pricey.  I would suggest looking to see what a decent middle of the road, last-generation, nVidia card is going for... maybe a GTX 1060 or even a GTX 1050Ti.  Those are likely to get you the best bang for you buck.  Keep in mind though, if you do plan on doing modern-era PC gaming, the higher the card is (spec, and price normally) the better the performance will be in those titles.  If you're just looking for retro gaming, up to PS3 for example, then GTX 1060 levels should be more than enough to get you going.

As always though, always do some research before purchasing something like a dedicated GPU.  They are pricey, and you want to make sure you get what fits your needs... don't always just go with the first recommendation you see... even mine hehe

Edited October 29, 2019 by CDBlue

[vgbox]

1 hour ago, CDBlue said:

For your specs any of the modern generation, or previous generation cards, should work fine.  AMD and nVidia are the two front runners when it comes to dedicated GPU's.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of AMD cards for retro gaming, as alot of the modern emulators seems to have issues unless they support Vulkan as an API, which some do, and some are moving towards that. The ones that rely on OpenGL as an API of choice though, AMD's fall behind due to poor OpenGL driver support.  For those emulators I find you need to rely on the devs to come up with hacks and/or graphics packs to bypass AMD's OpenGL shorcomings/issues and even then they are generally slower than their nVidia counterparts on that API.  Therefore, I normally suggest going with nVidia because it just works and you don't need to fuss as much to get good performance.

 

So, long story shot, nVidia 1000 or 2000 series cards (ie. this, and last generation) should be more than enough to run most of the emulators.  Just a heads up though, a decent gaming-grade GPU can be pricey.  I would suggest looking to see what a decent middle of the road, last-generation, nVidia card is going for... maybe a GTX 1060 or even a GTX 1050Ti.  Those are likely to get you the best bang for you buck.  Keep in mind though, if you do plan on doing modern-era PC gaming, the higher the card is (spec, and price normally) the better the performance will be in those titles.  If you're just looking for retro gaming, up to PS3 for example, then GTX 1060 levels should be more than enough to get you going.

As always though, always do some research before purchasing something like a dedicated GPU.  They are pricey, and you want to make sure you get what fits your needs... don't always just go with the first recommendation you see... even mine hehe

The search begins then.

Btw, When i bought my computer they said that one of the benefits of my CPU is that its good for overclocking. Do you know if games performance would benefit from overclocking my CPU? Does it worth it?

Edited October 29, 2019 by vgbox

[Headrush69]

50 minutes ago, vgbox said:

Do you know if games performance would benefit from overclocking my CPU? Does it worth it?

It all depends on the game and the emulator. You have a pretty decent CPU and you probably will have good success with most roms/emus.

Some of the newer MAME roms and Switch Emu would likely be helped by overclocking, but you just have to try and see.

[CDBlue]

They were correct.  The K in the intel processors means that the cores are unlocked... meaning you can overlock them easily (as long as the motherboard supports it)  But, overlocking is a tricky question to answer easily.  Some games/emulators are single-core/thread bound, in which case having more speed for that core can make a difference if the stock speed of your processor is not allowing the emulator to run at 100% speed.

However, that being said, the main thing to consider though when overclocking a processor is to make sure you have adequate cooling for the processor, as overclocking it can significantly increase the temperatures it generates.  The stock processors coolers for intel for that era (and even now really) are not good for anything other than minor overclocking, which likely won't do much benefit for the most part. So, unless you have an aftermarket air cooler on your processor, or a AIO (water cooler) then I would not suggest tinkering with overlocking the processor as the tiny overclocks you might be able to get won't affect anything for the most part.   Getting a decent GPU will benefit you much more than overclocking a processor