10.12-beta-1 Released

[Jason Carr]

On 3/20/2020 at 6:54 PM, Álvaro Maia said:

Hi Jason. It's possible to implement the download of images to the database from the https://www.steamgriddb.com/ source. So we can have an extra source from steam banners like images for our roms.

Thanks.

I believe I have this on my list already, but it hasn't been a priority, as it doesn't seem to be a very common request (at least at this point). We may tackle it at some point in the future.

On 3/20/2020 at 7:44 PM, Krakerman said:

Any chance we can get this to work wit the Old Default theme Jason. I know I am one of those I just prefer the old theme look. ?

Yes, I do plan on migrating the new code over to the old theme as well. It's on my list to do before the official release.

14 hours ago, TheNewClassics said:

Hey Jason, I have a log file here, along with part of the MAME log. Not sure if it helps much, but I'm still guessing it has something to do moreso with my MAME setup. 

MAME log relevant part:

Attempting to parse: default.cfg
Attempting to parse: 4dwarrio.cfg
Starting 4-D Warriors (315-5162)
hiscore: found hiscore.dat entry for 4dwarrio
hiscore: scores read FAIL

 

Edit: It's working now, I'm not entirely sure what setting I changed but I'll take it!

Debug 2020-03-21 11-58-30 AM.log 31.1 kB · 0 downloads

Glad it's working for you. For some reason the log file shows that MAME just wasn't producing any high score or nvram files.

10 hours ago, EgoBizarro said:

Maybe another little feature for this that might be interesting later on: Maybe in that new pop-up window (from beta 5), being able to 'flip' through all games one has a registered highscore in. That way one could quickly browse through those games and see if some buster busted one's highscore, so one can go for revenge

Yeah, there are some cool things we can do along those lines. I'm not sure exactly what we'll end up doing, but I do plan on experimenting with something like that.

10 hours ago, alondero said:

Hey Jason, love this idea! I use MAME through Retroarch so I think it's looking in the wrong place for the hiscores.dat file and mame.ini files (they are located in my retroarch/system/mame folder). Any chance you could make the location where it looks for hiscores configurable?

I have an item on my list to *try* to get it to work with Retroarch. That said, it may or may not be possible. My quick forums searches suggest that it's tricky, at least. I'm not even sure that the high scores plugin that comes with standard MAME is even included with the Retroarch core.

5 hours ago, PanteraZombie said:

This is awesome! Tested it with Galaga and works great!

Good to hear.

[Jason Carr]

I've been hard at work this weekend trying to come up with a solution for dumping all of the default high scores so that we can omit them from the high score submissions (with some really useful help from GreatStone, the developer of hi2txt). So far, I have the default scores dumped for two-thirds of the supported games. The last third of them are proving to be difficult, and we may or may not be able to get them dumped.

That said, this is great progress. It means that for 2/3 of the games, it won't automatically submit the highest score on the leaderboard, even if it's just a default score, and you'll be able to submit scores that are less than the default #1 position. It will also remove a bunch of the extra junk scores. Most of my favorite games seem to be fixed in that regard.

We are treading on entirely new ground with this, as it doesn't sound like a MAME community leaderboard like this has ever really been built. It's been fun figuring out the kinks though, and GreatStone has been amazing with all of his help. I think we've got something pretty cool going here.

[SonicFan53]

Sweet!

[Retrofrogg]

Love the new high scores feature! A couple of problems regarding the current implementation:

- the (4) leaderboards take up most of the space in the game details pane, so when browsing, instead of viewing the videos, screenshots & game info, it's mainly the leaderboards that are visible

- when scrolling down the game details pane with the mouse wheel, the leaderboards scroll instead - you have to put your mouse at the very bottom of the gam,e details pane to get it all to scroll.

Would be great if the leaderboards could be an expandable feature in the game details pane, or perhaps placed at the bottom below the other stuff. Even better, have the game details pane as a detachable module that you can display on another screen, but that's a separate request...

[alondero]

Yeah the MAME cores don't by default have all the plugins you need, so to use it with Retroarch you need to follow the instructions here https://forums.libretro.com/t/guide-libretro-mame-current-hiscore-history-gameinit-command/24452/6. Through the configuration of the plugin.ini file too you can specify where you want your hiscores to live (I have mine stored in my Google Drive folder to sync them across devices).

Automatically setting up Retroarch I can imagine would be a stretch for Launchbox to do, but maybe a custom configuration option where you can override the default 'hi' folder location (as an expert option) would be amazing.

When do the scores get submitted / downloaded btw? Is it on game exit?

[neil9000]

5 minutes ago, Retrofrogg said:

- the (4) leaderboards take up most of the space in the game details pane, so when browsing, instead of viewing the videos, screenshots & game info, it's mainly the leaderboards that are visible

- when scrolling down the game details pane with the mouse wheel, the leaderboards scroll instead - you have to put your mouse at the very bottom of the gam,e details pane to get it all to scroll

Well that is all changeable if you edit the theme. This is just how Jason decided to display them in his default theme. Other creators, or yourself if you edit a theme are free to put those where you like in the game details bar.

[Headrush69]

1 hour ago, Retrofrogg said:

the (4) leaderboards take up most of the space in the game details pane, so when browsing, instead of viewing the videos, screenshots & game info, it's mainly the leaderboards that are visible

I just display the all time leader board for that reason. Just right size and still room for video and details on a 1080p screen. (Set the  leader boards to display n LB Options)

[Retrofrogg]

Didn't realise that was available in the settings, thanks!

[kmoney]

I think a cool feature would be to implement the Mame high scores where you could view them from the Pause menu as well.

[Charco]

3 hours ago, kmoney said:

I think a cool feature would be to implement the Mame high scores where you could view them from the Pause menu as well.

Nice idea yeah.

[neil9000]

8 hours ago, Android16 said:

Newest update breaks videos under vlc for eatkinola's plugin.

 

(Inner Exception)

cannot find local VLC libs

App:     Big Box
Version: 10.12-beta-5
Type:    System.DllNotFoundException
Site:    Void SetupLibVlcPath()
Source:  Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a

   at Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayer_VLC.SetupLibVlcPath()
   at Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayer_VLC..cctor()


(Outer Exception)

The type initializer for 'Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayer_VLC' threw an exception.

App:     Big Box
Version: 10.12-beta-5
Type:    System.TypeInitializationException
Site:    Void .ctor(Boolean)
Source:  Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a

   at Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayer_VLC..ctor(Boolean hwDecodingEnabled)
   at Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayerFactory.CreateMediaPlayer(MediaPlayerImpl impl)
   at Ao.Bigbox.Utils.Media.MediaPlayerPool.BorrowMediaPlayer(MediaPlayerImpl impl)
   at Ao.Bigbox.Controls.MediaTrack.ConfigMediaPlayer(Boolean loaded)
   at Ao.Bigbox.Controls.MediaTrack.<.ctor>b__6_0(Object o, RoutedEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised)
   at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEventImpl(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args)
   at System.Windows.BroadcastEventHelper.BroadcastEvent(DependencyObject root, RoutedEvent routedEvent)
   at System.Windows.BroadcastEventHelper.BroadcastLoadedEvent(Object root)
   at MS.Internal.LoadedOrUnloadedOperation.DoWork()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.FireLoadedPendingCallbacks()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.FireInvokeOnRenderCallbacks()
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.RenderMessageHandlerCore(Object resizedCompositionTarget)
   at System.Windows.Media.MediaContext.AnimatedRenderMessageHandler(Object resizedCompositionTarget)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

Recent Log:

   10:54:00 PM Music.Resume Start
   10:54:00 PM Music.Pause Start
   10:54:00 PM Music.Resume Start
   10:54:04 PM Music.Initialize Start
   10:54:04 PM Music.Kill Start
   10:54:04 PM Music.Kill Finished
   10:54:19 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
   10:54:19 PM Music.Kill Start
   10:54:19 PM Music.Kill Finished
   10:54:21 PM Music.Play Start
   10:54:21 PM Music.Kill Start
   10:54:21 PM Music.Kill Finished
   10:54:21 PM Music.Play Create Player
   10:54:21 PM Music.Play Player Play
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Start
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged Invoke WPF
   10:54:21 PM Music.MediaOnParsedChanged End Thread
   10:54:22 PM Exception

 

As mentioned in the first post of this beta thread, all third party programs that are used by Launchbox have been moved into there own folder. @eatkinola or any other plugin creator using some of the third party programs/library's included with Launchbox will need to update there paths

[neil9000]

6 minutes ago, Android16 said:

Firstly, how come wmp backend still works?

Because that is included with Windows, not with Launchbox.

As for the rest of your post i cant really speak to that, apart from saying as the program is updated and improved things will change and plugin creators will need to update there plugins to stay inline. I have seen this with other programs as well that updates break plugins, theres not really a lot that can be done there without just freezing the program and not updating it when new features are available. That is just the nature of a plugin feature as the program updates/evolves, plugins will need to adapt to the changes.

[Jason Carr]

On 3/22/2020 at 7:07 AM, alondero said:

Yeah the MAME cores don't by default have all the plugins you need, so to use it with Retroarch you need to follow the instructions here https://forums.libretro.com/t/guide-libretro-mame-current-hiscore-history-gameinit-command/24452/6. Through the configuration of the plugin.ini file too you can specify where you want your hiscores to live (I have mine stored in my Google Drive folder to sync them across devices).

Automatically setting up Retroarch I can imagine would be a stretch for Launchbox to do, but maybe a custom configuration option where you can override the default 'hi' folder location (as an expert option) would be amazing.

When do the scores get submitted / downloaded btw? Is it on game exit?

Thanks for that link. I'll look into getting Retroarch possibly supported before the official release.

Scores get submitted when the emulator closes, and it uses a web service to download the scores as needed.

On 3/22/2020 at 10:13 AM, kmoney said:

I think a cool feature would be to implement the Mame high scores where you could view them from the Pause menu as well.

This would indeed be cool. I'll look into that. The scores can't be *updated* until the emulator is closed though.

7 hours ago, Android16 said:

There is an issue with that though. Firstly, how come wmp backend still works? Secondly, this project has been going on for a very long time. This is the 2nd or 3rd time an update has made things not work as far as videos go. Plugin devs aren't going to be around that long usually and that would render a whole theme useless. Is there anyway you can encourage plugin devs to use their own video libraries instead of relying on launchbox defaults? We have to come to a consistent definite placement that would prevent the decline of plugin usefullness after updates for plugin devs may not be around to make that fix or change. Not only that, a plugin dev may not have his or her tools anymore to make said change. Things like this really put theme making on a standstill and keep projects in constant limbo.

I'm guessing @eatkinola's plugin is probably the only one with this issue, so if we can reach out to him and get it fixed, that would be ideal.

7 hours ago, Android16 said:

I would like to suggest to include a notice shown inside of the new feature pop up box inside of the program for old devs that are still around and new devs that if they use hardcoded paths for the video backends, or any other paths that could be affected by this, to have their dll create and read the paths from the ini file (with relative path support of course) so we can avoid this issue altogether. Please and thank you if you can.

Again, only one plugin should be affected by this, and we can reach out. Furthermore, old versions of @eatkinola's plugin had issues *because* of not using the integrated version of VLC, so that is most definitely not recommended.

[eatkinola]

@Android16 @neil9000 @Jason Carr

Thanks for the notice and feedback. I did try to leverage BB's video control in the past, but it did not provide the capabilities to do what I wanted. Regarding my plugin, I've been recommending WMP for awhile because I find it works better (for my plugin and themes, anyway). Jason continues to make some nice improvements to LB/BB, and he does his best to maintain compatibility with existing plugins and themes, but sometimes these plugins and themes just need a little tlc in the way of updates. I'll try to work on it this weekend.

EDIT: Okay that was an easy fix; just a path change for the new ThirdParty subfolder. I've been meaning to put out an updated version of the plugin and themes for awhile. I'll roll this fix into that, and hopefully I can work on the releases this weekend or later this month. It's a bit hectic here, however; in the thick of it with pandemic contingencies, and my job is not one where I can shelter in place and catch up on stuff around the house.

Edited March 24, 2020 by eatkinola
solution found

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, eatkinola said:

@Android16 @neil9000 @Jason Carr

Thanks for the notice and feedback. I did try to leverage BB's video control in the past, but it did not provide the capabilities to do what I wanted. Regarding my plugin, I've been recommending WMP for awhile because I find it works better (for my plugin and themes, anyway). Jason continues to make some nice improvements to LB/BB, and he does his best to maintain compatibility with existing plugins and themes, but sometimes these plugins and themes just need a little tlc in the way of updates. I'll try to work on it this weekend.

EDIT: Okay that was an easy fix; just a path change for the new ThirdParty subfolder. I've been meaning to put out an updated version of the plugin and themes for awhile. I'll roll this fix into that, and hopefully I can work on the releases this weekend or later this month. It's a bit hectic here, however; in the thick of it with pandemic contingencies, and my job is not one where I can shelter in place and catch up on stuff around the house.

Thank you very much, @eatkinola.

[Jason Carr]

Beta 6 is out now with the following:

• New Feature: An import process for Epic Games has been added under Tools > Import > Epic Games; it works similarly to the latest Steam and GOG imports. New image types have also been added for the media that can be scraped directly from Epic, and metadata is available for Developer and Notes.

• Improvement: The startup process that was associating games with GOG was moved to Tools > Options > Integrations > GOG and will no longer be automatically run on startup. Under most circumstances it was a very quick process, but some users were seeing significant startup time increases as a result.

• Improvement: The Steam import wizard now allows you to choose which platform to import to

• Fixed: Rare divide by zero error with the updates to the Clean Up Media tool

• Fixed: Scanning the root of a drive for GOG games was throwing errors when hitting hidden/system folders

[Krakerman]

Launchbox backgrounds on old theme are now switching to images instead of the default launchbox background with that option enabled.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Krakerman

[Jason Carr]

Just now, Krakerman said:

Launchbox backgrounds on old theme are now switching to images instead of the default launchbox background.

Can you give me more details on that? Have you checked your background image priorities? We did add some for Epic this go-around. You might need to uncheck them if you prefer not to use image backgrounds.

[Krakerman]

That fixed it sorry

[Jason Carr]

7 minutes ago, Krakerman said:

That fixed it sorry

No worries.