Load Screen timing ?

[NightShadowPT]

Hi,

When I'm running BigBox, sometimes the game I'm loading takes too long (e.g.: Pinball FX3) and the loading screen drops back to the regular BigBox menu and after a few seconds it finaly loads Pinball FX3, kind of killing the ilusion of an integrated system.

It goes like this:

- Select Pinball FX3 Table I want to play from the BigBox Menu

- Loading Screen shows up

- Loading Screen fades back to the menu (making me think it has crashed or something)

- After a few seconds Pinball FX3 finally launches

 

Is there a way to control the time the Loading Screen is displayed? Or any other solution for this?

Thanks

[Retro808]

In LB edit the emulator and in the startup tab try adjusting the Load Delay.

[NightShadowPT]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion.

That was the option I was looking for, but unfortunately it does not work entirely.

Adjusting the slider helped, but it still flashes BigBox's menu right before the game loads.

Also tried playing with "Agressive Startup Window Hiding" and "Hide All Windows that are not in Execlusive Fullscreen Mode" to no avail.

My best guess is that this could be related with the way Steam runs PinballFX3 and maybe BigBox is catching the handover between steam.exe and pinballfx3.exe as if the game has loaded.

I tried some other Steam games, and this does not happen.

I'm at a loss on how to address this at the moment, but more than happy to hear anyone else's thoughts and ideas.

Cheers. 

[bojo5150]

Folks, it doesn’t look like this was ever really addressed. The ask would be to find a way to override the max of 30 seconds (the slider) to something much longer. For example, big Buck pro takes maybe 2 min to load. I want the LB loading screen to stay active for those 2 minutes so that people (or myself) don’t believe the game crashed and/or see all the cmd windows, emulator interface, etc… is there a way to accomplish this?

[JoeViking245]

On 3/1/2024 at 10:51 AM, bojo5150 said:

Folks, it doesn’t look like this was ever really addressed. The ask would be to find a way to override the max of 30 seconds (the slider) to something much longer. For example, big Buck pro takes maybe 2 min to load. I want the LB loading screen to stay active for those 2 minutes so that people (or myself) don’t believe the game crashed and/or see all the cmd windows, emulator interface, etc… is there a way to accomplish this?

This plugin should help you with the 2-minute loading issue you mentioned with BBH-Pro.  However, it will not fix issues with games/emulators that use a loader to [then] launch a game, such as Steam as mentioned by the OP. 

 

[bojo5150]

On 3/2/2024 at 6:04 PM, JoeViking245 said:

This plugin should help you with the 2-minute loading issue you mentioned with BBH-Pro.  However, it will not fix issues with games/emulators that use a loader to [then] launch a game, such as Steam as mentioned by the OP. 

 

Fantastic, thank you!

[Modernfx]

I tried this plug in and it does not work for me. No matter what the loading screen goes away after a few seconds.

[JoeViking245]

9 hours ago, Modernfx said:

I tried this plug in and it does not work for me. No matter what the loading screen goes away after a few seconds.

It's not the plugin.  It's a limitation of using startup screens with emulators that are 'loaders'.  Such as Steam.

 

From the plugins description (note the 2nd bullet):

Limitations:
  -  Max load delay time is 5 minutes (300 seconds)
  -  This WILL NOT fix issues with games/emulators that use a 'loader' to start a game.
        The Startup Screen will still go away after the launched executable exits.

[Modernfx]

2 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

It's not the plugin.  It's a limitation of using startup screens with emulators that are 'loaders'.  Such as Steam.

 

From the plugins description (note the 2nd bullet):

Limitations:
  -  Max load delay time is 5 minutes (300 seconds)
  -  This WILL NOT fix issues with games/emulators that use a 'loader' to start a game.
        The Startup Screen will still go away after the launched executable exits.

I guess I am not understanding.  I am configuring teknoparrot games. Some as you know, take longer than others. When I adjust the loading screen time for a specific game in Launchbox to something say, 45seconds, the loading screen shows for a few seconds (maybe 5sec) even after the adjustment. So, does this mean once the .exe file is executed the loading screen goes away?

[JoeViking245]

Just now, Modernfx said:

I guess I am not understanding.  I am configuring teknoparrot games.

TeknoParrot is a game 'loader' similar to Steam.

If it's of any consequence, these are the only 2 'emulators' that I'm aware of that create this issue. 

 

4 minutes ago, Modernfx said:

So, does this mean once the .exe file is executed the loading screen goes away?

No.  The Startup Screen will remain showing as long as the launched executable is running, or the set delay time has elapsed.  aka, the Startup Screen will terminate early if the launched executable has terminated.

What's happening is, when you launch a Steam (or TeknoParrot) game, you start the 'main' executable (steam.exe).  This executable then spawns another executable which is the actual game.exe. Once the game is spawned (executed), the originating .exe (steam.exe) terminates itself (and the [actual] game continues to run).

As you're discovering, TeknoParrot takes a few (maybe 5) seconds to 'get the game rolling' before terminating itself. 

At the end of these few-to-5 seconds, LaunchBox sees that the "game" it launched (which again, is your main executable) has exited and doesn't need to show the Startup Screen for the full duration (45 seconds or however long you set it for).  So 'makes it go away'.

 

This is by design.  i.e.  If you set the Startup Screen delay duration to 45 seconds and launched a regular game, say... something using RetroArch, and something errored causing the game (or RA) to not start properly or crash, you wouldn't know it until after the full 45 seconds has elapsed. 

That's close to 45 seconds (each time you attempted to launch it) that could be used to figure out why the game crashed.  

[Modernfx]

Ah. Got it understood now. Thank you so much for the explanation.