LaunchBox for Android New Version - Beta Testing

[Jason Carr]

@littlek4za You may run into issues launching games if you put the LaunchBox folder inside of that folder, because other apps will not necessarily be able to read from that folder. I doubt that's causing the specific issue that you're describing, but it's possible.

The metadata files are platform-specific on Android. If you're importing NES, for example, only NES data will be used/downloaded. This is to help with performance on Android. So that may be what you're seeing. The full metadata.xml file is not downloaded on Android.

Usually missing images like that are the result of an inconsistent Internet connection.

[Jason Carr]

LaunchBox for Android 1.1-beta-16 is out now with some various fixes related to navigation and video playback.

[Dbxfan]

Is it possible to change the platform clear logos? 

[Dbxfan]

Never mind I see it.

[Dbxfan]

I do have some performance issues. Just wanted to say I have a 2019 shield tv pro and I'm getting lagging and freezing on the wheel with details scrolling through. Also random crashes back to shield home. Mind you tho I have every system possible and pretty much all games for said systems. I am using my 8TB hyperspin drive and decided to use launchbox on PC and android. Bought lifetime licenses for both. It seems when you get too many systems or games it lags. Same with pegasus and arc browser too. Just mentioning this. I can still use hyperspin too, as I keep auto updates off and I don't have the latest android shield experience.

[Jason Carr]

7 hours ago, Dbxfan said:

I do have some performance issues. Just wanted to say I have a 2019 shield tv pro and I'm getting lagging and freezing on the wheel with details scrolling through. Also random crashes back to shield home. Mind you tho I have every system possible and pretty much all games for said systems. I am using my 8TB hyperspin drive and decided to use launchbox on PC and android. Bought lifetime licenses for both. It seems when you get too many systems or games it lags. Same with pegasus and arc browser too. Just mentioning this. I can still use hyperspin too, as I keep auto updates off and I don't have the latest android shield experience.

This is usually related to using a slow drive. You'll probably need to use a faster drive or SD card.

[Dbxfan]

16 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

This is usually related to using a slow drive. You'll probably need to use a faster drive or SD card.

Ok, I'll look into that. I'm using a 14tb WD easy store at the moment. I have a smaller 2.5 5TB WD black that I want to stash games on for a smaller build, that should be a faster drive. I'll try it.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Dbxfan

[Vader]

@Jason Carr Sorry to be a bother, but still waiting for a seek/ search by letter option. It does get kinda tedious when you have a platform with thousands of games to have to scroll the entire list to find a game. Thanks and have a good day!

[MarkSos]

Hi there, 

Great work you've been doing with all these updates for Android, it's really appreciated. I had 2 questions.

First, is there any way to tell if I'm on a beta release? Under About Launchbox, it just says version 1.1. I have ticked Update to Beta Releases under options, but that hasn't started any new download/update. 

Secondly, I'm trying to access my ROMs off my NAS. Not trying to use a shield (have read lots of people's issues with that), just trying to use either of my android devices (poco x3 phone running Android 12, and alldocube iplay40h tablet running Android 11) that have Launchbox installed, to read ROMs off my qnap NAS. I can see files off my NAS using various File Managers, but when I go to import games in LB, I only have options of looking in my internal storage or attached sd card. (Same with retroarch too). Is this an inherent limitation of android devices, that most don't have a network share function and can't mount a network share to a local folder? (excluding the shield, which can)

Are there ways to do this, or around this? I'm trying to avoid having ROMs take up space on my actual devices.

Thanks

And sorry, I probably should be asking these under another folder, they're not strictly questions on beta testing

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by MarkSos

[Jason Carr]

On 4/18/2022 at 5:06 AM, Vader said:

@Jason Carr Sorry to be a bother, but still waiting for a seek/ search by letter option. It does get kinda tedious when you have a platform with thousands of games to have to scroll the entire list to find a game. Thanks and have a good day!

We do have plans for this, but we're currently working on adding some missing platforms/emulators and implementing custom themes. Not sure on a time frame for that as of yet.

8 hours ago, MarkSos said:

First, is there any way to tell if I'm on a beta release? Under About Launchbox, it just says version 1.1. I have ticked Update to Beta Releases under options, but that hasn't started any new download/update. 

1.1 is still the latest release. We have not yet put out a new beta past the official release. If you're on a beta version, the version number will have "beta" in it inside the About page.

8 hours ago, MarkSos said:

Secondly, I'm trying to access my ROMs off my NAS. Not trying to use a shield (have read lots of people's issues with that), just trying to use either of my android devices (poco x3 phone running Android 12, and alldocube iplay40h tablet running Android 11) that have Launchbox installed, to read ROMs off my qnap NAS. I can see files off my NAS using various File Managers, but when I go to import games in LB, I only have options of looking in my internal storage or attached sd card. (Same with retroarch too). Is this an inherent limitation of android devices, that most don't have a network share function and can't mount a network share to a local folder? (excluding the shield, which can)

These are probably device-specific issues. That's the biggest problem with Android, it's just so fragmented. It will be difficult for us to figure out exactly what the problem is with network shares on those devices, without having them on hand.

[Vader]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

We do have plans for this, but we're currently working on adding some missing platforms/emulators and implementing custom themes. Not sure on a time frame for that as of yet.

 

Ok thanks. Appricate it.

[Vader]

Happy Friday everyone!!!! 😁

This forum has been kind of lonely as there has been no posts for the last two weeks. Hopefully @Jason Carr will have an update soon.

 

[Jason Carr]

14 hours ago, Vader said:

Happy Friday everyone!!!! 😁

This forum has been kind of lonely as there has been no posts for the last two weeks. Hopefully @Jason Carr will have an update soon.

 

Development takes time. I will have a beta out soon enough.

[DragoonDemon4]

Hi, I like to Post a suggestion for Both Launchbox for PC and for Android, the issue is that when using the android importer from Launchbox for pc it doesn't copy games with multiple versions or multiple CDs, and when I open Launchbox for android it says that there's multiple versions or discs, but obviously it won’t open them because they are not in the device, secondly, when I Tried to Add manually the games, there's an issue because I can’t Manually Write the name of the platform and have lunchbox treat it like an official supported platform like Launchbox for pc does so when I add Japanese versions of consoles that have a different name than its American counterpart, I have to add them as an American platform, but as the same happens on lunchbox for pc when looking for videos in emumovies it won’t find videos because in the emumovies database, the Japanese games are organized by the name of the Japanese platform (e.g. Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Famicom).

Hopefuly this get fixed so I can Add My games The same way I do in Launchbox PC

[commandernojj]

Hello all, I've been setting up launchbox to run on my Ayn Odin and I'm so far enjoying it, a few wishlist items I'd like to get out in the open that I think will really enhance the app and make it a must have:

• button remaping, it would be nice to be able to swap the confirm and cancel buttons
• enhanced search functionality, currently searching uses a standard android pop up to type in a name, it would be awesome if we were given the alphabet at a button press and could select a letter to immediately jump to that section with the controller.
• Someone mentioned it before but sections for custom stuff like MSU1 and rom hacks would be great in the future.
• allowing secondary filters on certain systems, for example I’d only like to activate the feature on my arcade section rather than the entire set of systems.

I know this is all work in progress and in the early stages but out of all the frontend options available I believe this one will be the most user friendly, and feature rich, rivaling the frontends most of the linux handhelds use like emulation station and retropi.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by commandernojj

[Jason Carr]

On 5/9/2022 at 8:33 PM, commandernojj said:

allowing secondary filters on certain systems, for example I’d only like to activate the feature on my arcade section rather than the entire set of systems.

Just FYI, this is already possible using the Filter menu item while on a games list. I've noted the other items.

On 5/8/2022 at 12:19 PM, DragoonDemon4 said:

Hi, I like to Post a suggestion for Both Launchbox for PC and for Android, the issue is that when using the android importer from Launchbox for pc it doesn't copy games with multiple versions or multiple CDs, and when I open Launchbox for android it says that there's multiple versions or discs, but obviously it won’t open them because they are not in the device, secondly, when I Tried to Add manually the games, there's an issue because I can’t Manually Write the name of the platform and have lunchbox treat it like an official supported platform like Launchbox for pc does so when I add Japanese versions of consoles that have a different name than its American counterpart, I have to add them as an American platform, but as the same happens on lunchbox for pc when looking for videos in emumovies it won’t find videos because in the emumovies database, the Japanese games are organized by the name of the Japanese platform (e.g. Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Famicom).

Hopefuly this get fixed so I can Add My games The same way I do in Launchbox PC

Thanks, noted. It's been a while since I looked at the export process regarding multiple versions of the same game, but I thought that was working fine last I tested. I'll revisit.

[2Play]

Good day to all,
Im testing LB A  1.1
Media/Art do not download automatically on the few roms tested. Platform name not automatically selected either basis the folder that games imported.
Platform auto detection as shown on ETA Prime video not happening which means the application seeks for naming convention use in LaunchBox Games Database (launchbox-app.com) ?
I tested with the ES/Retropie rom folders naming example n64 rather Nintendo 64 as per LB DB

Does this also apply on roms naming? or the LB DB is similar to No Intro naming or another naming convention?

- Can the Bigbox license be used also on LB A or we need the new license?

Apologies if duplicate but I just started testing LB A

[Jason Carr]

On 5/8/2022 at 12:19 PM, DragoonDemon4 said:

Hi, I like to Post a suggestion for Both Launchbox for PC and for Android, the issue is that when using the android importer from Launchbox for pc it doesn't copy games with multiple versions or multiple CDs, and when I open Launchbox for android it says that there's multiple versions or discs, but obviously it won’t open them because they are not in the device, secondly, when I Tried to Add manually the games, there's an issue because I can’t Manually Write the name of the platform and have lunchbox treat it like an official supported platform like Launchbox for pc does so when I add Japanese versions of consoles that have a different name than its American counterpart, I have to add them as an American platform, but as the same happens on lunchbox for pc when looking for videos in emumovies it won’t find videos because in the emumovies database, the Japanese games are organized by the name of the Japanese platform (e.g. Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Famicom).

Hopefuly this get fixed so I can Add My games The same way I do in Launchbox PC

@DragoonDemon4 I just tested the Android Export and confirmed that it is indeed exporting multiple versions of games just fine (additional apps). I know we do have an occasional issue with bin/cue/wav files when the file names are not all the same across the tracks, but that's the only issue that I'm currently aware of. I don't exactly know why you'd be running into any issues there. Have you tested the export recently?

[Jason Carr]

On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 AM, 2Play said:

Media/Art do not download automatically on the few roms tested. Platform name not automatically selected either basis the folder that games imported.

I'll need more details on this in order to help you troubleshoot, including the platforms that you're working with. All of this is known to work correctly, so I'm not sure what you're running into.

On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 AM, 2Play said:

Platform auto detection as shown on ETA Prime video not happening which means the application seeks for naming convention use in LaunchBox Games Database (launchbox-app.com) ?

Are you referring to the Platform for Imported Games field not being automatically populated in the import process? That field will only automatically populate if the folder you're importing from is named in a way that is recognized as a certain platform. It's guaranteed to populate. If not, you just have to select the correct platform, so it shouldn't be a significant issue.

On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 AM, 2Play said:

I tested with the ES/Retropie rom folders naming example n64 rather Nintendo 64 as per LB DB

Yeah, you may have to manually select that platform in that case.

On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 AM, 2Play said:

Does this also apply on roms naming? or the LB DB is similar to No Intro naming or another naming convention?

Any ROM naming that has the game titles in the ROM file should work fine, but yes, we do most of our testing with No Intro ROM file names.

On 5/23/2022 at 1:20 AM, 2Play said:

- Can the Bigbox license be used also on LB A or we need the new license?

No, unfortunately you do need a separate license for LaunchBox for Android.

[sakky]

i can't download and view game videos, any advice? I have an up and running emuemovies account