Is it ever possible to have a theme without slowdowns?

[Daliant]

Hi everyone, over the years I've been using Launchbox and BigBox I've tried dozens of themes trying to get the best gaming experience while still being nice to look at.

Every time I've had the same problem, I've found a fantastic theme that suited my needs, clean, pretty, but it always ended with slowdowns navigating the game menus.

I see that it is a common problem in 99% of the themes that can be downloaded today for BigBox and what I would like to know is if you think that one day this aspect will be improved to allow a completely fluid experience in exploring our collection of games.

I don't have the best PC in the world, my features are AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six-Core Processor 3.60 GHz, 16GB RAM and Nvidia Gforce 1660 Super. I know it's a simple PC, but I understand that it should be more than enough to run a frontend with images and some low-resolution video.

My problem mainly is in games list type views. When I go through the different games I notice a lag when going from one game to the next. Sometimes even the sounds it makes when going through the list from one game to another stop listening or even make small jumps if you decide to go between games quickly.

I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about.

I want to say that recently I found a theme that (at the moment) is the only one that navigates through the list of games in a totally fluid way, without slowdowns and being able to scroll through the list as fast as you want without problems. The theme in question is called "Stark" and is from the creator  @donkeywaffles. As I said, of the dozens of themes I've tried, it's the only one that doesn't slow down in its game list view and allows for totally fluid navigation. The rest of the themes I've tried end up slowing down somehow, especially in game list views with details.

My question right now is does this theme have something special that the others don't? and Why can't I have the same smooth experience with the other available themes?

I love being able to review the list of my games much more than playing them. For me, Launchbox and BigBox are the way to see my collection, see information about the games, their images, videos and other available media... But the browsing experience is not the best possible right now and I would like to be able to improve it. Do you think I can do something to improve my BigBox browsing experience?

Sorry for my long speech, but I needed to tell this for a long time.

All the best.

[Daliant]

Here I show you a short video comparing two BigBox themes and their fluidity when navigating the games.

I hope you can see the difference clearly since it is much easier to notice when you are the one who controls the game controller to move the list.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Daliant

[C-Beats]

Biggest difference between the two themes you see are the use of the "Active" and "Selected" game bindings. First theme is using the one that is updated immediately and so every time you move it updates every element in the theme. The second one is using the delayed one that only gets updated after you've stayed on the game for a second. Because the second isn't trying to load a bunch of images/videos instantly every time you move in the list it works faster.

[blattacker]

Expanding on this a bit, I have noticed a similar issue (including with the theme I made) but also that the default theme does not seem to suffer this issue. I had assumed that this slowdown had to do with utilizing the Community Theme Creator to build the theme, and had planned to learn enough XAML to redo the theme from the ground-up by hand (under the assumption that CTC may be loading in things that weren't being used, and I could therefore pare down the code a bit to make it more responsive). Was this a correct assumption to make and/or an advisable course of action?

[Daliant]

4 minutes ago, blattacker said:

Expanding on this a bit, I have noticed a similar issue (including with the theme I made) but also that the default theme does not seem to suffer this issue. I had assumed that this slowdown had to do with utilizing the Community Theme Creator to build the theme, and had planned to learn enough XAML to redo the theme from the ground-up by hand (under the assumption that CTC may be loading in things that weren't being used, and I could therefore pare down the code a bit to make it more responsive). Was this a correct assumption to make and/or an advisable course of action?

I have also noticed the same thing as you, the default theme does not suffer from this lag and I also thought that it would be possible because of the CTC.

I guess there must be some reason for this.

It is a pity that the experience in Big Box is not smooth. I guess for most people it's more important to start the game than to be able to scroll smoothly through the game list.

[C-Beats]

Believe the CTC lets you choose between "Active Game" binding and "Selected Game" binding. Selected is updated instantly, Active is delayed. Any additional elements displaying information about the game being hovered over should be using the Active binding to help reduce the delay you're seeing. There could be other factors affecting you that I'm not aware of, but this typically is the most egregious cause for the delay you're showing in the video.

[faeran]

3 hours ago, blattacker said:

Expanding on this a bit, I have noticed a similar issue (including with the theme I made) but also that the default theme does not seem to suffer this issue. I had assumed that this slowdown had to do with utilizing the Community Theme Creator to build the theme, and had planned to learn enough XAML to redo the theme from the ground-up by hand (under the assumption that CTC may be loading in things that weren't being used, and I could therefore pare down the code a bit to make it more responsive). Was this a correct assumption to make and/or an advisable course of action?

Somewhat true, yes. There's also better ways to architect themes, so a poorly optimized one would perform worse than an optimized one, even with the same design.

If you do need some help with XAML, send me a PM and I'd be happy to help.

[killa7977]

I thought i was the only gamer over this Planet that loves more to Watch his collection rather than play It ahahah