Why is Launchbox so slow?

[izzishor]

10 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

In the same menu that you clear image cache there is a menu item to build the image cache so you wouldn't need to do this step. It does take some time as it generates all cache images for all the games in your setup, but would be a safer way of doing that then the AHK script.

I press that as well, I ommited to write that. I do press it, however it starts 'loading' and then after 10-15 minutes the progress bar disappears and it doesn't seem it's caching anymore (because my CPU fans and it SSD activity becomes idle) then I turn on the script and start the scrolling :))) ty for the answers.

[C-Beats]

5 minutes ago, izzishor said:

I press that as well, I ommited to write that. I do press it, however it starts 'loading' and then after 10-15 minutes the progress bar disappears and it doesn't seem it's caching anymore (because my CPU fans and it SSD activity becomes idle) then I turn on the script and start the scrolling :))) ty for the answers.

I'd turn on debug logging (via LaunchBox) and try it again, then take a look at the logs and see if there are errors in there that may explain what is going on. I've not heard any reports of that tool not working before (and it hasn't been touched in all the time I've been on the project) so I'd be curious as to why you are seeing that issue.

[Nixx]

For me the annoying thing about bigbox is that info don't load when you are browsing, only once in 'selected' mode after like 3 seconds on a game.
I fixed it on a theme with the community editor like this : 

 

 

Basically, if you want something to show up while browsing, you have to change it's update mode like this on the community editor :

The image can also slow down your browsing, in my case, i show two images while browsing, the clear logo and a box art.
The clear logo is compressed in cache, so it's not a problem if you use it. I had to modify manually the code xaml code of the view generated by the theme creator to use them though.

For the box image, it was more complicated, i ended up making a plugin that make a compressed & shrinked version of all my box image and save them as Uplay thumbnail (i don't use Uplay). And then, i put them as priority like this : 

That way, i keep the original images files without tampering them.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Nixx

[charchar]

Maybe it helps others so I’ll write the fix for me here.  I had terrible stuttering and menu lag in both LB and BB. No load time issues just awful menu navigating. I was darn close to moving to another front end.  Tried everything including using NO MEDIA whatsoever. Still menu lag. Then I made a change that I had ignored previously because others had indicated it would help boot time which wasn’t my problem. Anyway, I unchecked all the auto-populate playlist boxes which I had used to populate a couple dozen custom playlists previously. Completely changed everything. BB is snappy now even with videos running.  Zero stutter.   LB is mostly better too but generally not as responsive as BB.  

I don’t understand why this works unless the playlists are constantly refreshing but it worked.  Hope it helps you too. 
 

Edited May 19, 2024 by charchar

[charchar]

Well this is unfortunate but after a couple of weeks of smooth operation, the stutters have returned. It’s not about playlists this time as I’ve removed all of them during debugging.  Other debugging includes going full text/list view with no game details. No graphics to load at all and still the game list stutters. So it can’t be slow access to graphics. And it can’t be playlists.  I’ve removed all controllers. The system is strong enough to run AAA titles on steam without issue so it’s not that.
 

IDK what else to try.  I may have to punt LB BB after all this work. 

[charchar]

So I figured it out. It’s definitely a pitfall people here should consider but the fix might be outside LB. I use Pixelcade with ledblinky integration. Lesblinky sends marquee image requests to Pixelcade as the front end game list scrolls. 
 

My Pixelcade is on its own power switch. Power on and everything works well. If I power it down (as common when building instead of playing) then menu navigation in LB/BB stutters. I assume due to a failure/retry upstream as the marquee selected per game cannot be delivered. It’s binary and 100% reproducible. 
 

I’m thinking that the fix needs to come from Pixelcade or the way Ledblinky is integrated with it. But if you use this combo as well, don’t fall into the trap I did.  

[Pademonium bac]

I'm really not a textbook case here 🤣
The software is already well known for its display delays and I often get teased when I show my prods to my colleagues at retrobat who have performances well above mine! An example here where bob morane regularly does performance tests!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEueRzE4sGg

It's quite edifying
It must be said that I don't spare any means to enhance my collections: 2k background / Video transitions
If I can give you 1 or 2 pieces of advice, even though the users here are all well versed, I'm not sure I'll be able to teach you much, but I'll go for it

The 1st thing, and I won't teach you anything, is that it's night and day between a samsung m2 ssd and a sata disk. It changes your life, and following the example of developers who almost impose an ssd for all AA titles today, it's almost become compulsory for a launchbox player, as the gain in fps is so significant.

Secondly, as you know, the more media you have, the heavier the overall target, so choose your media carefully! For my part, it's a clear logo/a video and a 3d box, no more (and that's already a lot). When I create my box I immediately uncheck all the superfluous folders which I feel polish the whole (amazon files, epic etc) in order to make something clean.
I also uncheck all solicitations that could have an impact on performance: game suggestions, mame score, user note updates, etc.
I remove all transitions (fade etc)
and finally I use iobit advanced system care coupled with an accelerator and an app that simulates predefined overclocking.

 thirdly: try as far as possible to put everything in the game and media root. if you have your launchbox and your games on a separate disk it will slow down your overall experience enormously! it seems logical but it's important to remember

Edited September 4, 2024 by Pademonium bac

[Pademonium bac]

It made me want to do a " Crash Test on NB "

( Principle of the crash we test the frontend's ability to adapt and we mistreat it ^^ so we scroll and we see how it reacts)

Just for fun and laughter!

Well I'm surprised and pleasantly surprised! (I wasn't even on an SSD) given what I have behind in background + media and metadata and animation

it's even very good! Not perfect but there is a big window to improve all that  

Once again I am far from being an optimization model.

4 minutes of torture for my launchbox :

 

 

 

[adam1972]

While I fully respect and admire the work that's gone into this... I have to say this made me take a second look....  The entire premise behind this software is displaying your games in a beautiful interface.  If I buy a car I would expect the car to run.. if I put gas in my car and it slowed and sputtered every block I would have issue that the car isn't doing what a car is supposed to do.  
That would literally go for anything else I chose to invest money in and i imagine anyone else in here wold feel the same..  There were other products of course but the blood sweat and tears that I saw Jason Carr put into this software made me want to support his project.  
I just tried once again to play using BigBox and the studders between games make it feel like using powerpoint sometimes...  It's already a good product in terms of catolguing my games.  Does it have roome to grow in terms of speed and capabilkities?  Sure.. but it's not broken in those areas.   
When you have a piece of software whose main selling point is presenting/launching your games in a beautiful manner, the last thing you want is to also do it in a manner that reminds folks of the days they used to try and embed videos in powerpoint presentations.  Sometimes it's that bad.  
Meaning no disrespect to anyone, I've done dev work before so I understand how trying and difficult it can be.... but why would you ever ask folks to go ahead and move to other software? 
What good is enhancing any other part of this software if it's only doing half of what it's supposed to without issues?  Why keep adding to the part that's not broken, making the base that's in need of changing even more difficult if new code keeps being introduced that is dependent on the parts that need to be changed (at least that's the impression I got from the comment)?
I do in fact use other launchers on my linux machines and my sons Windows machine (simply becasue he just needs something basic).... The thought of having to redo my whole library over again for some other product is... ugh......  This is how people get salty on a product and how all the hard work folks put into sellling it gets ultimately wasted....  
Here's praying something evolves that makes BigBox just as snappy as it's cousins.... 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 
Hope everyone had a Wonderful Christmas and a soon to come even better NewYears!! 😎😁🍻

[zugswang]

4 hours ago, adam1972 said:

While I fully respect and admire the work that's gone into this... I have to say this made me take a second look....  The entire premise behind this software is displaying your games in a beautiful interface.  If I buy a car I would expect the car to run.. if I put gas in my car and it slowed and sputtered every block I would have issue that the car isn't doing what a car is supposed to do.  
That would literally go for anything else I chose to invest money in and i imagine anyone else in here wold feel the same..  There were other products of course but the blood sweat and tears that I saw Jason Carr put into this software made me want to support his project.  
I just tried once again to play using BigBox and the studders between games make it feel like using powerpoint sometimes...  It's already a good product in terms of catolguing my games.  Does it have roome to grow in terms of speed and capabilkities?  Sure.. but it's not broken in those areas.   
When you have a piece of software whose main selling point is presenting/launching your games in a beautiful manner, the last thing you want is to also do it in a manner that reminds folks of the days they used to try and embed videos in powerpoint presentations.  Sometimes it's that bad.  
Meaning no disrespect to anyone, I've done dev work before so I understand how trying and difficult it can be.... but why would you ever ask folks to go ahead and move to other software? 
What good is enhancing any other part of this software if it's only doing half of what it's supposed to without issues?  Why keep adding to the part that's not broken, making the base that's in need of changing even more difficult if new code keeps being introduced that is dependent on the parts that need to be changed (at least that's the impression I got from the comment)?
I do in fact use other launchers on my linux machines and my sons Windows machine (simply becasue he just needs something basic).... The thought of having to redo my whole library over again for some other product is... ugh......  This is how people get salty on a product and how all the hard work folks put into sellling it gets ultimately wasted....  
Here's praying something evolves that makes BigBox just as snappy as it's cousins.... 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 
Hope everyone had a Wonderful Christmas and a soon to come even better NewYears!! 😎😁🍻

The more systems you add to it, the slower it gets.

I was told to split them all up (my 100's of systems) into different Launchbox setups (which is ridiculous) if I wanted it to be faster

I suggest you pass on the code to other professionals in the industry to see if they can help speed it all up, because it literally is unusable as is (unless you only have 1-2 systems)

[Daliant]

12 hours ago, adam1972 said:

While I fully respect and admire the work that's gone into this... I have to say this made me take a second look....  The entire premise behind this software is displaying your games in a beautiful interface.  If I buy a car I would expect the car to run.. if I put gas in my car and it slowed and sputtered every block I would have issue that the car isn't doing what a car is supposed to do.  
That would literally go for anything else I chose to invest money in and i imagine anyone else in here wold feel the same..  There were other products of course but the blood sweat and tears that I saw Jason Carr put into this software made me want to support his project.  
I just tried once again to play using BigBox and the studders between games make it feel like using powerpoint sometimes...  It's already a good product in terms of catolguing my games.  Does it have roome to grow in terms of speed and capabilkities?  Sure.. but it's not broken in those areas.   
When you have a piece of software whose main selling point is presenting/launching your games in a beautiful manner, the last thing you want is to also do it in a manner that reminds folks of the days they used to try and embed videos in powerpoint presentations.  Sometimes it's that bad.  
Meaning no disrespect to anyone, I've done dev work before so I understand how trying and difficult it can be.... but why would you ever ask folks to go ahead and move to other software? 
What good is enhancing any other part of this software if it's only doing half of what it's supposed to without issues?  Why keep adding to the part that's not broken, making the base that's in need of changing even more difficult if new code keeps being introduced that is dependent on the parts that need to be changed (at least that's the impression I got from the comment)?
I do in fact use other launchers on my linux machines and my sons Windows machine (simply becasue he just needs something basic).... The thought of having to redo my whole library over again for some other product is... ugh......  This is how people get salty on a product and how all the hard work folks put into sellling it gets ultimately wasted....  
Here's praying something evolves that makes BigBox just as snappy as it's cousins.... 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 
Hope everyone had a Wonderful Christmas and a soon to come even better NewYears!! 😎😁🍻

I sign below your comment and I totally agree with your point of view. I think there are many people who think alike, we all want to give this product a chance to improve and we know that a lot of time, money and effort has been invested to get to this point, but the results today are disappointing for any lover of video games that you intend to spend an afternoon admiring your virtual collection.

Recently one of the new administrators of the forum commented in one of my messages that they know perfectly well that this is a serious problem that they have been trying to solve for a long time, but that the most appropriate solution should involve a complete reconstruction of the program with another type of more appropriate programming. Of course, I understand that this is a monstrous job and that it surely does not cross the minds of the Launchbos developers, having to leave behind all the effort made to date to start over. It's sad, but sometimes drastic decisions have to be made in order to move forward.

There are many of us who see that it makes no sense to continue making improvements or adding functions to the program without first fixing its base. I totally agree with your comment in this regard. And of course, there are also many of us who have studied frontend alternatives to be able to carry out a migration of all our systems, but like you we have the same problem, that is, it has also cost us a lot of work and effort to leave this frontend suitable for our needs, many hours of filtering roms, adding multimedia, managing launchers. 

For us end users it also means a great effort to have to start again from scratch and this has to be seen by the Launchbox/Bigbox development team.

Someone has to take the definitive step at this moment and if Launchbox does not dare to do it, there will come a point where many of the loyal users who help keep this community active will end up migrating to other solutions that do offer at least 90% of what they have been promised.

Your example with the car is perfect and if you buy a vehicle but then they tell you that you cannot go over a certain speed because the car "starts to shake" I am sure that you would file a claim with the manufacturer to get your money back or to get your money back. They would give you a vehicle with which you can drive normally like the rest of the vehicles.

It is true that there are premium vehicle brands, with many extras and cool things and other more modest brands that do not include most facilities, but in the case of Launchbox/Bigbox we have a Ferrari that cannot accelerate because its engine backfires when you try to start it. under way.

Sorry, but I'd rather have a Ford that gets me from home to work safely and without problems than a Ferrari that backfires. I still have hopes for the Launchbox team to soon announce a profound change to the frontend aimed at improving stability and fluidity when browsing the list of games.

We are at Christmas and wishes can come true.

[izzishor]

I'm glad this discussion is still ongoing, I love BigBox and Launchbox as a platform and as a passion project for a lot of us, and for the devs, you can see how many blood, sweat and tears were put in it 🫶

However, the issues of slowness and sluggishness still remains. I've resorted to making a Raid array just to make sure I won't lose my progress with my arcade.

I was trying to find solutions still, updating VLC separately worked for a while, clearing the cache would fix it for a while as well, now with the latest versions, it's a bit better, .

But what I did to fix it, is to put BigBox as High Priority process, since then it's 80-90% smooth. And locking up way less.